Rafe himself sank down to his knees on the gossamer-covered carpet, squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to clear it of all the accumulated lunacy.

“I think,” said the other Rafe, standing over him, about him, a moving pale shimmer—”I think it’s very likely, if we can’t find the bodies. I think you are.”

“Then what are we?” Paul yelled.

“Androids,” said Rafe Two. “Something like that, at least. They made us. And the originals are gone.” He walked over near the console, touched the edges of the seats with insubstantial fingers. “We never rigged Lindyfor much stress.”

“Something that they made,” Jillan said. “is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes,” Rafe said, himself, looking up at her from where he knelt. She was still in every particular his sister, that look, that quiet steady sense. It shattered him. “Yes. Something that they made.”

She stared in his direction a moment, then shrugged and laughed, taking a step away. “I don’t feeldead.” A second step, so that she began to fade out at the wall. “I’m going out of focus, aren’t I?” Soberly, with horror beneath the surface. “It’s a pretty good copy. Aren’t I?”

“Stop it!” Paul said.

“Jillan’s right,” Rafe Two said, by the EVApod. “It was the seats, understand? We never rigged for more than two or three G at most. We got a lot more than that. It flung us off. Remember? Autopilot went crazy. My fault, maybe. But I couldn’t stop us. Nothing could, our tanks depleted—Couldn’t if we’d had Lindyat max. Lindycouldn’t cope with it.”

“We’re not dead,” Paul said.

“Whatever we are,” Rafe Two said, folding his insubstantial arms, “I guess we don’t have that problem. Not anymore we don’t.”

“We aren’t dead!”

“Let be,” Rafe said, hating his own tendencies to push a thing. Paul hated to be pushed.

“We’re us-prime,” Jillan said. “That’s what we are.” She came and squatted near him, looking at him closely for the first time, her hands clasped together on her knees, her knees drawn up. “I wish you could lend me a blanket, brother.”

“I wish I could,” he said. “Are you cold?” That she should be cold seemed to him the last, unbearably cruelty.

She shook her head. “Just the indignity of the thing. I tell you, when we meet what did this to us, when we meet them, I’ll sure insist on my clothes back.”

“I’ll insist on more than that,” he said.

“You’ve already met it!” Paul shouted, over by the wall. “ That’sRafe—the one like us! Ask it where we are. Ask it what kind of jokes it likes to play, what it’s up to, where it came from, what it wants from us!”

“I’m alive,” Rafe said.

“He’s the one that bleeds,” said his doppelganger, from close by. “Look at his face. He’s the one that survived the wreck. Not a mark on any of the rest of us—is there?” Rafe Two squatted down nearby, elbows on his knees. “At least,” he said to Jillan’s wraith, “you’ve got title to a name. Rafe and I—we aren’t the same anymore, not quite. We split. He’s been alone and I’ve been chasing you, and on that reckoning we get less and less in step, while you—you arehis sister, much as mine; you took up where the other left off—permanently. And so did you, Paul. That’s why it seems to you you’re still alive. But I can tell myself apart from him. I’m Rafe who found that one lying unconscious on the floor; and he’s the one who met himself face to face awake. Different perspectives. Dead’s meaningless to you. You’re not that Jillan Murray; you’re her hypothesis, you’re what she would have done—being met with that place where we woke up. You’re not that Paul Gaines. You’re just living your present on his memories—the way I split off from his, and did things different than he did.”

Paul came slowly away from the wall, stood there and shook his head. “I won’t give in to this. You’re wrong.”

“At least,” Rafe said, “sit down. Sit down. Please.”

“It’s dark out there,” said Paul, as if it were a matter of petulant complaint.

“Rafe said,” Rafe answered him. “Stay here. Please.”

Paul came and joined them, farthest away, crouched on the floor and plucked disinterestedly at a shred of gossamer he failed even to touch.

“We’re interested in the same things, aren’t we?” Rafe said. “We’re still partners. We need to find out where we are. And I love you,” he added, because it was so, and he had not said it often enough. He remembered what he was talking to, but it was as close as he could come. “I do love you two. ...”—To convince himself, he thought.

“I know,” Jillan said. Her eyes were dreadful, as if they saw too much. “I know that, Rafe.”

“Nothing for me,” said Rafe Two, who sat by him mirrorlike, arms about naked knees. “You see what it is to be surplus? Better to be dead. At least there’s appreciation.”

“Shut it up,” Rafe said. “I always had a bad sense of timing. I won’t put up with it from you.”

“Stop it!”Paul said.

“It’s like being schizophrenic,” Rafe said, looking at the floor, pulling with his fingers at another loose bit of gossamer that refused to tear. “It’s really strong, this stuff.”

“What are we going to do?” Jillan asked.

“I don’t see any profit in sitting still,” Paul said. “Do you?”

“What do you suggest? It—they—whatever—whatever, runs this place knows where weare. When it gets bored, it’ll find us.”

Paul glared at him.

“I don’t want to sit here,” Jillan said.

“There’s the corridors,” said Rafe Two. “We could try to go as far as we can. As far as we can stay with each other.”

“We could try that,” Rafe said.

The outsiders moved slowly down the corridor which had been allotted to them and there was, immediately, throughout the ship, a focusing, of attention.

“They’re a hazard,” [] said. [] had tried them once, but <> had interfered in no uncertain terms and [] kept respectful distance.

“Let them go,” said <^>. <^> was constantly disposed to gentleness. It was part of <^>’s madness, forgetting <^>’s heredity.

But </> ranged all about the perimeters, gathering others of </>’s disposition: there were many such aboard. There were two or three fiercer, but none more devious, except maybe the segments of = <-> = = <+> = that grew longer with every cannibalistic acquisition. = <-> = = <+> lg = had fifteen other segments, currently at liberty, and it was a question where these were or what the whole matrix thought, breaking apart and sending segments of itself everywhere in search of information.

</> laughed to </>self, loving chaos, seeing opportunity.

Trishanamarandu-keptadevoted only a part of <> ’s mind to this maneuvering. There were other things to occupy <>’s mind, a wealth of things the little ship had given up, records, names.

Of the simulacra themselves, three templates existed, which were deliberately dissociated in fragments.

From those templates <> integrated three temporary copies.

Rafe waked, aware of nakedness, of dark, of Paul and Jillan close beside him.

He wept, recalling pain, got to his knees and shook at Jillan’s bare shoulder. “Jillan,” he said.

The eyes opened, fixed. Jillan began to tremble, to convulse in spasms, to scream long tearing screams.

“Jillan!” Rafe yelled, trying to hold her. Paul was awake too, trying to restrain her and evade her blows.

These were temporary copies, easily erased, and served as comparison against which <>’s own symbol systems could be examined.

<> tried one on. It proved difficult, and retreated into gibberish; <> shut it down.

There remained Rafe and Jillan. The one called Rafe seemed the easiest of entry. The most stable seemed Jillan, and <> shut Rafe-mind down for the moment, to consider Jillan’s, which bent and flexed and made defensive mazes of its workings—giving way quickly and then proving vastly resilient.