“Come up behind you?” Kepta asked in Jillan’s fair clear tones.

“Her.”

“Use this shape, you mean? It was convenient. Most recent, even more than yours. I don’t like to partition off more than I have to, or struggle with a mind too long out of date.”

“You going—where? Vega, maybe? Somewhere near?”

“Might,” Kepta said. “Might not.”

“You won’t say.”

“I don’t know,” Kepta said. “I haven’t decided that. Is that why you called me?”

“Jillan said—there was trouble on the ship.”

“There may be.”

“Look, are we going to Paradise?”

“I told you that we were.”

“ Whattrouble?”

“I don’t see it concerns you.”

“Dammit—I want to know.”

Jillan’s eyes looked up at him, with Jillan’s innocence, beneath a fringe of disordered hair. “What difference can it make?”

“I’m not going. I’m not leaving this. I want to know.”

“Not leaving the ship?”

“No more than you ever meant me to.” His voice broke down. “You set this up. Didn’t you?”

“No. But between this mind and your own—I figured that you’d stay.”

He gazed at his sister’s shape, untouchable, something it hurt even to curse “You always right?”

“No. That would be unbearable. Besides—we need only delay your trip. We can settle this thing, if you’ll cooperate. Then I’ll take you to Paradise. Or anywhere you like. We’ll make it reciprocal. I get your wholehearted assistance. You name your destination. I’ll take you there. Reward. We do share that concept.”

“Paradise is good enough.” His voice broke down, came out small and diminished, and he hated it. Jillan,his eyes kept telling him. The mind inside was half hers at least, knowing him with her thoroughness, memories shared from infancy, childhood, all their lives. “What do you want—another copy? That help?”

“It might. But taking it so soon might weaken you considerably. It might even kill you. And I won’t.”

“I don’t mistake that for sentiment.”

The Jillan-figure paused, its hazel transparent eyes quite earnest. “No,” it said. “Disadvantage outweighs advantage. Trans-species, transactions can be explained like that, in motiveless simplicity. Advantage and disadvantage. Facts and acts. True reasons, trans-species, rarely make full sense. Even basic ones. Suffice it to say I can use this simulacrum; I just partition. It takes very little attention. On the other hand, if you tried my mind—it would be the other problem. You’d probably not wake up: large box, small content.”

“Real modest.”

“Factual. I’m complex.” Kepta diminished in brightness. “You have your qualities. I don’t say they’re unique. The combination of them is. In all the universe, the snowflakes, grains of sand, chemical combinations, the DNA that makes up, for instance, Rafael Lewis Murray—” The voice faded too. “—not to mention his experience at any given moment—the chance of finding anything exactly duplicated is most remote. Haven’t you seen that on this ship? Infinity is always in you, Rafael Murray, and the other way around. ...”

It was gone, faded into silence.

It was Jillan he found in the dark, or who found him, starlike striding across the nowhere plain.

“Rafe,” she said when she reached him, in that gentle tone that was very much her own.

But Rafe Two was wary, having landed without preface in this nowhere place, alone and unprepared.

“Jillan?” he asked of Jillan-shape, and knew, by the splitsecond it had hesitated to answer him, that it was not. “You want—what?” he asked. “What do you want from me?”

“You know that,” Kepta said. “You know a lot of things by now. Your state’s become valuable to me again.

Rafe-Mind, Paul One, all woven together, like the multiplicity of limbs: it moved in shambling misery back to the territory </> owned.

“I,” it mourned, “I, I, I—” not knowing what that Imeant until </> took the Rafe-mind up and relieved Paul of carrying it.

</> shuddered despite </>self as </> extended a portion of </>’s mind and straightened things. </> forced Rafe-mind to resume the configurations </> remembered, and went on rearranging.

Rafe screamed, and took in </>’s partitioned intrusion—grew quiet then, carrying on his reflexive functions, beginning to re-sort and gather on his own.

</> left him then, and Rafe at least went on functioning. Rafe-mind had new configurations, certain amputations, a certain dependency. “He’s yours,” </> said to Paul.

Paul felt of it and insinuated a portion of himself, imitating </> in this.

“Be careful,” </> said, though pleased. “It will deform. Go in more gently this time.”

Paul derived memories, sorted them and reconfigured himself. He had learned. </> taught him—many things. Self-defense was one. To enter another simulacrum was another.

He handled Rafe-mind this time with some skill: </>’s rearrangements had slipped him past Rafe-mind’s defenses in some regards, given him a new chance at others.

He looked about him with increasing confidence. He knew = = = = in = = = =’s various segments and knew that all such were dangerous, but he was stronger. He knew ((())), that ((())) was mad, and was unafraid of the sometime howling that streaked panic-stricken through the passages. He knew [] and <v>, <^> and |:|, which began—justifably—to be afraid of him.

Paul,he still thought of himself. Paul One was something which adequately described him, since he was the inheritor, oldest and wisest of all Pauls. About destroying his other simulacrum he had no compunction whatsoever, no more than he had had in his former state for shed hair or the trimmings of his fingernails.

He sought both Rafes and Jillan with a different intent—remembering how they had sought him out back on Fargone station, wanting his money, his brains, his back, and most of all his genes for the getting of other Murrays. He had let himself be used in every way there was, and that thought burned in him like acid.

He could still forgive. He could forgive it all, on his own terms, in their perpetual atonement. He would no longer take their orders, no more orders from Jillan and from Rafe, no more belonging to them; but them to him, belonging the way this Rafe-mind did. It was afraid of him.

He stroked it, taking pleasure in its fear and dependency, as if it were the original.

His own template he meant to destroy, along with his duplicate. He would be unique. There would be no more duplicates to rival him. He had become a predator, and wanted, for practical reasons, nothing in the universe exactly like himself.

He developed wishes very much like </> and was well satisfied with that outlook. He knew most that happened elsewhere on the ship. </> spoke to him and kept him well informed.

He knew, for instance, that the living Rafe had just made a mistake, in that territory too well defended for </> to breach as yet. He had let <> get a very dangerous template, one that trusted everything far too much. Paul ached to have that Rafe, in particular.

“Patience,” </> said. “Not yet. </> promise you.”

<>, across the ship, was shifting to another simulacrum, and Paul knew that too.

“Attack,” Paul wished </>, constant on this theme, and [] was interested.

“Not yet,” </> insisted.

“<>’s chosen you to use,” [] said, prodding at him.

“And <>’s having trouble configuring it,” </> reported, to Paul’s keen satisfaction.

“It would fight,” Paul said; and in an access of passion: “Take <> now. Now’s a chance for us.”

“Be patient,” </> insisted still. “<> will get <>self into difficulty sooner or later. That’s inevitable. Then all the rest will come to us. Won’t they, Rafe?”

The simulacrum shivered, best substitute they had. “I’ll come,” it said, having difficulty distinguishing I from they, “I have to.”