He switched off the scrim and smiled. He glanced at the boxdoc, seeing the body inside, and asked, “When will she be ready?”

“The bone is already set and welded. It will be stato-braced with a portable electro-healing pack and she should be ready for zero-gravity activity by tomorrow. Her other problems- ulcerated wounds, vitamin deficiencies, capillitic seborrhea, and some other minor nuisances-will all be cleared up by that time.”

“What about the other body?”

“It has been ground down, the RNA and picotechs centrifuged out.”

Such a calm pronouncement. Just like some other computer must have announced that my own body had been pulped and leeched.

He wiped the dirty sweat from his forehead and transferred it to his thigh. “All right. Brainwipe this one while she’s in there and administer the juice.”

“Affirmative.” A series of posts extended from the inside walls of the machine, reaching toward the clone’s head. They touched and remained in contact. The electrodes withdrew ten minutes later.

“Brainwipe complete,” the computer said. “No brain activity other than autonomic functions.”

“Administer the picotechs whenever you deem it safe.”

“Affirmative.”

Baker drifted to a corner of the medical bay and slept.

He awoke hours later and washed, shaved, and ate.

Feels good to do normal things again. Now back to the abnormal.

“Is she awake yet?”

“No,” the computer answered. “I administered the transfusion fourteen hours ago. Her integration will probably be much faster in this clone because it was a brainwipe who had been more than marginally aware. The neural paths are built up, but uncircuited. She is healthy, though there is no telling when she will awaken.”’

“Can I take her out of the boxdoc?”

“Yes, you may.”

Baker made his preparations. First, he overrode the computer’s independent ability to actuate the Valliardi Transfer, leaving only its calculative function.

“That’s so we don’t have to go through any surprise transfers,” he said in response to a question from the computer.

“What if we are attacked?”

“By whom? You told me that Brennen was on its way back to the Solar system. And it would take more than twelve years for a psychfighter to make it out here. Is there any life on Tau Ceti’s planet?”

“On the fifth planet there exists life forms that have reached a stage of development not quite capable of space flight.”

“Primates?”

“Phytoplankton.”

“No threat there. And space is vast enough that no one else will find us. I just don’t want you killing me again for any reason.”

“Do not think I have any emotions that might be bruised.”

Baker closed up the circuit cabinet and returned to the medical bay with the equipment he had rescued from the airless recreation room.

He bolted a chair next to the bed in the psychometric bay. He arranged the buckles and straps around it and bolted them to the frame. Then he welded a support to the back of the chair and fastened a five-liter bag of intravenous nutrients to it.

Returning to the boxdoc, he gagged Delia, lifted her out, then carried her to the next room and strapped her into the chair, inserting the needle in her arm and taping it to her wrist. He strapped down to the bed and waited. Sleep soon overcame him.

A muffled cry woke him from a dream. Delia writhed before him, her neck length hair swirling about her in short arcs. Her hands, fingernails carefully trimmed all the way back, wrestled with the straps at wrist and elbow. Her legs kicked, but her pink scarred flesh only turned redder against the straps at ankle and calf. She breathed in angry snorts, her abdomen pressing hard against the wide belt cinching her midriff. She could not look away from him because of the brace holding her head in position; she could only close her eyes. Saliva drenched the gag that pulled her lips back and blocked her tongue.

“Calm down, Dee, and listen.

“You’re going to get rid of Kinney and you’re not going to trick me again. I don’t know how bad the pentabarbitol messed up your memory, but I think there’s enough of you left, am I right?”

She sat still for a moment, then nodded as best she could.

Baker smiled. “And the memories of the clone-are they with you?”

She tried to shrug. Her eyes glistened. She looked at him like a wounded animal.

“I just want to be cured, Dee. I just want to make sure that when I die, it won’t be like a picture fading in the sun; my mind, my self eroding bit by bit until I forget I exist. That’s why I turned on you. I want to die as a whole person, not as someone else’s dimming memory. For what we had back on Earth, do this. I could threaten to kill you and rebuild you a thousand times until you do what I want. I could and would do it. Don’t make me. Cure me. Then I’ll be Jord for good.”

Teardrops broke away from her eyes and drifted like jewels in front of her.

“I may be in a different body, but I’m Jord. We were lovers once. My death changed that, but I’m alive, see? We can have it all again. We don’t even have to transfer ever again. There’s a habitable planet here that we can use the engines to reach.”

She closed her eyes and clenched her fists. Her breaths came in short sobs.

“We’re the only ones left,” he said. “Everyone we know died in the Earth-Belt wars, and it’s years after that. It’s Twenty-Two Twenty-Four, Dee. More than a century. We’re all alone. Get rid of Kinney and we can live and die together.”

Her sobbing grew audible. Her hands unclenched and fluttered weakly. Her chest trembled.

“Say you’ll help me.” When she nodded her head, he said, “Thank you, Dee. Push your jaw forward. The gag is knotted around the brace and it’ll loosen if you tug at it like that.” After several minutes of tearful effort, she tugged at the gag and it untied, drifting free.

She looked at him with the sorrowful eyes of a little girl. “I’m sorry, Jord,” she said. “Hide.”

“Bitch!” He shrieked and lunged against his belts.

The bitch tricked me and I can see me sink away-and- I see Death Angel lashed before me and I feel the dead man burying down and I know now what he wants. Why he’s been hurting Death Angel, why I’m here. All his memories come, now. I’ve crossed and touched him. He wants to die. I’ll show him dying.

This is dying.

“Virgil!” Delia cried as he unstrapped from the table. “Jord’s trying to drive you under permanently. You’re in control now. I couldn’t let him do it. I… I lo-It wouldn’t be right.”

“I’ll show him, Death Angel. Don’t worry.”

He bounded away from her, out of the room.

“Virgil-No!”

The roar becomes too much. Death Angel you foiled the final plan of Master Snoop. He almost got my mind. My me.

He raced toward the prow of the ship like a human missile.

Dead man you wanted death you’ll get it. I can die a million times. How many can you survive?

He lunged at the console and started pushing buttons. There. Random number generator locked in. Are you watching, dead man, as I watched you? This is galactic roulette. Round and round the numbers go and where we transfer-

He pressed the button when it lit.

Nobody knows.

Like rubber stretching, the walls bend away and grow thin. I see the corridor open, twisting somehow, different. Maybe this time. Maybe this time I’ll go. Happy, with mother and father and Jenine urging me through.

No!

The viewing port before him turned deep violet. The glow of a sun filled the entire screen. Throwing his hands up to cover his eyes, he punched the transfer button again.

Jenine and the lady in white grow impatient. They argue with me, pointing at my naked body standing at the console. They plead, and I tell them I want to but I can’t seem to-