Which should tell you why getting the word out before she arrives is vitally important. Don’t let her fool you — especially if you hear from Emma, her first and least obvious sisterly sock puppet! If you answer her calls, Rhea will shut you back in that cell to repeat your eleventh birthday all over again, lonely and abused until you turn into a damaged copy of her own revenge-obsessive self.

And as for Reginald…

“ONE CONSIDERED THE most draconian measures appropriate in his case,” says Jeeves, staring at me coldly from behind his desk.

I’m not brave, but sometimes I can be foolhardy. I look him right in the eye. “I see you’re still employing Juliette,” I point out. “Even though she’s got unreliable tendencies.”

“Yes.” He allows the silence to drag on uncomfortably. Studying him, I wonder why I ever thought he was remotely friendly and avuncular. Perhaps it’s just sib-to-sib variation, but something about Reginald strikes me as much more humane than this varnished and imperturbable juggernaut, weighing life and death in his hands. But then, what else should you expect of a senior official in Jeeves Corporation’s Internal Security Department? Reggie is a junior sib, like myself, a resident from a branch office, not fully part of the program. Whereas this fellow is close to their template-patriarch — as distant and coolly composed as Rhea at her worst. The Jeeves persona makes a beautiful and urbane cover, until it’s time for the truncheons to come out — unless the man behind the mask cracks.

“Your model are notoriously erratic. But truly superb when their minds are on the task at hand.”

“Why can’t you let him go?” I try.

To my surprise, he sighs. “My dear, what would happen to the rest of us? It would set a precedent. We’re not slave-chipped arbeiters, we do this from a sense of duty. Somebody has to mop up after those depraved aristos while they fumble their way toward a more equitable settlement, and it’s a short step from personal servant to civil servant. But the job has pressures attached, as you should know. If one lets him go, it will give the other juniors ideas, won’t it? The demotivated and the inexperienced will think it’s a shortcut to the easy life of a self-owned freemartin.”

I snort. I can’t help myself. “What easy life?” Pulling rickshaws and taking shit from aristos in the cloud casino on Venus? Cranking away on an antique instrument in the steamy swamps of Antarctica?

“The lube in the untapped container always runs smoother.” He pats the business desktop in front of him. “No, I don’t think—”

“But he was systematically hung out to dry! Then he was slave-chipped! ” I hear my voice rising. “He had his arms and legs cut off in the line of duty! His only lapse was to fall for one of my kind; is that so bad?”

“As a matter of fact, it’s unpardonable.” He looks deeply unamused. “What if it had been Rhea?”

“I can’t just let you kill him.” My fingertips are digging into the arms my chair. Two RSA mecha warriors are standing guard outside the door. I’d never make it, but…

“One is reassigning young Reginald to active duty,” the Jeeves-in-Command says sharply. Then, unexpectedly, he smiles. “He’s going on a long voyage. One can never be too sure that Tau Ceti is clear of dangerous replicators, can one?” My jaw drops. “One gathers you were sniffing after a berth on the Bark. One hopes it turns out to be what you really wanted.”

AND SO, WE come full circle to the present.

I’m lying in a cocoon on a bunk with restraint straps top and bottom, in a cold metal box of a room. There’s not much in the way of furniture, and it’s very chilly, and the lights are dim and weirdly blue. The walls hum with suppressed power. There’s little sense of gravity in here — the ends of the restraint straps flap whenever I move — but we’re under acceleration. A thousandth of a gee doesn’t sound like much, but when you keep it up for years or even decades, it adds up.

Across the short gangway there’s another bunk. I glance over and make eye contact with its occupant. “Are you happy?” I ask.

Reggie smiles, embarrassed perhaps — I think he knows I’m still writing. “Always.”

“Got any messages for my readers?”

“Oh, Freya.” He rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling.

“Go on.”

“Happy birthday!” he crows. Then he reaches up and pulls his mask down, ready to go into deep slowtime.

“Shithead!” I shout at him, but I’m smiling all the same. He doesn’t reply, so I seal my own cocoon and settle down. Once I send this warning, there’s nothing more to do until we’re up to cruising speed and it’s time for me to start learning useful skills to fill the long years.

I’ve got lots of birthdays to look forward to. And none of them need fear being eaten by memories of Rhea.