She had installed the beta-level into one of the ship’s few fully androform machines. The servitor was a skeletal assemblage of parts, all spindly openwork. She felt no sense of threat in its vicinity, or at least no rational sense of threat, since she was physically stronger and more robust than the machine. ‘Talk to me,’ she said. ‘Are you properly installed?’ The machine’s voice box buzzed like a trapped fly. I am a beta-level simulation of Nevil Clavain.‘ ‘Good. Who am I?’ I don’t know. You haven’t introduced yourself.‘ I am Triumvir Ilia Volyova,‘ she said. ’This is my ship, Nostalgia for Infinity . I’ve installed you in one of our general-mech servitors. It’s a frail machine, deliberately so, so don’t think of trying any monkey business. You’re wired for self-destruct, but even if that wasn’t the case I could rip you apart with my fingers.‘ ‘Monkey business is the last thing on my mind, Triumvir. Or Ilia. What shall I call you?’ ‘Sir. This is my turf now.’ It appeared not have heard her. ‘Did you arrange for your own beta-level to be transmitted to Zodiacal Light , Ilia?’ ‘What’s it to you if I did?’ ‘I’m curious, that’s all. There’d be a pleasing symmetry if we were both represented by our respective beta-levels, wouldn’t there?’ I don’t trust beta-levels. And I don’t see the point, either.‘ Clavain’s servitor looked around, its dual eyes clicking and whirring. She had activated it in a relatively normal part of the ship — the Captain’s transformations were very mild here — but she supposed she had become accustomed to surroundings that were still quite odd by the usual criteria. Arcs of hardened, glistening plague-matter spanned the chamber like whale ribs. They were slick with chemical secretions. Her booted feet sloshed through inches of foul black effluent. ‘You were saying?’ she prompted. The machine snapped its attention back on to her. ‘Using beta-levels makes perfect sense, Ilia. Our two ships are out of effective communication range now, but they’re getting closer. The beta-levels can speed up the whole negotiation process, establishing the ground rules, if you like. When the ships are closer the betas can download their experiences. Our flesh progenitors can review what has been discussed and take appropriate decisions much more rapidly than would otherwise be possible.’ ‘You sound plausible, but all I’m talking to is a set of algorithmic responses; a predictive model for how the real Clavain would respond in a similar situation.’ The servitor made itself shrug. ‘And your point is?’ ‘I’ve no guarantee that this is exactly how Clavain really would respond, were he standing here.’ ‘All, that old fallacy. You sound like Galiana. The fact is, the real Clavain might respond differently in any number of instances where he was presented with the same stimuli. So you lose nothing by dealing with a beta-level.’ The machine lifted up one of its skeletal arms, peering at her through the hollow spaces between the arm’s struts and wires. ‘You realise this won’t help matters, though?’ ‘I’m sorry?’ ‘Putting me in a body like this, something so obviously mechanical. And this voice… it’s not me, not me at all. You saw the transmission. This just doesn’t do me justice, does it? I actually have a slight lisp. Even play it up sometimes. I suppose you could say it’s part of my character.’ ‘I told you already…’ ‘Here’s what I suggest, Ilia. Allow the machine to access your implants, will you, so that it can map a perceptual ghost into your visual/auditory field.’ She felt oddly defensive. I have no implants, Clavain.‘ The buzzing voice sounded astonished. ’But you’re an Ultra.‘ ‘Yes, but I’m also brezgatnik . I’ve never had implants, not even before the plague.’ ‘I thought I understood Ultras,’ Clavain’s beta-level said thoughtfully. ‘You surprise me, I admit. But you must have some way of viewing projected information, surely, when a hologram won’t work?’ ‘I have goggles,’ she admitted. ‘Fetch them. It will make life a lot easier, I assure you.’ She did not like being told what to do by the beta- level, but she was prepared to admit that its suggestion made sense. She had another servitor bring her the goggles and an earpiece. She slipped the ensemble on, and then allowed the beta-level to modify the view she saw through the goggles. The spindly robot was edited out of her visual field and replaced by an image of Clavain, much as she had seen him during the transmission. The illusion was not perfect, which was a useful reminder that she was not dealing with a flesh-and-blood human. But on the whole it was a great improvement on the servitor. ‘There,’ Clavain’s real voice said in her ear. ‘Now we can do business. I’ve asked already, but will you consider uplinking a beta-level of yourself to Zodiacal Light !’ He had her in a spot. She did not want to admit that she had no provision for such a thing; that would really have made her look odd. ‘I’ll consider it. In the meantime, Clavain, let’s get this little chat over with, shall we?’ Volyova smiled. ‘You caught me in the middle of something.’ Clavain’s image smiled back. ‘Nothing too serious, I hope.’ Even while she busied herself with the servitor, she continued the operation to deploy the cache weapons. She had told the Captain that she did not want him to make his presence known while the servitor was on, so his only means of speaking to her was through the same earpiece. He, in turn, was able to read her subvocal communications. ‘I don’t want Clavain learning any more than he has to,’ she had told the Captain. ‘Especially about you, and what’s happened to this ship.’ ‘Why should Clavain learn anything? If the beta- level discovers something we don’t want it to know, we’ll just kill it.’ ‘Clavain will ask questions later.’ ‘If there is a later,’ the Captain had said. ‘Meaning what?’ ‘Meaning… we aren’t intending to negotiate, are we?’ She escorted the servitor through the ship to the bridge, doing her best to pick a route that took her through the least strange parts of the interior. She observed
