woman he had come close to really loving, was dead from an overdose of cyclatrol, and the Rat Gang had been hard on his heels. Right behind them had been a pair of homicidal treasury agents from the city of Litz called Lenk and Lu Yuan. Billy, in a moment of desperate stupidity, had robbed them of their graft money, and they intended to make an example of him. When, quite by accident, he had crawled on his knees into the reality of the Sanctuary with his SG all but burned out, the life of a novice had seemed the perfect answer. He would get a new name, a new identity, and three squares a day. How hard could it be? But that was before he had discovered the real meaning of soul-sick boredom. In the Sanctuary, all pleasure was canceled.
The gongs and horns had sounded from the onion domes of the minarets for the next task rotation, but Novice Wellblessed did not move. He had been thinking of himself as Billy Oblivion a lot lately. The identity of Novice Wellblessed had never sat well with him. Recently, it had not sat at all. He was supposed to be in the cubicle with his replica, learning to understand and respect himself, but he could no longer face those sessions. Soon after he had arrived at the Sanctuary, he had been templated; and when he had been deemed ready, a walking talking duplicate of himself had been created in the stuff receiver. The idea was that the time spent talking and being with his living double would eventually bring him to a degree of self-awareness that was transcendental. But in Wellblessed's case it had not happened that way. Wellblessed II had all the memories and emotions of the original. During the very first session he had wanted to know what would happen to him when Wellblessed had all the self- awareness he wanted. Wellblessed II becameincreasingly paranoid that he would be killed once he was no longer needed.
'I mean, I don't care how I got here. I'm here, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm alive. They can't just kill me. I'm not a thing, I'm a person.'
Wellblessed had compassion for his double, but there was one overwhelming problem. 'I know you're a person. The trouble is that the person you are happens to be me. The seat's already taken.'
They had talked about working out some sort of escape plan, but Wellblessed had very quickly realized that he had no intention of going through with anything of the sort. He really did not want a second Novice Wellblessed running around loose. Aside from the broad karmic considerations, there was also the very practical point that each of them was liable to get into all manner of trouble, and there was no guarantee that the right twin would take the rap for his own actions. Since their thought processes were absolutely alike, Wellblessed II realized exactly the same thing at almost exactly the same time. He became so glum that it was impossible to spend any time with him. From the way he looked at his original during those increasingly difficult sessions, he clearly was working on the theory that Wellblessed might be plotting to kill him. The idea had indeed passed through the novice's mind, but he had not actually taken it any further than toying with it as a possible way out of the dilemma. The process certainly was not what the Masters had in mind.
Novice Wellblessed continued to stare into the nothings until a voice from behind made him turn.
'I see once again that you have failed to attend the empathy session with your duplicate.'
It was Richthofen, the Master of Discipline. Wellblessed sighed. If Richthofen had come looking for him, he knew that he was deep in the shit again. He turned and faced Master Richthofen. 'That's right.'
'You have an explanation, perhaps?'
'I don't believe that the sessions are going anywhere.'
Master Richthofen stood ramrod-straight, a trim figure in his saffron bodysuit. There was a positive gloss to his closely shaved head, but his expression was sour and censorious. 'That's hardly something that a novice is qualified to decide for himself.'
'The duplicate's a psycho. He believes that we're all plotting to kill him.'
'If he's a psycho, then you must be a psycho, too. You are, after all, identical.'
Novice eyed master coldly. 'That's quite possible.'
'The duplicate empathy sessions are designed to give you a unique chance to work through this kind of self- directed hostility.'
Wellblessed was starting to lose patience with all the nonsense. The Billy Oblivion side of his personality could remember times when his hostility had been the only thing that had saved his ass in a tight corner. 'I'm telling you, it's not happening.'
Richthofen's eyes narrowed. 'Perhaps we have to make it happen.'
Wellblessed could feel cowboy hostility coming to the rescue. He was a grown man, damn it. He had wandered all over the Damaged World. He was sick of being treated like a recalcitrant schoolboy. He turned and faced the Master head-on.
'Listen, you can do what you like to me. You can have me crawling across a floor of cut-glass beads or whatever queer punishment you can think up, but sooner or later you're going to have to accept the fact that I'm just not novice material. I don't have a vocation. Dig?'
'Then perhaps you should leave us.'
Wellblessed had not expected that response. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. 'You're throwing me out?'
Master Richthofen shook his head. 'We don't throw people out.'
'But if I go, you won't stop me. Right?'
'Exactly.'
'Can I get my things?'
'Your things are gone. They were destroyed when you announced your intention to renounce the material world.'
That was bad news. The duster coat that he had been wearing when he had arrived had been cool.
'What about my guns? Are they still around? It can get savage out there.'
'There are no weapons in the Sanctuary.'
'So suppose I just use the Stuff Catalogue to get — '
Richthofen was already shaking his head. Wellblessed looked down at the shapeless novice's shift that was his only garment. Hell, they didn't even give out drawers in this place.
'I can't go out into the world looking like some cheesehead monk.'
'Then return to your empathy class.'
Wellblessed leaned back against the rail and slowly nodded. Okay, Richthofen, he thought. He knew when he was getting the shaft. 'So I go out looking like this? Don't I even get an SG?'
'You'll be given a stasis generator.'
'Don't do me any favors.'
Master Richthofen was clearly through with him. 'Try to be off the Sanctuary by nightfall.'
Nightfall came quickly, and with it a torrential downpour. By the time he had drawn a stasis generator, charged up, and scrounged a little food from the kitchens, the rain was coming down in straight gray sheets. Wellblessed had a sneaking suspicion that the weather conditions had been arranged for his benefit. Soaked and desolate, he trudged through the dripping ornamental garden. He was making for the Half Bridge. It seemed an appropriate way to go out. He was in the Place of Meaningful Boulders and getting close to the bridge when, for the second time that day, his thoughts were interrupted by a voice from behind.
'Billy Oblivion, wait up!'
It was strange to hear his own name spoken aloud after so long. The imprinted personality of Novice Wellblessed dropped away as though it had never been. For better or worse, he was Billy Oblivion again. Unfortunately, the return of his old personality came with a brand-new problem. The voice was hideously familiar. Billy turned and saw that his duplicate was coming after him.
'What do you want?' Billy demanded.
'I want to come with you.'
Billy halted. 'Don't be ridiculous. Two identical people can't go traveling together. There are places were they'd stone us to death as an abomination in the eyes of Zanthar.'
Oblivion II looked desperate. 'If I stay here, they'll run off another replica and put me in your place.'
Billy wiped the rain from his shaved head. 'I feel for you, but it ain't my problem anymore.'
The duplicate had a dangerous look in his eye. Billy had never thought he was capable of looking so mean. The two of them realized at the same moment that only one of them was going to walk away from that place. It might have been that Oblivion II was a fraction slower. Later Billy would come to believe that it was because the
