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and totally functional design. The dox was like a powerful drug. I could not remember ever tasting anything so rich. It was making my head spin. I put down the cup. It was marked with the logo of the Personal Ship Stardust .
    "We wouldn't be here without it, Beta Three," Whit continued. "We owe everybody—but mostly we owe Cinta and Beta. Cinta arranged it, but it was Beta Three and Eight and Nine that stepped out of that awful night and freed us. Does it remember? We remember—we'll never forget. We owe it, forever. Beta, and Cinta." She was glowing. Her eyes were clouding over. She was lost for a moment. Then she laughed. "Memories. Good and bad. We're nothing—we're stupid, just as Cinta said. But we pay our debts. Touch us, and it's done. We see it as an angel. A dark angel, raising the dead. Doesn't it remember anything?"
    I blinked, suddenly realizing that she had just offered to sleep with me. Things were happening entirely too fast for my taste.
    "No, we don't," I said. "It promised it was going to tell us about our past. We're still waiting."
    She bit her lip, and got up. "Come with us, Beta Three. It's time."
    ***
    I settled into an airchair before a dark d-screen. The instrumentation was new to me, but a lot of things were new to me. It looked a bit like a starlink. Whit slipped into another airchair beside me. The door had slid shut behind us, leaving us alone in the little cube. It was dead quiet.
    "How much does it know about the war?" Whit began calmly.
    "With the CrimCon? We only know what we've been told," I responded. "The System and the CrimCon are at war. The System is slowly winning, but it's a protracted struggle that has lasted for generations, and may last for generations more. The CrimCon has recently split into two warring, power-hungry factions, and this may ultimately prove decisive. The break-away faction is called the Lost Command."
    "And what about the Variants?"
    "The V? The aliens continue to attack System worlds, but the DefCorps is learning how to counter them. The CrimCon attempted an alliance with the V, and encouraged them to move into System vac. The alliance failed, because the V learned they could not trust the CrimCon."
    "Very good," Whit smiled. "Is that what the System taught it?"
    "Yes, it is."
    "And do we believe it?"
    "We believe nothing," I said, "except what we experience ourselves."
    "A wise policy. Tell us more about the CrimCon."
    "CrimCon—the Criminal Conspiracy. Confederation of Free Worlds, we think they call themselves. An evil, racist, genocidal, totalitarian dictatorship, ruling solely by force over half the inhabited galaxy. A cabal of obscenely rich, all powerful plutocrats, responsible for the deaths of billions of defenceless non-Outworlder peoples."
    "Good! Very good! And the Legion?"
    "They're the CrimCon's terrorist shock troops. Fanatic, mindless, brainwashed barbarians, motivated by cash and loot and pointless violence. They're programmed to rape, torture and kill. They eat babies, too."
    "Excellent. Tell us—does it remember Andrion Two? Does it remember the last time it saw us?"
    "We remember nothing."
    "Think! An aircar, falling into the dark. We were both in there, with a squad of troopers. Lasers and xmax, flashing outside, following us down. We were personally so scared we wet our panties, and Beta Three was right beside us. Doesn't it remember?" Her pale blue eyes were glowing.
    "No," I said. "We don't remember."
    "We leaped out of the car and ran with the troopers. It had a death grip on our arm. Then everything started blowing sky-high, and those armored bastards came right out of the flames, firing. It let go of our arm and fired back. Doesn't it remember?" Her pale face was twitching.
    I just looked at her.
    "We don't recall anything like that," I said. "It's an interesting story. What were we doing in the aircar? Who were the troopers with us? Who were the guys in armor? And who were we? Is it going to tell us, or just go on asking us if we