"You've met the other one, then, I take it."

"Yesterday. If you're the real one, anyway. I think it was yesterday." Galeni glances at the light.

"God, don't tell me they keep that thing on all the time," shudders Miles. "It's, let's see - maybe one in the morning, of the fifth day since you went missing. Did he really...? I mean, actually pretend to be me? To you? Did it work?"

"I thought it was you till the end, when he told me he was - practicing. Testing. And incidentally collecting information on my reactions to you. This lasted four or five hours."

"Hell," says Miles, shuddering again. "Well - historian - how do you tell a forgery from the real thing?"

"Not a perfect copy, then," Miles says with a dry, brittle smile. "Damnation... I suppose there's no reasonable way they could have given him my bones; following this logic, all I have to do to convince you is punch a wall. You'll excuse me if I don't rush to try it."

Galeni rolls his eyes.

"Anyway, regardless of my identity, surely you can tell me who they are." He gestures up at the light. "And whatever Miles Version Two let slip about his origins." (Fuck, don't say he's a clone, don't say he's a clone. That would be much, much too weird.)

"He said he was a clone. Although he might well have been lying." Galeni heaves a sigh. "It's Komarrans."

"...bugger," sighs Miles. "Twice. Ugh, I think I've even seen the little shit once before - I was coming back from my adventure at the burning wineshop, and I saw myself in the mirror, wearing the wrong uniform and looking wrecked to hell. I was feeling pretty wrecked to hell at the time, so I chalked it up to a hallucination caused by some combination of stress and strong painkillers and forgot all about it. No wonder the clone story sprang to mind when I was talking to that reporter. And here I was thinking I was just a genius, and then wondering just now if I have some kind of magical power to make all my lies come true..."

"If only. You could talk your way out of here."

"I have actually talked myself out of similar situations multiple times in my life," says Miles, faintly cheered. "By the way, they are recording us, aren't they?"

Galeni points at the light.

Miles sighs. "Right, of course. So. Talk to me. What's all this been like from your point of view, from the time you disappeared?"

"Got a call from an old Komarran... acquaintance, asking to meet. I erased the call, which was a - mistake. But he led me to believe he knew something about your mysteriously mislaid orders. I had figured the lines of communication had been compromised from inside, but didn't dare lay charges without more evidence, so..."

"...ah," says Miles. "Yes. About that."

Galeni sighs.

"From my point of view - well, I thought the only good reason not to suspect you'd made off with my money was that you had not, in fact, made off. And then you did."

"Of course," says Galeni tiredly.

"Sorry," says Miles. "If we get out of here it shouldn't be that hard to clear your name, but, well, if we don't you're going down in history as the Komarran who booked it with my money and then circled back to kill me as an afterthought."

"All for nothing," breathes Galeni.

"Yeah. Of course," his mind runs on, "it's possible that the substitution plot will work, in which case we will have an entirely different set of problems which, hearteningly, we will still be too dead to care about."

"I am tremendously heartened," says Galeni in a dead voice.

Miles quirks a humourless little smile. "Me too. Right, so, you went to meet this man - without taking a beeper or a backup...?"