Light flickered in the creature's eye. The pupil moved to the right, contracting slightly.

"I am . . ."

It hesitated, searching its newly implanted memory.

"Well?" Kim asked, adjusting the scope that was set up over the creature's face, then glancing at the twin screens beside the operating table.

"Of course." Kim loosened the scope arm and pulled it aside. "Sit up, Box. I want to talk to you about what you remember."

Like a waxwork waking into life, it sat up, slipping its legs over the side of the operating table. Its eyes were an intense blue. Kim stood facing it, dwarfed by it.

"Good." Kim studied it, as if looking for flaws. "Now tell me. The house. You remember the house, right?"

"I remember."

"Fifteen rooms, you said. A big house. The house where Box lived with his parents."

"And my brothers."

"Ah." Kim nodded, as if it were the answer he'd expected. "Two brothers?"

"Three," it corrected him.

"Of course." Kim smiled. "Your brothers ... did they have names?""They . . . Yes. They had names."

"Good. And their names . . . what were they, Box?"

"One . . . one was named Other. The second was Pole. The third"-it reached inside, its face forming the rudiments of a frown, then it smiled-"the third was Square."

Kim smiled. "Good. That's very good, Box. But tell me, did you play with your brothers? In the garden, for instance?"

"I"-its hesitation this time was pronounced-"I must have. I ... I think I remember playing with them."

"Were there trees in the garden?"

"Yes." It was more confident this time. "Four trees."

"One for each brother."

"That's right."

"Okay. We'll leave it now. Rest now, Box. Lie down and rest."

Outside once more, Curval rounded on him. "What's going on? Where the hell did it get all that stuff?"

"It made it up."

"Made it up?"

"To fill the gaps."

Curval laughed. "Three brothers . . . Aiya! It's a pathological liar! We might as well destroy it right now!

It's living in a fantasy world!"

Kim nodded. "Sure. But that's exactly what we intended, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but-"

"No, think about it, Andrew. What did we set out to achieve with the implant? To give it memories that seemed real. To give it some kind of back-story so that it thought of itself as being more than a simple machine of flesh-so that it could function properly. All well and good. But the trouble is, how do we make sure that that story- that 'false history,' if you like-is detailed enough? Up to now we've been assuming that what we were giving it was enough. That it would accept the implant verbatim and use it like some kind of theatrical backdrop. But we know now that that assumption was a false one."

"Because there were gaps. Because you didn't name it."

"Sure. But there are always going to be gaps. Don't you see that? That demonstration just now-the things I left out of its back-story were glaring and obvious, but they make the point. Whatever we leave out, it will invent. Wherever it finds gaps-however small-it will fill them. That's the nature of it."

"So we make the implant more detailed."

Kim laughed. "You're missing the point, Andrew. What we're talking about here is duplicating a life-the memory of a life-detail for detail. We're talking about a piece of programming so huge, so complex, that we could put a thousand men on the job and they'd still be working on it fifty years from now.""Okay. So what is the point? Are you suggesting we should give up? Is that it?"

"Not at all. What I'm saying is that we need to take this new factor-this facility it has for filling gaps, for inventing its own reality-into our calculations. We need to reconceive what we've been doing and to construct the next generation of implants not as backdrops but as mental skeletons. If we can give the new models some kind of coherent framework, they can flesh it out themselves. And if I'm right-if my instinct for this is correct-then we'll not only cure the instability problem we've suffered with previous prototypes but we might even simplify the whole imprinting process."

"So where do we go from here?"

"First we go back to GenSyn. Get them to expedite the release of the new brain matter they've been working on. There have been delays with the paperwork-the usual kind of thing-but I'll get on to To-lonen. See if he can't put a rocket up them."

"And Box?"

Kim turned, looking back at the creature. "We'll let Box run for a week. See how he fills himself. And then . . . well, then I guess we close the lid." He looked back at Curval. "The shame of it is that he'll "I am unnamed," it said finally.

"Good," Kim said, looking across the room to where Curval sat behind the control desk. "Why do you think that is?"

There was activity on the right-hand screen-tiny flares of red and yellow within the dark outline of the skull-and then an answer.

"Because I have not been named."

"Good." Kim peered down the scope again, adjusting the fingertip controls. "And yet it is in the nature of things to be named, no?"

The creature was silent. At the desk Curval smiled.

"So why does everything-even the smallest, inanimate thing-possess a name and you none?"

Again the flares danced in the outline skull, brighter this time and more intense.

"I ... I do not know."

Kim straightened up, then studied the left-hand screen, where two graphs-one in green, one in yellow-showed respiration and blood pressure. He nodded, satisfied, then looked back at the creature.

"Do you remember your parents?"

It gave a smile of recognition. "I remember."

"Good." Kim patted its arm. "So what did they call you?"

"Call me?"

"You lived with them, right?"

Flares of yellow intensified into red, faded, and then returned. The respiration rate was up-dramatically.Kim looked at Curval and nodded.

"You remember them, but you can't remember being with them, is that how it is?"

There was a look of pain on the creature's face now, of confusion. It gave a tiny nod, constrained by the scope.

"Good. And the house you lived in. It was a big house, neh?"

"Very big. There were fifteen rooms."

"Fifteen? That's a lot of rooms for just the three of you. You had no brothers or sisters?"

"No"-again it hesitated-"I ... I don't think so."

"Okay." Kim laid his hand on the creature's shoulder, reassuring it. "You can relax now. We'll talk more later."

He went out, Curval joining him in the anteroom.

"Well?" the older man asked impatiently. "What do you think?"

Kim went to the machine in the corner and punched for a bulb of soup. "I think the implant's taken well."

Curval followed him across. "So what was all that about?"

Kim turned back, handed Curval the bulb, then punched for another. "You mean, why didn't I program him properly? Why did I leave gaps?"

"That's exactly what I mean."

Kim took the bulb, cracked it open, then sat on the corner of the nearby table. "Because I want to see what it does with them."

Curval frowned. "With what?"

Kim sipped then smiled. "With the gaps. If my hunch is right, its brain won't be happy with the situation-with there being gaps. If I'm right, it will try to fill them."

"Fill them? How? We'd have to program it, surely?"

"Would we?" Kim sipped again, then laughed. "Let's give it half an hour and see what happens."

Curval laughed, then turned, looking through the glass at the creature on the table. It lay there, inert, like a piece of discarded machinery. "What could happen?"

Kim finished his soup, throwing the flattened bulb into the disposal. "It might invent something."

"Like what?"

"Wait and see," Kim said, going to the machine and punching for another soup. "Just wait and see."

"Tell me your name?"

Light flickered in the creature's eye. On the right-hand screen a single flare of yellow brightened and then faded."I am Box."

"I see." Kim looked across. Curval, at the desk, was sitting forward, astonished.

"Box. That's the name your parents gave you?"

"Yes."

"You remember your parents, then?"

"You asked me that before."

Kim smiled. "I did, didn't I?"

"You asked me if I remembered being with them and I said no,"

"But now you do?"

It hesitated, then. "Yes, I remember it now."

"Why do you think that is?"

"I ... I must have forgotten."

never know, never realize just what he could have been. Gaps All he'll ever know are gaps."

VON PASENOW stood in the shadows at the back of the room, waiting while Tolonen took the call.

He listened, sensitive to the nuances in the Marshal's voice, to the sudden defensive stiffness of his posture, and knew that the old man's overpolite manner concealed real depths of hostility. Whoever Ward was, he was no friend of the Marshal's.

As the old man cut the call and turned to him again, he straightened, attentive once more.

"I'm sorry about that," Tolonen said, a flicker of distaste crossing his face. "You'd think he'd deal with the appropriate manager! Why he has to pester me . . . Anyway . . . you were saying you had news."

Von Pasenow took two steps forward, into the circle of light cast by the hover-globe at Tolonen's elbow, then bowed his head.

"I think we've found them, sir."

"Found them! Why that's excellent! Where?"

He raised his head. Tolonen was leaning forward, staring at him eagerly.

"We've traced them to Cosenza in the south. It looks like they're preparing to slip away to Africa. My guess is that they're waiting to be paid off, otherwise they'd have gone."