‘Oh, yes. I remember it as if I lived it myself. I’m told they didn’t so much programme me,’ said Poole wistfully, ‘as grow me. They put together as much as they could about my life, and then fast-forwarded me through it all.’

‘So you lived out a computer-memory life.’

Poole said, ‘My memory is sharp up to a point. I remember my father Harry, who, long after he was dead, came back to haunt me as a Virtual. I remember Miriam - somebody I loved,’ he said gruffly. ‘I lost her in time long before I lost myself. But it’s all a fake. I remember having free will and making choices. But I was a rat in a maze; the truth was I never had such freedom.

‘And the trouble is the records go fuzzy just at the point where my, or rather his, biography gets interesting to you theologians. What happened after I lost Miriam isn’t like a memory, it’s like a dream - a guess, a fiction somebody wrote out for me. Even to think about it blurs my sense of self. Anyhow I don’t believe any of it!

‘So I was a big disappointment, I think. Oh, the priests kept on developing me. They would download upgrades; I would wake up refreshed, rebooted. Of course I always wondered if I was still the same me as when I went to sleep. But I was never able to answer the theologians’ questions about the Ultimate Observer, or my jaunt through the wormholes, or about what I saw or didn’t see at Timelike Infinity. I wish I could! I’d like to know myself.

‘In the end they shut me down one last time. They promised me I’d wake up soon, as I always had. But I was left in my Virtual casket for a thousand years. The bastards. The next thing I saw was the ugly face of your Hierocrat, leaning over me.’

‘Perhaps they did crucify you, in the end.’

Poole looked at him sharply. ‘You’ve got depths, despite your silly name, kid. Perhaps they did. What I really don’t understand is why they didn’t just wipe me off the data banks. Just sentimental, maybe.’

Futurity said, ‘Oh, not that.’ The Hierocrat in his hurried briefing had made this clear. ‘They’d worked too hard on you, Michael Poole. They put in too much. Your Virtual representation is now more information-rich than I am, and information density defines reality. You may not be a god. You may not even be Michael Poole. But whatever you are, you are more real than we are, now.’

Poole stared at him. ‘You don’t say.’ Then he laughed, and turned away.

Still the Ask Politely burrowed deeper into the kernel of the Galaxy.

VII