Is that it? Did something chew your face down to the bone, a long time ago?

Lubin reaches down, picks up his bag. His covered eyes betray nothing.

I've known beaters in my day. You fit. Sort of.

"Any preference which cubby I take?" he asks. It's strange, hearing that voice coming out of a face like his. It sounds almost pleasant.

Clarke shakes her head. "I'm second on the right. Take any of the others."

He steps past her. Daggers of reflective glass protrude from the edges of the far wall; within them, Lubin's fractured image disappears into the corridor at Clarke's back. She moves across the lounge to that jagged wall. I should really clean this up one of these days...

She used to like the way the mirror's worked since Ballard's adjustments. The jigsaw reflections seem more creative, somehow. More impressionistic. Now, though, they're beginning to wear on her. Maybe it's time for another change.

A piece of Ken Lubin stares at her from the wall. Without thinking, she drives her fist into the glass. A shower of fragments tinkles to the floor.

You could be a beater. Just try it. Just fucking try it.

"Oh," Lubin says, behind her. "I—"

There's still enough mirror left to check; her face is free of any expression. She turns to face him.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," Lubin says quietly, and withdraws.

He does seem sorry, at that.

So. You're not a beater. Clarke leans against the bulkhead. At least, not my kind of beater. She's not exactly sure how she knows. There's some vital chemistry missing between them. Lubin, she thinks, is a very dangerous man. Just not to her.

She smiles to herself. Beating means never having to say you're sorry.

Until it's too late, of course.

* * *

She's tired enough of sharing the cubby with herself. Sharing it with someone else is something she likes even less.

Lenie Clarke lies on her bunk and scans the length of her own body. Past her toes, another Lenie Clarke stares coolly back. The jumbled topography of the forward bulkhead frames her reflected face like a tabletop junkyard turned on edge.

The camera behind that mirror must see the same thing she does, but distorted around the edges. Clarke figures on a wide-angle lens; the GA wouldn't want to leave the corners out of range. What's the point of running an experiment if you can't keep tabs on your subject animals?

She wonders if anyone's watching her now. Probably not; at least, nobody human. They'll have some machine, tireless and dispassionate, something that watches with relentless attention as she works or shits or gets herself off. It will be programmed to call flesh and blood if she does anything interesting.

Interesting. Who defines that parameter? Is it strictly in keeping with the nature of the experiment, or has someone programmed more personal tastes on the side? Does anyone else get off when Lenie Clarke does?

She twists on the bed and faces the headboard bulkhead. A spaghetti bundle of optical filaments erupts from the floor beside her pallet and crawls up the middle of the wall, disappearing into the ceiling; the seismic feeds, on their way to the communications cubby. The air conditioning inlet sighs across her cheek, just to one side. Behind it, a metal iris catches strips of light sectioned by the grating, ready to sphincter shut the moment delta-p exceeds some critical number of millibars per second. Beebe is a mansion with many rooms, each potentially self-isolating in case of emergency.