“In our line of business there is no such thing. Emperoxs never just dream. They have visions. That’s what we do. Or what we were supposed to do, when I became the first emperox.”

“Well, I had the thing, and it wasn’t a vision. It was a dream.”

“It was a dream that made you think. A dream that caused you to search for wisdom. A dream that made you consult me, the Prophet. Sounds like a vision to me.”

Cardenia gawked at Rachela I. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I worked in marketing,” Rachela I said. “Before I was a prophet. After, too, but we didn’t call it that after that point.”

“I’m having a hard time believing what you’re telling me.”

Rachela I nodded. “That’s not unusual. Sooner or later every emperox activates me to have a conversation like this. Most of them respond like you do.”

“Most of them? What about the others?”

“They feel happy they guessed it correctly.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“I don’t feel anything about it. I’m not alive. Strictly speaking, I’m not here.”

“ ‘You’re always alone in the Memory Room, and never alone in the Memory Room.’ ”

Rachela I nodded again. “I said that. Or something close enough to it, anyway.”

“Is the Interdependency a scam?” Cardenia asked, directly.

“The answer to that is complicated.”

“Give me the short version.”

“The short version is ‘Yes, but.’ The slightly longer version is ‘No, and.’ Which version would you like?”

Cardenia stared at Rachela I for a moment. Then she went to the bench in the Memory Room and sat.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

Chapter 10

“I have an itch,” Marce Claremont said to his sister.

“Where?” Vrenna asked.

“My entire head,” Marce replied.

As required, Marce had shaved his entire head short of eyebrows and eyelashes, and had been fitted with cultivated hair and a beard, each embedded in an epidermis-thin substrate of actual skin, which had been secured to his own with the use of a glue made from, or so the person applying it to his face told him, real human collagens. Next came the thumb pad, which made Marce feel like he had tape on his hand, against which he had to mightily fight the urge to pick it off. Then the contacts which changed his eye color and iris pattern, and which included holographic fake corneas that would give the illusion of depth to the fake retinal pattern.

“I can barely see out of these contacts, either.”

“It’s not a bad eye color for you, though,” Vrenna observed. “Maybe keep those in after you get on the ship.”

“You’re funny.”