'Consider her appearance,' said Cawl, before unflatteringly describing her. 'Domina Hester Aspertia Sigma-Sigma is exactly three metres tall when she is at full extension. The body she wears, for the benefit of the world, is a monstrous thing, as long again behind her reverse jointed pelvis as it is tall above the clutch of mechapeds that propel it. Her mirrored helm face covers over the front of a cranial augmetic three times the volume of a standard human head and twelve times the weight. From her occiput sprouts a circular crest of data arrays, short-range emitters, omnilinks, sensor banks, augurs, vox-parsers, cogitator shunts and other common tea* tions devices that are as complex as any voidship's sensor suite. In deference to her wilfully forgotten origins, her mirrored face b fashioned like a eamivale mask - that of a well-proportioned human female whose beauty is so well considered in its artifice it is bland The eyes and the lips are sealed. A hint of sardonic humour has been stamped onto the mouth.'

'You shouldn't be speaking this way,' interrupted Fnedisch.

'Why not?' said Cawl. 'It is true. She would admit it. That silver mask is as human as the domina gets. She is the epitome of the cyberphile cult. There is no remnant of humanity beyond this ironic statement. If there are fleshly components to her, they are sealed deep within her armoured warframe and never displayed.'

'But she is human.'

'Have you ever seen her organic parts?'

'Well, no…'

'Well, then,' said Cawl.

'She's still human,' insisted Fnedisch.

Cawl shook his cowled head. 'She has a multiplicity of arms. Seven, at my last count but the number never remains the same for very long. The domina is addicted to change in a way that some say praises the Omnissiah, but which I privately hold to be very unhealthy.' He stirred his caffeine drink. It smelled more of oil than it did of anything else. 'She cannot be called human, not anymore. Any semblance to normal human anatomy is gone. Save that silver face,' said Cawl gleefully, 'which is appended to that body like the punchline to a jest of questionable taste.'

Which is exactly what Cawl had just made. Fnedisch was appalled. 'You can't say that!' said Friedisch. 'You absolutely cannot say that.' He spoke quickly. They were both lowly men, and Friedisch could not yet afford the binaric augminer unit he coveted. Denied its lightning-fast mode of conversation he had sped his organic speech to compensate. It was an affectation that, frankly, irritated Cawl, though he was generous enough to hide it.

So Cawl thought. Friedisch was perfectly aware of Cawl's irritation, and was irritated in return.