The Peacock Cloak

me.”
    “What about an answer to my question?” I demanded. “What kind of hospital are you running here?”
    The first man grinned across at his companion.
    “What do you reckon, Toussaint? What kind of hospital would you say this was?”
    They both laughed.
    “Is there some problem?” I said. “Have I suffered some damage of some kind?”
    They both laughed at this, but completely ignored my question. The Asian man picked up a phone.
    “Dr Brennan? 8856 has come out well. Everything’s working fine. Heart, lungs, metabolism, talking, emotional agitation, everything. Best one for a long time.”
    I strained to hear the voice on the other end of the line – your voice of course, as it turns out – but I was prevented by a crackly p.a. announcement which seemed to come from a corridor outside.
    “ Docking in five minutes. I repeat docking in five minutes. Primary crew to docking stations. I repeat. Primary crew to docking stations. Over .”
    “Let’s hope there’s a bit more liquor on board this time,” the black man said. “Last time it all went in a day.”
    “It was a trick wasn’t it?” I said. “I’m not going to Greenland am I? I’m not going to get to keep that five thousand dollars?”
    Can you believe I still had no inkling of my circumstances? I suppose if you wake up and remember that you’re a man called Juan Fernandez, it’s not a conviction that can easily be dislodged.
    “Why won’t you speak to me?” I strained at the straps which held me down. “Why are you behaving like I’m not here?”
    Were we on a boat of some kind, I wondered? It did look like a boat with its walls made of bolted metal plates. Had this all been an elaborate kidnapping? Had I been sneaked out of the back door of that hospital on the hill, while Suzanne and Maria waited for me out front? Had I been loaded onto some kind of barge?
    “Please,” I pleaded with them, “I don’t know what’s happening and I don’t know why you don’t want to speak to me, but can’t you just tell me where I am and how I got here?”
    Both men had bent interestedly over their console of instruments while I was speaking.
    “Perfect,” the Asian man exclaimed. “We haven’t had one this good for weeks.”
    “What’s perfect?” I cried. “How can it hurt to talk to me? Where am I? Where are my wife and daughter?”
    Again they had stooped over their console while I was speaking. (You’ve kindly explained to me since that they were watching how speech affected my brain waves.) Now they both made little noises of pleasure and satisfaction.
    “Even better than last time,” the black man said. “I mean look at…”
    He was interrupted by a metallic clunking sound that seemed to originate somewhere far away in the building, or boat, or whatever it was – I still hadn’t got it, I still had no idea what my real situation was – and the whole structure shook. Both men looked up towards the door, not because there was anything to see, but because they knew the sound was coming from that direction.
    “They’re supposed to dock with the station,” grumbled the black man, “not fucking ram it.”
    “What’s happened ? Where am I?” I wailed.
    Finally the black man turned on me.
    “Shut the fuck up, 8856, do you hear me? You’re a copy. You’re not a person. You haven’t got a wife and kids. You don’t even have a mind.”
    “Hey now, Toussaint.” the Asian man scolded. “Don’t talk to it. You know that’s not a good idea.”
    “I know, Abdul, but it was starting to get on my nerves.”
    “What do you mean I haven’t got a mind? I’m Juan Fernandez! I can talk! I can think! I’m a human being.”
    And finally Toussaint responded to me. He spoke very softly and through gritted teeth, without looking at me, without even really addressing me, as a man might mutter to a recalcitrant computer, or to a car that won’t start.
    “You’re not a human being. You’re a copy of a human being.”

    I remembered a conversation I’d had with Suzanne the night before we went down to Town Dock.
    I was uncorking the bottle of Scottish wine that we’d recklessly bought to celebrate our imminent escape. Suzanne – she was once a physicist remember – was wondering aloud about that persistent problem with the replicator that Pham had mentioned to me. Why did the copies never manage to survive for more than a few weeks?
    “I’ve no idea,” I said. “I didn’t ask him anything about it. The money and