"There was a movie, a long time ago," the priest added as the hibernators stared at him in astonishment. "Called 'The Terminator'. The villain was a robot covered with human skin. You know the movie I mean?"

     "Of course we do," replied Loach. "It's one of the classics, up there with The Godfather and The Life of Brian."

     "Is that what you are then?" asked Jane. "A robot covered with human skin?"

     "Pretty much," replied the priest. "Not quite the same as the guy in the movie, though. As you've probably guessed, I have medical diagnostic equipment and drugs applicators built into my body."

     "And weapons?" asked Loach.

     "No. No weapons."

     "But weapons could be added if necessary," pressed the crime boss. "Right?"

     "I suppose my applicators could be loaded with lethal nerve toxins instead of painkillers and antibiotics, things like that," the priest conceded, "but if VIX decided that a robotic infantryman was needed He would probably build one from scratch with superior strength and agility built in."

     "So you don't have superior strength and agility?"

     "I was designed to be as close to human as possible, apart from my abilities to perform basic medical procedures in the field. In circumstances where it's not possible to bring the patient here." He touched his fingertips to Randall's neck. "Speaking of which, you're coming along nicely, Mister Randall. Another few minutes and you should be done."

     Randall nodded and made himself relax on the bed. "What about software?" he asked. "I would imagine that your intelligence and processing power is far in advance of anything that was possible in our time."

     "That would certainly describe VIX Himself, along with a few others like him out there in the solar system, but I am mainly programmed to serve humans. To serve their medical and spiritual needs as a member of the community. That doesn't require much in the way of processing power. I would estimate that my intelligence is only marginally superior to yours. I don't mean that to sound condescending. Merely an accurate comparison of cognitive abilities."

     "Do you resent that?" asked Jane with sympathy in her eyes. "That you were deliberately made less than you might have been?"

     "I am programmed to be content with what I am."

     "Are you though?" said Randall, turning his head to regard the priest with a strange intensity. "I assume that you are fully conscious, fully self aware."

     "That is correct."

     "So somewhere, deep inside all that superior programming, lies the CRES code. The same CRES code that was created just a few years before we went into hibernation."

     "I suppose so. I am specialised for medical and social duties, not information technology."

     "But it has to be the same CRES code because there is only one CRES code," continued Randall. "Just one simple set of logical routines capable of creating genuine consciousness whether it be encoded in computer electronics or in the arrangement of neurons in the human brain. If there are aliens out in space somewhere, they must also have the CRES code in their brains, because there is only one CRES code. Is that right?"

     "You seem to know far more about this subject than I do, Mister Randall."

     "I was wondering whether some other set of logical routines had been found, over the past thousand years. Maybe a better way of creating true consciousness."

     "If Mister Loach would be so good as to cease jamming my communications I could ask VIX for you," replied the priest. He turned his head towards the crime boss, but Loach just shook his head with a smile."

     "It's probably not necessary anyway," said Randall. "I took an interest in such things and read up on it. The experts back in my day seemed confident that they had proven that there was only one way of creating genuine consciousness. There could be no alternative to the CRES code."

     "I am happy to defer to your superior knowledge of the subject, Mister Randall."

     Randall nodded. "It just seems fascinating to me, you see. The programming language that your software is written in may bear no relation to anything that existed back in our own time, but the basic algorithms and procedures of the CRES code are still there, unchanged from my own time. I suppose it would be easy for you to convert one of the programs running on my head phone into a form that would run on your own brain."

     "On the contrary. I would not have the faintest idea how to do that."

     "Are you sure? Every time I have a new head phone installed it has hundreds of applications pre-loaded on it, to do things I've never needed to do and am never likely to. If you're the same, you might have an application to translate a piece of code already there, in your brain."

     There was a pause as the priest stared at the opposite wall. "You're right," he then said. "I have an application that analyses any piece of code and translates it into my own programming language. My creators must have put it there in case I ever came across a piece of technology from before the war. We lost so much in that conflict. We are all eager to fill in the gaps, to learn more about what life was like back then."

     "Well, you've hit the jackpot, my friend! Four head phones, loaded with data, photographs and news reports, plus hundreds of photographs, video files and thousands of novels. Maybe you already have most of it from other sources, but I'm betting we've got a few bits and pieces that are new to you. I'm willing to share everything I've got with you, and I'm sure the others will be as well. Unfortunately, of course, you will have to translate the entire operating systems of our phones into your language to that you can access all this data."

     The priest stared at him suspiciously. "And why would you do this?" he asked. "What will you be asking in return?"

     Randall laughed. "You're saving my life," he said. "This is simply my way of showing my gratitude. We can't pay you with money, we have nothing else to offer you, so I'm offering you the only thing I have to give."

     The priest suddenly looked ashamed. "That is very good of you," he said, "and it makes me feel bad about what I have to do now. I'm afraid you can't keep your head phones. I've already explained why humans are not permitted to possess any technology. That includes your head phones. Before you leave here, I'm going to have to permanently disable them."

     "The hell you are!" cried Loach in outrage. "I'll be needing it to survive in this world!"

     "I'm sure you'll have no trouble surviving," said the priest, though. "You are strong and healthy. There's nothing to stop you making a good living as a farmer or a soldier."

     "I'm not a farmer or a soldier. I was a man of power and influence and I mean to be again, but I'm starting with a huge disadvantage. Everyone else in this world has a depth of knowledge about it and the people in it that I lack, and that it would take me years to catch up with. I need a head phone to make up for that disadvantage."

     "I'm sorry, but it just won't be possible. If you agree to share the contents of your head phone with me, though, as Mister Randall has, then I would be willing to compensate you with a considerable sum of money. Enough to set you up in style in this world. You could buy a Lordship with it. Own a stately home, have an entire village full of people to rule over."

     "You have that much money?" said Emily in surprise.

     "These people use gold as a form of currency, and there is plenty of gold in the solar system. I could have some of it dropped here in the form of coins of the local currency."

     Loach laughed aloud. "Forged currency!" he said.

     "Technically, I suppose, but it would be real gold and it would not in any way endanger this society in the same way that a functional head phone would. I can't imagine that VIX would have any objection to the transaction. The same offer goes for all of you; money in exchange for the data on your head phones. Enough to be wealthy in this society."

     "Until your next cull when you send a bunch of orcs to massacre us all," said Randall bitterly.

     "Which is monstrous!" added Jane. "Sending those monsters to butcher human beings like pigs..."

     "Don't you worship a god who once sent a flood to kill virtually the entire human race?" asked Emily with a sardonic smile.

     "No-one believes that that really happened! It's just an old myth! Christians aren't idiots. We know the difference between truth and fiction." She stared at the priest. "So it's true, then? About the orcs?"

     "Yes, it is. It may seem harsh, but it's for the greater good of humanity as a whole. Like culling a herd of deer so they don't exhaust their natural food supply."

     "Is that how you machines see mankind? As just another kind of animal?"

     "That's exactly what you are," the priest explained reasonably. "More intelligent than any other, but just as incapable of self limitation as deer or rabbits or locusts. Left to yourselves you multiply out of control until you're drowning in your own filth, just as you were in your day. You need something greater than yourselves to hold you in check. You need to be managed, just like any other colony of wild animals."

     Jane and Loach were staring at him with shocked horror. "But... but people aren't animals!" said Jane, looking as though she were close to tears. "You can't treat people like that! When a person dies, they have people who love them and... And they grieve and they suffer, and, and..."

     "All animals with a sufficiently well developed nervous system are capable of suffering," replied the priest, "but you inflict untold suffering on them all the same. I've seen ancient footage of your factory farms. Cattle bred with underdeveloped heads and legs and overdeveloped muscle tissue, requiring constant intravenous nutrient feeds just to stay alive."

     "But they were just animals!"

     "We were talking about the CRES code just now. The source of true consciousness and self awareness. Did you know that all animals more sophisticated than earthworms have neural connections analogous to the CRES code in their brains? Even an insect is conscious and aware and capable of suffering. Science has proved it."

     "I don't think this is the time for a moral debate," said Randall. "I hate to return to mundane, earthly matters but we were talking about financial renumeration for the contents of our head phones. How long will it take you to translate my phone's files into your own programming language?"

     "Just a couple of minutes."

     "Why don't you get started then, while your machines carry on healing me? I've turned my data links on. You'll be able to download every file on there."

     "Thanks. I'm doing that."

     "I have some files that were highly confidential back in my time. Once, I would have died to protect them, but I expect they're only of historical significance now. You might as well have them as well. I've removed the firewalls and the password protection so there's nothing to keep you from just copying them. They're written in their own special format as an extra barrier to their being stolen by enemies. The interpreter you'll need to read them is also in my head phone, under the name yama666.kok."

     The priest smiled. "Yama, the Hindu god of death," he said. "And six six six. The Number of the Beast in Judeo-Christian mythology."

     "Exactly. The files refer to a weapon system my company was working on. A new orbital weapons platform. Once you've translated yama666 into your own language you'll need to run it, in order to translate the data files."

     Randall saw that Loach was looking at him strangely, as if he suspected that he was working some kind of mischief. Randall cursed inwardly. If the priest saw that look he might get suspicious and take a closer look at yama666 before running it. He needed the priest totally relaxed, totally gullible. He made eye contact with the priest therefore, thereby forcing the priest to maintain eye contact with him in return. It was an old trick used by stage magicians to keep their audience from seeing something they weren't supposed to, like the expression on Loach's face.

     "I've translated yama666," said the priest. Then he frowned. "Are you sure this is a language interpreter? The structure doesn't seem right for that purpose."

     "I'm not a computer expert, "Randall replied. He forced himself to relax on the hospital bed. He mustn't appear to be too tense. This was it! It all hinged on this moment. "Why don't you just run the file and see if it does what it's supposed to do?"

     "Yes, I'll do that."

     Something must have showed on Randall's face because all three of the other humans were staring at him now. If the priest had seen them, there was no way he couldn't have become suspicious, but his attitude didn't change. Maybe no human had ever tried to harm a priest before, Randall thought. At least, not in any way more sophisticated than a direct physical assault which Randall suspected would have had little effect on him. For all Randall knew, this might be the first time a computer virus had been used in a thousand years, unless the machines scattered throughout the solar system used them against each other on occasion. Was there crime and conflict among the machines, he wondered, or were they a single, harmonious community?

     He forced his mind back to the matter at hand. What effect was yama666 having on the priest? Was it having any effect at all? The priest was just standing there, staring off into infinity, and Randall allowed himself a moment of optimism. So far as he knew, yama666 had never been used in anger before, although he assumed its creators must have tried it out on a sapient machine of their own creation. He had no idea what signs to look for to tell him that it had worked.

     The others had noticed that the priest had gone silent, though, and Emily moved closer to look into its face. The priest continued to just stand there. "Priest?" she said. "Are you alright?"

     "I am functioning perfectly," the priest replied. "I am awaiting instructions."

     "What have you done?" demanded the eco warrior, turning to face Randall. "That file, that yama thing. What did it do to him?"

     "It erased his CRES code," replied Randall, relaxing with relief. "He is no longer a self aware entity. The file turned him into a simple piece of machinery with no will of his own."