He still hesitated a moment before giving in and coming out with it.

"It could be that we're not who we think we are," he said. "We could just be copies of ourselves, created for this place."

He gave a weak little grin, tried to make a joke of it. "'Course, if they go around making copies of copies," he jerked a thumb at himself, "they might start getting some generation loss. Do I look lossy to you?"