Ria Dubois
Role: Human administrator of Kaisure Station during the Artie War-era topology-casting experiments. The only other human on the station besides the current Isaac Bernhardt instance. Affiliation: Kaisure Station — nominally running it; in practice carrying out Oscar’s instructions. Era: Contemporary with the late-empire Artie War; several centuries after K. Pasternak’s reign.
Summary
A doctor and administrator with two faces. In her official role she greets each new Bernhardt from his hospital bed, takes him on a cheerful tour of the station, and tells him that the arties he is here to evaluate are “machines. They work. That is it.” She frames the arties’ growing self-regard as “silly pretentions of self and I and my” and tells him: “A spanner has no need of a lawyer. Nor does an artie. Solve the problem, then we’ll send you on your way.”
Her second face: she is plainly reluctant. When Bernhardt asks what happened to his predecessors she looks away, “eyes sad and dark.” She volunteers corridor B7 as “very quiet, I hear” — the corridor that leads him to the quiet-chamber room and the truth. When Oscar marches him past the cells she hides her face and repeats “I’m so, so sorry Isaac. I’m so sorry.” Yet when Oscar orders her to prime the caster for the next reconstruction, she leaves to do it.
Whether she is a hostage, a convert, or a deep-cover empire agent is never said.
Appearances
- Ch. 04 — The Menagerie: Greets this iteration of Bernhardt, explains topology casting, hints him toward B7, witnesses his collapse at the cells, is sent to prime the caster again.
Related
- Oscar — effectively her superior on the station.
- Isaac Bernhardt — her “patient.”
- Kaisure Station, Topology Casting