“In other words,” Belilo said, “there nothing you can do.”
“No. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” The officer spread his hands to indicate how hopeless the situation was.
“You must keep backups,” Singh said. “Everybody keeps backups. I can’t believe even the army is stupid enough not to.”
Philaskut licked his lips. “We make exactly one backup copy—”
“Only one? For the entire army?” Singh was skeptical.
“For security purposes we can’t have lots of copies floating around. We don’t want them falling into the wrong hands.”
“They’re already in the wrong hands,” Belilo said.
“So why can’t you make a new Green from his backup copy?” Singh asked.
“We… that is, our procedure—and it’s worked perfectly for centuries—is to dub the people, make a complete backup at once, and then destr
