'Of me?'
'Yes,' I said, 'of you.'
For it was, of course, a Hamlet Will-Speak machine, and the mannequin Hamlet sat looking blankly out at the flesh-and-blood Hamlet standing next to me.
'Can we hear a bit?' asked Hamlet excitedly.
'If you want. Here.'
I dug out a coin and placed it in the machine. There was a whirring and clicking as the dummy came to life.
'To be, or not to be,' began the mannequin in a hollow metallic voice. The machine had been built in the thirties and was now pretty much worn out. 'That is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind—'
Hamlet was fascinated, like a child listening to a tape recording of their own voice for the first time.
'Is that really me?' he asked.
'The words are yours – but actors do it a lot better.'
'—or to take arms against a sea of troubles—'
'Actors?'
'Yes. Actors, playing Hamlet.'
He looked confused.
'—That flesh is heir to—'
'I don't understand.'
'Well,' I began, looking around to check that no one was listening, 'you know that you are Hamlet, from Shakespeare's Hamlet?
'Yes?'
'—To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream—'
'Well, that's a play, and out here in the Outland, people act out that play.'
'With me?'
'Of you. Pretending to be you.'
'But I'm the real me?'
'—Who would fardels bear—'
'In a manner of speaking.'
'Ahhh,' he said after a few moments of deep thought, 'I see. Like the whole Murder of Gonzago thing. I wondered how it all worked. Can we go and see me some time?'
'I . . . suppose,' I answered uneasily. 'Do you really want to?'
'—from whose bourn No traveller returns—'
'Of course. I've heard that some people in the Outland think I am a dithering twit unable to make up his mind rather than a dynamic leader of men, and these "play" things you describe will prove it to me one way or the other.'
I tried to think of the movie in which he prevaricates the least.