doppel n.

‘I wonder if we were the only ones?’ Claymore brushed auburn hair from her hazel eyes. ‘That hardly matters, Clarissa.’ One might still compare the heart-shaped face of this Claymore Doppelgänger to that of the Mona Lisa—for on the Earth she’d just come from Leonardo had painted a woman with auburn hair. ‘You’re right,’ the Sirich Doppel said. ‘The only reality that concerns us is the one where we are.’ [Ibid. xxxv. 201] [...] came an even more astounding thought—that it wouldn’t make any difference [...] unless she were willing to shoulder the intolerable burden of returning again and again to adjust each human error. How many Doppels would she lose on each fix-it trip? How many universes would eventually benefit from her efforts?

Cassata was not only a soldier, he was still meat. That was an interesting fact in itself, because meat people don’t make doppels of themselves lightly.

I put my persona on automatic and…peeked out of the rig. There was my doppel on the monitor talking to the tourist.

Later, on a stone bench by the lake, Sol Gursky said to his doppel, ‘Your politeness is appreciated, but it really wasn’t necessary for you to don my shape. All this is as much a construction as you are.’

How much trust then could his doppel invest in the Contexture if the first thing he learned was that a Design flaw had shaped his life?

On Arieka, for lifetimes, the last two megahours, our representatives hadn’t been twins but doppels, cloned. It was the only viable way. They were bred in twos in the Ambassador-farm, tweaked to accentuate certain psychological qualities. Blood twins had long been outlawed.

He was glad they had masks, especially as his doppel seemed to look right at him for a moment. He reminded himself that the doppels weren’t human. He knew that from his tutor. They were quick and shoddy copies, with blunted brains that couldn’t do much more than keep them breathing and moving.