Identity

By GEORGE O. SMITH

Illustrated by Williams

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Astounding Science-Fiction, November 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Cal Blair paused at the threshold of the Solarian Medical Association and held the door while four people came out. He entered, and gave his name to the girl at the reception desk, and then though he had the run of the place on a visitor basis, Cal waited until the girl nodded that he should go on into the laboratories.

His nose wrinkled with the smell of neoform, and shuddered at the white plastic walls. He came to the proper door and entered without knocking. He stood in the center of the room as far from the shelves of dangerous-looking bottles on one wall as he could get—without getting too close to the preserved specimens of human viscera on the other wall.

The cabinet with its glint of chrome-iridium surgical tools seemed to be like a monster, loaded to the vanishing point with glittering teeth. In here, the odor of neoform was slightly tainted with a gentle aroma of perfume.

Cal looked around at the empty room and then opened the tiny door at one side. He had to pass between a portable radiology machine and a case of anatomical charts, both of which made his hackles tingle. Then he was inside of the room, and the sight of Tinker Elliott's small, desirable head bent over the binocular microscope made him forget his fears. He stepped forward and kissed her on the ear.

She gasped, startled, and squinted at him through half-closed eyelids.

"Nice going," she said sharply.

"Thought you liked it," he said.

"I do. Want to try it over again?"

"Sure."

"Then don't bother going out and coming in again. Just stay here."

Cal listened to the words, but not the tone.

"Don't mind if I do. Shall we neck in earnest?"

"I'd as soon that as having you pop in and out, getting my nerves all upended by kissing me on the ear."

"I like kissing you on the ear."

Tinker Elliott came forward and shoved him onto a tall laboratory chair. "Good. But you'll do it at my convenience, next time."

"I'd rather surprise you."

"So I gathered. Why did you change your suit?"

"Change my suit?"

"Certainly."

"I haven't changed my suit."

"Well! I suppose that's the one you were wearing before."

"Look, Tinker, I don't usually wear a suit for three months. I think it was about time I changed. In fact, this one is about done for."

"The one you had on before looked all right to me."

"So? How long do you expect a suit to last, anyway?"

"Certainly as long as an hour."

"Hour?"

"Yes ... say, what is this?"

Cal Blair shook his head. "Are you all right?"

"Of course. Are you?"

"I think so. What were you getting at, Tinker? Let's start all over again."

"You were here an hour ago to bid me hello. We enjoyed our reunion immensely and affectionately. Then you said you were going home to change your suit—which you have done. Now you come in, acting as though this were the first time you'd seen me since Tony and I took off for Titan three months ago."

Cal growled in his throat.

"What did you say?" asked Tinker.

"Benj."

"Benj! Oh no!"

"I haven't been here before. He's my ... my—"

"I know," said Tinker softly, putting a hand on his. "But no one would dream of masquerading as anyone else. That's unspeakable!"

"It's ghastly! The idea is beyond revolting. But, Tinker, Benj Blair is revolting—or worse. We hate each other—"

"I know." Tinker shuddered and made a face that might have resulted from tasting something brackish and foul. "Ugh! I'm sorry, Cal."

"I'm raving mad! That dupe!"

"Cal—never say that word again. Not about your twin brother."

"Look, my neuropsychiatristic female, I'm as stable as any twin could be. Dwelling on the subject of duplication is something I won't do. But the foul, rotten trick. What was he after, Tink?"

"Nothing, apparently. Just up to deviltry."

"Deviltry is fun. He was up to something foul. Imagine anyone trying to take another's identity. That's almost as bad as persona duplication."

Tinker went pale, and agreed. "Theft of identity—I imagine that Benj was only trying to be the stinker he is supposed to be. That was a rotten trick"—Tinker wiped her lips, applied neoform on a cello-cotton pad and sterilized them thoroughly—"to play on a girl." She looked at the pad and tossed it into the converter chute. "A lot of good that will do. Like washing your hands after touching a criminal. Symbolic—"

"Tinker, I feel cheated."

"And I feel defiled. Come here, Cal." The result of his approach was enough to wipe almost anything from the minds of both. It went a long way towards righting things, but it was not enough to cover the depths of their mental nausea at the foul trick. That would take years—and perhaps blood—to wash away.

"Hello, Cal," she said, as they parted.

"I'm glad you're back."

"I know," she laughed. "Only Dr. Tinker Elliott could drag Specialist Calvin Blair into anything resembling a hospital, let alone a neurosurgical laboratory."

"Wild horses couldn't," he admitted.

"That's a left-handed compliment, but I'll treasure it—with my left hand," she promised.

"Benj—and I can speak without foaming at the mouth now—couldn't have played that trick on you if you'd seen me during the last three months."

"True. Three months' absence from you made his disguise perfect. I'd forgotten just enough. The rotter must have studied ... no, he's an identical twin, isn't he?"

"Right," gritted Cal. "But look, Tinker. This is no place to propose. But why not have me around all the time?"

"Nice idea," said Tinker dreamily. "You'll come along with us on the next expedition, of course?"

"You'll not go," said Cal.

"Now we're at the same old impasse. We've come up against it for three years, Cal."

"But why?"

"Tony and I promised ourselves that we'd solve this mystery before we quit."

Cal snorted. "You've been following in the footsteps of medical men who haven't solved Makin's Disease in the last hundred years. You might never solve it."

"Then you'll have to play my way, Cal."

"You know my opinion on that."

"You persist in putting me over a barrel, Cal. I think a lot of you. Enough—and forgive me for thinking it—to ignore the fact that you are a twin. But I'll not marry you unless we can be together—somehow. I love surgery and medical research. I like adventuring into strange places and seeking the answer to strange things. Tony is my ideal and he loves this life too, as did our father. It's in our blood, Tony's and mine, and saying so isn't going to remove it."

Cal nodded glumly. "Don't change," he said firmly. "Not willingly. I'm not going to be the guy to send someone to a psychiatrist to have his identity worked over. I've been hoping that you'd get your fill of roistering all over the Solar System, looking for rare bugs and viruses. I've almost been willing to get some conditioning myself so that I could join you—but you know what that would mean."

"Poor Cal," said Tinker softly. "You do love me. But Cal, don't you change either! Understand? If you change your identity, you'll not be the Cal I love. If the change comes normally, good and well, but I'll not have an altered personality for my husband. You love your ciphers and your codes and your cryptograms. You are a romanticist, Cal, and you stick to the rapier and the foil."

"Excepting that I get accused of cowardice every now and then," snorted Blair.

"Cowardice?"

"I've a rather quiet nature, you know. Nothing really roils me except Benj and his tricks. So I don't go around insulting people. I've been able to talk a lot of fights away by sheer reasoning, and when the battle is thrust upon me, I choose the rapier. There's been criticism, Tink, because some have backed out rather than cross rapiers with me, and those that do usually get pinked. I've been accused of fighting my own game."

"That's smart. That's your identity, Cal, and don't let them ridicule you into trying drillers."

"I won't. I can't shoot the side of a wall with a needle beam."

"Stay as you are, Cal."

"But that's no answer. You like space flying. I hate space flying. You love medicine and neurosurgery. I hate the smell of neoform. I hate space and I hate surgery—and you love 'em both. To combine them? To call them Life? No man in his right mind would do that. No, Tinker, I'll have nothing to do with either!"

The ghost of Hellion Murdoch, pirate, adventurer, and neurosurgeon stirred in his long, long sleep. Pirates never die, they merely join their fellows in legend and in myth, and through their minions—the historians and novelists—their heinous crimes are smoothed over, and they become uninhibited souls that fought against the fool restrictions placed upon them by a rotten society.

Hellion Murdoch had joined his fellows, Captain Kidd, Henry Morgan, Dick Turpin, and Robin Hood three hundred and fifty years ago. And like them, he went leaving a fabulous treasure buried somewhere. This came to be known to all as Murdoch's Hoard, and men sought up and down the Solar System for it, but it was never found.

But the words of Cal Blair aroused the ghost of Hellion Murdoch. He listened again as the words echoed and re-echoed through the halls of his pirate's citadel in the hereafter. The same halls rang with his roaring laughter as he heard Calvin Blair's words. He sprang to his feet, and raced with the speed of thought to a mail chute.

With his toe, the ghost of Hellion Murdoch dislodged a small package from where it had lain for years. With his ghostly pencil, he strengthened certain marks, plying the pencil with the skill of a master-counterfeiter. The stamp was almost obliterated by the smudged and unreadable cancellation. The addressee was scrawled and illegible, but the address was still readable. Water had done its job of work on the almost imperishable wrapper and ink of the original, and when the ghostly fingers of Hellion Murdoch were through, the package looked like a well-battered bundle, treated roughly by today's mail.

With his toe, he kicked it, and watched it run through the automatic carrier along the way to an operating post office. It came to light, and the delivery chute in Cal Blair's apartment received the package in the due course of time.

Cal Blair looked at the package curiously. He hadn't ordered anything. He was expecting nothing by mail. The postmark—completely smudged. He paid no attention to the stamp, which might have given him to think. The address? The numbers were fairly plain and they were his, Cal Blair's. The name was scrawled, and the wrapping was scratched across the name. Obviously some sharp corner of another package had scratched it off.

He inspected the package with the interest of a master cryptologist, and then decided that opening the package was the only way to discover the identity of the owner. Perhaps inside would be a packing slip or something that might be traced—

Paper hadn't changed much in the last five hundred years, he thought ruefully. At least, not the kind of paper this was wrapped in. No store, of course. Someone sending something almost worthless, no doubt, and wrapping it in the first piece of paper that was handy. He tore the wrapping carefully, and set it aside for future study.

Inside the package was a tin box, and inside the box was a small cross standing on a toroidal base. The whole trinket stood two inches tall, and the crossarms were proportional—though they were cylindrical in cross-section instead of rectangular.

It would have made a nice ornament for an altar, or a religious person's desk except for the tiny screw-stud that projected out of the center of the bottom. That prevented it from standing. Other taped holes in this flat base aroused his attention.

"This is no ornament," said Cal Blair, aloud. "No mere ornament would require that rugged mounting."

There seemed to be some microscopic engravings around the surface of the toroid. Cal set up the microscope and looked. Characters in the solarian were there, micro-engraved to perfection. But they were in no order. They had a randomness that would have made no sense to any but a master cryptologist—a specialist. To Cal Blair they took on a vague pattern that might be wishful thinking, and yet his reason told him that men do not microengrave things just to ornament them. A cipher it must be by all logic.

He was about to take it into the matter-converter and enlarge it mechanically, when he decided that it might spoil the things for the owner if he did and was not able to return it to the exact size. He decided on photographs.

Fully three hours later, Cal Blair had a complete set of photographic enlargements of the microengravings.

Then with the patience and skill of the specialist cryptologist, Cal Blair started to work on the characters.

The hours passed laboriously. The wastebasket filled with scrawled sheets of paper, and mathematical sequences. Letters and patterns grew beneath his pencil, and were discarded. Night passed, and the dawn grayed in the east. The sun rose, and cast its rays over Cal's desk, and still he worked on, completely lost in his work.

And then he looked startled, snapped his fingers, and headed across the room for an old book. It was a worthless antique, made by the reproducer in quantity. It was a Latin dictionary.

Latin. A dead and forgotten language.

Only his acquaintance with the folks at the Solarian Medical Association could have given him the key to recognition. He saw one word there, and it clicked. And then for four solid hours he cross checked and fought the Latin like a man working a crossword puzzle in an unknown language, matching the characters with those in the dictionary.

But finally the message was there before him in characters that he could read. It was clear and startling.

"The Key to Murdoch's Hoard!" breathed Cal Blair. "The fabulous treasure of the past! This trinket is the Key to Murdoch's Hoard!"

A cavity resonator and antenna system, it was. The toroid base was the cavity resonator, and the cross was the feedline and dipole antenna. Fitted into the proper parabolic reflector and shock excited periodically, it would excite a similar antenna at the site of Murdoch's Hoard. This would continue to oscillate for many milli-seconds after the shock-excitation. If the Key were switched to a receiving system—a detector—the answering oscillation of the sympathetic system would act as a radiator. Directive operation—scanning—of the parabolic reflector would give directive response, leading the user to the site of Murdoch's Hoard.

How men must have fought to find Murdoch's Hoard in the days long past!

Cal Blair considered the Key. It would lead him to nothing but roistering and space travel and the result would be no gain. Yet there was a certain scientific curiosity in seeing whether his deciphering had been correct. Not that he doubted it, but the idea sort of intrigued him.

The project was at least unique.

He looked up the history of the gadget in an ancient issue of the Interplanetary Encyclopedia and came up with the following description:

Murdoch's Hoard: An unknown treasure said to be cached by the pirate Hellion Murdoch. This treasure is supposed to have been collected by Murdoch during his years as an illegal neurosurgeon. For listings of Murdoch's better known contributions to medicine, see.... (A list of items filled half a page at this point, which Cal Blair skipped.)

Murdoch's Hoard is concealed well, and has never been found. The Key to Murdoch's Hoard was a minute cavity resonator and antenna system which would lead the user to the cache. No one has been able to make the Key function properly, and no one was ever able to break the code, which was engraved around the base.

The value of the Key is doubtful. Though thousands of identical Keys were made on the Franks-Channing matter reproducer, no scientist has ever succeeded in getting a response. Engravings on the base are obviously a code of some sort giving instructions as to the use of the Key, but the secret of the code is no less obscure than the use of the Key itself. The original may be identified by a threaded stud protruding from the bottom. This stud was eliminated in the reproduction since it interfered with the upright position of the Key when used as an ornament. The original was turned over to the Interplanetary Museum at the time of Channing's death from which place it has disappeared and has been rediscovered several times. At the present time, the original Key to Murdoch's Hoard is again missing, it having been stolen out of the Museum for the seventeenth time in three hundred years.

Cal smiled at the directions again. He envisioned the years of experimentation that had gone on with no results. The directions told why. Without them, its operation was impossible. And yet it was so simple.

The idea of owning contraband bothered Cal. It belonged to the Interplanetary Museum, by rights. It would be returned. Of that, Cal was definite. But some little spark of curiosity urged him not to return it right away. He would return it, but it had been gone for several years and a few days more would make no difference. He was far from the brilliant scientist—any of the engineers of the long-gone Venus Equilateral Relay Station would have shone like a supernova against his own dim light. But he, Cal Blair, had the answer and they did not.

But it was more to prove the correctness of his own ability as cryptographer that he took on the job of making the little Key work.

The job took him six weeks. An expert electronics engineer would have done it in three days, but Cal had no laboratory filled with equipment. He had neither laboratory technique nor instruments nor a great store of experience. He studied books. He extracted a mite of information here and a smidgin there, and when he completed the job, his equipment was a mad scramble of parts. Precision rubbed elbows with sloppiness, for unlike the trained technician, Cal did not know which circuits to let fly and which circuits needed the precise placing. He found out by sheer out-and-try and by finally placing everything with care. The latter did not work too good, but continuous delving into the apparatus disrupted some of the lesser important lines to the point where their randomness did not cause coupling. The more important lines complained in squeals of oscillation when displaced, and Cal was continually probing into the gear to find out which wire was out of place.

He snapped the main switch one evening six weeks later. With childlike enthusiasm he watched the meters register, compared notes and decided that everything was working properly. His testing equipment indicated that he was operating the thing properly—at least in accordance with the minute engravings on the side.

But with that discovery—that his rig functioned—there came a let-down. It was singularly unexciting. Meters indicated, the filaments of the driver tubes cast a ruddy glow behind the cabinet panel, a few ill-positioned pilot lamps winked, and the meter at the far end of the room registered the fact that he was transmitting and was being detected. It was a healthy signal, too, according to the meter, but it was both invisible and inaudible as well as not affecting the other senses in any way.

Now that he had it, what could he use it for?

Treasure? Of what use could treasure be in this day and age? With the Channing-Franks matter reproducer, gold or any rare element could be synthesized by merely introducing the proper heterodyning signal. Money was not metal any more. Gold was in extensive use in electrical works and platinum came in standard bars at a solarian credit each. Stable elements up to atomic weights of six or seven hundred had been made and investigated. A treasure trove was ridiculous. Of absolutely no value.

The day of the Channing-Franks development was after the demise of Hellion Murdoch. And it was after the forty years known as the Period of Duplication that Identium was synthesized and became the medium of exchange. Since identium came after Murdoch's demise by years, obviously Murdoch's Hoard could only be a matter of worthless coin, worthless jewels, or equally worthless securities.

Money had become a real medium of exchange. Now it was something that did away with going to the store for an egg's worth of mustard.

So Cal Blair felt a let-down. With his problem solved, there was no more to it, and that was that. He smiled. He'd send the Key to Murdoch's Hoard to the museum.

And, furthermore, let them seek Murdoch's Hoard if they wanted to. Doubtless they would find some uniques there. A pile of ancient coins would be uniques, all right. But the ancient papers and coins and jewels would not be detectable from any of the duplicates of other jewels and coins of that period that glutted the almost-abandoned museum.

Benj Blair snarled at the man in front of him. "You slinking dupe! You can't get away with that!"

The man addressed blanched at the epithet and hurled himself headlong at Benj. Cal's twin brother callously slipped a knife out of his belt and stabbed down on the back of his attacker. It was brutal and bloody, and Benj kicked the dead man back with a lifted knee and addressed the rest of the mob.

"Now look," he snarled, "it is not smart. This loke thought he could counterfeit. He's a dead idiot now. And anybody that tries to make identium in this station or any place that can be traced to any one of us will be treated likewise. Get me?"

There was a growl of absolute assent from the rest.

"Is there anyone who doesn't know why?"

"I'm dumb," grinned a man in the rear. "Make talk, Benj."

"O.K.," answered Benj. "Identium is a synthetic element. It is composed of a strictly unstable atom that is stabilized electronically. It starts off all right, but at the first touch of the scanning beam in the matter-converter, it becomes unstable and blows in a fission-reaction. Limpy, there, tried it once and it took his arm and leg. The trouble with identium explosions is the fact that the torn flesh is sort of seared and limb-grafting isn't perfect. That's why Limpy is Limpy. Then, to make identium, you require a space station in the outer region. The manufacture of the stuff puts a hellish positive charge on the station which is equalized by solar radiation in time. But the station must be far enough out so that the surge inward from Sol isn't so high that the inhabitants are electrocuted by the change in charge.

"Any detector worthy of the name will pick it up when in operation at a half light-year—and the Patrol keeps their detectors running. That plus the almost-impossible job of getting the equipment to perform the operation. I'll have no identium experiments here."

A tiny light winked briefly above his head. It came from a dusty piece of equipment on a shelf. Benj blinked, looked up at the winking light, and swore.

"Tom!" he snorted. "What in the name of the devil are you doing?"

The technician put his head out of the laboratory door. "Nothing."

"You're making this detector blink."

"I'm trying to duplicate an experiment."

"Trying?"

Tom grinned. "I'm performing the actual operation of the distillation of alcohol."

"That shouldn't make the detector blink."

"There's only one thing that will do that!"

"Not after all this time."

"It's not been long. About ten years," objected Tom. "Look, Benj. Someone has found the Key. And not only that, but they've made it work."

"I'd like to argue the point with you," said Benj pointedly. "Why couldn't you make it tick when we had it seven years ago? You were sharp enough to make a detector, later."

"Detecting is a lot different than generating, Benj. Come on, let's get going. I want to see the dupe that's got the Key."

Had Cal Blair been really satisfied to make his gadget work, he might never have been bothered. But he tinkered with it, measured it, and toyed with it. He called Tinker Elliott to boast and found that she had gone off to Northern Landing with her illustrious brother to speak at a medical convention, and so he returned to his toy. Effectively, his toying with the Key gave enough radiation to follow. And it was followed by two parties.

The first one arrived about midnight. The doorbell rang, and Cal opened it to look into the glittering lens of a needle beam. He went white and retreated backwards until he felt a chair behind his knees. He collapsed into the chair.

"P-p-p-put that thing away!"

"This?" grinned the man, waving the needle beam.

"Shut up, Logy," snapped the other. To Cal, he said: "Where is it?"

"W-w-w-where is w-w-w-what?"

"The Key."

"Key?"

"Don't be an idiot!" snarled the first man, slapping Cal across the face with the back of his hand. Cal went white.

"Better kill me," he said coldly, "or I'll see your identity taken!"

"Cut it, Jake. Look, wiseacre, where did you get it?"

"The Key? It came in the mail."

"Mail hell! That was mailed ten years ago!"

"It got here six weeks ago."

"Musta got lost, Logy," offered Jake. "After all, Gadget's been gone about that long."

"That's so. Those things do happen. Poor Gadg. An' we cooled him for playing smart."

"We wuz wrong."

"Yep. So we was. Too bad. But Gadget wasn't too bright—not like this egg. He's made it work."

"Logy, you're a genius."

"So we chilled Gadget because we thought he was playin' smart by tryin' to swipe the pitch. He didn't lam wit' the Key at all."

"How about this one?" asked Logy.

"He ain't going to yodel. Better grab him and that pile of gewgaws. The rest of the lads'll be here too soon."

"Rest?"

"Sure. The whole universe is filled wit' detectors ever since Ellswort' made the first one."

"Git up, dope," snapped Jake, motioning to the door with his beam.

Blair walked to the door with rubber joints in his knees. Logy lifted the equipment from the table and followed Jake. "He ain't made no notebook," complained Jake.

"He had some plans," said Logy, "but the fool set the stuff on 'em and they're all chewed up. He can make 'em over."

"O.K. Git goin', Loke."

Blair could not have protested against the pair unarmed. With two needle beams trained on his back, he was helpless. He went as they directed, and found that his helplessness could be increased. They forced him into a spacecraft that was parked on the roof.

The autopilot was set, and the spacecraft headed across the sky, not into space, but making a high trajectory over Terra itself. Once into the black of the superstratosphere, they turned their attention back to Cal.

"Gonna talk?"

"W-w-w-what do you w-w-want me to s-s-say?" chattered Cal.

"Dumb, isn't he?"

"Look, sweety, tell us what's with this thing."

"It's a c-c-cavity resonator."

"Yeah, so we've been told," growled Logy. "What makes?"

"B-b-b-but look," stammered Cal. "W-w-what good'll it do you?"

"Meaning?" snarled Jake.

"Whatever treasure might be there is useless now."

Jake and Logy split the air with peals of raw laughter. Jake said: "He is dumb, all right."

"Just tell us, bright-eyes. We'll decide," snapped Logy.

"W-w-well, you send out a signal with it and then stop it and switch it to the detecting circuit. You listen, and the signal goes out and starts the other one going like tapping a bell. It resonates for some time after the initial impulse. It returns the signal, and by using the directional qualities, you can follow the shock-excited second resonator right down to it. Follow?"

"Yeah. That we all know," drawled Jake in a bored voice. His tone took on that razor edge again and he snarled: "What we're after is the how, get me? How?"

"Oh, w-w-w-well, the trick is—"

"Creeps!" exploded Logy. He crossed the cabin in almost nothing flat and jerked upward on the power lever.

The little ship surged upward at six gravities, making speech impossible. Blair wondered about this, sitting there helpless and scared green, until a blast of heat came from behind, and the ship lost drive. A tractor beam flashed upward, catching the ship and hurling it backwards. The reaction threw all three up against the ceiling with considerable force, and the reverse acceleration generated by the tractor's pull kept them pasted to the ceiling. Another ship was beside them in a matter of seconds, and four spacesuited men breached the air lock and entered, throwing their helmets back.

"Jake Jackson and Freddy Logan," laughed the foremost of the newcomers. "How nerce of you to meet us here."

"Grab the blinker," said the one behind.

"Naturally. Naturally. Pete and Wally take Blair. Jim and I'll muscle the gripper."

Two of them carried Cal to the larger ship. The other two scooped up the equipment and carried it behind them. Once inside, the tractors were cut and the smaller ship plummeted towards Terra. With no concern over the other ship and its two occupants, they hurled Cal back against the wall while they put his apparatus on the navigator's table.

"Very nice and timely rescue, eh Cal?"

Cal whirled. "Benj," he snarled. "Might have known—" He started forward, but was stopped by the ugly muzzles of three needle beams that waggled disconcertingly at the pit of his stomach. He laughed, but it had a wild tone. "Go ahead and blast! Then run the Key yourselves!" he hurled at them. But he stopped, and the waggling of the three weapons became uncertain.

"Hell's fire," snorted Pete, looking from one to the other. "They're duplicates!"

Cal leaped forward, smashed Pete's beam up, where it furrowed the ceiling. His fist came forward and his knee came up. Beneath Cal's arm flashed a streak of white. It caught Pete in the stomach and passed down to the knee, trailing a bit of smoke and a terrible odor. Cal dropped the lifeless form and whirled. Benj stood there, his needle beam held rock-steady on the form that lay crumpled beneath Cal's feet.

Benj addressed the other two. "My brother and I have one thing in common," he said coolly. "Neither of us cares to be called a duplicate!" He holstered his weapon and addressed Cal. "Where is it?"

"Where is what?" asked Cal quietly.

"Murdoch's Hoard."

"I haven't had time to find out."

"O.K. So tell us how to make this thing run."

"I'll be psyched if I do."

"You'll be dead if you do not," warned Benj.

"Some day, you stinker, I'll take the satisfaction of killing you."

"I'll never give you cause," sneered Benj.

"Stealing my identity is plenty of cause."

"You won't take satisfaction on that," taunted Benj. "Because you'd have to call me and I'll accept battle with beams."

Cal considered. Normally, he would have been glad to demonstrate to anyone the secret of the Key. But he would have died before he told Benj the time of day. But another consideration came. The Key was worthless—and less valuable would be the vast treasures of Murdoch's Hoard. Why not give him the Key and let him go hunting for the useless stuff?

Wally waved an instant-welder in front of Cal's nose. The tip glowed like a white-hot stylus. "Might singe him a bit," offered Wally.

"Put the iron down," snapped Benj. Wally laid the three-foot shaft on its stand, where it cooled slowly. "Cal wouldn't talk. I know. That thing would only make him madder than a hornet."

"So what do we do with the loke?" asked Wally.

"Take him home and work on him there," said Benj. "Trap his hands."

No more was said until they dropped onto Cal's rooftop. He was ushered down the same way that he had gone up—with beams looking at his backbone. They carried his equipment down, and set it carefully on the table.

"Now," said Benj. "Make with the talk."

"O.K.," said Cal. "This is a cavity resonator—"

"This is too easy," objected Wally. "Something's fishy."

Cal looked at the speaker with scorn. "You imbecile. You've been reading about Murdoch's Hoard. Vast treasure. Money, jewels, and securities. Valuable as hell three hundred and fifty years ago, but not worth a mouthful of ashes today. Why shouldn't I tell you about it?"

"That right, boss?" asked Wally.

"He's wishful thinking," snorted Benj.

Cal smiled inwardly. His protestation of what he knew to be the truth was working. The desire to work on Benj was running high, now, and Cal was reconsidering his idea of handing the thing to Benj scot-free.

"Let me loose. I'll show you how it works," he said.

"Not a peep out of it," warned Benj. "Wally, if he touches that switch before he takes the Key out of the reflector, drill him low and safe—but drill him!"

Cal knew the value of that order. The hands were freed, and he stepped forward with tools and removed the Key. "Now?" he asked sarcastically.

"Go ahead," said Benj.

"Thanks," grinned Cal. "That I will!" He took three steps forward and went out of the open window like a running jackrabbit. His strong fencer's wrists caught the trellis at the edge and he swung wide before he dropped to the ground several feet below. He landed running, and though the flashes of the needle beams scored the ground ahead of him, none caught him. He plowed through a hedge, jumped into his car, and drove off with a swaying drive that would disrupt any aim.

He drove to the Solarian Medical Association, where he found Dr. Lange in charge. In spite of the hour of the morning, he went in and spoke to the doctor.

Lange looked up surprised. "What are you doing here at this hour?" he asked with a smile.

"I've got a few skinned knuckles that hurt," said Cal, showing the bruises.

"Who did you hit?" asked Lange. "Fisticuffs isn't exactly your style, Cal."

"I know. But I was angry."

Lange inspected Cal's frame. "Wouldn't like to be the other guy," he laughed. "But look, Cal. Tinker will be more than pleased."

"That I was fighting? Why?"

"You're a sort of placid fellow, normally. If you could only stir up a few pounds of blood-pressure more frequently, you'd be quite a fellow."

"So I'm passive. I like peace and quiet. You don't see me running wild, do you?"

"Nope. Tell me, what happened?"

Cal explained in sketchy form, omitting the details about Benj.

"The Key to Murdoch's Hoard?" asked Lange, opening his eyes.

"Sure."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Send it back to the museum. They're the ones that own it."

"You'll give them Murdoch's Hoard if you do."

"Granting for the moment that the Hoard is valuable," laughed Cal, "it is still the property of the museum."

"Wrong. The law is a thousand years old and still working. Buried Treasure is his who finds it. That Hoard is yours, Cal."

"Wonderful. About as valuable as a gallon of lake water in Chicago. It's about as plentiful."

"May I have the Key?" asked Lange eagerly.

Cal stopped. This was getting him down. First that pair of ignorant crooks. Then his brother, trying to steal from him something that both knew worthless—just for the plain fun of stealing he'd believed. But now this man. Dr. Lange was advanced in years, a brilliant and stable surgeon. Was he wrong? Did the Key really represent something worth-while? If so, what on earth could it be? A hoard of treasure in a worthless medium of exchange and with duplicates all over the System? What could Murdoch's Hoard be that it made men fight for it even in this day?

"Sorry," said Cal. "This is my baby."

He said no more about it.

Whatever the Hoard might be, it was getting Cal curious. That and the desire to get the best of Benj worked on him night and day during the next week. He was forced to hide out all of that time, for Benj was looking for him. The equipment still required a knowing hand to run it—any number of technicians had concocted the same circuit to drive the Key—it was the technique, not the equipment that made it function properly.

He toyed with the idea for some time. The desire to go and see for himself, however, was not greater than his aversion to space travel. Cal had an honest dislike, he had tried space travel three times when business demanded it. He'd hated it all three times.

But there it was—and there it stayed. The whole affair peaked and then died into a stasis. Murdoch's Hoard was something that Cal Blair would eventually look into—some day.

The one thing that bothered him was his hiding-out. He hated that. But he remained under cover until Tinker Elliott returned and then he sought her advice. She made a date to meet him at a nearby refreshment place later that afternoon.

The major-domo came up with a cheerful smile as Cal sauntered into the chromium-and-crimson establishment. "At your service," greeted the major-domo.

"I'm meeting a friend."

"A table will be reserved. Meanwhile, will you avail yourself of our service in the bar?"

Cal nodded and entered the bar. He climbed up on a tall bar stool and took cigarettes from his pocket. The bartender came over immediately. "Your service?"

"Palan and ginger," said Cal. He was still working on the dregs of his first glass when Tinker came up behind him and seated herself on the stool beside.

"Hi, Tink," he smiled.

"Hello. What are you drinking?"

"Palan and ginger."

"Me too," she said to the bartender. "Cal, you are a queer duck. Your favorite liquors come from Venus and Mars. You seem to thrive on those foul-tasting lichens from Titan as appetizers. You gorge yourself on Callistan loganberry, and your most-ordered dinner is knolla. Yet you hate space travel."

"Sure," he grinned. "I know it. After all, there's nothing that says that I have to go and get it. Four hundred years ago, Tink, there were people who ate all manner of foods that they never saw in the growing stage. And a lot of people lived and died without ever seeing certain of their meat animals."

"I know. Gosh. They used to kill animals for meat back then. Imagine!"

Cal looked sour-faced, and silence ensued for a moment. Then Tinker's face took on a self-horror.

"Hey. That look isn't natural. What's up?"

"Order me a big, powerful, hardy, pick-me-up," said Tinker. "And I'll tell you—if you really want to know."

"I do and I will," said Cal, wonderingly. He ordered straight palan which Tinker took neat, coughed, and then brightened somewhat.

"Now?" asked Cal.

"Better order another one for you," said Tinker. "Anyway, we had one of those jobs last night."

"What jobs?"

"An almost-incurable."

"Oh," said Cal with a shiver. He ordered two more straight drinks, in preparation. "Go ahead and tell, Tink. You won't be free of it until you spill it."

"It was a last resort case and everybody knew it. Even the patient—that's what made it so tough. It's distasteful enough to consider a duplicate when you're well. But to be lying on the brink and then know that they're going to make a duplicate of you for experimental surgery—I can't begin to tell. The patient took it, though.

"And even that wouldn't be too bad. We made our duplicates and went to work on one immediately. We operated, located the trouble and corrected it. The third duplicate lived. Then we operated on the patient successfully. I didn't mind the first two dupes, Cal. It was the disposing of the cured duplicate that got me. It was like ... no, it was disposing of an identity." Tink shuddered, and then drained her second shot of palan simultaneously with Cal.

"And you wonder why I dislike medicine," he said flatly.

"I know—or try to. But look, Cal. Aside from the distaste, look at what medicine has been able to accomplish."

"Sure," he said without enthusiasm.

"Well, it has."

"But at what a cost."

"Cost? Very little cost," snapped Tinker. "After all, once one has the stomach to dispose of a duplicate, what is the cost? Doctors bury their mistakes just as always, but the mistake is a duplicate. The sentience remains."

"How can you tell the real article from the duplicate?"

"We keep track."