George O. Smith

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ How do I know right now that you are not Benj?"
Cal recoiled as though he had been struck.
"You're Cal, I know. That distaste was not acting. It was too quick and too good, Cal. But can you see what would happen? What is a dupe's lot?"
Cal nodded slowly. "He's scorned, taunted, and hated. He cannot masquerade too well—that in itself is a loss in identity. Yes—it is a matter of mercy to dispose of the duplicate. The whole thing is wrong. Can't something be done about it?"
"Not until you change human nature," smiled Tinker. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 emerged a moment later with a crooked smile. "All I had to do was to hitch up Cal's original junk. The detector is running as it always was, but now I can shoot forth a signal from Cal's equipment, stop it, and receive on my own detector. We had a fistful of duplicate Keys around the lab. We can't follow Murdoch's Hoard, but we can follow Cal—who is on the trail of Murdoch's Hoard."
He snapped a switch, and a thrumming whine came immediately. "That will be Cal's response," said Benj cheerfully. "No matter how he tries, he'll lead us to the spot." ”

“ Things that we cannot do today. Get it, Cal. It'll tell you how to fix this crushed spinal cord."
Cal knew she was right. Murdoch, in his illegal surgery had advanced a thousand years beyond his fellow surgeons who could legally work on nothing but cadavers or live primates while Murdoch had worked on the delicate nervous system of mankind itself. Murdoch's Hoard was a board of information—invaluable to the finder and completely unique and non-duplicative. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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."
"I know that. What I mean is this: A man is born, lives thirty years as an identity. ”

“ And while Cal slept, Benj dropped his flier on the edge of the fog country and waited. The detectors were installed and operating, and the black flier was all ready to surge forward on the trail as soon as Cal's initial signal went forth. Having had more experience in this sort of thing, Benj knew how to go about it. He'd not follow the trail of Cal's signal, but would turn and follow the answering, sympathetic oscillation from the resonant cavity at Murdoch's Hoard. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You deserve to lose your identity."
"I've still got Cal's."
"Make a million of you," she taunted, "and they'll still be rotten."
"Well, be that as it may. You and I are going to go to Venus. Murdoch's Hoard is still hidden in the Vilanortis Country. We have detectors. We'll just go and sit on the edge of the fog country and wait until we hear Cal's signal."
"How do you know he's going?"
"Assuming that Tinker Elliott could get more out of him than any other person, it means that he said 'no' and is now preparing to make the jaunt himself. ”

“ The ship won't fly. I'll have to radio back to Northern Landing for help."
"I ... won't last."
"You—" the meaning hit him then. "You won't last?"
"Not unless that vertebra is repaired."
"Then what can we do?"
"Cal ... where's Murdoch's Hoard?"
"Nearby, but you're more important than anything that might be in Murdoch's Hoard."
"No, Cal. No."
"Look, Tink, you mean more to me than—"
"I know that, Cal. But don't you see?"
"See what?"
"What could possibly be of value?"
"No. Nothing that I have any knowledge of."
"That's it! Knowledge! All of the advanced work in neurosurgery is there. ”