Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me unto dust again?
-- The Book of Job
Duplicity ... on Wednesday, Tuesday's first gray protests the unfairness of life ...
My first clear realization, as I awake, is not about the cramped tube where I find myself confined. I've been ambushed, snared, boxed, and crated so many times, I hardly notice anymore. No, my first thought is that I should not have been sleeping. I'm a ditto, after all. With just a ticking enzyme clock, I don't have time for frivolities.
Then it comes rushing back --
I was hurrying along a ragged hedge in an old-fashioned suburban enclave, created for Aeneas Kaolin's servants. Stepping over a bike, I wondered -- where did Maharal's ghost hurry off to? Why did the inventor's final golem run off, instead of helping solve its maker's killing?
I hastened around the hedge, only to find -- ditMaharal! The gray stood there, smiling, aiming a weapon with a flared nozzle ...
The memory's distressing. Worse, I have a weird impression that more than a little time passed since. Hours. More than I can afford.
It's a good thing I pay to give my ditto blanks phobia blocks, or I'd be having fits right now, pinned inside a narrow cylinder, pickled in a syrup of oily sustaino-fluid. All right, Albert ... ditAlbert ... quit banging the walls. You'll never break out of here by force. Concentrate!
I remember hurrying to catch up with Maharal's ghost, rounding the corner of a tall hedge, only to find my quarry had turned, pointing spray gun at my face. I plunged into a diving tackle, hoping fresh reflexes would prove quicker than his day-old body.
It must not have worked.
How long have I been out? I send a time query to my tracker pellet and the response is a sharp pain -- someone must have ripped it from my brow. A throbbing hole gapes when I wriggle up a hand to poke the wound.
In countries with strict laws, pellet removal automatically kills the ditto. In PEZ, the old precautions faded till there's just a cheap transponder and data chip. I can live without it. But my archie will have a hard time retrieving his lost property, which is why bad guys dig the pellets out.
Did they also think to remove the rest of my implants? I can't tell if my auto-recorder is still running. For all I know, this subvocal narration may be futile, words vanishing into entropy, like my thoughts. But I can't stop compulsively reciting. It's built in to keep doing it till this pathetic clay brain dissolves.
Wait. Most sustaino-tanks come equipped with a little window, so owners can view their assets. All I see right now is blank metal, but there's light coming from somewhere.
Behind me. Pressing both palms against the tank's inner wall, I rotate slowly ... and there it is. Beyond a thick sheet of glass, I see a room that resembles some mad scientist's laboratory.
Mine isn't the only preservation cylinder. Dozens lean haphazardly on rough, stony walls. Beyond, I see storage freezers for raw blanks, several imprinting units, and a large kiln for baking fresh duplicates. Every piece of equipment bears the same logo -- a U followed by a K, each letter enclosed by its own circle. Side by side, they blend into something like the symbol for infinity. All over the world, it stands for quality. The genuine article. Kosher. The real McCoy.
Could I be inside the gleaming headquarters of Universal Kilns? Something about the stark rock wall says no. High-bandwidth superconducting cables lay haphazardly draped across cluttered work benches. Shabby dust layers show that no contract janitorial service sends striped golems to clean here. Wherever "here" is.
At a guess, I'd say the loyal Dr. Maharal was pilfering office supplies, and possibly a lot more, before his demise.
Beyond the normal run of dittoing equipment, several machines look unfamiliar, with the open-scaffold look of prototypes. One array of high-pressure tanks and nozzles had been hissing and fuming, obscured in multicolored fog till a few seconds ago, before reaching a climax and abruptly falling silent.
A horizontal panel swings back and clouds of vapor spill away from a naked figure, lying on a cushioned platform -- with that fresh, doughy look that you always have when emerging from the kiln. The features are those of Yosil Maharal, resembling the corpse I saw at Kaolin Manor, though hairless and metallic gray, flushed with glimmering reddish undertones.
A sudden jerk and gasp; it starts to breathe, sucking air to feed the catalysis cells. Eyes snap open, dark, without pupils. They turn, as if sensing my gaze.
There is a coldness in their regard. Icy, with an agony. That is, if you can read anything in a ditto's eyes.
Sitting up and swiveling to plant both feet on the floor, Maharal's golem starts toward me. Limping. The same uneven gait I once attributed to some recent injury. But that was a different copy. It had to be. This ditto is new. Its uneven gait must have some other explanation. Habit, perhaps.
New? How could it be new? Maharal is dead! There's no template to copy anymore. No soul to lay its impression into clay. Unless he happened to have a few imprinted spares, stored in a fridge. But the machine this creature just stepped out of doesn't look like any fridge or kiln I ever saw.
Even before he speaks, I wonder -- Am I looking at some kind of technological marvel? A breakthrough? Project Zoroaster?
Still naked, ditMaharal peers through the small window of my container, as if inspecting a valuable acquisition.
"You appear to be managing well enough." The words enter via a small diaphragm, vibrating the greasy fluid within. "I hope you're comfortable, Albert."
How can I answer? I shrug helplessly.
"There is a speaking tube," the gray golem explains. "Below the window."
I glance down, groping, and find it. A flexible hose with a mask to fit over the nose and mouth. As soon as I strap it on, suction begins, flushing my throat with water, then air, provoking spasmodic coughing fits. Still, it's a relief to start breathing again. How long has it been?
It also means the enzyme clock resumes ticking.
"So" -- coughing again -- "so your other gray took a spare out of the fridge and told you who I am before it expired. Big deal."
The Maharal-duplicate grins.
"I did not need to be told. I am that same gray. The one who spoke to your archetype Tuesday morning. The one who stood by my own corpse at noon. The same 'ghost' who shot you Tuesday afternoon."
How can that be? Then I remember the strange-looking machine. Looking again at the blotches that flicker under a complexion that rather glows as if new ... I think I get it.
"Ditto-rejuvenation. Is that what it's all about?" After a brief pause, I add, "And Universal Kilns wants to suppress your discovery in order to keep up sales." ditMaharal's smile hardens.
"A good guess. If only that were all. There would be disruptions. Economic ramifications. But nothing that society couldn't handle."
Thinking hard, I try to grasp what he's implying.
Something more serious than economic disruption? "How ... how long can a ditto go on acquiring new memories before it gets hard to inload?"
My captor nods.
"The answer depends on the original imprinting personality. But you are on the right track. With enough time, a golem's soul-field starts to drift, transforming into something new."
"A new person," I murmur. "Plenty of folks may worry about that." ditMaharal is watching me, as if evaluating my reactions. But evaluating for what?
Pondering my present state, I'm struck only by a calm acceptance.
"You've put something in the sustainofluid. A sedative?"
"A relaxing agent. We have tasks ahead of us, you and I. It won't be helpful for you to get upset. You tend to get unpredictable when agitated."
Huh. Clara says the very same thing about me. I'll take it from her, but not from this clown. Sedative or no, I'll get "agitated" whenever I darn well please.
"You talk as if we've done this before."
"Oh yes. Not that you'd remember. The first time we met was long ago and not in this lab. All the other times ... I disposed of the memories."
How can I react to such news, except by staring? This implies I'm not the first Albert Morris that Maharal has ditnapped. He must have snared several other copies -- some of those who mysteriously vanished over the years -- and trashed them when he was done ...
... when he was done doing what? The usual perversions don't seem Maharal's style.
I hazard a guess. "Experiments. You've been grabbing my dits and experimenting on them. But why? Why me?"
Maharal's eyes are glassy. I can see my own gray face reflected in them.
"Many reasons. One is your profession. You regularly lose high-quality golems without worrying much about it. As long as your mission goes well -- villains are caught and the client pays -- you write off a few unexplained losses here and there as part of the job. You don't even report them for insurance."
"But -- "
"Of course there's more."
He says it in such a way, one that's both knowing and tired of repetition, as if he's given me the same explanation many times before. It's a notion I find chilling.
Silence stretches. Is he waiting? Testing me? Am I supposed to figure out something, just from evidence before my eyes?
The initial flush of kiln-baking has faded. He stands before me in standard gray tones, looking moderately fresh ... but not entirely. Some of those under-the-skin blotches haven't gone away. Whatever process he uses to restore élan vital must be uneven. Imperfect, like a film doyenne with her latest face-lift. Underneath are signs of irreversible wear and tear.
"There ... must be a limit. A limit to the number of times you can refresh the cells."
He nods.
"It has always been a mistake to seek salvation solely through continuity of the body. Even the ancients knew this, back when a human spirit had just one home.
"Even they knew -- perpetuity is carried not by the body but by the soul."
Despite a vatic tone, I could tell he meant this in a technological as well as a spiritual sense. "Carried by the soul ... You mean from one body to another." I blinked. "From a ditto to some body other than its original?"
It sinks in. "Then you've made another breakthrough. Something even bigger than extending a golem's expiration deadline."
"Go on," he says.
I'm reluctant to speak the words.
"You ... think you can go on indefinitely, without the real you."
A smile spreads across the steel gray face, showing pleasure at my guess, like a teacher gazing at a favorite pupil. Yet there is chilling harshness in his golem grin.
"Reality is a matter of opinion.
"I am the true Yosil Maharal."
Mime's the Word ... in which Tuesday's green gets yet another hue ...
This is my first chance to recite a report since I barely escaped that mess at Universal Kilns.
Talking into an old-fashioned autoscribe feels like a poor use of precious time, especially when I'm on the run. How much more convenient it is for Albert's special-model ditective grays -- outfitted with fancy subvocal recorders and built-in compulsions to describe everything they see or think, in realtime present tense! But I'm just a utility green, even after getting several dye jobs. A cheap knockoff. If there's to be an account of my miserable part in all this, I must do it the hard way.
Which brings up the prize question. An account for whom?
Not for realAlbert, my maker, who is surely dead. Or the cops, who would as soon dissect me as look at me. As for my gray brothers. Hell, it creeps me out just thinking about them.
So why bother reciting at all? Who will care?
I may be a frankie, but I can't stop picturing Clara, away fighting her war in the desert, unaware that her real lover has been fried by a missile. She deserves the modern consolation -- to hear about it from his ghost. That means me, since I'm the only ditto left. Even though I don't really feel like Albert Morris at all.
So here it is, dear Clara. A ghost-written letter to help you get past the first stage of grief. Poor Albert had his faults, but at least he cared. And he had a job.
I was there when it happened -- the "attack" on Universal Kilns, I mean. Standing on the factory floor not thirty yards away, staring in wonder as gray number two ran by, all blotchy and discolored from something horrid that was roiling his guts, preparing to burst. He sped on past, barely glancing at me, or at Pal's little ferret-ditto on my shoulder, though we had just gone through Hades to sneak inside and rescue him!
Ignoring our shouts, he searched frantically, then found what he was looking for -- a place to die without hurting anybody.
Well, anybody except that poor forklift driver, who never understood why a stranger suddenly wanted to burrow up his gloaca. And that was just the fellow's first rude surprise. The giant ditworker let out a bellow, then began expanding to several times his former size, like a distended balloon ... like some cartoon character blowing too hard on his own thumb. I thought the unlucky forklift was about to explode! Then we'd all be finished. Me for sure. Everyone in the factory. Universal Kilns. Maybe every ditto in the city?
(Imagine all the archies having to do everything for themselves! They'd know how, of course. But everyone is so used to being many -- living several lives in parallel. Being limited to just one at a time would drive folks nuts.)
Lucky for us, the hapless forklift stopped expanding at the last moment. Like a surprised blowfish, he stared about with goggle eyes, as if thinking, This was never in my contract. Then the soul-glow extinguished. The clay body shuddered, hardened, and went still.
Man, what a way to go.
There followed a maelstrom of chaos and clamoring alarms. Production machinery shut down. Worker-golems dropped every routine task and the vast factory thronged with emergency teams, converging to contain the damage. I saw displays of reckless courage -- or it would have been courage if the crews weren't expendable duplicates. Even so, it took valor to approach the bloated carcass. Faint sprays jetted from the leaking, distended body. Any ditto who brushed even a droplet fell in writhing agony.
But most of the poison was checked, held inside the massive, quivering forklift. As it started to slump and dissolve from within, purple-striped cleaners arrived with long hoses, spraying the area with anti-prion foam.
Company officials followed. No real humans yet, but lots of busy scientific grays in white coats, then some bright blue policedits and a silver-gold Public Safety proctor. Finally, a platinum duplicate of the UK chief himself, Vic Aeneas Kaolin, strode upon the scene demanding answers.
"Come on," Pallie's little ferret-self said from my shoulder. "Let's scram. You're orange right now, but the big guy still may recognize your face."
Despite that, I was tempted to stay and find out what just happened. Maybe help clear Albert's name. Anyway, what awaited me out there in the world? Ten hours of futile head-scratching, listening to the whining recriminations of Gadarene and Lum till my clock ran out and it was my own turn to melt away?
The foam still flowed, bubbling, hissing, and spreading across the factory floor. Imprinted survival instincts feel like the real thing, and I joined other onlookers backing away from the stuff. "All right," I sighed at last. "Let's get out of here."
I turned -- only to face several burly security types, liveried in pale orange with blue bands. And triple-size ersatz muscles that they flexed menacingly.
"Please come with us," one of them said with an augmented voice of authority, taking my arm in an adamant lock grip. Which I immediately took to be a good sign.
The "please" part, that is.
We were put inside a sealed van -- one with plain metal sides that stayed opaque, no matter how hard we stared, which Palloid thought rather rude.
"They could at least give us a view before they start dicing up our brains," groused the ferret with Pal's face, ingratiating himself with the guards in his typical fashion. "Hey, up front! How about letting a fellow consult with his lawyer-program, eh? You want to be held personally liable when I slap a mega-lien on your whole company for ditnapping? Are you aware of the recent ruling in ditAddison vs. Hughes? It's no longer an excuse for a golem to say he was 'just following orders.' Remember the Henchman Law. If you switch sides right now, you can help me sue your boss and go swimming in cash!"
Good old Pal, a charmer in whatever form he takes. Not that it mattered. Whether we were "under arrest" in a strictly legal sense was immaterial. As mere property -- and possible participants in industrial sabotage -- we weren't going to inspire any UK employees to turn whistle-blower over our abused rights.
At least the driver left my armrest entertainment-flasher turned on, so I asked for news. The space in front of me ballooned with holonet bubbles, most of them dealing with a "failed fanatical terrorist attack" at UK. They weren't very informative. Anyway, a short while later another item grabbed top billing as a banner globe erupted, crowding other holos aside.
NORTHSIDE AREA HOUSE DEMOLISHED
BY HOODOO MISSILE!
At first I didn't recognize the site of the blazing inferno. But news correlators soon added the address targeted by a clandestine murder rocket.
"Cripes," Pallie muttered near my ear. "That's tough, Albert."
It was home. Or the place where this body of mine got imprinted with memories, before getting set loose into a long, regrettable day. Damn, they even burned the garden, I thought, watching flames consume the structure and everything inside.
In one sense, it seemed a mercy. Leading rumor-nets had already begun naming Albert Morris as a chief suspect in the UK attack. He'd be in a real jam if he still lived. Poor guy. It was predictable, I guess, so long as he kept trying to act as a romantic, old-fashioned crusader against evil. Sooner or later he was going to irritate someone much bigger and stronger and get in real trouble. Whoever did all this was being devastatingly thorough.
Trouble didn't even begin to cover what I was in as the van pulled to a stop. The rear door started opening and Pal's raggedy little ferretdit prepared to spring. But the guards were vigilant and quick. One snatched Palloid's neck in a viselike grip. The other took me by an elbow, gently but with enough power to show how futile resistance would be.
We stepped out next to the unlit side portico of a big stone mansion, turning down a dim set of stairs partly hidden behind some truly outstanding chrysanthemums. I might have resisted the guard long enough to try and sniff the flowers, if I had a working nose. Ah well.
At the bottom, an open door led into a sort of lounge where half a dozen figures relaxed at tables and chairs, smoking, talking, and quaffing beverages. At first glance I thought they were real, since all wore varied shades of human-brown under durable cloth garments in rather old-fashioned styles. But an expert glance showed their fleshtones to be dye jobs. Their faces really gave them away -- bearing familiar expressions of resigned ennui. These were dittos at the end of a long work day, waiting patiently to expire.
Two of them sat before expensive interface screens, talking to computer-generated AI avatars with faces similar to their own. One was a small, childlike golem, wearing scuffed denim. I couldn't catch any of his words. But the other one, fashioned after a buxom woman with reddish hair, wearing ill-fitting matronly garb, spoke loudly enough to overhear as the guard pulled me along.
" ... with the divorce coming up, there are going to be a lot of changes," she told the onscreen face. "My part will get more complicated while stress-induced submotivations grow increasingly subtle. If we can't have better day-to-day continuity, I wish we could at least be given better data on the original misery indices. Especially since I have to start each day almost from scratch. Fortunately, the situation was so chaotic that consistency isn't much required, or even expected by the subject ... "
Her voice was pure professionalism, the words unrelated to any concern of mine. Albert Morris clearly wasn't the only skilled contract laborer hired for obscure projects by an eccentric trillionaire.
Our burly escorts took us to a door beyond the lounge/waiting room. A visible ray scanned their blue-striped foreheads and opened the portal, revealing a huge chamber divided by rows of heavy pillars to support the mansion overhead. We strode quickly through this concrete forest, glimpsing various laboratories on all sides. To my left, the equipment had to do with dittoing, as you'd expect -- freezers, imprinting units, kilns, and such, plus a few I didn't recognize. To my right lay the kind of gear involved in human biology and medicine -- almost a miniature real people hospital, augmented with the latest brain scanner/analyzers.
That is, I guessed they were the latest. Albert is -- or was -- an interested amateur who studiously read articles about the brain psychopathology of evildoers. A fascination that I, as a frankie, do not seem to share.
The guards escorted us to another waiting area, outside a sealed doorway. Through a narrow window I glimpsed an individual pacing nervously, barking sharp questions at somebody out of sight. The interrogator's skin was burnished-bright and expensive synthetic tendons bunched, almost like a man's. Few could afford bodies like that one, let alone to use them in bulk quantities. It was the second high-class Kaolin-ditto I had seen in an hour. He kept glancing at a nearby wall where multiple bubble displays floated and jostled, ballooning outward in reaction to his gaze, showing events in many time zones.
I noticed that the UK factory was prominent in several bubbles, revealing that emergency teams still moved about, but with less frantic urgency than before, having apparently succeeded at limiting the prion attack. I'd wager that production might resume before dawn, in remote sections of the factory.
Another bubbleview gazed down on the smoldering ruins of a small house -- Albert's home, and probably his crematorium. Alas.
"Come away from there, please," said one of my escorts, in a mild tone that implied a second warning would be less courteous. I left the window and joined Palloid, who lay on the slim mattress of a nearby hospital gurney. Pal's little ferret-golem was licking some wounds it received during our brief battle gaining entrance to Universal Kilns.
As realPal expected, the tunnels laboriously dug by fanatic protestor groups -- both Lum's and Gadarene's -- had already been discovered by someone. Hidden mechanical guardians, vigilant and much longer lasting than clay, pounced when we came through. But clay is versatile. And those robo-wardens never faced a squadron of attacking mini-Pals! By the time I followed close behind, the battle was mostly over. I found one Palloid standing amid shards of its ditto-comrades and melted fragments of the mechanical guards. His refractive fur smoldered and most of the tiny combat beetles it had carried were gone. But enemy sentinels were gone and our path stood clear for a dash into the factory proper, searching for my gray brother, before he was duped into committing a crime.
As it turned out, our warning came too late. Still, the gray must have realized something independently. His last-minute dive into the foul belly of a forklift was courageous and resourceful. At least, I hoped the authorities would see it that way. If they were shown the whole story.
Waiting in the underground anteroom, Pal's little golem soon piped up with a complaint.
"Hey! What does it take to get some meditcal attention around here? Anybody notice I'm damaged? How about a pretty nurse? Or a can of spackle and a putty knife?"
One guard stared at him, then muttered into a wrist mike. Soon an orange utility rox showed up, devoid of any features to show the sex of its original, and started applying varied sprays to Palloid's wounds. I, too, had suffered a burn or two skirmishing near the tunnels, but did you see me whining?
Minutes passed. A lot of them. I realized it must be Wednesday already. Great. Maybe I should have spent yesterday at the beach, after all.
While we waited, a messenger-dit came hurrying downstairs from the mansion proper, jogging on long legs, bearing a small Teflon container. Palloid wrinkled his wet nose, sneezing in distaste. "Whatever he's got in that box, it's been disinfected about fifty different ways," he commented. "Smells like a mix of alcohol, benzene, bacteena, and that foam stuff they were using back at UK."
The messenger knocked, then entered. I heard platinum Kaolin grind out, "Finally!" -- before we were left again to cool our heels, decaying with each passing minute. No sooner did the repair nurse finish patching Palloid than my little friend chirped again, demanding another favor.
"Hey, chum, how's about giving me a reader, eh? Gotta stay productive, right? My rig recently joined a book club. He wants to catch up on Moby-Dit for their next meeting. I might as well cover some chapters while we're sitting around."
The nerve of the guy! Suppose he actually got to read a few pages. Did he actually expect to inload anything to realPal? Yeah sure, I thought. As if you and I are ever leaving this place.
To my surprise, the guard shrugged and went to a cabinet, pulled out a battered net-plaque, and tossed it onto the gurney near Palloid. Soon the little golem was pawing his way through an online fiction index, searching for the latest best-seller about a seagoing golem so huge that its energy cells would take decades to run down ... a monsterdit imprinted with the tormented soul of a half-crazed savant who must then chase his dire creation as it runs amuck across the seven seas, smashing ships and denouncing its adamant pursuer for about a thousand pages. There's been a rash of stories and films like that lately, featuring dittos in conflict with their archetype originals. I hear this one's well written and full of arty existential angst. But Albert Morris never had a taste for high literature.
In fact, I was kind of surprised to learn that Pal had a weakness for that stuff. A book club, my ceramic ass! He was up to something.
"Come," one of our guards said, answering some hidden signal. "You're wanted now."
"And it's such an honor to be wanted," Pal quipped, always ready with a feel-good remark. Dropping the plaque, he scampered to my shoulder and I strode through the now-open door of the conference room.
A solemn Kaolin-golem awaited us. "Sit," he commanded. I plopped into the chair he indicated -- more plush than anything needed by my inexpensive tush. "I am very busy," the magnate's duplicate enounced. "I'll give you ten minutes to explain yourselves. Be exact."
No threats or inducements. No warnings not to lie. Sophisticated neural-net programs would be listening, almost certainly. Although such systems aren't intelligent (in any strict sense of the word), it takes concentration and luck to fool them. Albert had the skill, and I suppose that means I do, too. But sitting there, I lacked the inclination to try.
Anyway, the truth was entertaining enough. Pallie barged right in.
"I guess you could say it started on Monday, when two different groups of fanatics came to me, complaining that my friend here" -- a ferret-paw waved at me -- "was harassing them with late night visits ... "
He proceeded to jabber the whole story, including our suspicion that someone was contriving to frame the hapless fanatics -- Lum and Gadarene -- along with realAlbert, setting them all up to take the blame for this evening's sabotage at UK.
I couldn't fault Palloid's decision to cooperate and tell everything. The sooner investigators were steered onto the right track, the better -- one way to clear Albert's name, for whatever good that would do him. (I noticed that the little ferret artfully avoided naming his own rig. realPal was safe, for now.)
And yet, my clay brain roiled with misgivings. Kaolin himself wasn't above suspicion. Sure, I couldn't imagine why a trillionaire might sabotage his own company. But all sorts of twisty conspiracies can look plausible after a day like the one I just had. Wasn't it right here, at Kaolin Manor, that Tuesday's gray number one mysteriously vanished? Anyway, Kaolin was one of the few who possessed the means -- both technical and financial -- to pull off something so ornate and diabolical.
Foremost in my mind was this: Why aren't any cops present? This questioning should be handled by professionals.
It implied that Kaolin had something to hide. Even at risk of thwarting the law.
He could be in real trouble for this, I thought, if even a single real person was harmed by tonight's attack. True, the only people I saw getting damaged at UK were dittos ... The thought hung there, unfinished and unsatisfying.
"Well, well," our platinum host said after Pal's ferret-dit finished its amazing recital about late night visitors, religious fanatics, civil rights nuts, and secret tunnels. The Vic shook his head. "That's quite a tale."
"Thanks!" Palloid panted, wagging his rearmost appendage at the compliment. I almost hit him.
"I would normally find your story preposterous, of course. A tissue of blatant fantasies and obvious distractions." He paused. "On the other hand, it corresponds with additional information I received, a short time ago."
He motioned for the messenger, who had been standing patiently in a corner, to come forward. The yellow golem used disposable gloves to reach into his box and remove a tiny cylinder -- the smallest and simplest kind of unpowered audio archive -- slipping it into a playback unit on Kaolin's conference table. The sound that emerged wasn't one that our grandparents would have called a voice -- more like an undulating murmur of grunted clicks and half-tones. That turned into a warbling whine as the messenger dialed the playback unit to higher speed. And yet, I knew this language well. Every word came across perfectly clear.
I always hate getting up off the warming tray, grabbing paper garments from a rack ... knowing I'm the copy-for-a-day ...
Ugh. What got me in this mood? Maybe Ritu's news about her father. A reminder that real death still lurks for all.
... Some days you're a grasshopper. Some the ant.
Recognition went beyond hearing familiar rhythms and phrases. No, the very thoughts themselves struck me with a haunting sense of repetition. The person who had subvocalized this record began his parody of life just minutes before I started mine. Each of us commenced existence Tuesday morning thinking along similar lines, though I wasn't equipped with a gray's fancy features. Made of coarser stuff, I rapidly diverged across some strange boundary and soon realized I was a frankie. The first one Albert Morris ever made.
The fellow who recorded this diary was evidently more conventional. Another loyal Albert gray. Dedicated. A real pro. Clever enough to pierce the schemes of your regular, garden-variety evildoer.
But also predictable enough so that some truly devious mind could lay a fiendish trap.
... I'm in Studio Neo, passing classy establishments, offering services no one imagined before kiln tech appeared ...
Wait a sec.
It's the phone ... Pal ... Nell decides to pass the call on to my real self, but I listen in. He wants me to come over ...
"See?" the little ferret-golem on my shoulder jeered. "I tried to warn you, Albert!"
"I keep telling you, I'm not Albert." I grated.
We were both caught up in nervous irritation, listening to the super-rapid playback describe a fateful rendezvous.
Maestra's executive assistant ... She beckons me away from Wammaker's.
"Our meeting concerns sensitive topics ... "
We listened raptly as the "clients" -- one claiming to be the maestra herself -- explained their need for an untraceable investigator to nose around UK in a surreptitious yet legal manner, seeking clues to sequestered technologies. Just the sort of thing to tease Albert's vanity and curiosity! I found it especially artful how each of his new employers made certain to act irritating or unpleasant in different ways. Knowing my archetype, he'd overcompensate, not letting dislike influence his decision. He'd persevere. Suffer the insufferable out of sheer obstinacy. (Call it "professionalism.")
They were playing him like a fish.
Soon after came his adventure in the Rainbow Lounge, barely surviving a coincidental encounter with some golem-gladiators. An encounter that left him needing urgent repairs -- conveniently provided by the drones of Queen Irene's hive. The gray's present-tense recitation made you want to stand and shout at the warbling voice, demanding that he wake up and notice how he was being used!
Well, in hindsight it's easy to recognize a diabolical trick. (Would I have seen it under the same circumstances?)
But all sides made mistakes. The enemy -- whoever pulled this convoluted caper -- failed to notice gray Albert's hidden realtime recorder, tucked amid the nest of high-density soulfibers in his larynx. Not even when they had him laid out, unconscious, using the pretext of "repairs" to install a vicious prion bomb. No doubt they checked for more sophisticated communication and tracking devices, but the tiny archiver used no power source, just tiny throat-flexings to scratch audio at minuscule bit rates. An old-fashioned but virtually undetectable record-keeping system ... which is why Albert always installed it in his grays.
No wonder Kaolin's messenger took such precautions against touching the tiny spool! Though disinfected, it had been recovered from a yucky, prion-poisoned slurry on the UK factory floor -- the merged remnants of a hapless forklift and a doomed private ditective. The archive might still hold a few catalytic molecules lethal to beings like us, who lack true immune systems.
Still, it was one useful clue, sparkling amid the melted remains. Vital evidence. Perhaps enough to vindicate my late maker.
So why was Kaolin playing it back for us -- for Palloid and me -- instead of the police?
The high-pitched account soon took us to the best part of the gray's day -- skillfully evading the Omnipresent Urban Eye, fooling the legion of public and private cameras covering nearly every angle of the modern civic landscape. He'd have enjoyed that. But then, having obscured his path, he entered Universal Kilns.
Two items spit forth, a visitor's badge and a map ... I head for the down escalator ... dropping into a huge anthill beneath the corporate domes, looking for signs that Kaolin is illegally withholding scientific breakthroughs ...
All right, suppose UK solved how to transmit the Standing Wave across distances greater than a meter. Will there be clues a layman might recognize? ... Might UK executives already "beam" themselves all over the planet?
Palloid and I shared a glance. "Wow," the little golem muttered.
Could that be the breakthrough? Remote dittoing would shake up a way of life we've at last started getting used to, after all these rocky years.
We both turned to stare at ditKaolin. His reaction gave nothing away, but what about the first time he heard those words, just minutes ago? Did that platinum complexion flush with anger and dismay?
A vibration below ... giant machines mix organic clay, threading it with fibers tuned to vibrate rhythms of a plucked soul ... molding dolls that walk and talk ... and we take it all for granted ...
Damn. Something's bugging me. Think ... how could Universal Kilns conceal anything huge and ground-breaking?
Yes, evil thrives on secrecy. It's what drives Albert on. Expose villainy. Find truth. But is that what I'm doing now?
"Finally," I muttered, as the gray started asking the right questions. In fairness, he did express doubts earlier. But that made the transcription even more frustrating, listening as he forged ahead, despite all misgivings.
Maybe the gray was defective, like me -- a poor-quality copy made by an exhausted original. Not Albert at his best. On the other hand, he had been manipulated by experts. Maybe we never had a chance.
Some kind of gnat dodges a swat, darting toward my face. I use a surge-energy burst to grab ... crumpling it in my hand.
The mini-Pal dug his claws into my pseudoflesh.
"Dammit, Albert. I spent good money on them tiny drones." He glared those ferret eyes, as if the gray's obstinacy were somehow my fault. I might have reacted, sweeping him off my shoulder. But the recording was approaching its deadly climax.
It makes sense ... They'd maximize damage by delaying ignition ... either with a timer or by setting it to go off when I pass a second security scan ...
"Stop!" I cry --
From that point, the recitation turned into a rapid, jerky groan, much harder to make out, like words grunted by a hurried runner, or someone trying to concentrate on a desperate task.
Trying to save a lot more than his own measly life.
I spy a version of myself bearing a weasel-golem ... Looks like today's green found something better to do than clean toilets. Good for you, Green ...
That made me feel a bit ashamed, for sardonic things I thought about this gray. Could I have tried harder to save him? Might realAl be alive now, if we succeeded?
Regret seemed pointless, with my own clock rapidly ticking out. Why was Kaolin playing this tape for us? To taunt our failure?
The poor forklift writhes ... can't blame him, but it drives me deeper, holding my breath ... being consumed ...
Am I deep enough? Will the huge clay body contain --
The recital ended in a harsh squeal.
Palloid and I turned once again to watch the stolid, almost-human features of ditAeneas Kaolin, who regarded us for a long time while one of his hands trembled slightly. Finally, he spoke in a low voice that sounded more fatigued than a middle-aged golem ought to feel.
"So. Would you two like a chance to find the perverts who did all this?"
Pal's ditto and I shared a stare of blank surprise.
"You mean," I asked. "You mean you want to hire us?"
What, exactly, did Kaolin expect us to accomplish in the ten hours (or less) that we had left?
Glazed Buns ... as Albert discovers, realtime, how real it can get ...
The desert is a lot brighter than they portray in holocinema. Some say the glare can even penetrate your skull and affect the pineal gland -- that deeply buried "third eye" oldtime mystics used to call a direct link to the soul. Searing light is said to reveal hidden truths. Or else make you delirious enough to find cosmic meaning in stark simplicity. No wonder deserts are the traditional abode of wild-eyed ascetics, seeking the face of God.
I wouldn't mind running into an ascetic, right about now.
I'd ask to borrow his phone.
Is this thing working? I spent the last couple of hours messing with a tiny, muscle-powered sound archiver, testing it by reciting an account of what happened last night. First I had to dig it out of the gray golem I had stored in back of my wrecked Volvo. A gruesome chore, but the ditto was spoiled anyway, along with every bit of electronics in the car, when that platinum Kaolin fired a strange weapon at us on the road.
A subvocal archiver doesn't need electricity -- one reason I install them in my grays, scribing microscopic spirals onto a cylinder of neutral-density dolomite. I can't recite in high-speed grunt code, like I do when I'm clay. Still, the little unit should pick up ambient sound, like a spoken voice, while wedged under the skin behind my jaw. Small twitches can provide power. Ritu will think it's a nervous tic, after all we've been through.
She left our cave -- a sheltered cleft amid boulders -- to drink from a little canyon pool we found. Even dittos need water out here, unless you want to be baked into dinnerware. It gives me an excuse for my own trips to the pool. I'm real, after all. The mark of Adam is on me, covered by makeup and clothing.
Why keep feigning artificiality? As a kindness. Ritu's golem hasn't much chance of getting home to inload. As if her rig would want these memories. I, on the other hand, face pretty good odds of getting out of here. Wait till nightfall, then hoof west by moonlight till I reach a road, a house, or some eco group's webcam. Anything to shout an SOS into. Civilization is simply too big to miss nowadays, and a healthy organic body can endure lots, if you don't do anything stupid.
Suppose I do reach a phone. Should I use it? Right now my enemy -- Vic Kaolin? -- must think I'm dead. True-dead from that missile strike against my home. And now all my dittos too. A lot of effort to deny Albert Morris any continuity. Reappearing would only draw attention again.
I need information first. A plan.
And better keep away from the cops, too. Till I can prove I was set up. A little extra suffering -- a cross-desert march avoiding cameras all the way -- could be worthwhile if it lets me sneak into town undetected.
Am I up to it? Oh, I've withstood a thousand injuries that would've finished any of my ancestors -- from incinerations to smotherings to decapitations. I've died more times than I can count. But a modern person never does any of that in organic form! The real body is for exercise, not anguish.
My tough old twentieth-century grandpa threw his body -- his only life -- off a bridge one time at the end of an elastic band. He suffered unbelievable torment in primitive dental offices. He traveled every day on highways without guidebeams, trusting his entire existence to the uncertain driving skills of total strangers whipping past him in crude vehicles fueled by liquid explosives.
Grampa might've shrugged at this challenge, walking all the way from a desert ravine to the city, without complaint. I'll probably whimper when a pebble gets in my shoe. Still, I'm determined to try. Tonight, after Ritu's golem passes on to where hopeless golems go.
I'll keep her company till then.
She's coming back, so no more reciting. Anything else that gets recorded will have to be picked up from conversation.
"Albert, you're back. Did you salvage anything from the car?"
"Not much. Everything's fried, my forensic gear, radio, and locators ... I figure nobody knows we're here."
"Do you have any idea how we got here?"
"A wild guess. That weapon ditKaolin fired, it killed every bit of electronics and must have been meant to scramble imprinted clay."
"Then why are we still walking about?"
"That old Volvo has more metal than most cars today. We were better sheltered than the poor gray stored in back. Also, I surprised Kaolin by charging right at him, spoiling his aim. That may be why we only blacked out."
"But after! How did we get to the bottom of this gully, surrounded by miles of cactus and scrub. Where's the road?"
"Good question. This time I spotted something at the wreck we didn't notice before, a puddle near the driver's door."
"Puddle?"
"Golem slurry. Remains of our would-be assassin, I guess."
"I ... still can't believe it's Aeneas. Why would he want us dead?"
"I'm curious about that too. But here's the interesting part, Ritu. The puddle looked too small -- about half-sized!"
"Half ... he must have been torn in two when you smashed into him. But how did the remnants get way out here?"
"My guess? Though ripped apart by the collision, Kaolin must have dragged what was left of himself to the car, climbing to my half-open window. We were knocked out, inside. The engine was running but the doors and the windows frozen. He couldn't squeeze through to finish us with his bare hands. So -- "
"So he reached in to grab your side-stick controller ... the throttle and steering lever ... piloting us offroad, across open desert, with his half-body dangling all the way."
"He had to get us under cover, so we wouldn't be spotted and rescued. Somewhere surrounded by hot country no ditto can cross by day. We'd be trapped if we did waken. Then, his mission accomplished, ditKaolin ended his torment by dropping off and melting."
"But what's to stop us from walking out after dusk? Oh. Right. Expiration. What time on Tuesday were you imprinted, Albert?"
"Um ... earlier than you, I expect. Kaolin had reason to think we can't last beyond midnight. He saw us both at your house, remember?"
"Are you sure that was the same Aeneas-copy who shot us?"
"Does it matter?"
"Perhaps. If this one was made up to look like him."
"Possible. But those anatomically correct platinums are expensive and hard to manufacture in secret. Put it this way, Ritu. If you had a working phone, is Kaolin the first guy you'd call?"
"I ... guess not. Still, if we had some idea why -- "
"I bet it connects with all the other weird stuff that happened yesterday. Your father's fatal 'accident' not far from here. The disappearance of his ghost at Kaolin Manor, along with one of my grays. Kaolin may have thought Maharal's ghost and my gray were in cahoots."
"In what?"
"Then there was the attack on UK. Another of my dittos was involved somehow, according to the scandal channel. Sounds like something set up to discredit me."
"So everything's about you? Is that a bit solipsistic?"
"There's nothing solipsistic about my house getting blown up, Ritu."
"Oh, right. Your archie. Your real ... I forgot."
"Never mind."
"How can I? You're a ghost now. Terrible. And I got you into all this."
"You had no way of knowing -- "
"Still, I wish there were something I could do."
"Forget it. Anyway, we can't settle a mystery, stuck here in the desert."
"And that bothers you, Albert. Beyond knowing your life's ended. Beyond the injustice, I sense frustration -- wishing to solve one more riddle."
"Well, I am a detective. Learning the truth -- "
"It drives you, even now?"
"Especially now."
"Then ... I envy you."
"Me! Your rig lives on. She's in no apparent danger. Kaolin seemed a lot more interested in -- "
"No, Albert. What I envy is your passion. The focus, purpose. I've admired it for some time."
"I don't know if it's so -- "
"Really. I imagine it adds a special sting to dying -- to being a ghost -- never knowing why it happened."
"Never is a strong word. I can hope."
"There you go, Albert! Optimistic, even after death. Hoping some plane or satellite will notice that SOS of shredded seat fabric you laid out on the sand. At least it would let you tell everything to the next detective."
"Something like that."
"Even now that the sun is going down, with no rescue copters in sight?"
"A character flaw, I guess."
"A splendid one. I wish I had it."
"You'll continue, Ritu."
"Yes, tomorrow there'll be a Ritu Maharal and no Albert Morris. I know I should be more sensitive saying it -- "
"That's all right."
"Can I tell you something, Albert? A secret?"
"Well, Ritu, confiding in me may not be the best -- "
"The truth is -- I always had trouble with dittos. Mine often head off in ways I don't expect. I didn't want to make this one."
"Sorry."
"And now, to face death out in the desert. Even if it's just one of us who -- "
"Can we discuss something other than imminent extinction, Ritu?"
"Sorry, Albert. I keep compulsively returning to the same insensitive topic. What would you like to talk about?"
"How about the work your father was doing, before he died."
"Albert ... your contract excludes you from enquiring into that subject."
"That was then."
"I see your point. Anyway, who could you tell? All right. For years Aeneas Kaolin nagged Father to work on one of the hardest questions in soulistics -- the non-homologous imprinting problem."
"The what?"
"Transferring a golem's Standing Wave -- its remembrance and experience -- into a repository other than the human original who made it."
"You mean dumping a day's memory into somebody else?"
"Don't laugh. It's been done. Take a hundred pairs of identical twins. Five or so can swap partial memories by exchanging dittos. Most get brutal headaches and disorientation, but a few can do perfect inloads! By using golem intermediaries to share all their life memories, the siblings become, in effect, one person with two organic bodies, two real lifespans plus all the parallel copies they want."
"I heard of that. I thought it was a fluke."
"No one's eager for publicity. The potential for disruption -- "
"Your father was trying to make it possible between non-twins? People who aren't related? Egad."
"Don't be too surprised. The notion's been around since dittoing began, inspiring countless bad novels and movieds."
"There are so many, by amateurs and metastudios. I don't try to keep up."
"That's because you've got work. A real job. But the arts are all some people have."
"Um, Ritu? What does this have to do with -- "
"Bear with me. Did you see the parasensie called Twisted? It was a big phenom, a few years ago."
"Someone made me sit through most of it."
"Remember how the villains went around snatching the dittos of important scientists and officials -- "
"Because they had a way to inload memories into a computer. Cute notion for a spy thriller, if impossible. Transistor versus neuron. Math versus metaphor. Didn't someone prove the two worlds can never meet?"
"Bevvisov and Leow showed we're analog beings. Physical, not software bits and bytes. But souls can still be copied, like anything else."
"Didn't your father study under Bevvisov?"
"Their team first imprinted a Standing Wave into a doll at Kaolin Klaynamation. And yes, the plot gimmick in Twisted was dumb. A computer the size of Florida couldn't absorb a human soul."
"I don't think every story about other-inloading involves computers."
"True. In some dramas they ditnap a golem and dump its memories into a volunteer, to extract secrets. Sometimes the inloaded personality takes over! A scary notion that can really get to an audience. But seriously, what might actually happen if we learn to swap memories between people, erasing the boundary between human souls?"
Subvocal note to self. Watching Ritu speak, I realize -- she's making light conversation, but her speech rhythms indicate high degrees of stress, carried realistically in the gray. The topic concerns her deeply.
If only I had some of my analytical gear while this is going on!
"Well, Ritu. If people could swap memories, men and women wouldn't be such enigmas to each other anymore. We'd understand the opposite sex."
"Hm. That could have drawbacks. Think how the sexual tension contributes to the spice of ... oh!"
"What is it?"
"Albert, look at the horizon!"
"Sunset, yah. Pretty."
"I forgot how special this time of day is, in the desert."
"Some of that orange radiance comes from SWETAP. I guess we're going to have to get used to drinking water that glows ... Hey, are you getting cold? We could generate heat by walking. It's safe now."
"To what purpose? You were made before sunset yesterday, remember? Better save what little élan you have left. Unless you can think of something better to do with it."
"Well ... "
"Let's sit close and share heat."
"All right. Is that better? Um ... you seemed to be saying that all these bad movieds had something to do with your father's final project."
"In a sense. Holo-story plots always focus on the most stupid ways that technology can be abused. But Father had to consider every scenario. Other-inloading has serious moral implications. And yet -- "
"Yes?"
"For some reason, I felt that my father already knew a lot about the subject. More than he was letting on."
"Go on, Ritu."
"Are you sure you want me to? Does it matter, with the end rushing closer every minute? One more thing I always found creepy about dittoing. The ticking clock -- far better to find some distraction before the final melting away."
"Distraction. Okay. How would you like to spend the remaining time, Ritu?"
"I ... well ... What's your personal philosophy about banging pots?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Clay play. Kneading slip. Do I have to spell it out, Albert?"
"Oh ... dittosex. Ritu, you surprise me."
"Because I'm being forward? Unladylike? We don't have time to be demure, Albert. Or do you follow some neocelibate creed?"
"No, but -- "
"Most of the men I know -- and lots of women -- subscribed to Playdit or Claymate Monthly in their tweens, getting that plain-wrapped package once a week containing an imprinted 'expert.' Even when they're older -- "
"Ritu, I have a steady girlfriend."
"Yes, I read your profile. A warrior. Impressive. Have you exchanged total vows, or partial?"
"Clara's no prude. We reserve true-true contact for each other -- "
"That's sweet. And prudent. But you haven't answered my question."
"Dittosex. Yeah, well. A lot depends on whether you inload."
"Which neither of us seems likely to do tonight."
"I see your point."
"About distraction. I mean, what's the point of inhibition when the world will end in an hour or so. Whatever life can be salvaged -- "
"All right! I concede the point. Come here already."
" ... "
" ... "
"Oh my."
" ... What?"
"Albert, you spend extra on your grays!"
"You do, too."
"UK offers supertactile enhancement on employee discount -- that's nice ... "
"Yeah. Let's -- "
"Uh, wait, there's a rock under me ... There. Better. Now, give me your weight. Feel good, Albert. Forget everything."
"All right. It's so ... "
" ... so real. Almost as if ... "
" ... as if ... Ah ... ch-phlwef!"
"What was that? Did you just ... sneeze?"
"I thought you did. I mean the dust ... "
"You did! You're real, dammit! I can tell!"
"Ritu, let me explain -- "
"Get off, you bastard."
"Sure. But ... what's this dye rubbing off your neck?"
"Shut up."
"And the contacts in your eyes have slipped. I thought your texture was too perfect. You're real, too!"
"I thought you were dead. A ghost, about to melt away. I was trying to console you."
"I was consoling you! What was all that talk about needing distraction?"
"I was talking about you, idiot."
"It sounded like you were talking about yourself."
"A likely excuse."
"Hey! Do you think I'd have touched you if I knew? I said, Clara and I -- "
"Damn you."
"For what? We both lied, okay? I'll tell you my reason for coming disguised, if you tell me yours. Deal?"
"Go to hell!"
"Aren't you glad I wasn't in my house when that missile hit? You'd rather I were dead?"
"Of course not. It's just -- "
"I could have started walking hours ago. I stayed to -- "
"Take advantage!"
"Ritu, each of us thought -- aw, what's the point?"
"Damn right!"
" ... "
" ... "
"What?"
" ... What?"
"Did you just mutter something?"
"No! That is ... "
"Yes?"
"I only said it was ... real nice ... while it lasted."
"Yeah ... it was. Oh, now what are you laughing at?"
"I was just picturing us, lying here afterward, feeling pleased having 'consoled' each other ... then waiting for the other one to start melting. Then waiting some more ... "
"Heh. That is kind of funny. It's kind of too bad we found out so soon."
"Yes. But, Albert?"
"Yes, Ritu?"
"I really am glad you're alive."
"Thanks. That's sweet to say."
"So, now what?"
"Now? I guess we start walking. Get a plastic jug from the car, fill it from the pool, and head west."
"Back to town. Are you sure you don't mean southeast?"
"Southeast?"
"To my father's cabin."
"Urraca Mesa. I don't know, Ritu. I'm in big trouble back home."
"And you have lots to figure out before trying to solve it. The cabin is private, with shielded net-links. You could send out feelers, find out what's going on before you emerge to confront Aeneas ... or whoever's behind all this."
"I see your point. Can we make it there on foot?"
"There's one way to find out."
"Well ... "
"And we'll pass near the battle range. Was that why you came in person, instead of sending a ditto?"
"Am I that obvious, Ritu?"
"I'm realistic enough to tell -- and be envious -- when someone is in love."
"Well, Clara and I ... we're both shy about commitment. But -- "
"All right, then. Let's make your soldier-lass our goal. It's getting dark, but the moon is up and I've got a light-amplifier in my left eye."
"Me too."
"We can do it at a jog. Our ancestors crossed this desert long ago. Anything they could do, we can do, right?"
"If you say so, Ritu. In my experience, people can talk themselves into just about anything."
Psycho-Ceramic ... Tuesday's surviving gray makes an impression ...
I never imagined that being a mad scientist's experimental guinea pig could be so interesting.
It's been about ten hours since my protein clock starting running down, triggering the salmon reflex ... that familiar urge to swim or run or fly back home, overcoming any obstacle to spill memories from this mini-life into the copious storage of a real human brain. But that nagging reflex soon fell away. Every golem-reflex that was pressed into my pseudoflesh, back at the factory, has been worn down by a physical and spiritual pummeling.
"You'll get used to the renewal treatments," ditMaharal explained after putting me through torments of steam, hot jets, and tingling rays, leaving torso and limbs all puffy, quivering like those first moments when you slide out of the kiln.
"It only hurts the first few times," he said.
"How often can you do this, before -- "
"Before inevitable wear and tear makes it futile? Clay is still far less enduring than flesh. This prototype apparatus has done up to thirty renewals. My old team at Universal may have pushed that higher by now. If Aeneas hasn't terminated the project -- which seems rather likely at this point."
Thirty renewals, I pondered.
Thirty times the normal ditto span. A pittance next to the many tens of thousands of days you feel entitled to in a modern, multibranched life. But with fresh élan surging through my clay body, I answered Maharal frankly.
"You'd have my thanks, if this weren't just your way of extending my captivity."
"Oh come, now. Where there's continuity, there is hope. Just think of it -- thirty days, to hope and scheme for escape!"
"Maybe. But you say I've been here before. Ditnapped and experimented on. Did any of those other Alberts escape?"
"As a matter of fact, three found clever ways to get away. One was stopped by my dogs, just outside. Another melted crossing the desert. And one actually made it to a phone! But you had already zeroed out the poor ditto's credit code, after it was missing for a week. My robotic hunter caught up before it managed to format a message through one of the free-nets."
"I'll be sure and leave the codes active much longer in the future."
"Always the optimist!" Maharal laughed. "I told you about those others in order to show the futility of escape. I fixed the security flaws you exploited those times."
"I'll have to come up with something original, then."
"I also know how you think, Albert. I've studied you for years."
"Yeah? Then why am I here, ditYosil? Something about me bugs the hell out of you. Something you need, is that it?"
He looked at me, trapped immobile in his stony laboratory-catacomb, and I swear his golem eyes seemed to glint with a look that lay somewhere between avarice and fear. "I am getting close," he says. "Very close."
"You had better be," I answered. "Even restorative technology can't keep you going forever without a real body. I hold the key, don't I? Some kind of secret that will solve your problem. But I'll wear out too, in a matter of days.
"You're in a race against time.
"Then there's Aeneas Kaolin. He was awfully anxious to see you taken to the lab for dissection, Tuesday morning. Why? Does he suspect you've stolen equipment and set up your own clandestine lab, using it to cheat death?"
Maharal's tense expression turned haughty.
"You are clever, as usual, Albert," he replied. "But always there's something missing from your sharp guesswork. You never quite catch onto the truth, even when I lay it all in front of you."
How do you answer when a body says something like that to you? When another person claims to know what you will do even better than you do? Because he remembers many past episodes like this one, tense encounters that you don't recall?
Having no answer, I lapsed silent. Renewal had given me some time, so I bided it.
He pulled a switch and the containment vessel quickly flushed clear of sustaino-fluid, then split open. While my body still quivered, regaining full levels of catalysis, he slipped powered manacles over my wrists and ankles. Using a controller, he used them to force me, marionettelike, onto a machine that looked like a souped-up imprinting unit. Round a corner of the apparatus, I glimpsed a pair of legs, colored bright crimson. A ditto blank. Rather small.
"You want me to make a copy?" I asked. "Let me warn you, ditYosil -- "
"Just Yosil. I told you, I am Maharal, now."
"Yeah right, ditYosil. It's obvious you want to make dit-to-dit copying work. How else can you survive past the thirtieth renewal? But honestly, what kind of a solution is that? The second-order copy always has a flawed soul-imprint. And it gets worse when you copy that one. Errors magnify. By the third transfer, you're lucky if it can even walk or talk."
"So they say."
"So they say? Listen, half of my work involves catching copyright violators who ditnap the golems of movied stars and courtesans and such, in order to sell bootleg knockoffs. Force-imprint counterfeiting may work for sex toys, if the customer has low standards, but it's no solution to your problem, Yosil."
"We'll see about that. Now please try to relax and cooperate."
"Why should I? It's hard to make a really good imprint from a resisting subject. I can make things more difficult for you."
"True. But consider. The better the copy, the more it will share your abilities, your drives, and especially your low opinion of me!" Maharal chuckled. "A quality copy will be your ally in trying to defeat me."
I pondered.
"Those other Alberts you captured ... they must have tried it both ways."
"True. Only when the copy was poor, I just tried again. And again, till you chose to cooperate. Then we made real progress."
"Your idea of progress doesn't sound like mine."
"Perhaps. Or maybe you can't grasp the long-range benefits of my program, though I tried to explain on other occasions. In any event, your problem now is a pragmatic one, Albert. Shackled, there's little that just one of you can do. Two of you might accomplish more. The logic is inescapable."
"Damn you."
He shrugged. "Think about it for a while, Albert. I have plenty of ditto blanks to experiment with."
Maharal's gray departed, leaving me there to ponder, frustrated because he clearly must have had the same conversation many times before, with other me's, learning through experience which arguments worked.
Man, I wish I'd been more careful to track my missing dittos over the years! I simply assumed that a high rate of loss was unavoidable in this line of work. As long as each case went well, some casualties seemed worthwhile. It's not quite as hard core an attitude as Clara has -- sending herselves again and again to gladiatorial battlefields for the sake of PEZ and country, with scant likelihood they'll return unscathed. Even so, I vowed to try harder in the future.
If I ever get out of here.
If I get another chance.
Well, all right. I gave in to Yosil's logic. Concentrating during imprint would ensure my brotherdit emerges from the kiln filled with loathing for all mad scientists.
And I turned out to be right about that.
As if it would make any difference.
Well now, for the record, this isn't the first time I remember doing a ditto-to-ditto transfer.
Come on, everybody tries it. Most people are unhappy with the product, which often emerges as a pitifully shallow caricature. It can be painful to watch, like seeing a version of yourself that's drunk, stoned, or damaged beyond medical help. Back in college, some of the guys used to make frankies for laughs. But I never got into that kind of stuff.
Partly because my second-order dits never showed overt signs of degradation. No tremors or apparent memory gaps. No comic reeling or slurring. Boring! I might as well make all my copies directly. It felt more comfortable that way. Anyway, why violate the UK warranty? They can repossess your kiln.
I always knew I was a good copier. A small fraction of folks are gifted that way. I was even part of a research study when I was younger. So? It makes no practical difference. What's the point in dit-to-dit transfer, even if you do it well?
Besides, it feels odd. Not at all like inloading. To lie on the original side of the machine in clay form, especially when the soul-sifter starts probing through you with tendrils that are better tuned to scanning neurons. The tetragramatron has to work harder to grasp the Standing Wave, delicately plucking all the chords of your inner symphony, borrowing and amplifying every note in order to start an identical resonant melody playing in another instrument, nearby.
Funny thing. This time I definitely felt something like an echo coming from the new ditto -- still a lifeless lump on its warming tray. The sensation of déjà vu that our grandparents used to find so eerie -- that we now call a "ripple in the Standing Wave" -- swarmed over me then like a chilly breath. A whirling-ghostly wind. A feeling of intimate familiarity with myself that I did not like at all.
Was this part of the experiment? Part of what Maharal was trying to achieve?
"Two centuries ago, William James coined the term 'stream of consciousness,' " Maharal commented happily, while he twiddled dials. "James was referring to the way each of us invests our sense of identity in an illusion. The illusion of continuity -- like perceiving a single river, flowing from one source to the sea.
"Even dittotech didn't change this romantic delusion. It only added multiple side branches and tributaries to the river, all of them still flowing back into a single soul, an entity that each person arrogantly chooses to call me.
"But a river is nothing in itself! It's amorphous. A mirage. An ever-changing churn of individual tumbling molecules and moments. Even ancient mystics knew that stepping twice into a stream, from exactly the same spot, will immerse you in completely different 'rivers.' Into different liquids that were peed into the flow by different elephants, at different places and times upstream."
"You make philosophy so refreshingly earthy," I muttered, lying there helpless under his monologue.
"Thanks. In fact, that particular metaphor was yours. Another Albert Morris golem expressed it, years ago. Which goes to prove my point, dear fellow. The Standing Wave is something much more than just continuity of memory. It has to be! There must be some kind of connection to a higher -- or a lower -- level."
I knew his game. Maharal was trying to distract me, so my anger wouldn't interfere with the imprinting process. Yet his voice conveyed something sincere. He cared about the crap he was uttering.
Anyway, the weird sensations had me wanting some distraction from those strangely powerful resonant echoes. Though my head was clamped between the sifter probes, I turned my eyes to meet Maharal's.
"You're talking about God, right?"
"Well ... yes. In a manner of speaking."
"Isn't that just a bit odd, Professor? You've spent your life encroaching on the province of religion, helping make it practical for anyone to duplicate the soul-field, like a cheap photograph. There's hardly anyone the old church conservatives hate more than you."
"I'm not talking about religion," he answered with a biting tone. "All that I and others have done, by introducing this technology, is take another step in a long campaign, pushing back a confused muddle of contradictory superstitions in order to let in more light. First Galileo and Copernicus battled to free astronomy from priests who declared the entire cosmos off limits to human understanding. Then Newton, Boltzmann, and Einstein liberated physics. For a while, religions claimed that life was too mysterious for anyone but the Creator Himself to understand -- till we analyzed the genome and commenced designing new species in the lab. Today, most babies get some kind of optimizing gene therapy, before or after conception, and nobody objects."
"Why would they?" I asked, momentarily puzzled. "Never mind. Let me guess. You're about to extend this historical trend to consciousness -- "
"And the human soul, yes. It was the last bulwark of twentieth-century religion. Let science explain nature's laws, from quasars down to quarks! From geology to biology! So what? Those laws were mere recipes and background scenery, concocted long ago by a creator who cares far more about matters of the spirit! That's what they said.
"Only then Jefty Annonas found the soul's vibrating essence, weighed it, measured it -- "
"Some still resent her choice of terminology," I pointed out. "They claim there's a true soul, beyond the Standing Wave. Intangible -- "
" -- and ineffable, yes. Something mortals can never detect, that can never be reduced to interacting laws and forces." Maharal barked a laugh. "And so the fighting retreat continues. Each time science advances, a new bastion forms ... anew line, defining some remnant territory to be kept forever holy, mystical, and vague. Safe from profane hands. Until the next scientific advance, that is."
"Which you seem anxious to provide. But then, why talk about religion -- "
"Not religion, dear fellow. We spoke of communing with God."
"Uh, the difference -- "
" -- should be clear enough! Though I always have a hard time explaining it to you."
"Well ... sorry."
"No, it's all right. I'm used to your obstinate slowness. Rare gifts don't always correlate with intelligence."
I felt a twang in the Standing Wave, now vibrating at full pitch between me and the new golem. One thing for sure. It was going to hate this guy just as much as I do.
"Go on," I muttered. "About you and God."
But he stopped there.
A small bell gave off a bing and I felt the soul-sifter release its invasive grip. The last tendrils slid out of my nose. All at once I was alone again inside my clay head, sagging heavily.
Machinery rumbled as the new golem slipped into a kiln for rapid baking. A short while later I glimpsed it standing up, taking those first, uncertain steps.
Dark red, like Texarkana soil. And small, like a child. It looked weak, too. Easier for Maharal to control. Even so, the professor's tall gray ghost cautiously clamped a set of power-manacles over its wrists, even before the puffy afterglow faded.
Such precautions! I must have caused plenty of trouble on other occasions. That offered me a smidgen of consolation.
"We'll be back soon," ditYosil told me. "I want to expose this new ditto to a variety of controlled test experiences, then see how well the memories inload back to you."
"Oh. Can't wait."
Usually, I avoid eye contact with fresh copies that I make. It's uncomfortable and what's the point? But this time, after all those eerie sensations I went through during imprinting, it seemed compulsory to meet the small one's gaze. No window to a golem's soul? Maybe not, but I felt something intense the moment his dark stare met mine. An affinity. I don't have to wait for inloading to know what thoughts course through that maroon body.
Look for your chance, I urged silently.
My other self answered with a curt nod. Then, tugged by Maharal's manacles, he turned and followed our master to another part of this iniquitous lair.
So I wait, lying here where they left me. Wondering and worrying about what my captor has in store for me.
Thirty days is beginning to sound like a very long time. I must find a way to settle this much sooner, whether or not God turns out to be one of Yosil Maharal's personal buddies.
And yet, even if an opportunity presents itself, I must be careful what I do. For instance, what if he leaves a phone within easy reach? Would I summon the cops? In some situations, it's enough for a victim to call for help and wait for professional blue-skin rescuers to arrive. Simple.
But not in this case.
Wracking my brain, I can't see that Maharal has committed even a single felony. At least not to my knowledge. Just a long series of equipment thefts, ditnappings, copyright violations, and unlicensed experiments -- the kind of stuff that gets settled nowadays with civil liens and automatic fines. The police don't care very much about this particular kind of villain, not since Deregulation.
Not as much as I do!
As far as I'm concerned, some paltry fines won't make up for any of this.
The real world has its rules, and I have mine.
Ditto-to-ditto, I'm going to make that crazy-evil dirtpile pay.
Impassioned Clay ... as Frankie revisits a place that he's never been ...
To my utter surprise, Vic Aeneas Kaolin wanted to hire me as a ditective!
"So. Would you two like a chance to find the perverts who did all this?"
He said it waving at a nearby crowd of holo bubbles, jostling for our attention. Most of them showed the sabotage site at Universal Kilns, now swarming with multicolored repair-dittos, like a hive of busy ants struggling to restore the vast factory to profitable operation.
Other bubbles peered down at the smoldering ruins of a small suburban house.
The trillionaire's offer left me speechless, though Pallie's little weasel-golem took it with aplomb.
"Sure, we can solve this case for you. But we gotta charge quadruple Albert's normal rate. Plus expenses ... including a new house, to replace the one that just got blown up."
How about getting Albert a new organic body, while we're at it? I pondered caustically. Pal could be amazing sometimes, sweating over minor stuff while ignoring the big picture. Like the fact that Albert Morris no longer existed. So who was legally going to take this case? I had no more legitimate authority than a talking toaster.
Kaolin acted unperturbed. "Those terms are acceptable, but with a condition that payment shall depend entirely on results. And that Mr. Morris truly turns out to have been innocent, as the archive-recording seems to suggest."
"Seems to suggest!" Palloid yelped. "You heard the story. That poor guy was duped! Hoodwinked, chiseled, set up, conned, fooled, frauded, framed, swindled -- "
"Pal," I tried to interrupt.
" -- cozened, misled, tricked! A patsy. A fool, tool, doofus, dolt, blockhead, pawn -- "
"That may be," Kaolin cut him off with a hand gesture. "Or else the archive might have been contrived in advance. Pre-recorded in order to offer a plausible alibi."
"That can be checked," I pointed out. "Even buried in the gray's throat, the recorder would have picked up ambient city noise from his surroundings. People talking. A truck's engine on a nearby street. Muffled sounds, but under intense analysis they'll correlate with actual events, recorded on nearby publicams."
"So," Kaolin conceded with a nod. "Not pre-recorded, then. But still perhaps a lie. The gray could have gone through all the motions, reciting as he went, while pretending not to be one of the conspirators. Feigning gullibility -- "
" -- naiveté, credulousness, stupidity -- "
"Shut up, Pal! I don't" -- I shook my head -- "I don't think any of this is really our business anymore. Shouldn't you be handing this tape over to the police?" ditKaolin pursed his expressive, realistic lips. "My attorney says we're right at the borderline, the cusp between civil and criminal law."
Surprise provoked my bitter laugh. "A major act of industrial sabotage -- "
"Without a single human victim."
"Without a single ... What in hell do you call that?"
I jabbed a finger at one of the news bubbles, showing an aerial view of my poor burned house. I mean Albert's house. Whatever. Responding to my vehement attention, that bubble swelled in size, jostling others aside and magnifying. Our point of view zoomed toward several black investigator specialdits from the Violent Crimes Unit, who could be seen probing the wreckage. Top professionals, looking for body parts. And missile parts, no doubt.
"There is, as yet, no confirmed link between that tragedy and what happened at UK."
Kaolin said it with such a straight face that I stared at him for several seconds.
"You will only get away with that line for a few hours at best, no matter how good your lawyers are. When the cops find my body ... I mean Albert's ... and when testimony is taken from ditnesses and cameras inside UK, your insurance company will have no choice but to cooperate with the authorities. The police will know you found something small and important in the foamy mess after the prion attack. If you pretend you didn't find anything, one of your contract employees will -- "
" -- will likely turn me in, hoping to cash a whistle-blower prize. Please, I'm no fool. I won't try to keep the recording away from the cops. Not for very long, that is. But a short delay may prove helpful."
"Helpful how?"
"I get it!" chirped Pal's mini-ditto with obvious relish, its ferret grin widening. "You want the saboteurs to think they succeeded. Assuming they never knew about the graydit's little recorder, they may think they're safe. That gives us time to go after 'em!"
"Time?" I demanded. "What time? Are you all nuts? I was baked almost twenty hours ago! My clock is close to used up. I've barely got enough time left to take in dinner and a show. Whatever makes you think I can investigate a case under conditions like this, even if I wanted to?"
At which point Aeneas Kaolin smiled.
"Oh, I may be able to reset that ticking clock of yours."
Less than thirty minutes later, I stepped out of the biggest apparatus the mogul had in his laboratory-basement. A hissing, steaming contraption that hammered, zapped, sprayed, and massaged me till I hurt all over ... like that time Clara made me take an army calisthenics course in realflesh and skivvies. My moist clay pseudoskin fizzed disconcertingly with freshly injected élan. If I didn't explode or melt in the next few minutes, I might take on the world.
"This gizmo of yours is gonna change a lot of things," Pal commented from a perch nearby, licking the same puffy glow.
ditKaolin answered, "It has drawbacks -- like prohibitive cost -- that may prevent commercial development. There were only two prototypes and ... not all results have been satisfactory."
"Now he tells me," I grumbled. "No, please ignore that. Beggars can't be choosers. Thanks for extending this so-called life."
Looking down, I saw that a color change had been thrown in for free. My third in one day. Now I had the look of a high-quality gray. Well, well. Who says you can't advance in life? There can be progress, even for a frankie.
"Where do you plan to go first?" the platinum trillionaire asked, clearly eager to get us on our way. Even though I'm not Albert Morris, I tried to picture what my maker, the professional private eye, would do at this point.
"Queen Irene's place," I decided. "Come on, Pal. We're going to the Rainbow Lounge."
Kaolin lent us a sturdy little car from the company fleet, no doubt carrying a transponder to track our movements and a sound tap as well. Palloid had to agree not to inload back into the original Pal, or even contact his archie. In fact, we were under orders not to tell anyone else about what we had learned in the mansion basement.
Whether or not those orders were exactly legal, I felt sure that Kaolin had some way to enforce them, or he'd never let us depart. Maybe it was my turn to carry a bomb. Something small, inserted while my body was renewed in that hissing experimental restoration machine? I had no immediate way to check it out ... or any reason to, so long as our goals were the same.
Getting to the truth, right? That's what we're all interested in, right? Me and Kaolin. Only how could I tell?
Again and again, the same question popped into mind. Why me?
Why hire the crude green frankie of a private eye whose behavior must already appear deeply worrisome in Kaolin's eyes? Even if Albert's gray hadn't been one of the conspirators, he was their unwitting dupe -- as Pal so colorfully put it.
Either way, it seemed strange for the mogul to trust me.
Then again, who could he trust? Kaolin wasn't kidding about the Henchman Law. When first introduced, it soon turned into the quickest way for a fellow to retire early -- by tattling on his boss. Whistle-blower prizes grew bigger as one white-collar scam after another collapsed, feeding half of the resulting fines back into new rewards, enticing even more trusted lieutenants, minions, and right-hand men to blab away. To everyone's surprise, a world filled with cameras proved to offer pretty good safety against retribution by most mobs. Many gangs and cabals destroyed themselves simply by trying to enforce silence on defectors.
The implacable logic of the Prisoner's Dilemma triggered collapse of one conspiracy after another as informers became public heroes, accelerating the rush for publicity and treasure. For a time it looked as if perfidy had its back to the proverbial wall. Any criminal scheme with more than three members appeared doomed from the start.
Then dittotech arrived.
Nowadays, it's possible once again to have a gang of ruthless accomplices, if all of them are you! Better still if you do find a few trustworthy allies to share the imprinting chores, since they may have skills you lack. But you're still wise to keep the number of original members low. Three or four. Five, tops. Any more and you still have an excellent chance of being betrayed by some trusted aide. A guilty conscience can get plenty of lubrication if the rewards are also big.
Kaolin may have several thousand real employees, who make tens of thousands of proficient and hardworking dittos for him every day. But could he ask any of them to skate the fine edge of the law -- as Pallie and I were about to do? The Vic's choices were few. Either do it himself, by sending out his own copies, or hire someone with the right skills. Someone who's already shown a willingness to skulk at the boundaries of legality, and yet with a reputation for keeping his word. Someone also highly motivated to dig quickly to the bottom of this mess.
Having listened to the archive-recording of that hapless gray, Kaolin must figure that I qualify on all counts. I sure wasn't about to complicate matters by mentioning I'm a frankie. He might drop me in the nearest recycler!
Waiting for a driver to bring our loaner car, I resumed bugging Kaolin with questions.
"It would help if I had some idea why somebody wants to wreck your factory."
"Why should concern you less than who," he replied sternly.
"Come, sir. Understanding motives can be integral to catching bad guys. Do your competitors resent having to pay royalties on your patents? Do they envy your production efficiency? Could they be trying to knock UK down a notch?"
Kaolin barked a short laugh. "A publicly held firm is under too much scrutiny. And terrorism is risky -- not the style of my smug counterparts at Fabrique Chelm or Hayakawa Shobo. Why use bombs when they can cause me far more aggravation with their lawyers?"
"Well, who do you consider desperate enough to use bombs?"
"You mean other than those pathetic fanatics ranting by my gate?" The platinum ditto shrugged. "I don't bother counting my enemies, Mr. Morris. In fact, I would have retired by now, to one of my country estates, were it not for some rather urgent research interests that force me to remain nearby, within easy dit-imprinting range." He sighed. "If you must demand an opinion from me, I can only hazard to guess that this gruesome act of sabotage must be the work of perverts."
"Uh ... perverts?" I blinked a couple of times in surprise. "When you used that word before, I didn't think you meant literally."
"Oh, but I do. It isn't just religious nuts and tolerance fetishists who despise me. Surely you already know about this? I may have helped usher in the age of dittoing, but I've also long opposed ways the technology is misapplied. From the very beginning, I was appalled by some unsavory uses customers came up with."
"Well, innovators often have an idealized view of what will emerge -- "
"Do I strike you as a woolly-headed idealist?" Kaolin snapped, sharply. "I realize any new thing gets misused, especially when you share it with the masses. Take the way every new medium, from printing to cinema to the Internet, became a major conduit for pornography almost as soon as it was introduced. Or when lonely weirdos started using dittos for sex, muddying all the boundaries between fantasy, infidelity, and self-abuse."
"Surely that didn't surprise you."
"Not the basic level. Anyone could see this technology would make casual sex between strangers safe again, after several generations of fear. It's a natural pendulum swing, based on deeply embedded animal drives. Hell, the trend of using animated dolls began even before Bevvisov and Leow imprinted the first Standing Wave. I wasn't thrilled to see ditto-swap clubs arise everywhere, but at least that seemed human.
"Only then came the 'modification' movement. Wave after wave of so-called innovations, exaggerations, deliberate mutilations ... "
"Ah yes. You fought to prevent people from changing the blanks you sold them. But surely that's a dead issue now."
Kaolin conceded with a shrug. "Still, I'm sure the perverts recall how I fought them. And each year I contribute financial support to the Crudity Bill."
"You mean the Prudity Bill," Palloid muttered from a balustrade of the mansion's service portico. "Do you really want to require that all dittos come out of the factory with their capacity for emotions suppressed?"
"Only feelings that promote violent or hostile behavior."
"But that's half the fun of being a golem! You can do stuff on the edge. Unleash the repressed inner demon -- "
"Repression exists for good reasons," Kaolin answered hotly. Palloid sure knew how to goad him. "Social, psychological, and evolutionary reasons. Every year, anthropologists track worrisome trends. People growing more hardened to outrageous levels of violence -- "
" -- in certain narrowly defined times and places. Like daydreaming about stuff you'd never do in person. There's no conclusive evidence that it translates over to behavior in the real -- "
" -- becoming callused to mutilations of the human form -- "
" -- and experiencing firsthand what it feels like to be larger or smaller, crippled, or the opposite sex -- "
" -- inflicting suffering -- "
" -- experiencing it -- "
" -- desensitizing -- "
" -- gaining new empathy -- "
"Enough!" I cried. For a brief time it had been enthralling to watch the platinum golem of a multi-trillionaire get sucked into a shouting match with a ferret-formed creature from dittotown. But Pal's lack of anything like a sense of self-preservation can get unamusing rather quickly. We still existed on this guy's sufferance.
"So you think this attack may have been in revenge for your consistent support of the Crudity Bill?" I asked.
ditKaolin shrugged. "It passed in Farsiana-Indus, last year. That makes twenty-six countries, and the Argentines vote next month. Degenerates may see a worrisome trend, toward a time when our adjunct selves are actually calmer and better than we are -- "
" -- You mean sexless and boring -- "
" -- helping to elevate humanity instead of debasing us," Kaolin finished, giving Palloid a scowl that declared the debate over. And my small friend took the hint this time. Or maybe it was the arrival of our car, delivered to the portico by a blank-faced yellow whose only personality trait was a soft melody that he kept humming while holding the driver-side door for me, then as he jogged away, hurrying to catch a jitney cab back to headquarters.
I adjusted the pilot seat and Platinum Kaolin gave me a portaphone with a secure comm number to call, if anything especially urgent came up. Otherwise, I was instructed to send a dictated report to his hi-pri box every three hours, for automatic summarization-transcription.
I was about to shut the door when Pal's little weasel-ditto leaped from my shoulder onto Kaolin's! The silvery golem flinched as Palloid squirmed around his neck. "Incredible texture," crooned the miniature ditto. "So realistic. I been wondering ... "
It seemed about to give Kaolin a big kiss. Then, without warning, Palloid whirled and sank its gleaming teeth into that shimmering neck, just above the collar line!
Twin wounds oozed a pasty grue.
"What the hell?" Pain and anger flushed as Kaolin swept a fist that Palloid dodged easily, vaulting through the car's open window into my arms. Licking shiny-reflective gore off serrated jaws, he spat with distaste.
"Clay! Patooie. Okay, he's fake, after all. Had to check, though. He could've been pretending to be phony."
It was vintage Pal. Authority figures bring out the worst in him. I hurried to mollify our employer.
"Sorry about that, sir. Uh ... Pal likes to be thorough. And that is an awfully realistic-looking body, you must admit." ditKaolin fumed.
"What if I had been in disguise? That goddam thing could have maimed me! Besides, it's none of your bloody business how I choose to present myself! I have a good mind to -- "
He stopped abruptly, taking a deep breath. The lacerations ceased oozing after a couple of seconds, turning into hard ceramic crust. Between dittos, this was a trifle, after all.
"Oh, get out of here. Don't bother me again unless you find something interesting."
Pal responded cheerily, "Thanks for a lovely visit! Give my regards to your archety -- "
I peeled out of there, cutting off Palloid's clever remise. Passing through the front gate into city traffic, I cast a sharp, disapproving glare at my companion.
"What?" The ferret face grinned back at me. "Tell me you weren't curious, looking at such a fancy-realistic golem! There are all those stories. About how nobody's seen his archie in years."
"Curiosity is one thing, Pal -- "
"One thing? Hey, at this point it's about the only reason I have to keep going. Know what I mean?"
I did, alas. Even though I had been granted an extension -- double the lifespan I expected to have yesterday, when I stepped out of the kiln -- a day is still only a day. To a frankie or a ghost.
What could I accomplish in that time? Maybe some justice. Or a little revenge on the villains who murdered poor Albert. Those can be satisfying accomplishments. But you can't take them with you beyond the recycling tank.
Curiosity, on the other hand, has a timelessness that no deadline can erase. There are worse things for a man to live for, whether he's born of woman or kiln. It can sustain you, whatever happens and no matter how low your fortunes sink.
"Anyway, Albert. Did you see the look on skinny's face when I bit him?"
"Hell, yes, I saw it! You little -- " I shook my head. The image of Kaolin's vain countenance still surfed the foamy veneer of my Standing Wave. That expression of affronted shock was --
-- hilarious.
I couldn't help but guffaw. Laughter shook us both while I swerved the little cruiser through a yellow light, incurring another four-point infraction to put on our UK expense account. Mirth combined with the fizzing sense of renewal that still permeated my invigorated clay flesh. It left me feeling more alive than I had in, well, hours!
"All right, then," I said at last, trying to concentrate on my driving. We were in Realtown and there might be children about. No time for inattention at the wheel.
"Come on, Pal. Let's see what's happening at Irene's."
What was happening was death.
A crowd milled near the entrance to the Rainbow Lounge. All sorts of garishly colored dittos -- specialized and home-modified for pleasure or ritual combat -- shifted and murmured in confusion, denied entry to their favorite hangout by ribbons of glare tape that shimmered to eye-hurting rhythms, sending keep away messages straight to the golem fibers threading their clay bodies.
A female-shaped red stood in the entryway. Wearing dark glasses. Explaining patiently as Palloid and I drew near.
" ... Let me say again, I'm sorry, but you cannot enter. The club will soon be under new management. Till then, you must find another place to pursue your frantic pleasures."
I looked her over. Exaggerated curves seemed to cry out slutty waitress, while recessed needles under the nails indicated a bouncer's capacity to enforce order, whenever customers got rowdy. This had to be one of the worker drone members of Irene -- the colony-being we heard described in grayAlbert's recited diary. She matched the depiction, except for looking haggard and worn, obviously tottering on her last energy stores.
Some customers drifted off, hoping to find another dive open at this hour. One offering as much amusement. I saw grimness in their haste. Especially the dittos with spiky appendages for fighting or exaggerated sexual display. That kind is often made by addicts -- experience junkies who need regular fixes of intense recent memories, the more extravagant or violent the better. If these dits fail to bring home the goods, their originals won't take them back. Their chance of continuity-through-inloading depends on finding excitement elsewhere, anywhere.
Still, more customers kept arriving, milling about hopefully or trying to argue with the red bouncer. Would she stand there in the doorway till she melted? From the testimony of Albert's luckless gray, I had an impression that Irene took inloading very seriously.
"Let's try around back," Palloid suggested from my shoulder. "According to the gray's recording, that's where this hive keeps its queen."
Its queen. I've heard of such things, naturally. Still, it's creepy. Hives and queens, man. Some say we're all heading that way, eventually, by the inherent logic of dittotech.
Interesting times, all right.
"Okay," I told my small comrade. "Let's go back and have a look."
Souls on Celluloid ... or how realAlbert finds an oasis of the heart ...
Ritu and I were rather wrinkled and worn after a long night and a morning spent trekking across arid desert.
You might expect that our gray disguises would look much worse than "wrinkled." But fortunately, the best brands of makeup don't clog your natural pores. Instead of blocking perspiration they actually wick it away, maximizing the cooling effects of any passing wind. Dirt and salt crystals work their way outward. In fact, they say the material keeps you cooler and cleaner than exposed skin.
That's fine, so long as you have plenty of water to drink. Which became a problem twice during our long hike south from the ravine where the Volvo had crashed. Each time our carry-jug ran low in the middle of some great expanse, with no civilization in sight, I wondered if the trek was such a good idea after all.
But despite the appearance of lonely desolation, today's desert isn't the same one our ancestors faced. Whenever we ran low on water, something always came up. Like when we came across an area dotted with abandoned squatters' huts, more than a century old, perched on crude cement slabs with rusting steel roofs. One had ancient shag carpeting, so thick with dust that it sported a thriving shade ecosystem. The cabin's clogged plumbing offered a cistern where we managed to refill the jug with scummy rainwater, unappetizing but welcome nonetheless. Another time, Ritu found a drip pool just inside a defunct mineshaft. I wasn't happy about drinking the mineral-steeped brew, but modern chelating treatments should eliminate any toxins, if we made it to civilization promptly.
So, while our trek was an adventure -- often miserably uncomfortable -- it never became a matter of life-or-death. On several occasions we spotted the glint of a robotic weather station or the dun-colored housing of an ecowebcam. So calling for help was always an option if we got into serious trouble. We had good reasons not to call. It was a matter of choice. That made the journey bearable.
In fact, Ritu and I found enough spare energy to pass the time as we trudged along, continuing our conversation about recent dramas and parasensies we had seen. Like the classic cliché you see all the time -- a duplicate claims to be the "real one," accusing some imposter of taking over his normal life. On a higher plane, we had both seen Red Like Me, the docudrama about a woman whose permanent skin condition made her look unbrown -- unreal to most people -- so she couldn't go anywhere without being treated as a golem. We all put up with being "mere property" much of the time, because it all evens out, right? But this heroine never got to take her turn as citizen/master. The story reminded me of Pal, stuck in his life-support chair, unable to experience the world fully except through dittos. The modern bargain isn't always fair.
That's how I learned why Ritu came on this trip in person, instead of sending a gray. It turns out she's handicapped, too. She can't make reliable copies. They often come out wrong.
All right, millions of folks can't use kilns at all, suffering the disadvantage of just one, linear life. Bigots call them "soulless," thinking it happens to those who lack a true Standing Wave to copy. The heritable deficit can make it hard to get a job or win a mate. Indeed, today's heartless version of capital punishment severs a felon's Bevvisov-nexus, preventing him from imprinting, trapping him forever in the confines of a single body.
Many tens of millions can animate only crude, shambling caricatures, able to mow the lawn or paint a fence -- but no more than that.
Ritu's problem is different. She imprints dittos of great subtlety and intelligence, but many are frankies, diverging radically. "When I was a teenager, they'd often come out of the kiln resentful, even hating me! Instead of helping to achieve my goals, some tried sabotaging them, or put me in embarrassing situations.
"Only in recent years did I reach a kind of equilibrium. Now, maybe half of my golems do what I want. The rest wander off, mostly harmlessly. Still, I always install strong transponder pellets, to make sure they behave."
The awkward confession came after we'd been walking for hours, fatigue wearing away her reticent shell. I mumbled sympathetically, lacking the nerve to tell her that I never made frankies. (Till yesterday's green sent that strange message, that is. And I'm still not sure I believe it.)
As for Ritu's problem, my professional readings in psychopathology left room for one conclusion -- the daughter of Yosil Maharal had deep psychological troubles that stay mute while she's safely confined to her natural skin. But dittoing unleashes them with callous amplification. A classic case of suppressed self-hatred, I thought, then chided myself for diagnosing another person on slim evidence.
This explained why she accompanied me in person, Tuesday evening. It was clearly important to help investigate her father's old desert lodge. To ensure it got done right, she must come the old-fashioned way.
A lot of our conversation -- including this confession -- was recorded on the little transcriber planted under the skin behind my ear. I felt bad about that, but saw no way to stop it. Maybe I'll erase that part later, when I get a chance.
The Jesse Helms International Combat Range.
From a distance, it looks like a fairly typical military base in the desert -- a green oasis dotted with swaying palms, tennis courts and resort-scale swimming pools. The barracks for quartering troops during wartime seem appropriately spartan -- tree-shaded cabana-style residence bungalows in muted pastels, cloistered near cybersim stations, practice arenas, and zen contemplation gardens. Everything needed by soldiers seeking to hone their martial spirit.
In stark contrast to those stoical training grounds, brash hotels jut skyward near the main gate, serving journalists and fight aficionados who converge in person for each major battle. Killwire barriers keep out reporters and flitting hobbycams, so the warriors inside may concentrate without interruption. Preparing their souls for battle.
Far beyond the oasis, under a natural hillock surrounded by tire ruts, lay the underground bowels of the base -- a support complex never viewed by millions of fans who dial in for each televised clash. Below reside all the special weapon fabricators and customized golem-presses required by a modern military. Another subterranean mound, several kilometers away, offers guest facilities to visiting armies who come several times a year to brave weeks of feverish struggle, beyond a range of hills -- in the battleground proper.
"Well, it doesn't look as if the war's over," Ritu commented as we took turns peering through a hand-held ocular, one of a few items salvaged from my ruined Volvo. Even standing on a crest five kilometers outside the boundary, you could tell; the grudge match between PEZ and Indonesia still ran hot. Hotel parking areas were full. And the far southern sky glittered with floatcams and relaysats.
Oh, something was going on, below that distant horde of buzzing voyeur-eyes, just behind an escarpment of granite cliffs. Sporadic rumbles -- like angry thunder -- kept spilling over that craggy barrier. On several occasions, powerful booms made the very air throb around Ritu and me. Those detonations escorted flashes of harsh light so brilliant that brief shadows danced across the sun-drenched terrain.
Something very close to hell was unfolding beyond the escarpment. A fiery maelstrom of death, more violent and merciless than our savage ancestors could have imagined ... and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone alive in our crowded world who felt badly about it.
"So," my companion asked. "How do we get in to see your soldier-girlfriend? Do we stroll up to the main gate and have her paged?"
I shook my head. If only it were that easy. All during our hard slog across the desert, this stage weighed heavily on my mind.
"I don't think it'd be a good idea to attract attention."
"No kidding. Last I heard, you were a suspect in a major crime."
"And dead."
"Oh yes, and dead. That could raise a stir when you present your retina for an ID scan. So then. Do you want me to do it? I can rent a room. Let us finally scrape off this makeup." She gestured at the gray pseudoskin that covered both of us, looking rather weathered after many hours of sun and harsh wind. "I could take a hot bath while you call your friend."
I shook my head. "Of course it's up to you, Ritu. But I doubt you should reveal yourself, either. Even if the police aren't after you, there's still Aeneas Kaolin to consider."
"If that was Aeneas who shot at us, on the highway. Seeing ain't believing, Albert."
"Hm. Will you bet your life it wasn't him? Clearly, Kaolin and your father were engaged in something big. Something disturbing. All signs indicate they had a parting of ways. It may have led to your father's death on the very same highway where we were ambushed -- "
Ritu raised a hand. "You convinced me. We need a secure web port to find out what's going on, before letting anyone know we survived."
"And Clara's just the one to arrange it." I raised the ocular again. "Assuming we cross the next few kilometers and get her attention."
"Any ideas how to do that?"
I pointed left, away from the main gate of the base, toward a ramshackle encampment that ran along the killwire fence, some distance beyond the glitzy hotels. Multicolored figures could be seen moving amid a lurid variety of tents, mobile homes, and makeshift arenas, giving the impression of an anarchist's carnival.
"Down there. That's where we go next."
Shards of Heaven ... as Greenie learns there are worse things than dying ...
Pal's little ferret-ditto rode my shoulder as we retreated from the shuttered front entrance of the Rainbow Lounge, heading around back to find another way inside. A big security fence blocked the service alley, but I didn't have to mess with it. The gate was ajar. It must have been left that way when a large van passed inside. We squeezed through, then sauntered past the vehicle, looking it over.
FINAL OPTIONS, INC.
That was what the hologo banner said, with angelic cherubs beckoning graciously. A great big dish transmitter on the vehicle's roof looked handcrafted, rather ornate and much larger than you need for a satellite data link. As we sidled past, my skin tingled, a bit like the recent fizzing sensation of being renewed.
"A lot of energy in that van," Palloid commented, arching his back, letting the fur bristle.
"Have you heard of these guys?" I asked, shivering till we got past.
"Some. Here and there." Palloid's voice was low and terse.
Chilly cryosteam shrouded thick, insulated cables, snaking between the van and the back door of the building, where kitschy organ music filled the dim interior. Warily, I stepped over the cables into a cavernous chamber where several dozen cloaked forms could be made out, swaying to dirgelike harmonies.
"What're they doing?" Pal asked snidely. "Filming a new episode of Vincent Price Theater?"
I was keenly aware of what happened in this place, only yesterday, when these creatures managed to fool one of Albert's best grays, tricking him into letting them plant a fiendish bomb in his gut. If they could manage that, a miserable frankie like me had better be careful. Under my skin-deep dye job, I was still humble green.
Adjusting to the light, I saw that all the robed forms wore the same distinctive reddish shade as the one who barred the front door to the Rainbow Lounge. All except a central figure lying on a raised dais, who looked so pale that I first assumed it must be an ivory ditto.
But no, the supine shape was a real person, with sparse patches of gray hair sticking out amid clusters of attached electrodes. Silky red cloth covered much of her heavy, flaccid form. Most people today strive to keep their organic bodies in good shape. (Getting enough of a tan to not be mistaken for a pleasure-golem!) But some folks have just one use for the body they were born in -- to serve as a memory vessel, passing impressions from one day's set of dittos to the next. Evidently, Irene had been on the cutting edge of this trend. No wonder she ran a popular emporium dedicated to fashionable excess!
And yet, from the requiem sounds reverberating all around, I had to guess that Irene's life -- large as it may have been -- was finally coming to an end. Her chest rose and fell unevenly beneath the coverlet. Tubes dripped medicinal liquids while a nearby metabolic monitor beeped to a soft, erratic meter.
I saw no kiln. No rows of waiting ditto blanks. So, she wasn't busy making ghosts, as some do when they know they're dying -- a final spate of autonomous duplicates to handle last-minute details ... or to say all those things you never dared to utter while alive. Most of these Irene-copies looked rather elderly. They all might have been present when grayAlbert had his "repairs."
Did Irene stop duplicating herself at the same time, or soon after? A very odd coincidence, if it was one.
Watching from the shadows, I saw one Irene standing aside from the corny threnody ceremony, conversing with a purple golem whose huge eyes and stylishly curved beak resembled those of a hawk.
"Horus," Palloid muttered.
"Horace?"
"Horus!" He gestured at the visitor's bright robe, covered with inscriptions and fancy embroidered figures. "Egyptian god of death and afterlife. Kinda pretentious, by my taste."
Of course, I thought. Final Options. One of those outfits offering specialized assistance to the dead or dying. If there's a hypothetical service anybody might want, you can find a million of the bored-unemployed eager to provide it.
I edged closer while hawkface explained items in a glossy brochure.
" ... Here's one of our more popular options. Full cryonic suspension! I have facilities to imbue your archetype's organic body with the right combination of scientifically balanced stabilization agents, then begin reducing its temperature till we can deliver her to our main storage facility in Redlands, which has its own deep geothermal power supply, armored against anything short of a direct cometary impact! All your rig has to do is imprint a release -- "
"Cryonic suspension doesn't interest us," replied the red golem, representing her hive. "It has been verified repeatedly that a frozen human brain can't maintain a Standing Wave. It vanishes, never to return."
"But there are memories, stored in nearly a quadrillion synapses and intracellular -- "
"Memories aren't homologous -- not the same thing as who you are. Anyway, most of those memories can only be accessed by a functioning copy of the original Standing Wave."
"Well, dittos can be frozen. Suppose one accompanies the original head into storage. Then someday, when technology has advanced sufficiently, some combination of -- "
"Please," the red Irene cut in. "We aren't interested in science fiction. Let others pay high fees to serve as your experimental guinea pigs. We want a simple service, the reason we called your company.
"We choose the antenna."
"The antenna." The purple hawkman nodded. "I'm required by law to say the technique is unverified, with no confirmed successes, despite many claimed resonance detections -- "
"We have reason to believe your past failures resulted from a lack of concentration, desire, focus. These we'll provide, if you do your job as advertised."
Horus straightened.
"The antenna, then. I still need a release. Please have your archetype put her life-imprint here."
He pulled a heavy, flat rectangle out of the folds of his robe, tearing off a filmy plastic covering that released a dense, steamy cloud. The red ditto took the tablet gingerly in both hands by its edges, careful not to touch the moist surface.
"I'll return in a few minutes. There are preparations to complete." Horus spun away toward the van amid a flourish of glittering robes.
Palloid and I watched the red emissary pass through a crowd of her sisters, who parted with no apparent signal. She stepped up to the dais, holding the tablet high over the pale figure lying there. The original, pale-skinned Irene reacted by lifting one hand, then another. She's conscious, I realized.
Gently, two dittos approached from opposite sides to restrain her.
Lower came the tablet, closer to that sallow face till her warm breath condensed droplets on the surface. She inhaled deeply, then the red ditto pressed the clay slab down, quickly and with enough force to warp it around realIrene's head ... holding it there a few seconds, till a near-perfect mask formed -- mouth agape in a reflex gasp.
No breath was needed in the short time it took for the raw clay to transform before our eyes, rippling swiftly through several color spectra -- including some hues that ancient hermits used to seek in far corners of the world, during the long dark era before soulistics. The mouth area, especially, seemed to flicker briefly with faint lightning.
Then the solid mask lifted away, leaving realIrene ashudder but unharmed.
"I always hate having to do that," Palloid muttered. "Goddam lawyers."
"Signatures can be forged, Pal. Same with fingerprints, cryptociphers, and retinal scans. But a soul-seal is unique."
Irene now had a binding contract with Final Options, to spend the last moments of her organic life buying something else, something she considered more precious. Well, well. Here's to the Big Deregulation. The state has no business getting in between you and your spiritual adviser, especially when it comes to that decisive choice -- how to make your final exit.
Too bad poor Albert never had any say in the matter. Partly thanks to Irene, I bet.
Palloid swiveled and grew tense on my shoulder. I turned in time to notice a figure approach us from one side. It was another red ditto, looking a bit ragged like the others, but still formidable. "Mr. Morris." She bowed her head slightly. "Is it you? Or another? Shall I introduce myself?"
"None of the above," I answered, not caring if the cryptic answer confused her. "I know you, Irene. But I'm not the fellow you blew up last night."
She answered with a resigned shrug. "When I saw you, just now, I couldn't help but hope."
"Hope? For what?"
"That the news reports somehow lied. I hoped you were the same ditto that left here yesterday."
"What are you trying to pull? You know what happened to that gray. You murdered him. Blew him up inside Universal Kilns! Only his final act of heroism prevented your bomb from ruining the place."
"Our bomb." The red nodded resignedly. "So people will say. But honestly, we thought we were implanting a spy apparatus, tuned to sense and evaluate experimental soul-fields in the UK Research Division -- "
"Oh, what a pile," Palloid commented.
"No, truly! News of the sabotage attack on UK came as a complete surprise. It showed how fully we were used. Betrayed."
"Right. Tell me about betrayal!"
Oblivious to sarcasm, she nodded. "Oh, I shall. We at once realized that an ally set us up to take the onus for this vicious attack, as part of a multilayered defense, to protect the true villain from retribution. Even if your gray's obscuring tactics had been perfect -- even if he masked his trail, cutting all direct links leading back to his employers -- a crime of such magnitude would not go unsolved. Universal Kilns will spare no expense to find those responsible. So, after several layers of decoys are peeled back, we were positioned to take ultimate blame.
"Are you the first harbinger of penalization, ditto Morris?"
"Oh, I may be a harbinger all right, but I'm not Morris," I muttered, so low she didn't notice.
"We are a bit surprised to see you," the red ditto conceded. "Instead of UK Security, or the police. Perhaps they follow soon? No matter. We'll no longer be here. We are departing shortly, while still able to choose the manner of our going."
I wasn't swallowing it.
"You claim innocence about the prion bomb. What about the attack on realAlbert, slaughtering him in his home?"
"Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "The mastermind behind all of this -- our common enemy, it seems -- had to cover his own role after using us. That meant leaving no loose ends. He killed you a bit more swiftly than he killed me, but just as ruthlessly. In short order, you and I will both be no more.
"That is, on this plane of reality," she added.
I glanced at the dais, which had been rolled much closer to the van. Hissing cryo-cables were being attached to a dense array of sifter tendrils, piled around the pale head of realIrene. "You're committing some kind of fancy suicide. That'll leave you unable to testify as a full person in a court of law. Are you sure you want to do that? Won't it only benefit your former partner, who betrayed you? Shouldn't you help catch and punish him?"
"Why? Revenge doesn't matter. We were dying anyway ... a matter of weeks, only. We took part in his scheme as a desperate gamble, hoping to stave off that fate. We trusted, gambled, and lost. But at least we still have some choice in the manner of our passing."
Palloid snarled. "Revenge may not matter to you, but Albert was my friend. I want to get the bastard who did this."
"And I'm sure we wish you luck," the red sighed. "But this villain is a renowned master at evading accountability."
"Was it that Vic Collins character the gray met?"
She nodded. "You already know him by another name."
With a sinking feeling, I guessed.
"Beta."
"Quite. He was unamused by your raid on his operation in the Teller Building, by the way. That cost him dearly. But the plan to use Albert Morris in this ploy had been brewing for some time."
"And a deeper plan to use you."
"Acknowledged. We saw the collaboration as a clever attempt at industrial espionage. A chance to pirate some first use of the hottest new dittotech, before it went through the cumbersome licensing process."
"Hot new dittotech. You mean remote dittoing?" It was the cover story they had told the gray.
"Please. That interested Maestra Wammaker, but it's a minor matter, mentioned only to throw off the scent. I suspect you already know what we were looking for."
"Golem-renewal," Palloid suggested. "A way to make 'em last. Can I guess why? Your archie's memory is full, or nearly so."
"Full?" I asked.
"Too many inloads, Albert. Irene here has been duplicating so heavily, taking full memory dumps from every ditto she makes, that she's reached a limit most people only speculate about." He asked the red. "Tell me, how many centuries have you lived in subjective time? A thousand years?"
"Does it matter?"
"It might. To science," I answered. "To help others learn from your mistakes." But I could already see the futility of any altruistic appeal. This person, no matter how old, wasn't going to be moved by anything but her own good. "So you heard rumors about the renewal process and figured that giving your dits a longer span would -- "
" -- let you put off the inevitable, right?" Palloid rushed on. "And Beta's part in the alliance must've felt logical, too. He sells cheap knockoffs of expensive pleasuredits. Renewal would let him extend the life of his stolen templates. Maybe even switch from sales to lucrative rentals!"
"That's how he explained it to us. Beta seemed a natural ally to help steal this technology. I ... we still can't figure out what he hoped to gain by destroying Universal Kilns."
"Well, he didn't succeed!" Palloid snapped. "Thanks to Albert outsmarting him at the end."
I wanted to snort. It seemed dubious how far the gray "outsmarted" anybody! But I kept it in. "Whatever Beta's reason, I'm sure he'll try again."
Irene nodded. "Probably. But that will soon be of no concern to us."
Past her shoulder, I saw that preparations were nearing completion. Chilly vapors flowed around the dais and massive high-sensitivity sifters focused around realIrene's gray-haired skull. Her breathing was labored, but her eyes lay open and focused. Soft sounds gurgled and I wondered if she might be trying to speak ... that is, if she even retained the ability. For so long, she had used other eyes and ears, hands and mouths, to interact with the world.
Horus was back, having changed into a new robe -- a blue one with circular mandala motifs. He fussed over the big array of sifter tendrils while red Irene dittos arrayed themselves nearby, like petals of a flower. All of them now wore standard electrode mesh caps.
"Yeesh," Palloid commented. "They're gonna inload back into her all at once! I'd get such a headache, doing that."
"She must be used to it," I answered, turning for confirmation to the red we had been talking to. But she was gone! Without comment or salutation she had left to rejoin the others. I hurried after, grabbing her arm. "Wait a sec. I've got more questions."
"And I have an appointment to keep," she answered tersely. "Be quick."
"What about Gineen Wammaker? Was she involved in the plot? Or was that someone else disguised as her?"
The red grinned.
"Oh, isn't our modern era wondrous? I could never tell for sure, Mr. Morris. Not without doing a structural soul analysis. It sure looked and acted like the maestra, didn't it? But now I must go -- "
"Come on, you owe me!" I demanded. "At least tell me how to find Beta."
She laughed. "You have got to be kidding. Good-bye, Mr. Morris."
The red turned to go, then swiveled when I reached for her arm again. She glared. Needles protruded suddenly from blood-colored fingertips, glistening liquidly ... with something much stronger than knockout oil, I suspected. Beyond her, I glimpsed the ceremonial event approaching its climax. Horus was murmuring some mumbo jumbo -- about how every soul must eventually upload into the true Original, the source of all souls, way up there in the universe.
I had an inspiration. "Look, you're still seeking some kind of immortality, isn't that right, Irene? The attempt to steal renewal-tech from UK was a bust and cops will be here soon. So you're planning to try something else. Blast your Standing Wave outta here. Pow. Straight into the ether, with all the force of a micro-fusion plant! Apply the neuro-electric surge of organic brain-death to multiply the punch. And use up all your dittos at the same time, like solid rockets, to help the spirit get launched. Am I right?"
"Something like that," she said, backing up warily, toward where a final mesh cap waited, dangling near the dais. "There are raw rhythms out there in space, Mr. Morris. Astronomers detect subspectral similarities to a Soul Standing Wave, only crude, unformed. Like fresh golem clay. The first minds to successfully impose their waveforms might -- "
"Might amplify unimaginably, becoming God! Yeah, I heard of that notion," Palloid marveled, leaping off my shoulder and scampering forward, shouting. "This I gotta see!"
I hurried on, talking quickly. "But listen, Irene, didn't all the old religions promise afterlife as a reward for virtue? You think technology can replace it. Fine. But what if you're wrong? Did you ever consider that the old-timers might be at least partly right? What if some kind of karma or sin or guilt clings to you, like drag on a wing -- "
"You are trying to plant doubts," she hissed.
"They're already planted, in the ditto standing before me!" I said. "Maybe you shouldn't add such thoughts to the purity of the hive. You could stay behind and help me. Make up for some of the harm you've done. Lift the burden a bit. Help the rest of the hive by remaining here and atoning -- "
Something in what I said triggered a flare of violent emotion.
"No!"
She screamed a curse, swiping at me with her claws, then turning to speed toward the dais ... only to brake hard when she saw a small, ferretlike form, standing upright amid the crowd of supine red forms. Between glittering teeth, Palloid clutched an electrode mesh cap. The last one. With its cable torn out.
The red ditto howled with such rending despair that I marveled at the implications.
I thought a "hive drone" would have low personal ego, like an ant. Or a worker bee. But Irene is exactly the opposite! Every part of her desperately wants continuity. A roaring, frantic ego was the source of Irene's strength, and her downfall.
Horus looked upset by the disturbance. Some of the other reds were opening their eyes.
"Come on," I urged the one still standing, who quivered as Palloid chewed the mesh cap to bits. Her dark eyes looked wild.
"Help me find Beta," I implored. "It could tip the balance of karma -- "
With a cry, she swiveled around -- I had to leap back to avoid another swipe of glittering claws -- then she spun farther and ran outside, darting over cables into the alley beyond. Soon we heard thumping noises.
"What the hell?" Horus shouted. "Hey, what are you doing? Get off my van!"
Chasing after her, the purple left his machinery running as a sharp whine began to rise, aimed at some impending crescendo. I drew closer, both to see what was happening outside and to have a look at realIrene ... the organic woman who was lying there on the dais, eager to expire in just the right way, so that her Standing Wave might soar, heaven-bound.
How did the red ditto express it?
There are raw rhythms out there in space ... similar to a Standing Wave ... like fresh golem clay ... The first minds to impose their waveforms --
Oh, man.
I stepped up to the dais. Outside, the desperate red ditto could be seen climbing on top of the van! Closely followed by Horus, whose robe flapped around bare legs in a rather undignified manner as he clutched after her. Meanwhile, intense energies flowed amid the nest of sparking tendrils that surrounded realIrene's head.
"Mr. Morris -- "
It was little more than a moist croak, barely audible above the nucleoelectric whine. Trying not to touch anything, I bent close to the dying woman. Her pale complexion was splotchy and pitted with small pimples. For once, I was glad not to be able to smell.
"Albert -- "
This wasn't a person I could like very much. Still, her suffering was genuine and she deserved pity, I suppose.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" I asked, wondering when the machinery was timed to unleash all this pent-up force. It might not be safe to stand there.
"I ... heard ... what you said ... "
"What, about karma and all that? Look, I'm no priest. How should I know -- "
"No ... you're right ... " She gasped for breath between words. "Behind the bar ... unscrew the ketone cap ... get the son of ... son of a ... "
Her eyelids fluttered.
"Better get outta there, buddy-boy," Palloid urged. He was already standing in the doorway with sunshine on his back. I hurried off the dais to join him, glancing back in time to see an eruption of soft lightnings start to flash. Irene's body convulsed. So did the surrounding cluster of red golems, in perfect synchrony. It wouldn't be long now.
Retreating to the alley, we looked up at the other commotion, going on atop the van. Irene's final ditto, the one who was about to be orphaned, clutched at the big antenna, sobbing quite realistically while Horus held her by an ankle. He, in turn, clung to the cargo rack, trying to drag her off.
"Let go!" he shouted angrily. "You'll wreck it! Do you have any idea how long I saved to buy a franchise -- "
Palloid leaped onto my shoulder as I stepped away, putting more distance between us and ... whatever was about to happen.
Thunder seemed to boom within the back room of the Rainbow Lounge, like a pulsing of drums ... or maybe a million giant bullfrogs with bad thyroid conditions. All right, comparisons fail me, but anyone born in this century would recognize the bass cadence of a hugely amplified Standing Wave. Perhaps a ponderous caricature, impressive but lacking subtlety. Or else a colossally augmented version of the real thing. Who could tell which?
Irene may be able to tell ... in a few seconds.
Her final golem wailed on the roof of the van, fighting the tug of Horus in order to thrust her head in front of the antenna.
"Don't leave me!" she moaned. "Don't leave me behind!"
Palloid commented dryly, "I didn't think worker ants were s'pozed to care so much about their individual selves."
"I was just wondering the same thing," I replied. "Maybe the hive metaphor isn't right, after all. The human personality best suited to her way of life is all ego. She could never let go of even a small part of herself. I guess being large can be just as addictive as -- "
Pal's ditto interrupted, "Here it comes!"
We retreated down the alley till I felt the fence against my back, then stared as a sharp light spilled through the rear doors of the Rainbow Lounge, from the chamber where Irene and her copies lay.
The light seared, casting shadows even across daylit asphalt. Instinctively, I raised a hand for shade.
The struggle atop the van ended as Horus fell to the ground with a yelp. The very same moment, something surged along those superconducting cables. The final red ditto screamed, grappling the antenna desperately, causing the mounts to creak as that glittering surge enveloped the van. Spark-flecked aurorae covered both her and the dish ... even as her weight bore on the delicate apparatus, causing it to groan --
A visible beam shot forth, blasting through the clay body, which shivered, quickly hardening and sloughing off chunks, then overturned into the delicate parabola, bearing it down, shearing the metal support bolts with staccato pops. I watched with Pal -- and poor Horus howled -- as the antenna turned ... then toppled over the side of the van.
A soundless, blinding wave spread outward, like a radiant ripple of pure light. It washed over Pallie and me, driving tremors up my back. Both of my ears popped, loudly and painfully. Arcing static discharges followed the wavefront, blowing the back doors off the van and clouds of equipment into the street.
The transmission finished, not aimed toward the cosmos above, but into the floor of a gritty alley.
Horus slumped, moaning in despair till all was silent.
"You know, Gumby," my small ferret-shaped friend muttered from his perch on my shoulder, when we were both finally able to stir from dazzled shock over the spectacle. "You know, this city is built on some rich layers of pure clay. It's one reason Aeneas Kaolin built his first animation lab here, long ago. So it's not too far-fetched to imagine -- "
"Shut up, Pal." I didn't want to share whatever perverse notion had just occurred to him. Anyway, the smoke was clearing and I saw no sign of fire. Nobody would prevent us from going back inside the Rainbow Lounge.
"Come on," I said, rubbing my jaw, which hurt below the ears. "Let's see what parting gift Irene left for us."
"Hm? What're you talking about?"
I wasn't sure. Had she said "ketone cap"? Or something about atonement?
Anyway, I tried not to think ill of Irene. Despite all she had done, it just didn't seem right. Especially when we crept inside, passing both a barbecued ruin on the dais and surrounding supine heaps of smoldering brick statuary.
I had never seen anyone die quite so thoroughly before.
A China Syndrome ... as Little Red learns far more than he wanted to know ...
Yosil Maharal -- or rather his gray ghost -- appears to be quite proud of his private collection: starting with a unique hoard of cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals from ancient Mesopotamia, the muddy land where writing began more than four thousand years ago.
"This was the very first kind of magic that actually worked in a reliable and repeatable way," he told me, holding up an object the shape and hue of a dinner roll, covered with shallow, overlapping wedge incisions. "At last, a kind of immortality could be achieved by anybody who learned the new trick of recording their words and thoughts and stories, by marking impressions in wet clay. The immortality of speaking across time and space, even long after your original body returned to dust."
I may be no genius but I grasped his allusion. For he was just such a manifestation of continuity beyond death. A complex cluster of soul-impressions made in clay, speaking on after the original Yosil Maharal had his organic life snuffed out near a lonely culvert, under a desert highway. No wonder he felt a sense of kinship with the little tablets.
Maharal's private collection also includes samples of ancient hand-wrought pottery, like several large amphorae -- containers that held wine in a Roman bireme that sank two thousand years ago -- recently recovered by explorerdits from the bottom of the Mediterranean. And nearby, in the same display case, lay a setting of rare blue porcelain dinnerware, once carried around the Horn of Africa in the belly of a clipper ship to grace the table of some rich merchant.
Even more precious to my host were several fist-sized human effigies, from an era much earlier than Rome or Babylon. A time before towns or literacy, when all our ancestors roamed roofless, in hunter-gatherer tribes. One by one, Yosil's gray golem lovingly displayed about a dozen of these "Venus" figurines, molded out of Neolithic river mud, all of them featuring voluminous breasts and copious hips that tapered down from generous thighs to the daintiest of feet. With evident pride, he told me where each little statuette was found and how old it was. Lacking clear faces, most of them looked enigmatic. Anonymous. Mysterious. And prodigiously female.
"Back in the late twentieth century, a spirited postmodern cult organized itself around these effigies," he lectured while tugging a chain around my neck, leading me from one display case to the next.
"Inspired by these tiny sculptures, a few hyperfeminist mystics deduced a delightfully satisfying ideological fantasy -- that an Earth-Mother religion preceded every other spiritual belief system, all over the planet. This ubiquitous Neolithic creed must obviously have worshipped a goddess! One whose top traits were fecundity and serene maternal kindliness. That is, till gentle Gaia was toppled by violent bands of macho Jehovah-Zeus-Shiva followers, spurred by an abrupt wave of vile new technologies -- metallurgy, agriculture, and literacy -- that arrived with concurrent and destabilizing suddenness, all at once shaking the tranquil old ways and toppling the pastoral mother goddess.
"It follows that every crime and catastrophe of recorded history stems from that tragic upheaval."
Maharal's ghost chuckled, rolling one of the Venus figures affectionately in his hand. "Oh, the goddess theory was quite fabulous and creative. Though there is another, far simpler explanation for why these little figurines are found in so many Stone Age sites.
"Every human culture has devoted considerable creative effort to crafting exaggerated representations of the fertile female form ... as erotic art. Or pornography, if you will. I think we can safely assume there were frustrated males back in caveman days, as there are today. They must have 'worshipped' these little Venus figures in ways that we'd find familiar. Rather less lofty than Gaia veneration, but no less human.
"What has changed, after all that time, is that today's clay sex idols are far more realistic and satisfying.
"But therein lies a rub."
Standing in chains, wearing a miniature body and forced to listen to this drivel, I could only wonder. Was he being intentionally offensive, in order to gauge my reaction? I mean, why should the great Professor Maharal care what I think? Anyway, I'm just a cheap quarter-sized reddish-orange golem, imprinted off the gray he captured at Kaolin Manor on Tuesday. What kind of intellectual conversation can he hope to have with the likes of me?
Well, I don't feel mentally deficient. Ever since stepping from the kiln, I've checked and found no apparent memory gaps. I can't do a differential equation in my head ... but Albert himself was only able to manage that for about eight weeks, long ago, when he needed calculus to pass a college course. It took the hard, concentrated work of three ebonies to gain access to that painful beauty, then he flushed it away right after exams, making room amid a hundred billion neurons for more relevant memories.
See? I can even do irony.
All right, apparently I'm better at copy-to-copy imprinting than even I realized -- something Yosil Maharal must have known for a long time. Maybe from back when I took part in that high school summer research project. Were my scores really so special? Has he been grabbing my copies to study ever since?
The thought makes me feel creepy. Worse -- violated. Man, what a jerk.
He claims to have reasons. And yet, don't all fanatics?
"Now here is my greatest treasure," Yosil said, leading me to another exhibit. "It was given to me by the Honorary Son of Heaven himself, three years ago, in gratitude for my work at Sian."
Before me, preserved inside a sealed glass case, stood the statue -- life-size -- of a man with the upright bearing of a soldier, staring straight ahead, ready for action. So detailed was the sculpted handiwork that it portrayed rivets holding together strips of leather armor. A mustache, goatee, and stark cheekbones embellished strong Asiatic features -- touched off by hints of whimsy. The entire effigy was made of brown terracotta.
Naturally, I knew of Sian, one of the artistic gems of the world. It would be inconceivable for a private individual to own one of these statues -- if there had not been so many of them. Thousands, reclaimed from half a dozen buried regiments, discovered across more than a century, each of the effigies modeled after a particular soldier who served Ch'in, the first emperor, who conquered and united all the lands of the East. The same Ch'in who first built the Great Wall and gave his name to China.
"You know about my recent work there," ditYosil said -- not a question but statement of fact. Naturally. He's spoken to other Alberts, giving them the very same guided tour.
To what purpose? I wondered. Why explain all this, knowing the memories will be lost and that I must be told again, the next time he ditnaps another me to serve as an unwilling subject?
Unless that's part of what he is trying to test ...
"I've read a thing or two about your Sian work, in the journals," I answered guardedly. "You claim to have found soul-traces in some of the clay statues."
"Something like that." ditYosil's thin smile carried evident pride, recalling the worldwide sensation that his discovery provoked. "Some call the evidence ambiguous, though I think it's clear enough to conclude that some kind of primitive imprinting process must have been at work. By what means? We still haven't determined. A fluke, perhaps -- or the work of some ancient prodigy -- helping to explain the astonishing political events of that era, as well as the terrified awe that his contemporaries held for Ch'in.
"As a direct result of my findings, the present-day Son of Heaven finally agreed to open the colossal Ch'in tomb next year! Some deep mysteries may come to light, having slept for millennia."
"Hm," I answered, a bit incautiously. "Too bad you won't be there to witness it."
"Perhaps not. Or maybe I will. So many delicious contradictions come laden in that one sentence of yours, Albert."
"Uh. What sentence was that?"
"You said 'too bad,' implying values. The word 'you' was directed at me, as a thinking being, the person who is holding you captive right now, right?"
"Uh ... right."
"Then there are the phrases 'be there' and 'witness it.' Oh, you said a mouthful, all right."
"I don't see -- "
"We live at a special time," ditMaharal expounded. "A time when religion and philosophy have become experimental sciences, subject to hands-on manipulation by engineers. Miracles become trademarked products, bottled and sold at discount. The direct descendants of men who used to chip flint spearheads by the riverbank are not only making life but redefining the very meaning of the word! And yet -- "
He paused. I finally had to coax him.
"And yet?"
Maharal's gray face twisted. "And yet there are obstacles! So many of the outstanding problems in soulistics seem to have no hope of being solved, due to the ineffable complexity of the Standing Wave.
"No computer can model it, Albert. Only the shortest and fattest superconducting cables can convey its subtle majesty, barely well enough to let you press an imprint upon a nearby receptacle of specially prepared clay. Mathematically, it's a horror! Given all the odds, I'm astonished the process works at all.
"In fact, many of today's deepest thinkers suggest that we should just be thankful and accept it as a gift, without understanding it, like intelligence, or music, or laughter."
He shook his head, offering a good facsimile of a disdainful snort.
"But naturally, people on the street know nothing of this. Born with the cantankerous human spirit, they are never satisfied with a marvel -- or with their vastly expanded lives. Not at all! They take it for granted, and keep demanding more.
"Make it possible for us to imprint distant golems, so we can teleport around the solar system! Give us telepathy, by letting us absorb each other's memories! Never mind what the metamath equations say. We want more! We want to be more!
"And of course, people are right. Deep down, they sense the truth."
"What truth do you mean, Doctor?" I asked.
"That human beings are about to become very much more! Though not in any of the ways they now imagine."
With that cryptic remark, Maharal carefully put away the last of his dear collectibles -- the cuneiform tablets and pottery shards. The ancient amphora vessels and China dinnerware. The enigmatic/erotic Venus statuettes and snow-glazed Dresden figurines. The parchment texts in Hebrew, Sanskrit, and the cryptic coded charts of medieval alchemy. Finally he gave an affectionate nod to the stalwart terracotta soldier, still standing watch with his flickering, barely detectable imbuement of soul. Maharal took obvious comfort from these treasures, as if they proved his work part of a time-honored tradition.
Then, yanking the chain around my neck, he forced me to stumble after him like a small child following a heartless giant, back into the laboratory filled with machines that hissed and whirred and sparked, making the air tingle in frightening ways. I had a hunch that some of the effects might be for show. Yosil had a flair for the dramatic. Unlike some "mad scientists," he knew what he was and clearly relished the role.
A transparent soundproof partition divided the room. Beyond, I glimpsed the table where "I" became aware just an hour or so ago, still warm from the kiln. And nearby, strapped to another platform, lay a gray figure much taller than this body of mine. The self that I had been for several days. The one who provided a template for this narrating consciousness.
Poor gray. Left there to simmer and worry and scheme in vain. At least I had the distraction of an opponent.
"How did you manage to put all this together in secret?" I asked, gesturing around. The sheer amount of material -- not to mention the expensive gizmos -- would have been difficult to transport to this hidden underground lair (wherever it is) even in the old days of CIA plots and bad movieds about alien autopsies. To find it done today by a single person, somehow evading the all-seeing and all-shared public Eye of Accountability, showed that I was in the hands of a true genius. As if I didn't know it already.
A genius who clearly resented me for some reason! Not only was he physically callous toward this body I wore, he kept oscillating between taciturn silence and bouts of sudden talkativeness, as if driven by some inner need to impress me. I recognized clear signs of a Smersh-Foxleitner inferiority complex ... and wondered what possible good the diagnosis was going to do me.
Mostly, I kept looking for possible ways to escape, knowing that each of my earlier prisoner-incarnations must have done the very same thing. But all they accomplished with their efforts had been to turn Maharal hypercautious -- so that now he only imprints experimental copies of me that are too weak to punch their way out of paper manacles.
Fettering me to a chair beneath a machine resembling a giant microscope, he aimed the huge lens at my little reddish-orange head.
"I have access to ample resources, quite near here," Maharal said, answering my question -- though unhelpfully. Fiddling with dials and muttering into a computerized votroller, he looked more focused on the task at hand than on me personally. But I knew better by now.
The man worried about me -- a disquiet that ran deep. Anything I said could vex him.
"All right, so we ruled out teleportation and telepathy. Even so, you've made impressive breakthroughs, Doctor. Your process to extend a ditto's pseudolifespan, for instance. Wow. Imagine if all golems could replenish their élan a week or two ... it could really hurt the value of Universal Kilns stock, I bet. Is that why you had a falling out with Aeneas Kaolin?"
My remark drew a sharp look. Gray lips pressed together in a line, silent.
"Come on, Doc. Admit it. I could feel tension between you two, under all the feigned affection back at Kaolin Manor, when you showed up as a ghost to view your own corpse. The Vic seemed anxious to get his hands on that artificial brain of yours, and dice it to bits. Why? In order to learn more about all this?" I gestured at the big lab with its mysterious stolen equipment. "Or was he trying to hush you?"
Maharal's grimace told me I hit home.
"Is that it? Did Aeneas Kaolin murder your real self?"
The police hadn't found any signs of foul play at the desert crash site where realYosil Maharal had died. But in searching for clues, they only considered today's technology. Aeneas Kaolin possessed tomorrow's.
"As usual, you are thinking small, Mr. Morris. Like poor Aeneas."
"Yeah? Then try explaining, Professor. Starting with why I'm here. All right, so I make great copies. How does that help you solve those great mysteries of soulistics?"
His eyes rolled upward and shoulders shrugged -- an expression of fatigued contempt, exactly according to the Smersh-Foxleitner pattern. Maharal doesn't just envy my ability. He actually fears me! So he must exaggerate the intellectual gulf between us and minimize my humanity.
Did my other selves notice this? They must have!
"You would not understand," he muttered, returning to his preparations. I heard the crackle of high-power equipment, warming up with me sitting at the focus.
"I'm sure you said that to the other Alberts you captured. But tell me this, did you ever, even once, try to explain? Maybe offer me collaboration, instead of unwilling experimental torment? Science isn't meant to be a lonely business, after all. Whatever your reasons for working in isolation -- "
" -- are my reasons. And they are more than sufficient to justify these means." Maharal turned to regard me tiredly. "Now you'll spout moral arguments, about how wrong it is to treat another thinking entity this way. Even though you showed no such regard for your own dittos! Never even bothering to investigate why so many went missing over the years."
"But ... I'm a private eye. That involves sending myselves into dangerous situations. Taking risks. I came to think of them -- "
" -- as disposable selves. Their loss to be regretted no more than our grandparents would lament the waste of an irritating day. Well, that's your privilege. But then, don't call me a monster if I take advantage."
That gave me pause. "Have I called you a monster?"
Stone-faced. "Several times."
I pondered this a moment.
"Well, then, I have to guess that your ... procedure is gonna hurt. A lot."
"Rather, I'm afraid. Sorry. But there is good news! I have reason to hope things will go much smoother this time."
"Because you've improved your method?"
"In part. And because circumstances have changed. I expect your Standing Wave will be more malleable ... more mobile ... now that it's no longer anchored to organic reality."
I didn't like the sound of that.
"What do you mean, no longer anchored?"
Maharal frowned, but I could tell the expression masked a layer of pleasure. Perhaps he wasn't even aware how much he enjoyed telling me the news.
"I mean that you're dead, Mr. Morris. Your original body was vaporized late Tuesday night, in a missile attack that destroyed your home."
"A ... what?"
"Yes, my poor fellow artifact. Like me, you are now -- as they say -- a ghost."