"Gaffa says that they are exactly identical so far as outside appearance
goes," I said. "But he may be wrong, or lying. Maybe we'd better check
for ourselves."
* * * * *
The Haslops raised a howl, of course, but it did them no good. Gibbons
and Corelli and I ganged them one at a time--the Quack refused to help
for fear of being contaminated--and examined them carefully. It was a
lively job, since both of them swore they were ticklish, and under
different circumstances it could have been embarrassing.
But it settled one point. Gaffa hadn't lied. They were absolutely
identical, as far as we could determine.
We had given it up and were resting from our labors when Gaffa came
grinning out of the darkness and brought us a big crystal pitcher of
something that would have passed for a first-class Planet Punch except
that it was nearer two-thirds alcohol than the fifty-fifty mix you get
at most interplanetary ginmills.
The two Haslops had a slug of it as a matter of course, being accustomed
to it, and the rest of us followed suit. Only the Quack refused, turning
green at the thought of all the alien bacteria that might be swimming
around in the pitcher.
A couple of drinks made us feel better.
"I've been thinking," Captain Corelli said, "about what Gaffa said when
he limited the time of the test, that we might or might not discover the
reason for ourselves. Now what the hell did the grinning heathen mean by
that? Is there a reason, or was he only dragging a red herring across
the bogus Haslop's track?"
Gibbons looked thoughtful. I sat back while he pondered and watched the
Quack, who was swallowing another antibiotic capsule.
"Wait a minute," Gibbons exclaimed. "Captain, you've hit on something
there!"
He stared at the Haslops. They stared back, unimpressed.
"Gaffa said you two were exactly alike outside," Gibbons said. "And
we've proved it. Does that mean you're not alike _inside_?"
"Sure," one of them said. "But what of it? You're sure as hell not going
to cut one of us open to see!"
"You're confusing the issue," Gibbons snapped. "What I'm getting at is
this--if you two aren't made alike inside, then you can't possibly exist
on the same sort of diet. One of you eats the same sort of food as
ourselves. The other can't. But which is which?"
One of the Haslops pointed a quivering finger at the other. "It's him!"
he said. "I've watched him drink his dinner for twenty-two years--he's
the fake!"
"Liar!" the other one yelled, springing up. Corelli stepped between them
and the second Haslop subsided, grumbling. "It's true enough, only
_he's_ the one that drinks his meals. This stuff in the pitcher is the
food he lives on--alcohol for energy, with minerals and other stuff
dissolved in it. I drink it with him for kicks, but that phony can't eat
anything else."
* * * * *
Corelli snapped his fingers.
"So that's why they limited our time, and why they brought this
stuff--to keep their fake Haslop refueled! All we've got to do to
separate our men now is feed them something solid. The one that eats it
is the real Haslop."
"Sure, all we need now is some solid food," I said. "You don't happen to
have a couple of sandwiches on you, do you?"
Everybody got quiet for a couple of minutes, and in the silence the
Quack surprised us all by deciding to speak up.
"Since I'm stuck here for life," he said, "a few germs more or less
won't matter much. Pass me the pitcher, will you?"
He took a man-sized slug of the fiery stuff without even wiping off the
pitcher's rim.
After that we gave it up, as who wouldn't have? Captain Corelli said the
hell with it and took such a slug out of the pitcher that the two
Haslops yelled murder and grabbed it quick themselves, and from then on
we just sat around and drank and talked and waited for the sunrise that
would condemn us to Balak for the rest of our lives.
Thinking about our problem had reminded me of an old puzzle I'd heard
somewhere about three men being placed in a room where they can see each
other but not themselves; they're shown three white hats and two black
ones, and then they're blindfolded and a hat is put on each of their
heads. When the blindfolds are taken off, the third man knows by looking
at the other two and by what they say just what color hat he's wearing
himself, but I always forget how it is that he knows.
We got so interested in the hat problem that the east was turning pink
before we realized it.
None of us actually saw the sun rise, though, except the Quack and the
bogus Haslop.
I was right in the middle of a sentence when all of a sudden my stomach
rolled over and growled like a dying tiger, and I never had such an
all-gone feeling in my life. I looked at the others, wondering if the
stuff in the pitcher had poisoned us all, and saw Gibbons and Corelli
staring at each other with the same startled look in their eyes. One of
the Haslops was hit, too--he had the same pinched expression around the
mouth, and perspiration stood out on his forehead in drops as big as
grapes.
And then the four of us were on our feet and dashing for open country,
leaving the Quack and the remaining Haslop staring after us. The Haslop
who stayed looked puzzled, I thought, but the Quack only seemed
interested and very much entertained.