"What above my right knee?"
"The principal access to that part of your brain we're concerned
with," said Dimanche. "We can't photomeasure your brain the way it was
originally done, but we can investigate it remotely. The results will
be simplified, naturally. Something like a scale model as compared to
the original. A more apt comparison might be that of a relief map to
an actual locality."
"Investigate it remotely?" muttered Cassal. A horrible suspicion
touched his consciousness. He jerked away from that touch. "What does
that mean?"
"What it sounds like. Stimulus and response. From that I can construct
an accurate chart of the proper portion of your brain. Our probing
instruments will be crude out of necessity, but effective."
"I've already visualized those probing instruments," said Cassal
worriedly. "Maybe we'd better work first on the official engraving and
the electron stamp, while I'm still fresh. I have a feeling...."
"Excellent suggestion," said Dimanche.
Cassal gathered the articles slowly. His lighter would burn and it
would also cut. He needed a heavy object to pound with. A violent
irritant for the nerve endings. Something to freeze his flesh....
Dimanche interrupted: "There are also a few glands we've got to pick
up. See if there's a stimi in the room."
"Stimi? Oh yes, a stimulator. Never use the damned things." But he was
going to. The next few hours weren't going to be pleasant. Nor dull,
either.
Life could be difficult on Godolph.
* * * * *
As soon as the Life Stage Cordon came down, Cassal called for a doctor.
The native looked at him professionally.
"Is this a part of the Earth life process?" he asked incredulously.
Gingerly, he touched the swollen and lacerated leg.
Cassal nodded wearily. "A matter of life and death," he croaked.
"If it is, then it is," said the doctor, shaking his head. "I, for one,
am glad to be a Godolphian."
"To each his own habitat," Cassal quoted the motto of the hotel.
Godolphians were clumsy, good-natured caricatures of seals. There was
nothing wrong with their medicine, however. In a matter of minutes
he was feeling better. By the time the doctor left, the swelling had
subsided and the open wounds were fast closing.
Eagerly, he examined the identification tab. As far as he could tell,
it was perfect. What the scanner would reveal was, of course, another
matter. He had to check that as best he could without exposing himself.
Services came up to the suite right after he laid the intercom down. A
machine was placed over his head and the identification slipped into
the slot. The code on the tab was noted; the machine hunted and found
the corresponding brain area. Structure was mapped, impulses recorded,
scrambled, converted into a ray of light which danced over a film.
The identification tab was similarly recorded. There was now a means of
comparison.
Fingerprints could be duplicated--that is, if the race in question
had fingers. Every intelligence, however much it differed from its
neighbors, had a brain, and tampering with that brain was easily
detected. Each identification tab carried a psychometric number which
corresponded to the total personality. Alteration of any part of the
brain could only subtract from personality index.
The technician removed the identification and gave it to Cassal. "Where
shall I send the strips?"
"You don't," said Cassal. "I have a private message to go with them."
"But that will invalidate the process."
"I know. This isn't a formal contract."
Removing the two strips and handing them to Cassal, the technician
wheeled the machine away. After due thought, Cassal composed the
message.
Travelers Aid Bureau Murra Foray, first counselor:
If you were considering another identification tab for me, don't.
As you can see, I've located the missing item.
He attached the message to the strips and dropped them into the
communication chute.
* * * * *
He was wiping his whiskers away when the answer came. Hastily he
finished and wrapped himself, noting but not approving the amused glint
in her eyes as she watched. His morals were his own, wherever he went.
"Denton Cassal," she said. "A wonderful job. The two strips were in
register within one per cent. The best previous forgery I've seen was
six per cent, and that was merely a lucky accident. It couldn't be
duplicated. Let me congratulate you."
His dignity was professional. "I wish you weren't so fond of that word
'forgery.' I told you I mislaid the tab. As soon as I found it, I sent
you proof. I want to get to Tunney 21. I'm willing to do anything I can
to speed up the process."
Her laughter tinkled. "You don't _have_ to tell me how you did it or
where you got it. I'm inclined to think you made it. You understand
that I'm not concerned with legality as such. From time to time the
agency has to furnish missing documents. If there's a better way than
we have, I'd like to know it."
He sighed and shook his head. For some reason, his heart was beating
fast. He wanted to say more, but there was nothing to say.
When he failed to respond, she leaned toward him. "Perhaps you'll
discuss this with me. At greater length."
"At the agency?"
She looked at him in surprise. "Have you been sleeping? The agency is
closed for the day. The first counselor can't work all the time, you
know."
Sleeping? He grimaced at the remembrance of the self-administered
beating. No, he hadn't been sleeping. He brushed the thought aside and
boldly named a place. Dinner was acceptable.
Dimanche waited until the screen was dark. The words were carefully
chosen.
"Did you notice," he asked, "that there was no apparent change in
clothing and makeup, yet she seemed younger, more attractive?"
"I didn't think you could trace her that far."
"I can't. I looked at her through your eyes."
"Don't trust my reaction," advised Cassal. "It's likely to be
subjective."
"I don't," answered Dimanche. "It is."
* * * * *
Cassal hummed thoughtfully. Dimanche was a business neurological
instrument. It didn't follow that it was an expert in human psychology.
* * * * *
Cassal stared at the woman coming toward him. Center-of-the-Galaxy
fashion. Decadent, of course, or maybe ultra-civilized. As an Outsider,
he wasn't sure which. Whatever it was, it did to the human body what
should have been done long ago.
And this body wasn't exactly human. The subtle skirt of proportions
betrayed it as an offshoot or deviation from the human race. Some of
the new sub-races stacked up against the original stock much in the
same way Cro-Magnons did against Neanderthals, in beauty, at least.
Dimanche spoke a single syllable and subsided, an event Cassal didn't
notice. His consciousness was focused on another discovery: the woman
was Murra Foray.
He knew vaguely that the first counselor was not necessarily what she
had seemed that first time at the agency. That she was capable of such
a metamorphosis was hard to believe, though pleasant to accept. His
attitude must have shown on his face.
"Please," said Murra Foray. "I'm a Huntner. We're adept at camouflage."
"Huntner," he repeated blankly. "I knew that. But what's a Huntner?"
She wrinkled her lovely nose at the question. "I didn't expect you to
ask that. I won't answer it now." She came closer. "I thought you'd ask
which was the camouflage--the person you see here, or the one at the
Bureau?"
He never remembered the reply he made. It must have been satisfactory,
for she smiled and drew her fragile wrap closer. The reservations were
waiting.
Dimanche seized the opportunity to speak. "There's something phony
about her. I don't understand it and I don't like it."
"You," said Cassal, "are a machine. You don't have to like it."
"That's what I mean. You _have_ to like it. You have no choice."
Murra Foray looked back questioningly. Cassal hurried to her side.
The evening passed swiftly. Food that he ate and didn't taste. Music he
heard and didn't listen to. Geometric light fugues that were seen and
not observed. Liquor that he drank--and here the sequence ended, in the
complicated chemistry of Godolphian stimulants.
Cassal reacted to that smooth liquid, though his physical reactions
were not slowed. Certain mental centers were depressed, others left
wide open, subject to acceleration at whatever speed he demanded.
Murra Foray, in his eyes at least, might look like a dream, the kind
men have and never talk about. She was, however, interested solely in
her work, or so it seemed.
* * * * *
"Godolph is a nice place," she said, toying with a drink, "if you like
rain. The natives seem happy enough. But the Galaxy is big and there
are lots of strange planets in it, each of which seems ideal to those
who are adapted to it. I don't have to tell you what happens when
people travel. They get stranded. It's not the time spent in actual
flight that's important; it's waiting for the right ship to show up
and then having all the necessary documents. Believe me, that can be
important, as you found out."
He nodded. He had.
"That's the origin of Travelers Aid Bureau," she continued. "A loose
organization, propagated mainly by example. Sometimes it's called Star
Travelers Aid. It may have other names. The aim, however, is always the
same: to see that stranded persons get where they want to go."
She looked at him wistfully, appealingly. "That's why I'm interested
in your method of creating identification tabs. It's the thing most
commonly lost. Stolen, if you prefer the truth."
She seemed to anticipate his question. "How can anyone use another's
identification? It can be done under certain circumstances. By neural
lobotomy, a portion of one brain may be made to match, more or less
exactly, the code area of another brain. The person operated on suffers
a certain loss of function, of course. How great that loss is depends
on the degree of similarity between the two brain areas before the
operation took place."
She ought to know, and he was inclined to believe her. Still, it didn't
sound feasible.
"You haven't accounted for the psychometric index," he said.
"I thought you'd see it. That's diminished, too."
Logical enough, though not a pretty picture. A genius could always be
made into an average man or lowered to the level of an idiot. There
was no operation, however, that could raise an idiot to the level of a
genius.
The scramble for the precious identification tabs went on, from the
higher to the lower, a game of musical chairs with grim over-tones.