“But yes, yes,” he sputtered when the layman had finally made himself clear to the scientists. “Yes, indeed! A most ingenious notion. Why it never occurred to me, I cannot think. It could be accomplished without any difficulty whatsoever.” He considered. “Except money,” he added.
“You could duplicate the girl that died ten years ago?” Alceste asked.
“Without any difficulty, except money.” Goland nodded emphatically.
“She’d look the same? Act the same? Be the same?”
“Up to ninety-five percent, plus or minus point nine seven five.”
“Would that make any difference? I mean, ninety-five percent of a person as against one hundred percent.”
“Ach! No. It is a most remarkable individual who is aware of more than eighty percent of the total characteristics of another person. Above ninety percent is unheard of.”
“How would you go about it?”
“Ach? So. Empirically we have two sources. One: complete psychological pattern of the subject in the Centaurus Master Files. They will TT a transcript upon application and payment of one hundred credits through formal channels. I will apply.”
“And I’ll pay. Two?”
“Two: the embalmment process of modern times, which—She is buried, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Which is ninety-eight percent perfect. From remains and psychological pattern we re-clone body and psyche by the equation sigma equals the square root of minus two over— We do it without any difficulty, except money.”
“Me, I’ve got the money,” Frankie Alceste said. “You do the rest.”
For the sake of his friend, Alceste paid Cr. 100 and expedited the formal application to the Master Files on Centaurus for the transcript of the complete psychological pattern of Sima Morgan, deceased. After it arrived, Alceste returned to Terra and a city called Berlin, where he blackmailed a gimpster named Augenblick into turning grave robber. Augenblick visited the Staats-Gottesacker and removed the porcelain coffin from under the marble headstone that read SIMA MORGAN. It contained what appeared to be a black-haired, silken-skinned girl in deep sleep. By devious routes, Alceste got the porcelain coffin through four customs barriers to Deneb.
One aspect of the trip of which Alceste was not aware, but which bewildered various police organizations, was the series of catastrophes that pursued him and never quite caught up. There was the jetliner explosion that destroyed the ship and an acre of docks half an hour after passengers and freight were discharged. There was a hotel holocaust ten minutes after Alceste checked out. There was the shuttle disaster that extinguished the pneumatic train for which Alceste had unexpectedly canceled passage. Despite all this he was able to present the coffin to biochemist Goland.
“Ach!” said Ernst Theodor Amadeus. “A beautiful creature. She is worth re-creating. The rest now is simple, except money.”
For the sake of his friend, Alceste arranged a leave of absence for Goland, bought him a laboratory and financed an incredibly expensive series of experiments. For the sake of his friend, Alceste poured forth money and patience until at last, eight months later, there emerged from the opaque maturation chamber a black-haired, inkyeyed, silken-skinned creature with long legs and a high bust. She answered to the name of Sima Morgan.
“I heard the jet coming down toward the school,” Sima said, unaware that she was speaking eleven years later. “Then I heard a crash. What happened?”
Alceste was jolted. Up to this moment she had been an objective … a goal … unreal, unalive. This was a living woman. There was a curious hesitation in her speech, almost a lisp. Her head had an engaging tilt when she spoke. She arose from the edge of the table, and she was not fluid or graceful as Alceste had expected she would be. She moved boyishly.
“I’m Frank Alceste,” he said quietly. He took her shoulders. “I want you to look at me and make up your mind whether you can trust me.”
Their eyes locked in a steady gaze. Sima examined him gravely. Again Alceste was jolted and moved. His hands began to tremble and he released the girl’s shoulders in panic.
“Yes,” Sima said. “I can trust you.”
“No matter what I say, you must trust me. No matter what I tell you to do, you must trust me and do it.”
“Why?”
“For the sake of Johnny Strapp.”
Her eyes widened. “Something’s happened to him,” she said quickly. “What is it?”
“Not to him, Sima. To you. Be patient, honey. I’ll explain. I had it in my mind to explain now, but I can’t. I—I’d best wait until tomorrow.”
They put her to bed and Alceste went out for a wrestling match with himself. The Deneb nights are soft and black as velvet, thick and sweet with romance—or so it seemed to Frankie Alceste that night.
“You can’t be falling in love with her,” he muttered. “It’s crazy.”
And later, “You saw hundreds like her when Johnny was hunting. Why didn’t you fall for one of them?”
And last of all, “What are you going to do?”
He did the only thing an honorable man can do in a situation like that, and tried to turn his desire into friendship. He came into Sima’s room the next morning, wearing tattered old jeans, needing a shave, with his hair standing on end. He hoisted himself up on the foot of her bed, and while she ate the first of the careful meals Goland had prescribed, Frankie chewed on a cigarette and explained to her. When she wept. he did not take her in his arms to console her, but thumped her on the back like a brother.
He ordered a dress for her. He had ordered the wrong size, and when she showed herself to him in it, she looked so adorable that he wanted to kiss her. Instead he punched her. very gently and very solemnly, and took her out to buy a wardrobe. When she showed herself to him in proper clothes, she looked so enchanting that he had to punch her again. Then they went to a ticket office and booked immediate passage for Ross-Alpha III.
Alceste had intended delaying a few days to rest the girt but he was compelled to rush for fear of himself. It was this alone that saved both from the explosion that destroyed the private home and private laboratory of biochemist Goland, and destroyed the biochemist too. Alceste never knew this. He was already on board ship with Sima, frantically fighting temptation.
One of the things that everybody knows about space travel but never mentions is its aphrodisiac quality. Like the ancient days when travelers crossed oceans on ships, the passengers are isolated in their own tiny world for a week. They’re cut off from reality. A magic mood of freedom from ties and responsibilities pervades the jetliner. Everyone has a fling. There are thousands of jet romances every week—quick, passionate affairs that are enjoyed in complete safety and ended on landing day.
In this atmosphere, Frankie Alceste maintained a rigid self-control. He was not aided by the fact that he was a celebrity with a tremendous animal magnetism. While a dozen handsome women threw themselves at him, he persevered in the role of big brother and thumped and punched Sima until she protested.
“I know you’re a wonderful friend to Johnny and me,” she said on the last night out. “But you are exhausting, Frankie. I’m covered with bruises.”
“Yeah. I know. It’s habit. Some people, like Johnny, they think with their brains. Me, I think with my fists.”
They were standing before the starboard crystal. bathed in the soft light of the approaching Ross-Alpha, and there is nothing more damnably romantic than the velvet of space illuminated by the white-violet of a distant sun. Sima tilted her head and looked at him.
“I was talking to some of the passengers,” she said. “You’re famous, aren’t you?”
“More notorious-like.”
“There’s so much to catch up on. But I must catch up on you first. “
“Me?”
Sima nodded. “It’s all been so sudden. I’ve been bewildered—and so exited that I haven’t had a chance to thank you, Frankie. I do thank you . I’m beholden to you forever.”
S
he put her arms around his neck and kissed him with parted lips. Alceste began to shake.
“No,” he thought. “No. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s so crazy happy at the idea of being with Johnny again that she doesn’t realize …”
He reached behind him until he felt the icy surface of the crystal, which passengers are strictly enjoined from touching. Before he could give way, he deliberately pressed the backs of his hands against the subzero surface. The pain made him start. Sima released him in surprise and when he pulled his hands away, he left six square inches of skin and blood behind.
So he landed on Ross-Alpha III with one girl in good condition and two hands in bad shape and he was met by the acid-faced Aldous Fisher, accompanied by an official who requested Mr. Alceste to step into an office for a very serious private talk.
“It has been brought to our attention by Mr. Fisher,” the official said, “that you are attempting to bring in a young woman of illegal status.”
“How would Mr. Fisher know?” Alceste asked.
“You fool!” Fisher spat. “Did you think I would let it go at that? You were followed. Every minute.”
“Mr. Fisher informs us,” the official continued austerely, “that the woman with you is traveling under an assumed name. Her papers are fraudulent.”
“How fraudulent?” Alceste said. “She’s Sima Morgan. Her papers say she’s Sima Morgan.”
“Sima Morgan died eleven years ago,” Fisher answered . “The woman with you can’t be Sima Morgan.”
“And unless the question of her true identity is cleared up,” the official said, “she will not be permitted entry.”
“I’ll have the documentation on Sima Morgan’s death here within the week,” Fisher added triumphantly.
Alceste looked at Fisher and shook his head wearily. “You don’t know it, but you’re making it easy for me,” he said. “The one thing in the world I’d like to do is take her out of here and never let Johnny see her. I’m so crazy to keep her for myself that—” He stopped himself and touched the bandages on his hands. “Withdraw your charge, Fisher.”
“No,” Fisher snapped.
“You can’t keep ’em apart. Not this way. Suppose she’s interned? Who’s the first man I subpoena to establish her identity? John Strapp. Who’s the first man I call to come and see her? John Strapp. D’you think you could stop him?”
“That contract,” Fisher began. “I’ll—”
“To hell with the contract. Show it to him. He wants his girl, not me. Withdraw your charge, Fisher. And stop fighting. You’ve lost your meal ticket.”
Fisher glared malevolently, then swallowed. “I withdraw the charge,” he growled. Then he looked at Alceste with blood in his eyes. “It isn’t the last round yet,” he said and stamped out of the office.
Fisher was prepared. At a distance of light-years he might be too late with too little. Here on Ross-Alpha III he was protecting his property. He had all the power and money of John Strapp to call on. The floater that Frankie Alceste and Sima took from the spaceport was piloted by a Fisher aide who unlatched the cabin door and performed steep banks to tumble his fares out into the air. Alceste smashed the glass partition and hooked a meaty arm around the driver’s throat until he righted the floater and brought them safely to earth. Alceste was pleased to note that Sima did not fuss more than was necessary.
On the road level they were picked up by one of a hundred cars that had been pacing the floater from below. At the first shot, Alceste clubbed Sima into a doorway and followed her at the expense of a burst shoulder, which he bound hastily with strips of Sima’s lingerie. Her dark eyes were enormous, but she made no complaint. Alceste complimented her with mighty thumps and took her up to the roof and down into the adjoining building, where he broke into an apartment and telephoned for an ambulance.
When the ambulance arrived, Alceste and Sima descended to the street, where they were met by uniformed policemen who had official instructions to pick up a couple answering to their description. “Wanted for floater robbery with assault. Dangerous. Shoot to kill.” The police Alceste disposed of, and also the ambulance driver and intern. He and Sima departed in the ambulance, Alceste driving like a fury, Sima operating the siren like a banshee.
They abandoned the ambulance in the downtown shopping district, entered a department store, and emerged forty minutes later as a young valet in uniform pushing an old man in a wheelchair. Outside the difficulty of the bust, Sima was boyish enough to pass as a valet. Frankie was weak enough from assorted injuries to simulate the old man.
They checked into the Ross Splendide, where Alceste barricaded Sima in a suite, had his shoulder attended to and bought a gun. Then he went looking for John Strapp. He found him in the Bureau of Vital Statistics, bribing the chief clerk and presenting him with a slip of paper that gave the same description of the long-lost love.
“Hey, old Johnny,” Alceste said.
“Hey, Frankie!” Strapp cried in delight.
They punched each other affectionately. With a happy grin, Alceste watched Strapp explain and offer further bribes to the chief clerk for the names and addresses of all girls over twenty-one who fitted the description on the slip of paper. As they left, Alceste said, “I met a girl who might fit that, old Johnny.”
That cold look came into Strapp’s eyes. “Oh?” he said.
“She’s got a kind of half lisp.”
Strapp looked at Alceste strangely.
“And a funny way of tilting her head when she talks.”
Strapp clutched Alceste’s arm.
“Only trouble is, she isn’t girlie-girlie like most. More like a fella. You know what I mean? Spunky-like.”
“Show her to me, Frankie,” Strapp said in a low voice.
They hopped a floater and were taxied to the Ross Splendide roof. They took the elevator down to the twentieth floor and walked to suite 20-M. Alceste code-knocked on the door. A girl’s voice called, “Come in.” Alceste shook Strapp’s hand and said, “Cheers, Johnny.” He unlocked the door, then walked down the hall to lean against the balcony balustrade. He drew his gun just in case Fisher might get around to last-ditch interruptions. Looking out across the glittering city, he reflected that every man could be happy if everybody would just lend a hand; but sometimes that hand was expensive.
John Strapp walked into the suite. He shut the door, turned and examined the jet-haired inky-eyed girl, coldly, intently. She stared at him in amazement. Strapp stepped closer, walked around her, faced her again.
“Say something,” he said.
“You’re not John Strapp?” she faltered.
“Yes.”
“No!” she exclaimed. “No! My Johnny’s young. My Johnny is—”
Strapp closed in like a tiger. His hands and lips savaged her while his eyes watched coldly and intently. The girl screamed and struggled, terrified by those strange eyes that were alien, by the harsh hands that were alien, by the alien compulsions of the creature who was once her Johnny Strapp but was now aching years of change apart from her.
“You’re someone else!” she cried. “You’re not Johnny Strapp. You’re another man.”
And Strapp, not so much eleven years older as eleven years other than the man whose memory he was fighting to fulfill, asked himself, “Are you my Sima? Are you my love—my lost, dead love?” And the change within him answered, “No, this isn’t Sima. This isn’t your love yet. Move on, Johnny. Move on and search. You’ll find her someday—the girl you lost.”
He paid like a gentleman and departed.
From the balcony, Alceste saw him leave. He was so astonished that he could not call to him. He went back to the suite and found Sima standing there, stunned, staring at a sheaf of money on a table. He realized what had happened at once. When Sima saw Alceste, she began to cry—not like a girl, but boyishly, with her fists clenched and her face screwed up.
“Frankie,” she wept. “My God! Frankie!” She held out her arms to him in desperation. Sh
e was lost in a world that had passed her by.
He took a step, then hesitated. He made a last attempt to quench the love within him for this creature, searching for a way to bring her and Strapp together. Then he lost all control and took her in his arms.
“She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” he thought. “She’s so scared of being lost. She’s not mine. Not yet. Maybe never.”
And then, “Fisher’s won, and I’ve lost.”
And last of all, “We only remember the past; we never know it when we meet it. The mind goes back, but time goes on, and farewells should be forever.”
THE MEN WHO MURDERED MOHAMMED
There was a man who mutilated history. He toppled empires and uprooted dynasties. Because of him, Mount Vernon should not be a national shrine, and Columbus, Ohio, should be called Cabot, Ohio. Because of him the name Marie Curie should be cursed in France, and no one should swear by the beard of the Prophet. Actually, these realities did not happen, because he was a mad professor; or, to put it another way, he only succeeded in making them unreal for himself.
Now, the patient reader is too familiar with the conventional mad professor, undersized and overbrowed, creating monsters in his laboratory which invariably turn on their maker and menace his lovely daughter. This story isn’t about that sort of make-believe man. It’s about Henry Hassel, a genuine mad professor in a class with such better-known men as Ludwig Boltzmann (see Ideal Gas Law), Jacques Charles, and André Marie Ampère (1775-1836).
Everyone ought to know that the electrical ampere was so named in honor of Ampère. Ludwig Boltzmann was a distinguished Austrian physicist, as famous for his research on black-body radiation as on Ideal Gases. You can look him up in Volume Three of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, BALT to BRAI. Jacques Alexandre César Charles was the first mathematician to become interested in flight, and he invented the hydrogen balloon. These were real men.