Unreasonable Facsimile (by Lester del Rey) Max Fleigh's heavy jowls relaxed and he chuckled without humor as he examined the knots that bound the man at his feet. Quite impersonally, he planted the toe of his boot in Curtis' ribs, listened to the muffled grunt of pain, and decided that the gag was effective. For once, Slim had done a good job, and there was nothing wrong. It was probably unnecessary, anyway, but there could be no bungling when the future of the Plutarchy was at stake. Incompetence had cost them an empire once, and there would be no third opportunity. The stupid democracies that had called themselves a World Union had colonized the planets and ruled them without plan. And when Mars, Venus, and the Jovian Worlds had revolted and set up a Planet Council, all that Earth could do was to come crawling to it, begging polite permission to join what they should have owned! But that had been before practical realists had kicked out the dreamers and set up the Plutarchy under an iron discipline that could implement its plans. Now they were heading back toward their lost empire, colonizing the asteroids and establishing claims that gave them a rough rule over the outlaws who had retreated there. With the Council softened up by years of cautious propaganda, they were in a position to ask and receive a Mandate over the scattered planetoids. It was the opening wedge, and all they needed. Once the asteroids could be given spurious independence to seek a Council seat, they would be ready to strike at the Jovian Worlds. With proper incidents, propaganda, and quislings, plus the planetoids to separate Jupiter from Mars, there could be no question of the outcome. Earth would gain a majority of three votes, and the Council would be the basis of a new and greater Plutarchy. Fleigh gave the bound body of Curtis another careless kick and went forward to the cabin, where the lanky form of his companion was hunched dourly over the controls of the little spacecraft. "How's it going, Slim?" "So-so." Slim ejected a green stream of narcotic juice and grinned sourly. "But I still say we been crowdin' our luck too hard!" "Rot! Lay out the right moves, cover all possibilities, outmaneuver your enemies, and you don't need luck! Ever play chess?" "Nope, can't say I did. Played the horses on Mars, though, time we h'isted the Euphemeron. Won, too?after I bought my lucky ghost charm; been in the chips ever since!" Slim's grin widened, but his face remained stubbornly unconvinced. Fleigh chuckled. If the planetoid outlaws depended on magic, while the Council visionaries spouted sentimental twaddle, so much the better for the realists. "Charms don't work in politics, Slim. We have to anticipate resistance. And you saw what happened to our fine Martian Councilor Curtis when he decided to expose us and ruin the Mandate!" "Yeah." Slim's yellow teeth chewed thoughtfully on his cud. "S'pose he'd stayed on Mars, though?" "We'd have dropped hints of just the information he needed on Ceres and trapped him there?as we did. Checkmate!" "Or check-out. So when he don't come back, they smell a rat?an' I ain't plannin' on bein' around to chew rat poison. My granpappy killed a Councilor once?poor granpappy! . . . Hey, there's the rock!" There was no outward sign of life on the barren little planetoid. But as the ship came to a grinding stop in a narrow gorge, a concealing shield snapped on over them, and a crudely painted sign blazed out in phosphorescent gaudiness on one rocky wall: SIMILACRA, LTD. Mccyoq?Aeivoq TEKTCOV Specialist: MipriCTiq KCU ZccpKccanoq Fleigh came out of the lock first and paused while he waited for Slim to shoulder the tarpaulin-covered Curtis and follow. He grinned and pointed at the sign. "Magician and wonder-worker; specialist in imitation and mockery. I looked it up on Mars, so don't go thinking it's some kind of spell. . . . Now if the old fool will open up . . ." "Then why ain't English good enough for him? I don't go for that magic stuff, Max. We been?" But the Sigma was already swinging back on its tips to reveal a passage through the rock. A little, shriveled man in tattered shorts and thick-lensed glasses stood motioning them in impatiently, and the door closed silently when they obeyed his summons. They headed down a side passage toward a ramp and the sound of busy humming. Greek threw open a door and pointed to a table where the exact duplicate of Councilor Curtis lay, with an identical Jeremiah Greek fussing over it and humming through his nose. The guide dropped to a bench and began removing his chest and inserting a fresh power pack between two terminals. Slim's mouth dropped open and his burden slipped from his back to the floor with a sodden thump, while he stared from one Greek to the other, and back to the first. His fingers were stretched in the ancient sign of the horns as he watched the changing of accumulators, and his voice was hoarse and uncertain. "A damned robot!" "Not a robot?a similacrum," denied the owl-eyed man who must have been the original of the metal creature. "I'm a mimesist, not a creator. A robot has independent life, but that's only a limited copy of my memories and habits, like this phony Curtis. And those tapes you brought me, Fleigh?they stink!" He gestured toward the spools of the marvelous wire that could record electromagnetic waves of any type of frequency up to several million megacycles. In one corner, a stereo-player was running one off, but the vision screen was fuzzy, and the voice part was a mass of gibberish. Fleigh scowled at it, and turned back suspiciously to Greek. "Sure you know how to use them? Those were made by?" "By a fool who had a shield leak in his scanner! Only a few were any good. I was using pancyclic wire before you ever saw a stereo-record. Where do you think I impress my similacrum's memory?on a real brain? It takes miles of wire to feed the selectrons! I did the besl I could, but . . . Here, take a look!" He reached into the false Curtis' mouth and did something that made the figure sit up suddenly. Max went over and muttered into the thing's ear, but after the first few answers it lapsed into sullen silence, and he swung back toward Greek. "I told you Curtis had to be perfect! This wouldn't fool a Jovian!" "And I told you I wasn't Jehovah?I specialize in mechanical imitations," Greek answered shortly. "Bum tape, bum similacrum. If you brought me some decent reels, I'll see what I can do, though." Fleigh grunted and yanked the tarpaulin off the real Curtis. At the sight, new interest appeared on Greek's face, and he came over to examine the Councilor, but stopped after a cursory look had shown that the man was still alive. He nodded. "That's more like it, Fleigh. I'll set up an encealo-graph and ideoform analyzer and record directly off his mind?it's better than feeding impressions from tapes, anyway, though I always used an editing circuit before. Okay, you'll get something his own mother would swear was perfect." "When?" "Depends. Narrow-band analysis would take a couple weeks, but it'd be permanent. If I run an all-wave impressor in, the tapes will be barely affected. I can do it in ten, twelve hours, but your similacrum will begin to fade in a week, and wash out completely in a month." "Suits me," Fleigh decided. "We won't need him more than a few days. Anyplace where Slim and I can catch up on our sleep while you finish?" Greek's double came to life at a signal and led them down a series of rock corridors to a room that lacked nothing in comfort, then went silently out and left them alone. To Fleigh's relief, Slim tested the bed in sour displeasure, pulled a blanket off, and rolled up on the floor, leaving the flotation mattress unoccupied. He had as little use for such luxuries as his boss had for his presence in the same bed. Max climbed in and adjusted the speegee dial to perfect comfort with a relaxed grunt of pleasure. He had no intention of sleeping, though, while things that concerned him were going on. Three hours later, he heaved out and slipped silently down the rocky halls on sponge-rubber slippers. But his training had covered the stupidity of spy-stereos, and there was nothing stealthy about his entry into the laboratory. Greek looked up from a maze of wires and gadgets with faint surprise but no suspicion. "Couldn't sleep," Fleigh volunteered apologetically. "I was wondering if you had any barbiturates?" A few minutes later he took the tablet from Greek's double and turned back down the hallway with a muttered thanks. He had learned all he wanted to know. Both Greeks and Curtises were present and accounted for where they belonged, and the mimesist was busy about his work; there was no funny business involved. Actually, he had expected none, but it never did any harm to make sure of such things when dealing with men who were outside the law of either the Plutarchy or the Council. Slim was snoring and kicking about on the floor when he returned, and he grinned as he plopped back onto the mattress. The outlaws were useful enough now. But once Earth took over the Mandate, something would have to be done about them; too many were the wrong sort to fit into the Plutarchy. Fleigh stretched with a self-satisfied yawn and slipped into well-earned rest. Greek's similacrum wakened them in the morning and led them back to the laboratory, where the scientist was waiting beside the imitation Curtis. The real Councilor must have been drugged, for he lay unconscious on one of the tables. Fleigh wasted only a casual glance at him, and then turned to the new similacrum as Greek flipped it on. This time his tests were longer, and there were no sullen silences from the imitation. Its...
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