Problem on Balak Read online

lords of it all.

  Not that any of us were interested at first in it as an ecologicalmarvel, of course. From the moment we woke up we were too busy withplans for escaping the trap we'd fallen into.

  * * * * *

  "The Quack is our only hope," Captain Corelli said, and groaned at thethought. "If that hypochondriac idiot has brains enough to sit tight, wemay have a chance. If they get him, too, we're lost."

  The Quack was a damned poor reed to lean on.

  His name was Alvin Frick, but no one ever used it. He was twenty-nine,and would never have rated a space berth as anything but a hydroponicsattendant, which is one step above manual labor. He was short, plump andscrubbed to the pink, and he was the only hypochondriac I ever knew inthis modern age of almost no sickness. He groused about the germsswarming in his reduction tanks, and he was scared green, in spite ofhis permanent immunization shots, that he'd contract some nameless aliendisease at every planetfall. He dosed himself continuously withconcoctions whipped up from an old medical book he had found somewhere,and he spent most of his off-duty time spraying himself and his quarterswith disinfectant. His mania had only one good facet--if he had been thecareless sort, hydroponics being what it is, he'd have smelled like abarnyard instead of a dispensary.

  We had never made any attempt to get rid of him, since we might havedrawn an even worse tank-farmer, but we began to wish now that we had.We had hardly begun to figure ways and means of escaping when a bunch ofgrinning natives swung into our court and deposited the Quack, sleepingsoundly, in our midst.

  He came to just before sundown, and when we told him what had happened,he promptly passed out again--this time from fright.

  "A fine lot of help _you_ are, you super-sterile slob," I said when hewoke up for the second time. I'd probably have said worse, but it wasjust then that the real squeeze began.

  Gaffa came back with the two scowling Haslops in tow and handed us theproblem his tribe had spent twenty-two years in working up.

  "We have learned enough already from Haslop," Gaffa said, "to knowsomething of the pressures and complexities that follow the expansion ofyour Terran Realm through the galaxy, and to assure us that in time wemust either become a part of that Realm or isolate ourselves completely.

  "We are a peaceful species and feel that we should probably benefit asmuch from your physical sciences as your people would from ourbiological skills, but there is a question of compatibility that must besettled first, before we may risk making ourselves known to Terra. So wehave devised a test to determine what our course shall be."

  * * * * *

  We raised our brows at one another over that, not guessing at the timejust what the Balakians really had on the ball.

  "For thousands of generations, we have devoted our energies to knowingourselves and our environment," Gaffa said, "because we know that nospecies can be truly balanced unless it understands itself. Thesymbiosis between all life-forms on our planet is the result of thatknowledge. We should like to assure ourselves that you are capable ofunderstanding your own kind as well before we offer our services to yourTerran Realm--and therein lies the test we have arranged for you."

  Captain Corelli drew himself up stiffly. "I think," he said, "that thethree of us should be able to unravel your little riddle, if you'llcondescend to tell us what it is."

  Gaffa sent a puzzled look at the Quack, and I could see that he waswondering why Corelli hadn't included him in the boast. But Gaffadidn't know how simple the Quack could be, nor how preoccupied with hisown physiology he was.

  "One of these two," said Gaffa, pointing to the two Haslops, "is theoriginal Ira Haslop, who was stranded here twenty-two Terran years ago.The other is a synthetic creation of ours--an android, if you like, whois identical, cell by cell, with the original so far as exteriorlikeness is concerned. We could not duplicate the interior withoutdissection, which of course was out of the question, so we were forcedto make compromises that--"

  Gibbons interrupted him incredulously. "You mean you've created a livingcreature, brain and all?"

  "Only the body," Gaffa said. "Creation of intelligence is still beyondus. The brain of the duplicate Haslop is one of our own, transplantedand conditioned to Haslop's knowledge, memories and ideology."

  He paused for a moment, and the waiting circle of Balakians grinned withhim in anticipation.

  "Your problem is this," Gaffa said. "If you know yourselves well enoughto merit our help, then you should be able to distinguish readilybetween the real and false Haslops. If you fail, we shall have noalternative but to keep you here on Balak for the rest of your lives,since to release you would bring other Terrans down on us in force."

  And that was it. All we had to do was to take these two identicaltwins--who looked alike, thought alike and cursed alike--and determinewhich was real and which was bogus.

  "For a very pertinent reason which you may or may not discover," Gaffasaid, "the test must be limited to a few hours. You have until sunrisetomorrow morning, gentlemen."

  And with that he crutched away at his skip-a-step walk, taking hisgrinning cohorts with him. The two Haslops remained behind, gloweringand grumbling at each other.

  * * * * *

  The situation didn't look too bad at first.

  "There are no two things," Captain Corelli declared, "that are exactlyand absolutely identical. And that applies, I should say, especially toidentities."

  It had a heartening sound. I've never been long on logic, being a veryordinary S.E. navigator whose automatic equipment is designed to dopractically everything for him, and Corelli seemed to know what he wastalking about.

  Gibbons, being a scientist, saw it differently.

  "That's not even good sophistry," he said. "The concept of identitybetween two objects has no meaning whatever, Captain, unless we have aprior identification of one or the other. Aristotle himself couldn'thave told an apple from a coconut if he'd never seen or heard ofeither."

  "Any fool would know that," one of the Haslops grunted. And the otheradded in the same tone: "Hey, if you guys are going at it like that,we'll be here forever!"

  "All right," Corelli said, deflated. "We'll try another tack."

  He thought for a minute or two. "How about screening them for backgrounddetail? The real Haslop was a bounty-claimer, which means that he musthave made thousands of planetfalls before crashing here. The bogus onecouldn't remember the details of all those worlds as well as theoriginal, no matter how many times he'd been told, could he?"

  "Won't work," one of the Haslops said disgustedly. "Hell, aftertwenty-two years I can't remember those places myself, and I was_there_."

  The other Haslop gave him a dirty look. "You were _here_, fellow--_I_was _there_."

  And to the captain he said, "We're getting nowhere, friend. You'reunderestimating these Balakians--they look and act like screwballs, butthey're sharp. In the twenty-two years I've lived with that carbon copyof myself, he's learned everything I know."

  "He's right," Gibbons put in. He blinked a couple of times and turnedpink. "Unless the real Haslop happened to be married, that is. I'm abachelor myself, but I'd say there are some memories that a married manwouldn't discuss, even when marooned."

  Captain Corelli stared at him admiringly. "I never gave you enoughcredit, Gibbons," he said. "You're right! How about--"

  "Don't help any," one of the Haslops said morosely. "I never wasmarried. And now I never will be if I've got to depend on you jerks toget me out of this mess."

  The sun went down just then and a soft, drowsy darkness fell. I thoughtat first that we'd have to finish our investigation in the dark, but thenatives had made provisions for that. A swarm of fireflies as big asrobins sailed in from somewhere and circled around over the court,lighting it as bright as day. The Balakian houses made a dim row offlattened shadow-mounds at the outskirts of the circle. A ring ofnatives sat tailor-fashion on the ground in front of them--a neat trickco
nsidering that they had three legs each to fold up--and grinned at us.

  They had waited twenty-two years for this show, and now that it hadcome they were enjoying every minute of it.

  * * * * *

  Our investigation was pretty rough going. The fireflies overhead allcircled in one direction, which made you dizzy every time you looked up,and besides that the Quack had remembered that he was a prisoner in analien environment and was at the mercy of any outlandish disease thatmight creep past his permanent immunization. He muttered and grumbled tohimself about the risk, and his grousing got on our nerves even worsethan