Problem on Balak Page 3

usual.

  I moved over to shut him up, and blinked when I saw him pop somethinginto his mouth. My first guess was that he had managed to sneak somefood concentrate out of the ship somehow, and the thought made merealize how hungry I was.

  "What've you got there, Quack?" I demanded. "Come on, give--what are youhiding out?"

  "Antibiotics and stuff," he answered, and pulled a little flat plasticcase out of a pocket.

  It was his portable medicine chest, which he carried the waysuperstitious people used to carry rabbits' feet, and it was largelyresponsible for our calling him the Quack. It was full of patent capsuleremedies that he had gleaned out of his home medical book--a cut thumb,a surprise headache, or a siege of gas on the stomach would never catchthe Quack unprepared!

  "Jerk," I said, and went back to Gibbons and Corelli, who were arguing anew approach to our problem.

  "It's worth a try," Gibbons said. He turned on the two Haslops, who werebristling like a pair of strange dogs. "This question is for the realHaslop: Have you ever been put through a Rorschach, thematicapperception or free association test?"

  The real Haslop hadn't. Either of them.

  "Then we'll try free association," Gibbons said, and explained what hewanted of them.

  "_Water_," Gibbons said, popping it out quick and sharp.

  "Spigot," the Haslops said together. Which is exactly what any spacemanwould say, since the only water important to him comes out of a ship'stank. "Lake" and "river" and "spring," to him, are only words in books.

  Gibbons chewed his lip and tried again, but the result was the sameevery time. When he said "payday" they both came back "binge," and whenhe said "man" they answered "woman!" with the same gleam in their eyes.

  "I could have told you it wouldn't work," one Haslop said when Gibbonsthrew up his hands and quit. "I've lived so long with that phony thathe even knows what I'm going to say next."

  "I was going to say the same thing," the other one growled. "Aftertwenty-two years of drinking and arguing with him, we've begun--God helpme!--to think alike."

  I tried my own hand just once.

  "Gaffa says that they are exactly identical so far as outside appearancegoes," I said. "But he may be wrong, or lying. Maybe we'd better checkfor ourselves."

  * * * * *

  The Haslops raised a howl, of course, but it did them no good. Gibbonsand Corelli and I ganged them one at a time--the Quack refused to helpfor fear of being contaminated--and examined them carefully. It was alively job, since both of them swore they were ticklish, and underdifferent circumstances it could have been embarrassing.

  But it settled one point. Gaffa hadn't lied. They were absolutelyidentical, as far as we could determine.

  We had given it up and were resting from our labors when Gaffa camegrinning out of the darkness and brought us a big crystal pitcher ofsomething that would have passed for a first-class Planet Punch exceptthat it was nearer two-thirds alcohol than the fifty-fifty mix you getat most interplanetary ginmills.

  The two Haslops had a slug of it as a matter of course, being accustomedto it, and the rest of us followed suit. Only the Quack refused, turninggreen at the thought of all the alien bacteria that might be swimmingaround in the pitcher.

  A couple of drinks made us feel better.

  "I've been thinking," Captain Corelli said, "about what Gaffa said whenhe limited the time of the test, that we might or might not discover thereason for ourselves. Now what the hell did the grinning heathen mean bythat? Is there a reason, or was he only dragging a red herring acrossthe bogus Haslop's track?"

  Gibbons looked thoughtful. I sat back while he pondered and watched theQuack, who was swallowing another antibiotic capsule.

  "Wait a minute," Gibbons exclaimed. "Captain, you've hit on somethingthere!"

  He stared at the Haslops. They stared back, unimpressed.

  "Gaffa said you two were exactly alike outside," Gibbons said. "Andwe'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 goingto cut one of us open to see!"

  "You're confusing the issue," Gibbons snapped. "What I'm getting at isthis--if you two aren't made alike inside, then you can't possibly existon the same sort of diet. One of you eats the same sort of food asourselves. 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'sthe fake!"

  "Liar!" the other one yelled, springing up. Corelli stepped between themand the second Haslop subsided, grumbling. "It's true enough, only_he's_ the one that drinks his meals. This stuff in the pitcher is thefood he lives on--alcohol for energy, with minerals and other stuffdissolved in it. I drink it with him for kicks, but that phony can't eatanything else."

  * * * * *

  Corelli snapped his fingers.

  "So that's why they limited our time, and why they brought thisstuff--to keep their fake Haslop refueled! All we've got to do toseparate our men now is feed them something solid. The one that eats itis the real Haslop."

  "Sure, all we need now is some solid food," I said. "You don't happen tohave a couple of sandwiches on you, do you?"

  Everybody got quiet for a couple of minutes, and in the silence theQuack surprised us all by deciding to speak up.

  "Since I'm stuck here for life," he said, "a few germs more or lesswon't matter much. Pass me the pitcher, will you?"

  He took a man-sized slug of the fiery stuff without even wiping off thepitcher's rim.

  After that we gave it up, as who wouldn't have? Captain Corelli said thehell with it and took such a slug out of the pitcher that the twoHaslops yelled murder and grabbed it quick themselves, and from then onwe just sat around and drank and talked and waited for the sunrise thatwould condemn us to Balak for the rest of our lives.

  Thinking about our problem had reminded me of an old puzzle I'd heardsomewhere about three men being placed in a room where they can see eachother but not themselves; they're shown three white hats and two blackones, and then they're blindfolded and a hat is put on each of theirheads. When the blindfolds are taken off, the third man knows by lookingat the other two and by what they say just what color hat he's wearinghimself, but I always forget how it is that he knows.

  We got so interested in the hat problem that the east was turning pinkbefore we realized it.

  None of us actually saw the sun rise, though, except the Quack and thebogus Haslop.

  I was right in the middle of a sentence when all of a sudden my stomachrolled over and growled like a dying tiger, and I never had such anall-gone feeling in my life. I looked at the others, wondering if thestuff in the pitcher had poisoned us all, and saw Gibbons and Corellistaring at each other with the same startled look in their eyes. One ofthe Haslops was hit, too--he had the same pinched expression around themouth, and perspiration stood out on his forehead in drops as big asgrapes.

  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 Haslopwho stayed looked puzzled, I thought, but the Quack only seemedinterested and very much entertained.

  I couldn't be sure of that, though. There wasn't time to look twice.

  * * * * *

  When we came back to the court later, shaken and pale and bracingourselves for another dash at any minute, we found Gaffa and hisgrinning chums congratulating the Quack. The bogus Haslop had droppedhis impersonation act and seemed very happy.

  "I've learned to like Haslop so well after twenty-two years," he said,"that I'm quite prejudiced in favor of his species, and I'm delightedthat we are to join your Realm. Balak and Terra will get along famously,I know, since you people are so ingenious and appreciative of humor."

  We ignored the Balakians and swooped down on the Quack.

  "You put something in that pitcher after yo
u drank out of it, you insultto humanity," I said. "What was it?"

  The Quack backed off with a wary look in his eye.

  "A recipe from the curiosa section of my medical book," he said. "Iwhipped up some capsules for my pocket kit, just in case of emergency,and I couldn't help thinking of them when--"

  "Never mind the buildup," Captain Corelli said. "_What was it?_"

  "A formula invented by ancient Terran bartenders, and not recommendedexcept in extreme cases," the Quack said. "With a very odd name.