The Other Likeness Read online

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  THE OTHER LIKENESS

  _There is a limit to how perfect a counterfeit can be--a limit that cannot be passed without an odd phenomenon setting in...._

  BY JAMES H. SCHMITZ

  ILLUSTRATED BY SCHELLING

  When he felt the sudden sharp tingling on his skin which came from thealarm device under his wrist watch, Dr. Halder Leorm turned unhurriedlyfrom the culture tray he was studying, walked past the laboratorytechnician to the radiation room, entered it and closed the door behindhim. He slipped the instrument from his wrist, removed its back plate,and held it up to his eye.

  He was looking into the living room of his home, fifty miles away inanother section of Orado's great city of Draise. A few steps from theentry, a man lay on his back on the carpeting, eyes shut, face deeplyflushed, apparently unconscious. Halder Leorm's mouth tightened. The manon the carpet was Dr. Atteo, his new assistant, assigned to thelaboratory earlier in the week. Beyond Atteo, the entry from theresidence's delivery area and car port stood open.

  Fingering the rim of the tiny scanner with practiced quickness, HalderLeorm shifted the view to other sections of the house, finally to thecar port. An empty aircar stood in the port; there was no one in sight.

  Halder sighed, replaced the instrument on his wrist, and glanced over ata wall mirror. His face was pale but looked sufficiently composed.Leaving the radiation room, he picked up his hat, said to thetechnician, "Forgot to mention it, Reef, but I'll have to head over tocentral laboratories again."

  Reef, a large, red-headed young man, glanced around in mild surprise."They've got a nerve, calling you across town every two days!" heobserved. "Whose problem are you supposed to solve now?"

  "I wasn't informed. Apparently, something urgent has come up and theywant my opinion on it."

  "Yeah, I bet!" Reef scratched his head, glanced along the rows ofculture trays. "Well ... nothing here at the moment I can't handle, evenif Atteo doesn't show up. Will you be back before evening?"

  "I wouldn't count on it," Halder said. "You know how those conferencestend to go."

  "Uh-huh. Well, Dr. Leorm, if I don't see you before tomorrow, give mylove to your beautiful wife."

  Halder smiled back at him from the door. "Will do, Reef!" He let thedoor slide shut behind him, started towards the exit level of the hugepharmaceutical plant. Reef had acted in a completely normal manner. If,as seemed very probable, "Dr. Atteo" was a Federation agent engaged ininvestigating Dr. Halder Leorm, Halder's co-workers evidently had notbeen apprised of the fact. Still, Halder thought, he must warn Kilbyinstantly. It was quite possible that an attempt to arrest him would bemade before he left the building.

  He stepped into the first ComWeb booth on his route, and dialed Kilby'sbusiness number. His wife had a desk job in one of the major fashionstores in the residential section of Draise, and--which was fortunatejust now--a private office. Her face appeared almost immediately on thescreen before him, a young face, soft-looking, with large, gray eyes.She smiled in pleased surprise. "'Lo, Halder!"

  "'Lo, Kilby.... Did you forget?"

  Kilby's smile became inquiring. "Forget what?"

  "That we're lunching together at Hasmin's today."

  Halder paused, watching the color drain quickly from Kilby's cheeks.

  "Of course!" she whispered. "I did forget. Got tied up in ... and ...I'll leave right now! All right?"

  Halder smiled. She was past the first moment of shock and would be ableto handle herself. After all, they had made very precise preparationsagainst the day when they might discover that the Federation'ssuspicions had turned, however tentatively, in their direction.

  "That'll be fine," he said. "I'm calling from the lab and will leave atonce"--he paused almost imperceptibly--"if I'm not held up. Meet you atHasmin's, in any case, in around twenty minutes."

  Kilby's eyes flickered for an instant. If Halder didn't make it away,she was to carry out her own escape, as planned. That was theunderstanding. She gave him a tremulous smile. "And I'm forgiven?"

  "Of course." Halder smiled back.

  * * * * *

  The guards at the check-out point were not men he knew, but Halderwalked through the ID-scanning band without incident, apparently withoutarousing interest. Beyond, to the left, was a wide one-way portal to atube station. His aircar was in the executive parking area on thebuilding's roof, but the escape plan called for both of them to abandontheir private cars, which were more than likely to be traps, and use thepublic transportation systems in starting out.

  Halder entered the tube station, went to a rented locker, opened it andtook out two packages, one containing a complete change of clothing anda mirror, the other half a dozen canned cultures of as many varietiesof microlife--highly specialized strains of life, of which thepharmaceutical concern that employed Dr. Halder Leorm knew no morethan it did of the methods by which they had been developed.

  Halder carried the packages into a ComWeb booth which he locked andshielded for privacy. Then he opened both packages and quickly removedhis clothing. Opening the first of the cultures, he dipped one of theneedles into it and, watching himself in the mirror, made a carefullymeasured injection in each side of his face. He laid the needle down andopened the next container, aware of the enzyme reaction that had begunto race through him.

  Three minutes later, the mirror showed him a dark-skinned stranger withhigh cheek bones, heavy jaw, thick nose, slightly slanted eyes, grayinghair. Halder disposed of the mirror, the clothes he had been wearing andthe remaining contents of the second package. Unchecked, the alienorganisms swarming in his blood stream now would have gone on to destroyhim in a variety of unpleasant ways. But with their work of disguisecompleted, they were being checked.

  He emerged presently from a tube exit in uptown Draise, on the terraceof a hotel forty stories above the street level. He didn't look aboutfor Kilby, or rather the woman Kilby would turn into on her way here.The plan called for him to arrive first, to make sure he hadn't beentraced, and then to see whether she was being followed.

  She appeared five minutes later, a slightly stocky lady now, perhaps tenyears under Halder's present apparent age, dark-skinned as he was,showing similar racial characteristics. She flashed her teeth at him asshe came up, sloe eyes flirting.

  "Didn't keep you waiting, did I?" she asked.

  Halder growled amiably, "What do you think? Let's grab a cab and getgoing." Nobody had come out of the tube exit behind her.

  Kilby nodded understandingly; she had remembered not to look back. Shewas talking volubly about some imaginary adventure as they started downthe terrace stairs towards a line of aircabs, playing her part,high-piled golden hairdo bobbing about. A greater contrast to theslender, quiet, gray-eyed girl, brown hair falling softly to hershoulders, with whom Halder had talked not more than twenty minutes agowould have been difficult to devise. The disguises might have been goodenough, he thought, to permit them to remain undetected in Draiseitself.

  But the plan didn't call for that. There were too many things at stake.

  Kilby slipped into the cab ahead of him without a break in her chatter.

  Her voice stopped abruptly as Halder closed the cab door behind him,activating the vehicle's one-way vision shield. Kilby was leaning acrossthe front seat beside the driver, turning off the comm box. Shestraightened, dropped down into the back seat beside Halder, biting herlip. The driver's head sagged sideways as if he had fallen asleep; thenhe slid slowly down on the seat and vanished from Halder's sight.

  "Got him instantly, eh?" Halder asked, switching on the passengercontrols.

  "Hm-m-m!" Kilby opened her purse
, slipped the little gun which had beenin the palm of her left hand into it, reached out and gripped Halder'shand for an instant. "You drive, Halder," she said. "I'm so nervous Icould scream! I'm scared cold! What happened?"

  * * * * *

  Halder lifted the cab out from the terrace, swung it skywards. "We wereright in wondering about Dr. Atteo," he said. "Half an hour ago, heattempted to go through our home in our absence. We'll have to assumehe's a Federation agent. The entry trap knocked him out, but the fat'sprobably in the fire now. The Federation may not have been ready to makean arrest yet, but after this there'll be no hesitation. We'll have tomove fast if