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Two figures passed into my slitted field of vision, moving slowly. The throat-clearing sounds which then occurred were Drade's.
Finally: "Mister Cassidy, are you awake?" he seemed to wonder aloud.
I yawned and stretched and pretended to come around while I assessed the situation. Beside Drade stood a tall, somber-looking individual. The dark suit and smoked glasses did that for him. I suppressed a wisecrack about morticians when I saw that the man's right hand was wrapped about a guide harness attached to a scruffy looking dog that tried to sit at attention beside him. In his left hand the man held the handle of a heavy-looking case.
"Yes," I said, reaching for the controls and raising myself to sit facing them. "What's up?"
"How do you feel?"
"All right, I guess. Yes. Rested."
"Good. The police have sent this gentleman along to talk with you about whatever it is they are interested in. He has requested privacy, so we will hang a sign on the door. His name is Nadler, Theodore Nadler. I'll leave you alone now."
He guided Nadler to a visitor's chair, saw him seated and left, closing the door behind him.
I took a drink of water. I looked at Nadler.
"What do you want?" I said.
"You know what we want."
"Try ru
He removed his glasses and smiled at me.
"Try reading a few. Like ‘Help Wanted.' "
"You ought to be in the diplomatic corps," I said, and his smile went tight and his face reddened.
I smiled then as he sighed.
"We know that you do not have it, Cassidy," he finally said, "and I am not asking you for it."
"Then why push me around the way you have? Just because I'm pushable? You've really shot me down, you know, forcing that degree on me. If I did have anything that you wanted there would be a big price tag on it now."
"How big?" he said, just a little too quickly.
"For what?"
"Your services."
"In what capacity?"
"We were thinking of offering you a job you might find interesting. How would you like to become an alien culture specialist for the U.S. legation to the United Nations? The job description calls for a Ph. D. in anthropology."
"When was the job description written?" I asked.
He smiled again.
"Fairly recently."
"I see. And what would be the duties be?"
"They would commence with a special assignment, of an investigatory nature."
"Investigating what?"
"The disappearance of the star-stone."
"Uh-huh. Well, I have to admit that the matter appeals to my curiosity," I said, "but not so much that I would be willing to work for you."
"You would not actually be working for me."
I got hold of my cigarettes and lit one before I asked, "For whom, then?"
"Give me one of those," said a familiar voice, and the scruffy-looking dog rose and crossed over to my bedside.
"The Lon Chaney of the interstellar set," I observed. "You make a lousy dog, Ragma."
He unsnapped several sections of his disguise and accepted a light. I could not make out what he looked like inside.
"So you went and got yourself shot again," he said. "It is not as if you had not been warned."
"That is correct," I said. "I did it with my eyes open."
"And reversed," he said, pushing aside my blanket and staring downward. "The scars are on the wrong leg for the wounds you sustained in Australia."
He let the blanket fall and went to hunker beside my table.
"Not that I needed to look," he added. "I overheard things about your wonderful reversed heart on the way in. And I sort of felt all along that you had to be the idiot who was fooling around with the inversion unit. Mind telling me why?"
"Yes," I said, "I would mind."
He shrugged.
"All right. It is still a bit early for malnutrition. I'll wait."
I looked back at Nadler.
"You still haven't answered my question," I said. "For whom would I be working?"
This time he gri
"Him," he said.
"Are you kidding? When did the State Department start hiring wombat impersonators and guide dogs? Nonresident alien ones, at that?"
"Ragma is not a State Department employee. He is lending his services to the United Nations. On coming to work for us you would immediately go on loan to the special UN task force he heads."
"Sort of like a library book," I said, looking back toward Ragma. "Do you want to tell me about it?"
"That is why I am here," he said. "As you are obviously aware, the artifact generally known as the star-stone is missing. You were apparently in possession of it for a time, and as a consequence you are the focus of interest for a number of parties concerned with its recovery-for a variety of reasons."
"Paul Byler had it?"
"Yes. He was commissioned to construct a display model."
"Then he was pretty careless with it."
"Yes and no. A most peculiar man. Professor Byler, and the subject of a coincidence that complicated matters in a fashion that could not have been foreseen. You see, he was approached to undertake the job because he was considered one of the best qualified persons about for that sort of work. He had done all ma
"He kept the original and gave them back a copy, along with a copy of the copy?"
"Nothing quite that simple," Ragma said. "As it turned out, the object they gave him to duplicate was not the star-stone. A substitution had actually taken place much earlier-within minutes, as we understand it now, of the formal receipt of the stone by the Secretary General of the United Nations. Perhaps you saw that event televised?"
"I guess everyone did. What happened?"
"One of the guards exchanged it for a false stone while conveying it to the vault. The exchange went undetected, he made off with the genuine item and Professor Byler received the counterfeit for duplication."
"Then how could Paul have any part in ... ?"
"The coincidence," he said, "the one coincidence allowable in every story. I am surprised that you did not ask me where the guard obtained the ringer."
I sagged slightly. I wondered whether it would hurt my chest much if I laughed.
"Not ... Paul?" I said. "Tell me he didn't make the first counterfeit."
"But he did," said Ragma. "Just from a few advance photos and a written description. Now there is a tribute to his skill. When it came to technique, he really was the best choice."
I mashed out my cigarette.
"So he got his own counterfeit back to counterfeit?"
"Precisely. Which placed him in a very awkward position. There he was with the real thing, working on an improved counterfeit, now that he had something better than photos and descriptions to go on, and the UN approached him to duplicate his original work."
"Wait! He had the real one? I thought the guard had taken the real one."
"I was just getting to that. The guard removed it and transported it to Professor Byler. Byler was afraid that the first counterfeit would not stand close scrutiny, especially from some visiting alien who might have seen it elsewhere and known something concerning its physical makeup-something which perhaps only an alien could detect. At any rate, his intention was to produce a superior replica the second time around and then have the same guard try to exchange it for his earlier model. The second version, he believed, could stand scrutiny for a much longer while. So he was faced with a dilemma at that point: Give them back the first one and a copy, or give them two of the second-generation stones of which he was quite proud. He resolved it by returning the first one and a copy, as he feared the authorities might by then have done a detailed study of its properties and have them on record as its authentic specifications."