“Only then Jefty Annonas found the soul’s vibrating essence, weighed it, measured it—”

“Some still resent her choice of terminology,” I pointed out. “They claim there’s a true soul, beyond the Standing Wave. Intangible—”

“—and ineffable, yes. Something mortals can never detect, that can never be reduced to interacting laws and forces.” Maharal barked a laugh. “And so the fighting retreat continues. Each time science advances, a new bastion forms … anew line, defining some remnant territory to be kept forever holy, mystical, and vague. Safe from profane hands. Until the next scientific advance, that is.”

“Which you seem anxious to provide. But then, why talk about religion—”

“Not religion, dear fellow. We spoke of communing with God.”

“Uh, the difference—”

“—should be clear enough! Though I always have a hard time explaining it to you.”

“Well … sorry.”

“No, it’s all right. I’m used to your obstinate slowness. Rare gifts don’t always correlate with intelligence.”

I felt a twang in the Standing Wave, now vibrating at full pitch between me and the new golem. One thing for sure. It was going to hate this guy just as much as I do.

“Go on,” I muttered. “About you and God.”

But he stopped there.

A small bell gave off a bing and I felt the soul-sifter release its invasive grip. The last tendrils slid out of my nose. All at once I was alone again inside my clay head, sagging heavily.

Machinery rumbled as the new golem slipped into a kiln for rapid baking. A short while later I glimpsed it standing up, taking those first, uncertain steps.

Dark red, like Texarkana soil. And small, like a child. It looked weak, too. Easier for Maharal to control. Even so, the professor’s tall gray ghost cautiously clamped a set of power-manacles over its wrists, even before the puffy afterglow faded.

Such precautions! I must have caused plenty of trouble on other occasions. That offered me a smidgen of consolation.

“We’ll be back soon,” ditYosil told me. “I want to expose this new ditto to a variety of controlled test experiences, then see how well the memories inload back to you.”

“Oh. Can’t wait.”

Usually, I avoid eye contact with fresh copies that I make. It’s uncomfortable and what’s the point? But this time, after all those eerie sensations I went through during imprinting, it seemed compulsory to meet the small one’s gaze. No window to a golem’s soul? Maybe not, but I felt something intense the moment his dark stare met mine. An affinity. I don’t have to wait for inloading to know what thoughts course through that maroon body.

Look for your chance, I urged silently.

My other self answered with a curt nod. Then, tugged by Maharal’s manacles, he turned and followed our master to another part of this iniquitous lair.

So I wait, lying here where they left me. Wondering and worrying about what my captor has in store for me.

Thirty days is beginning to sound like a very long time. I must find a way to settle this much sooner, whether or not God turns out to be one of Yosil Maharal’s personal buddies.

And yet, even if an opportunity presents itself, I must be careful what I do. For instance, what if he leaves a phone within easy reach? Would I summon the cops? In some situations, it’s enough for a victim to call for help and wait for professional blue-skin rescuers to arrive. Simple.

But not in this case.

Wracking my brain, I can’t see that Maharal has committed even a single felony. At least not to my knowledge. Just a long series of equipment thefts, ditnappings, copyright violations, and unlicensed experiments — the kind of stuff that gets settled nowadays with civil liens and automatic fines. The police don’t care very much about this particular kind of villain, not since Deregulation.

Not as much as I do!

As far as I’m concerned, some paltry fines won’t make up for any of this.

The real world has its rules, and I have mine.

Ditto-to-ditto, I’m going to make that crazy-evil dirtpile pay.

To my utter surprise, Vic Aeneas Kaolin wanted to hire me as a ditective!

“So. Would you two like a chance to find the perverts who did all this?”

He said it waving at a nearby crowd of holo bubbles, jostling for our attention. Most of them showed the sabotage site at Universal Kilns, now swarming with multicolored repair-dittos, like a hive of busy ants struggling to restore the vast factory to profitable operation.

Other bubbles peered down at the smoldering ruins of a small suburban house.

The trillionaire’s offer left me speechless, though Pallie’s little weasel-golem took it with aplomb.

“Sure, we can solve this case for you. But we gotta charge quadruple Albert’s normal rate. Plus expenses … including a new house, to replace the one that just got blown up.”

How about getting Albert a new organic body, while we’re at it? I pondered caustically. Pal could be amazing sometimes, sweating over minor stuff while ignoring the big picture. Like the fact that Albert Morris no longer existed. So who was legally going to take this case? I had no more legitimate authority than a talking toaster.

Kaolin acted unperturbed. “Those terms are acceptable, but with a condition that payment shall depend entirely on results. And that Mr. Morris truly turns out to have been innocent, as the archive-recording seems to suggest.”

“Seems to suggest!” Palloid yelped. “You heard the story. That poor guy was duped! Hoodwinked, chiseled, set up, conned, fooled, frauded, framed, swindled—”

“Pal,” I tried to interrupt.

“—cozened, misled, tricked! A patsy. A fool, tool, doofus, dolt, blockhead, pawn—”

“That may be,” Kaolin cut him off with a hand gesture. “Or else the archive might have been contrived in advance. Pre-recorded in order to offer a plausible alibi.”

“That can be checked,” I pointed out. “Even buried in the gray’s throat, the recorder would have picked up ambient city noise from his surroundings. People talking. A truck’s engine on a nearby street. Muffled sounds, but under intense analysis they’ll correlate with actual events, recorded on nearby publicams.”

“So,” Kaolin conceded with a nod. “Not pre-recorded, then. But still perhaps a lie. The gray could have gone through all the motions, reciting as he went, while pretending not to be one of the conspirators. Feigning gullibility—”

“—naivete, credulousness, stupidity—”

“Shut up, Pal! I don’t” — I shook my head — “I don’t think any of this is really our business anymore. Shouldn’t you be handing this tape over to the police?” ditKaolin pursed his expressive, realistic lips. “My attorney says we’re right at the borderline, the cusp between civil and criminal law.”

Surprise provoked my bitter laugh. “A major act of industrial sabotage—”

“Without a single human victim.”

“Without a single … What in hell do you call that?”

I jabbed a finger at one of the news bubbles, showing an aerial view of my poor burned house. I mean Albert’s house. Whatever. Responding to my vehement attention, that bubble swelled in size, jostling others aside and magnifying. Our point of view zoomed toward several black investigator specialdits from the Violent Crimes Unit, who could be seen probing the wreckage. Top professionals, looking for body parts. And missile parts, no doubt.

“There is, as yet, no confirmed link between that tragedy and what happened at UK.”

Kaolin said it with such a straight face that I stared at him for several seconds.

“You will only get away with that line for a few hours at best, no matter how good your lawyers are. When the cops find my body … I mean Albert’s … and when testimony is taken from ditnesses and cameras inside UK, your insurance company will have no choice but to cooperate with the authorities. The police will know you found something small and important in the foamy mess after the prion attack. If you pretend you didn’t find anything, one of your contract employees will—”