“—will likely turn me in, hoping to cash a whistle-blower prize. Please, I’m no fool. I won’t try to keep the recording away from the cops. Not for very long, that is. But a short delay may prove helpful.”

“Helpful how?”

“I get it!” chirped Pal’s mini-ditto with obvious relish, its ferret grin widening. “You want the saboteurs to think they succeeded. Assuming they never knew about the graydit’s little recorder, they may think they’re safe. That gives us time to go after ’em!”

“Time?” I demanded. “What time? Are you all nuts? I was baked almost twenty hours ago! My clock is close to used up. I’ve barely got enough time left to take in dinner and a show. Whatever makes you think I can investigate a case under conditions like this, even if I wanted to?”

At which point Aeneas Kaolin smiled.

“Oh, I may be able to reset that ticking clock of yours.”

Less than thirty minutes later, I stepped out of the biggest apparatus the mogul had in his laboratory-basement. A hissing, steaming contraption that hammered, zapped, sprayed, and massaged me till I hurt all over … like that time Clara made me take an army calisthenics course in realflesh and skivvies. My moist clay pseudoskin fizzed disconcertingly with freshly injected élan. If I didn’t explode or melt in the next few minutes, I might take on the world.

“This gizmo of yours is gonna change a lot of things,” Pal commented from a perch nearby, licking the same puffy glow. ditKaolin answered, “It has drawbacks — like prohibitive cost — that may prevent commercial development. There were only two prototypes and … not all results have been satisfactory.”

“Now he tells me,” I grumbled. “No, please ignore that. Beggars can’t be choosers. Thanks for extending this so-called life.”

Looking down, I saw that a color change had been thrown in for free. My third in one day. Now I had the look of a high-quality gray. Well, well. Who says you can’t advance in life? There can be progress, even for a frankie.

“Where do you plan to go first?” the platinum trillionaire asked, clearly eager to get us on our way. Even though I’m not Albert Morris, I tried to picture what my maker, the professional private eye, would do at this point.

“Queen Irene’s place,” I decided. “Come on, Pal. We’re going to the Rainbow Lounge.”

Kaolin lent us a sturdy little car from the company fleet, no doubt carrying a transponder to track our movements and a sound tap as well. Palloid had to agree not to inload back into the original Pal, or even contact his archie. In fact, we were under orders not to tell anyone else about what we had learned in the mansion basement.

Whether or not those orders were exactly legal, I felt sure that Kaolin had some way to enforce them, or he’d never let us depart. Maybe it was my turn to carry a bomb. Something small, inserted while my body was renewed in that hissing experimental restoration machine? I had no immediate way to check it out … or any reason to, so long as our goals were the same.

Getting to the truth, right? That’s what we’re all interested in, right? Me and Kaolin. Only how could I tell?

Again and again, the same question popped into mind. Why me?

Why hire the crude green frankie of a private eye whose behavior must already appear deeply worrisome in Kaolin’s eyes? Even if Albert’s gray hadn’t been one of the conspirators, he was their unwitting dupe — as Pal so colorfully put it.

Either way, it seemed strange for the mogul to trust me.

Then again, who could he trust? Kaolin wasn’t kidding about the Henchman Law. When first introduced, it soon turned into the quickest way for a fellow to retire early — by tattling on his boss. Whistle-blower prizes grew bigger as one white-collar scam after another collapsed, feeding half of the resulting fines back into new rewards, enticing even more trusted lieutenants, minions, and right-hand men to blab away. To everyone’s surprise, a world filled with cameras proved to offer pretty good safety against retribution by most mobs. Many gangs and cabals destroyed themselves simply by trying to enforce silence on defectors.

The implacable logic of the Prisoner’s Dilemma triggered collapse of one conspiracy after another as informers became public heroes, accelerating the rush for publicity and treasure. For a time it looked as if perfidy had its back to the proverbial wall. Any criminal scheme with more than three members appeared doomed from the start.

Then dittotech arrived.

Nowadays, it’s possible once again to have a gang of ruthless accomplices, if all of them are you! Better still if you do find a few trustworthy allies to share the imprinting chores, since they may have skills you lack. But you’re still wise to keep the number of original members low. Three or four. Five, tops. Any more and you still have an excellent chance of being betrayed by some trusted aide. A guilty conscience can get plenty of lubrication if the rewards are also big.

Kaolin may have several thousand real employees, who make tens of thousands of proficient and hardworking dittos for him every day. But could he ask any of them to skate the fine edge of the law — as Pallie and I were about to do? The Vic’s choices were few. Either do it himself, by sending out his own copies, or hire someone with the right skills. Someone who’s already shown a willingness to skulk at the boundaries of legality, and yet with a reputation for keeping his word. Someone also highly motivated to dig quickly to the bottom of this mess.

Having listened to the archive-recording of that hapless gray, Kaolin must figure that I qualify on all counts. I sure wasn’t about to complicate matters by mentioning I’m a frankie. He might drop me in the nearest recycler!

Waiting for a driver to bring our loaner car, I resumed bugging Kaolin with questions.

“It would help if I had some idea why somebody wants to wreck your factory.”

“Why should concern you less than who,” he replied sternly.

“Come, sir. Understanding motives can be integral to catching bad guys. Do your competitors resent having to pay royalties on your patents? Do they envy your production efficiency? Could they be trying to knock UK down a notch?”

Kaolin barked a short laugh. “A publicly held firm is under too much scrutiny. And terrorism is risky — not the style of my smug counterparts at Fabrique Chelm or Hayakawa Shobo. Why use bombs when they can cause me far more aggravation with their lawyers?”

“Well, who do you consider desperate enough to use bombs?”

“You mean other than those pathetic fanatics ranting by my gate?” The platinum ditto shrugged. “I don’t bother counting my enemies, Mr. Morris. In fact, I would have retired by now, to one of my country estates, were it not for some rather urgent research interests that force me to remain nearby, within easy dit-imprinting range.” He sighed. “If you must demand an opinion from me, I can only hazard to guess that this gruesome act of sabotage must be the work of perverts.”

“Uh … perverts?” I blinked a couple of times in surprise. “When you used that word before, I didn’t think you meant literally.”

“Oh, but I do. It isn’t just religious nuts and tolerance fetishists who despise me. Surely you already know about this? I may have helped usher in the age of dittoing, but I’ve also long opposed ways the technology is misapplied. From the very beginning, I was appalled by some unsavory uses customers came up with.”

“Well, innovators often have an idealized view of what will emerge—”

“Do I strike you as a woolly-headed idealist?” Kaolin snapped, sharply. “I realize any new thing gets misused, especially when you share it with the masses. Take the way every new medium, from printing to cinema to the Internet, became a major conduit for pornography almost as soon as it was introduced. Or when lonely weirdos started using dittos for sex, muddying all the boundaries between fantasy, infidelity, and self-abuse.”