“And of course, people are right. Deep down, they sense the truth.”

“What truth do you mean, Doctor?” I asked.

“That human beings are about to become very much more! Though not in any of the ways they now imagine.”

With that cryptic remark, Maharal carefully put away the last of his dear collectibles — the cuneiform tablets and pottery shards. The ancient amphora vessels and China dinnerware. The enigmatic/erotic Venus statuettes and snow-glazed Dresden figurines. The parchment texts in Hebrew, Sanskrit, and the cryptic coded charts of medieval alchemy. Finally he gave an affectionate nod to the stalwart terracotta soldier, still standing watch with his flickering, barely detectable imbuement of soul. Maharal took obvious comfort from these treasures, as if they proved his work part of a time-honored tradition.

Then, yanking the chain around my neck, he forced me to stumble after him like a small child following a heartless giant, back into the laboratory filled with machines that hissed and whirred and sparked, making the air tingle in frightening ways. I had a hunch that some of the effects might be for show. Yosil had a flair for the dramatic. Unlike some “mad scientists,” he knew what he was and clearly relished the role.

A transparent soundproof partition divided the room. Beyond, I glimpsed the table where “I” became aware just an hour or so ago, still warm from the kiln. And nearby, strapped to another platform, lay a gray figure much taller than this body of mine. The self that I had been for several days. The one who provided a template for this narrating consciousness.

Poor gray. Left there to simmer and worry and scheme in vain. At least I had the distraction of an opponent.

“How did you manage to put all this together in secret?” I asked, gesturing around. The sheer amount of material — not to mention the expensive gizmos — would have been difficult to transport to this hidden underground lair (wherever it is) even in the old days of CIA plots and bad movieds about alien autopsies. To find it done today by a single person, somehow evading the all-seeing and all-shared public Eye of Accountability, showed that I was in the hands of a true genius. As if I didn’t know it already.

A genius who clearly resented me for some reason! Not only was he physically callous toward this body I wore, he kept oscillating between taciturn silence and bouts of sudden talkativeness, as if driven by some inner need to impress me. I recognized clear signs of a Smersh-Foxleitner inferiority complex … and wondered what possible good the diagnosis was going to do me.

Mostly, I kept looking for possible ways to escape, knowing that each of my earlier prisoner-incarnations must have done the very same thing. But all they accomplished with their efforts had been to turn Maharal hypercautious — so that now he only imprints experimental copies of me that are too weak to punch their way out of paper manacles.

Fettering me to a chair beneath a machine resembling a giant microscope, he aimed the huge lens at my little reddish-orange head.

“I have access to ample resources, quite near here,” Maharal said, answering my question — though unhelpfully. Fiddling with dials and muttering into a computerized votroller, he looked more focused on the task at hand than on me personally. But I knew better by now.

The man worried about me — a disquiet that ran deep. Anything I said could vex him.

“All right, so we ruled out teleportation and telepathy. Even so, you’ve made impressive breakthroughs, Doctor. Your process to extend a ditto’s pseudolifespan, for instance. Wow. Imagine if all golems could replenish their élan a week or two … it could really hurt the value of Universal Kilns stock, I bet. Is that why you had a falling out with Aeneas Kaolin?”

My remark drew a sharp look. Gray lips pressed together in a line, silent.

“Come on, Doc. Admit it. I could feel tension between you two, under all the feigned affection back at Kaolin Manor, when you showed up as a ghost to view your own corpse. The Vic seemed anxious to get his hands on that artificial brain of yours, and dice it to bits. Why? In order to learn more about all this?” I gestured at the big lab with its mysterious stolen equipment. “Or was he trying to hush you?”

Maharal’s grimace told me I hit home.

“Is that it? Did Aeneas Kaolin murder your real self?”

The police hadn’t found any signs of foul play at the desert crash site where realYosil Maharal had died. But in searching for clues, they only considered today’s technology. Aeneas Kaolin possessed tomorrow’s.

“As usual, you are thinking small, Mr. Morris. Like poor Aeneas.”

“Yeah? Then try explaining, Professor. Starting with why I’m here. All right, so I make great copies. How does that help you solve those great mysteries of soulistics?”

His eyes rolled upward and shoulders shrugged — an expression of fatigued contempt, exactly according to the Smersh-Foxleitner pattern. Maharal doesn’t just envy my ability. He actually fears me! So he must exaggerate the intellectual gulf between us and minimize my humanity.

Did my other selves notice this? They must have!

“You would not understand,” he muttered, returning to his preparations. I heard the crackle of high-power equipment, warming up with me sitting at the focus.

“I’m sure you said that to the other Alberts you captured. But tell me this, did you ever, even once, try to explain? Maybe offer me collaboration, instead of unwilling experimental torment? Science isn’t meant to be a lonely business, after all. Whatever your reasons for working in isolation—”

“—are my reasons. And they are more than sufficient to justify these means.” Maharal turned to regard me tiredly. “Now you’ll spout moral arguments, about how wrong it is to treat another thinking entity this way. Even though you showed no such regard for your own dittos! Never even bothering to investigate why so many went missing over the years.”

“But … I’m a private eye. That involves sending myselves into dangerous situations. Taking risks. I came to think of them—”

“—as disposable selves. Their loss to be regretted no more than our grandparents would lament the waste of an irritating day. Well, that’s your privilege. But then, don’t call me a monster if I take advantage.”

That gave me pause. “Have I called you a monster?”

Stone-faced. “Several times.”

I pondered this a moment.

“Well, then, I have to guess that your … procedure is gonna hurt. A lot.”

“Rather, I’m afraid. Sorry. But there is good news! I have reason to hope things will go much smoother this time.”

“Because you’ve improved your method?”

“In part. And because circumstances have changed. I expect your Standing Wave will be more malleable … more mobile … now that it’s no longer anchored to organic reality.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“What do you mean, no longer anchored?”

Maharal frowned, but I could tell the expression masked a layer of pleasure. Perhaps he wasn’t even aware how much he enjoyed telling me the news.

“I mean that you’re dead, Mr. Morris. Your original body was vaporized late Tuesday night, in a missile attack that destroyed your home.”

“A … what?”

“Yes, my poor fellow artifact. Like me, you are now — as they say — a ghost.”