“That something may have been vast beds of semi-porous clay, spanning whole sea bottoms, offering an enormous array of patterned surfaces to protect growing molecular clusters. Providing templates for the earliest organisms. Setting a few on the road to greatness.”

Maharal’s gray ghost preens, slapping its chest.

“Only now the road is coming full circle, as we return to our original form! No longer organic, but creatures sculpted out of Mother Earth’s own mineral flesh! Don’t you find that interesting?”

What interests me is getting out of here, especially each time the machinery sends another wave of compulsion down my spine, propelling me against the straps, heaving to get these hands of mine around ditYosil’s neck. I’d grind his undead bones so fine, none of the atoms would ever find each other again!

From somewhere nearby … closer than nearby … comes a resonant reply.

Amen, brother.

The voice is no figment. I know it’s the little orange-red golem, the one Maharal imprinted from me a few hours ago. Now its thoughts come flooding in, swelling and fading, merging with mine. It must be part of ditYosil’s complicated experiment and he seems greatly pleased. Now that a link has been established, the next phase is a memory test. How well can I remember things that “I” never learned?

With the wave of a hand, he sends about a hundred image bubbles floating in front of my eyes, depicting everything from lunar landscapes to the latest robohockey game. My gaze can’t help flitting among the pictures, involuntarily focusing on a few that look familiar. Certain bubbles flare as I recognize their contents …

… a Grecian urn that held wine from the age of Pericles …

… a buxom Venus figure from the Paleolithic era …

… a full-sized terracotta statute of an ancient Chinese soldier, given to Yosil by the grateful Son of Heaven, for his work at the excavations in Sian …

I not only recognize these images, I remember being shown the originals, in Maharal’s private museum. Somehow, Little Red is feeding me memories, without benefit of a brain-sifter or thick cryo-cables! We’re inloading each other, back and forth, despite being separated by twenty meters and a thick glass wall.

So, this isn’t just about wanting to make dit-to-dit copies. Not another industrial process for Universal Kilns. Maharal is trying for another breakthrough. Something bigger!

The gray ghost chatters in excitement over results from the memory test. For a time it pleases him even more than lecturing to me about evolutionary claydistics. Clamping down, I try hard to shut out the sound of his yammering voice. Quash the irritation and anger! He obviously wants me distracted by hate — an easy emotional state to model and control. One so pure that it may breach the containment of a single vessel. A single body.

I must resist. Only it’s so hard not to hate. Every few minutes, his loathsome machinery scrapes my pseudoneural array, prodding agonizingly at my ersatz body, provoking the salmon reflex — that craving to go home. To return. To my original. An original he destroyed with a missile, around midnight on Tuesday.

It’s what he told Little Red. That he murdered me. In order to make this experiment work, he removed the “anchor” of my organic self, hoping it would force two copies of me toward each other, instead.

I get it. His aim is to set one Standing Wave reverberating across open space. It’s an accomplishment, all right. Like making an electron occupy an entire room with a single, prodigious quantum state. But why? What’s the goal?

He can’t be after a Nobel Prize. Not when it took both suicide and murder to reach this point. Is he crazy enough to hope he can maintain secrecy indefinitely? Secrets are like snowflakes, nowadays — rare and hard to keep for very long.

There’s got to be more at stake. Something he plans to bring to a fruition, soon.

I feel agreement from Little Red — my other half. Each time the big machines pulse, we feel closer. More like a single person, reunited. And yet -

— and yet, there’s something else. Something outside of us. Something both familiar and strange at the same time. I keep picking up what feel like echoes … like glinting reflections, scattered off distant pools. Are they part of ditYosil’s plan?

Maybe not.

I take some hope in that.

“Very good, Albert,” the mad gray croons, peering at several readouts. “Your observer state profiles are excellent, old friend!”

He leans over me, trying to meet my gaze.

“I’ve performed this experiment countless times, Albert, trying to create a self-sustaining soul-resonance between two nearly identical dittos. But my own copies never worked out — the ego field is flawed, you see. Too much self-distrust. An inherited trait, I’m afraid. One that’s often associated with genius.”

“Even if you do say so yourself,” I reply. But Yosil ignores the dig in order to press on.

“No, my own golem-selves would never do. The first thing I needed was somebody who copies cleanly. That’s why I started grabbing your dittos, years ago. But it wasn’t easy, especially at first. I almost blew it several times and had to destroy your grays, rather than let them get away. You forced me to learn a whole new suite of sneaky skills, Albert. But eventually we were able to start serious work.

“And we made good progress, didn’t we?”

He pats my cheek and I must redouble my efforts to keep rage at bay.

“Of course, you don’t remember, Albert. But in my hands, you explored new spiritual territory. We seemed destined to make history together, the two of us.

“Only then we hit a barrier! The Observer Effect I told you about, remember? Your original kept remotely influencing the soul-field, anchoring you to this plane of reality, interfering whenever I tried to raise the paired-state resonance to a new level. Eventually, I realized what was needed in order to solve the problem.

“I had to eliminate the organic Albert Morris!” ditYosil shakes his head ruefully.

“Only I found that I couldn’t do it. Not while my own organic brain came burdened with so many hang-ups — conscience, empathy, ethical principles — along with gutless worries about getting caught. It was terribly frustrating. I hated myself for it! Here I was, with a possible solution and tools to do the job, ready at hand, but lacking the will!”

“My … deepest sympathy for your problem.”

“Thank you. Nor was that even the worst of it. Soon, my partner and friend, Aeneas Kaolin, started putting pressure on. Demanding results. Making threats. Stoking my natural bent toward feelings of paranoia and pessimism. And don’t let anyone tell you that recognizing and acknowledging such feelings makes them go away! Illogical or not, they eat away at you.

“I started having dreams, Morris. Dreams about a possible way around my dilemma. Dreams about death and resurrection. They both frightened and thrilled me! I wondered — what was my subconscious trying to tell me?

“Then, last Sunday, I realized abruptly what the dreams meant. It came to me while I was imprinting a new copy … this copy, Albert.” ditYosil slaps his chest again. “In a moment I saw the whole picture, in all its glory, and knew what must be done.”

Through gritted teeth, I manage to growl a reply.

“realYosil saw it, too. At the same time, I’ll bet.”

The gray laughs.

“Oh, that’s true, Albert. And it must’ve terrified him, because he kept his distance after that, avoiding this copy. Even while we worked together down here in the lab. Soon, he made an excuse to head up to the cabin. But I knew what was on his mind. How could I not know?

“I could sense that my maker was preparing to run.”