Or one he didn’t want to share?

I knew firsthand of one breakthrough — golem-rejuvenation — that gave me this extra, eventful day. Suppose I kept loyal to Aeneas for that, bringing him the film. Would my reward me be another extension? I guess it’s to my credit that I never felt tempted. The habit of a lifetime … thinking yourself expendable when you’re in clay.

Still, why suppress the new replenishment technology? To keep people buying lots of ditto blanks?

Not necessarily. Kilns and freezers and imprinters were the big-ticket items, and sales had tapered off. There was also talk of “conservation” — how we may deplete the best golem-quality clay beds in a generation or two. What could be more profitable than for UK to act responsibly … and make billions … by manufacturing and selling replenishers? Anyway, suppose he did wipe out every ditto in the Research Division. Word of the breakthrough would leak anyway, in a matter of months.

He must have had a reason, though. One I hadn’t fathomed yet.

“The film could exonerate me — and you,” Beta urged. “I have a scanner here. Just feed it in and send.” He indicated a slot in the control panel.

“No,” I said, feeling wary. “Not yet.”

“But in seconds Blane could have a copy and—”

“Later.” I felt another of those weird headaches coming on — brief but intensely disorienting, accompanied by queasy, claustrophobic feelings, as if I weren’t here at all, but someplace cramped, confining. Probably a side effect of my overextended existence. “Are we getting close?”

“The Volvo’s last trace was about there.” Beta pointed to a curvy stretch of desert road. “Then no further sightings. It never showed up where the next camview covers the highway. I’ve been circling, looking for signs, but Albert disconnected his car-transponder, naughty boy. And there’d be no pellet in his brow if he was real. I’m at a loss.”

“Unless—”

“Yeah?”

“—he set forth with a spare in the trunk.”

“A spare?” Beta ruminated. “Even if it wasn’t baked yet, the pellet would respond if we broadcast a close enough coding. Great. Let me just take a reading of your pellet for comparison …”

Reaching around, Beta pushed a portable scanner. The reasoning — if Albert took a spare, it could be from the same factory batch as me. Similar codes, unless he scrambled them. And he was often too lazy to bother.

“Good idea.” But I warded off the scanner. “Just don’t play games. You already read my code. I felt it when I hopped aboard.”

Beta offered his usual grin. “Fair enough. A little paranoia suits you, Morris.”

I’m not Morris, I thought. But the protest, which seemed proud on Tuesday, felt weary now.

“Let’s see if we can find that ditto spare,” the pilot murmured, turning back to his instruments. The skycycle leaped powerfully at his bidding.

It must pay to be a copyright pirate. Even after Beta’s enemy wrecked his bootlegging empire, he still has enough loot stashed away for an emergency backup copy to ride in style.

“Got it,” Beta said minutes later. “The resonance is … damn! The car headed east, into the badlands. Why would Albert drive cross-country in a Volvo?”

I shrugged, unable to guess as the signal grew stronger. Such a long-range fix would be impossible in the city, with so many pellets all around. Here, it positively throbbed just ahead.

“Careful, this is rough country,” I urged. The lower ravines lacked even moonlight. Beta let instruments take over, doing what computers and software are best at, performing simple procedures with utter precision. A minute later, amid a roar, a shuddering bump, and then a tapering sigh, we landed in a narrow canyon with the Harley’s headlight shining at the canted wreckage of a battered land car. Not as badly smashed as Maharal’s, but trapped just as surely.

How did this happen? Could Albert be dead, after all?

I had to wait for Beta to open the canopy and exit first, waving his scanner around, then followed to verify there were no real bodies. So Albert either walked away or was taken. Good. I didn’t relish burying my maker.

“Every piece of electronic apparatus is ruined. Some kind of pulse weapon could do that,” Beta commented. “Best guess, almost two days ago.”

“And no one spotted the car in all that time.” I glanced up to see how narrow the ravine was.

“Here’s the ditspare.” The trunk of the wrecked auto groaned wide to reveal a small portakiln and a CeramWrap cocoon that lay split open. The golembody had never been heat-activated. Instead of dissolving, it slumped like a corroding clay figurine, cracking in the desert heat. A latent life — a potential Albert — who never got a chance to stand or comment sardonically on the ironies of existence.

In the skycycle’s beam, I saw a deep gouge at the base of the ditto’s throat. The little recitation-recorder. I give them to every gray, to narrate investigations in realtime. Someone cut it out. Only Albert would know it was there.

Beta, using a torch to examine every inch of the passenger compartment, cursed colorfully. “Where could she have gone off to from here? Did someone pick them up? Was she trying to reach …”

“She? There was a passenger?”

Contempt filled Beta’s voice, replacing his recent cordiality. “Always two steps behind, Morris. Did you think I’d go to all this trouble just to find your missing rig?”

I thought quickly. “Maharal’s daughter. She hired Albert to investigate her father’s accident … Albert must’ve headed out with her to look over the crash site. Or else—”

“Go on.”

“Or else to the place Maharal fled from when he died. Some place Ritu knew about.”

Beta nodded. “What I can’t figure is why Morris went in person. And in disguise. Did he know his house was being targeted?”

I had an idea about that, from the way Albert felt when he made me. Lonely, tired, and thinking of Clara, whose battalion waged war not too far from here.

“What do you know of the assassins?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Me? Why, nothing.”

You know something! I could tell. Not the whole story, maybe. But you have suspicions.

Time to tread carefully. “Tuesday, after helping Blane raid your Teller operation, I met a decaying yellow in a back-alley disposal tube. It spoke convincingly like you, claiming that a big new enemy was taking over. Then it blurted a request that I go to Betzalel … and protect someone named Emmett … or maybe the emet. Can you explain what you meant?”

“The yellow was desperate, Morris, if he asked you for a favor.”

Ah, the familiar, insulting Beta. But I was playing for time, checking my surroundings in case things went abruptly sour.

“I was too exhausted to think much about it. Still, the words sounded familiar. Then I recalled. They refer to the original Golem legend, back in the sixteenth century, when Rabbi Loew of Prague was said to have created a powerful creature out of clay in order to protect the Jews of that city from persecution.

“The emet was a sacred word, either written on the creature’s brow or placed in its mouth. In Hebrew, it means ‘truth,’ but it can represent the source or wellspring — all things arising from one root.”

“I went to school too, y’know,” Beta stifled a yawn. “And Betzalel was another of those golem-making rabbis. So?”

“So, tell me why you’re following the trail of Yosil Maharal’s daughter so avidly.”

He blinked. “I have reasons.”

“No doubt. First I thought you meant to grab her as a template for your ditto-piracy trade. But she’s no phaedomasochistic vamp, like Wammaker, with an established clientele. Ritu’s pretty, but physical attributes are trivial with golemtech. It’s the personality — the unique Standing Wave — that makes one template special compared to another.” I shook my head. “No, you’re tracking Ritu to find the source. Her father. To find whatever secret frightened Yosil Maharal into studying the arts of deception. It’s one so terrifying that he fled across the desert Monday night, fleeing something that chased and finally killed him.”