Part 3

Pride is always cropping up in the wrong place. If Cal or Tinker had not taken such a firm stand in the first place, it would have been easier for either one of them to back down. The argument had started in fun, and was now in deadly earnest. How and where the change came Cal did not know. He reviewed the whole thing again. The first pair were ignorant. Benj was vindictive enough to deprive his brother of a useless thing that interested Cal. Dr. Lange was enigmatic. He had neither personal view or ignorance to draw his desire for Murdoch's worthless Hoard. Tinker Elliott might be goading Cal into making an adventuresome trip for the purpose of bringing him closer to her way of living. He wouldn't put it past her.

But the more he thought about it, the deeper and deeper he was falling into his own bullheadedness. He was going to get Murdoch's Hoard himself if it turned up to be a bale of one hundred dollar bills of the twenty-first century--worth exactly three cents per hundred-weight for scrap paper.

* * * * *

Tinker Elliott returned to the Association after the dinner with Cal. She worked diligently for an hour, and loafed luxuriously for another hour. It was just after this that Cal came into her laboratory and grinned sheepishly at her.

"Now what?" she asked. "Changed your mind?"

"Uh-huh," he said.

"Still squeamish about space?"

He nodded.

"Poor Cal," she said, coming over to him. She curled up on his lap and put her head on his shoulder. "What are we going to do about it?"

"I'm going to give you the Key," he said.

She straightened up. "You don't mind if we use it--Tony and I?"

"Not at all."

"I'm going to punish you," she said. "I'm not going to tell what Murdoch's Hoard is until we bring it back."

Cal locked surprised. "All right," he said. "It's worthless anyway. I'll wait."

"You don't want to go along?"

"If I wanted to go at all, I'd go myself," said Cal.

"O.K. Then wonder about Murdoch's Hoard until we get back. That'll be your punishment."

"Punishment? For what?"

"For not having the kind of personality that would go out and get it."

"All right. Do you want the Key?"

"Sure. Where is it?"

"At home."

"Thought you weren't living at home," said Tinker.

"I haven't been. The Key is there, though. You see, Tink, it takes the technique to make it work rather than the equipment. I'll give you both the equipment and the technique as soon as we get there. I'll demonstrate and write out the procedure. Now?"

"The sooner the better," she said.

Tinker graced her hair with a wisp of a hat and said: "I'm ready."

Putting her hand in his arm, she followed him to the street and they drove to his cottage. He led her inside, seated her, and offered her a cigarette.

"Now, Tinker," he said seriously, "where is it?"

"Where is what?"

"The Key."

"You have it as far as I'm concerned."

"You know better than that."

"You had it."

"No, you're wrong. Cal had it."

"I'm wrong--_who_ had it?" exploded Tinker as the words took.

"Cal," smiled he.

"You're Benj."

"Brilliant deduction, Tinker. Now, do you get the pitch?"

"No. You're trying to get Murdoch's Hoard too."

"I haven't your persuasive charm, Tink. The illustrious cryptologist known as my twin brother wouldn't go into space for anything. You want the Key. Ergo, unless I miss my guess, you've been talking and using those charms on him. Don't tell me that he didn't give it to you."

"You stinking dupe."

Benj grew white around the mouth. "Your femininity won't keep you alive too long," he gritted.

"I won't steal anyone's identity," she retorted.

"I'll wreck yours," he rasped. "I'll duplicate you!"

"Then I'll be no better than you are," she spat. "Go ahead. You'll get a dead dupe--two or a million of 'em. I can kill myself in the machine--I know how. I'd do it."

"That wouldn't do me any good," snapped Benj. "Otherwise I'd do it now. I may do it later."

"Keep it up--and I'll see that one half of this duplication is removed. Now, may I leave?"

"No. If you don't know where the Key is--or Cal, you may come in handy later. I think that I might be able to force the Key away from him. He'd die before he permitted me to work on you."

"You rotten personality stealer. You deserve to lose your identity."

"I've still got Cal's."

"Make a million of you," she taunted, "and they'll still be rotten."

"Well, be that as it may. You and I are going to go to Venus. Murdoch's Hoard is still hidden in the Vilanortis Country. We have detectors. We'll just go and sit on the edge of the fog country and wait until we hear Cal's signal."

"How do you know he's going?"

"Assuming that Tinker Elliott could get more out of him than any other person, it means that he said 'no' and is now preparing to make the jaunt himself. That'll be a laugh. The home-and-fireside-loving Cal Blair taking a wild ride through the fog country of Vilanortis, I'd like to be in his crate, just to watch."

"Cal is no imbecile," said Tink stoutly. "He'll get along."

"Sure, he'll get along. But he won't have fun!"

Tinker considered the future. It was not too bright. The thing to do, of course, would be to go along more or less willingly and look for an escape as soon as Benj's suspicions were lulled by her inaction.

* * * * *

Cal boarded the _Lady Unique_ at Mohave Spaceport not knowing of Tinker's capture at the hands of Benj. Benj was careful not to let Cal know of this development, since it would have stopped Cal short and would have possibly have gotten him into a merry-go-round of officialdom and perhaps fighting, in which the Key would most certainly be publicized and lost to all. Courts were still inclined to view the certified ownership rather than the possessor of an object like the Key in spite of the nine points often quoted. This was a case of the unquoted tenth point of the law. Finders of buried treasure were still keepers, but the use of a stolen museum piece to find it might be questioned. So Cal took off in a commercial liner from Mohave at the same time that Tinker was hustled aboard Benj's sleek black personal craft at Chicago.

Cal, during the trip, underwent only a bit of his previous distaste. His feelings were too mixed up to permit anything as simple as _mal de space_ to bother him. He was part curiosity, part hatred, part eagerness and part amazement. He found that he'd had no time to worry about space by the time the _Lady Unique_ put down at Northern Landing Venus.

With his rebuilt equipment in a neater arrangement, and the Key inserted, all packed into a small case, Cal went to the largest dealer in driver-wing fliers and purchased the fastest one he could buy. He then went to the most famous of all the tinker shops in Northern Landing and spoke with the head mechanic.

"Can you soup this up?" he asked.

"About fifty percent," said the mechanic.

"How long will it take?"

"Couple of hours. We've got to beef up the driver cathodes and install a couple of heavier power supplies as well as tinker with the controls. This thing will be hotter than a welding iron when we get through. Can you handle her?"

"I can handle one like this with ease. I have fast reflexes and quick nerve response."

"It'll take some time before you get all that there is in it out of it," grinned the mechanic. "Mind signing an affidavit to the effect that we are not to be held responsible for anything that happens with the souping-up?"

"Not at all."

The mechanic went at the job with interest. His estimate was good, and within two hours the flier was standing on the runway, all ready to go. Cal returned from a shopping trip about this time and packed his bundles into the baggage compartment. He paid off, and then took off at high speed and headed south.

Eight hours later the fog bank that marked the Vilanortis Country came before the nose of Cal's flier. He plunged into the fog at half speed and continued on for a full five hundred miles.

He was about halfway through the vast fog bank when he landed and started to install the Key-equipment for operation. The job took him a full day, and he slept on the divan in the cabin of the flier that night. He could have used the flier at night, for there was no choice between night-operation and the thickness of the eternal fog of the Vilanortis Country. In neither case could he see more than a few yards ahead.

And while Cal slept, Benj dropped his flier on the edge of the fog country and waited. The detectors were installed and operating, and the black flier was all ready to surge forward on the trail as soon as Cal's initial signal went forth. Having had more experience in this sort of thing, Benj knew how to go about it. He'd not follow the trail of Cal's signal, but would turn and follow the answering, sympathetic oscillation from the resonant cavity at Murdoch's Hoard. And with that same experience, Benj knew that he could beat Cal to the spot, and possibly be gone with Murdoch's Hoard before Cal got there. He composed a sarcastic sign to leave on the spot for Cal to find. That, he liked. Not only would he have Murdoch's Hoard, but he would be needling his hated brother too.

* * * * *

Tinker had curbed her tongue. What was going to happen she did not know. Benj was quite intent on the mechanics of the chase and hadn't paid too much attention to her except to see that she was completely held. The idea of her, a sentient identity, being restrained with heavy handcuffs made her rage inwardly. Yet she kept her peace. She was not going to attract Benj's attention to her.

So she dozed on the divan in Benj's flier while Benj cat-napped at the wheel of the flier. He would be up and going at the first wink of the pilot light and the first thrumming whistle that came from the detector. He wanted to waste no time. Running down a source of transmitted signal was a matter of a few hours at most, even though it were halfway around the planet. He chuckled from time to time. He'd had Wally tailing Cal, and had a complete report on the flier and its souping-up. His own flier was capable of quite a few more miles per hour than Cal's, and Benj was well used to his.

And so Tinker dozed and Benj cat-napped until the first glimmer of dawn. Benj shook himself wide-awake, and took a caffeine pill to make certain. Reaching back from the pilot's chair, he shook Tinker. "Pay for your board," he growled. "Breakfast is due."

"I'll poison you," she promised.

"There isn't anything poisonous aboard," he said, roaring with laughter.

It was more self-preservation than his threat that made Tinker prepare coffee and toast. Working with manacles on made it difficult, and she hated him for them again. She was carrying the hot coffee to the forecabin when his roar came ringing through the ship.

"Grab on! Here we go!"

The rush of the ship threw her from her feet, and the hot coffee spilled from the pot and scalded her. She screamed.

"Now what?"

"I'm burned."

"Coffee spill? Why didn't you put it down?"

"I wish I'd spilled it on your face," she snapped. "Mind taking these irons off so I can get some isopicrine for the burn?"

He tossed her the key. "If you run now, you'll starve before you get anywhere," he told her. "But stay out of my way. We're on the trail of Murdoch's Hoard."

The thrumming whistle came in clear and strong as Benj headed into the thick fog. And as they drove forward at a wild speed, Benj tinkered with the detector.

He picked up Cal's emitted signal easily and clearly, but was unable to get a response from the other source. He considered, and came to the conclusion that the other resonator might be outside of Cal's range of transmission and therefore inoperative as yet. Knowing Hellion Murdoch's personality by comparison to his own devious way of thinking, he knew that a world-wide broadcast of the response-signal would have been unnecessary. A general location within a hundred miles would have been good enough.

So having no goal but Cal's signal, Benj turned the nose of his flier upon Cal's sharp, vibrating tone and drove deeper and deeper into the fog-blanket of Vilanortis.

* * * * *

As for Cal, he'd awakened by the clock and had tuned up his resonator before taking off. Immediately after making the initial adjustments, and tuning the Key a bit, the response came in strong and clear. Cal lifted the flier and began to trace the source. At almost full throttle he went on a dead straight line for Murdoch's Hoard. He wondered whether his signal were being followed, and suspected that it was. He knew, however, that no one was in possession of the technique of receiving the response, and therefore he drove at high speed. If he could arrive before the others, he would be able to establish his claim on Murdoch's Hoard, whatever it might be, or perhaps remove it if it were not too bulky.

Once he established the direction of the response, Cal wisely turned his equipment off. That would forestall followers, and he could snap the gear on and off at intervals until he came close to the site of the famous Hoard.

Benj swore as the signal ceased. But prior to its cessation, there had been a strong indication as to the relative motion of Cal's ship. He continued by extrapolation and went across the chord of the curve to intercept the other ship at some position farther along.

Tinker smiled openly. "Cal isn't ignorant," she said.

"Turning that thing off isn't going to help at all," responded Benj. "I've got Cal's original junk in the ship. I don't know the technique of finding the real Hoard, but I've been thinking that following the Key in Cal's ship might be possible. After all that's a cavity resonator too, you know."

"Sure it is. But if you can't follow the Hoard resonator, how can you follow Cal's?"

"Murdoch did something to his that makes it different," explained Benj. "What, no one has ever known until that brilliant brother of mine unraveled the code. But if the Hoard had been a standard resonator, people would have uncovered it long years ago. There's nothing tricky about getting a response from a resonant cavity."

Benj set the flier on the autopilot and went forward into the nose of the craft with tools. He emerged a moment later with a crooked smile. "All I had to do was to hitch up Cal's original junk. The detector is running as it always was, but now I can shoot forth a signal from Cal's equipment, stop it, and receive on my own detector. We had a fistful of duplicate Keys around the lab. We can't follow Murdoch's Hoard, but we can follow Cal--who is on the trail of Murdoch's Hoard."

He snapped a switch, and a thrumming whine came immediately. "That will be Cal's response," said Benj cheerfully. "No matter how he tries, he'll lead us to the spot."

Cal sped along in the thick white blanket of fog, not knowing that his own Key was furnishing a lead-spot for another. Had he known, it is possible that he would have stopped and had his argument when the other arrived, or perhaps he could have damped the resonator enough so that its decrement was short enough to prevent any practical detection of the response.

But Cal was admittedly no technician. He did not realize that his own resonator would become a marker. So he sped along through the white at a killing pace. He snapped the switch after some time and listened to the response from Murdoch's Hoard--as well as another signal that blended with his. The latter did not bother him as it might have bothered an engineer. Cal had no way of knowing what the results would be, and so he accepted the dual response as a matter of fact.

It was in the third hour of travel that the inevitable came. By rights, it should have come easily and quietly, but it came with all of the suddenness of two fliers running together at better than five hundred miles per hour.

Out of the whiteness that had blocked his vision all day, Cal saw his brother's black flier. It came through the sky silently, skirling the fog behind it into a spiral whirl. It came at a narrow angle from slightly behind him, and both pilots slammed their wheels over by sheer instinct.

The fliers heeled and cut sweeping arcs in the fog. Inches separated their wingtips and they were gone on divergent courses.

Cal mopped his brow. In the other ship, Benj swore roundly at Cal, and mopped his brow, too. And Tinker sat on the divan, letting her breath out slowly.

But Benj whipped the wheel around, describing a full, sharp loop in the sky. He crammed a bit of power on, and the tail of Cal's ship came into sight through the fog. Cal saw him coming and whipped his plane aside. Benj anticipated the maneuver and followed Cal around, crowding him close.

"What are you trying to do?" screamed Tinker, white-faced.

"Run him down," gritted Benj.

"Kill him?"

"No. He'll glide out of power if I can ram his tail."

He followed Cal up and over in a tight loop, dropping into an ear-drumming dive instead of completing the loop. Cal pulled out and whipped to the left, and Benj, again trying to anticipate the action, missed and turned right. Cal was lost again in the fog.

Cal waited for several minutes to see if he had really lost Benj, hoping and yet knowing that he had not. Yet there was quite a difference between knowing where he was and being within ten feet of his tail. In ten minutes, and one hundred miles later on the straightaway, Cal opened the throttle to the last notch and by compass streaked directly onto his former course.

Benj streaked after him, the resonator in operation, as soon as enough distance had been put between them for the gadget to function. Then Benj started to overhaul Cal's swift flier.

Meanwhile, Cal tried the Key. The answering signal indicated that he was approaching the site of Murdoch's Hoard, and not more than fifteen minutes later the direction indicator whipped to the rear. Cal had passed directly over it.

He circled in a tight hairpin turn and went back.

He forgot about Benj.

The black ship came hurtling out of the fog just a few feet to his right.

* * * * *

Before, they had been approaching on an angle, which had given both men time to turn. But now they were approaching dead on at better than six hundred miles per hour each. They zoomed out of the fog brushed wingtips and were gone into the fog again, but not without damage. At their velocity, the contact smashed the wingtips and whirled them slightly around.

Like falling leaves they came down, and before they could strike the ground with killing crashes, they both regained consciousness.

Benj's ship was beyond repair. It fell suddenly, even though Benj struggled with the controls. It hit ground and skidded madly along the murky swamp, throwing gouts of warm water high and shedding its own parts as it slid. It _whooshed_ to a stop, settled a bit into the muddy ground and was silent.

Cal had more luck. By straining the wiring in his ship to the burnout point he fought the even keel back and came down to a slow, side-slippage that propelled him crabwise. He dropped lower and lower, and because there was nothing against which to measure his course, he did not know that he was describing a huge circle. His ship came to ground not more than a half-mile from Benj's demolished ship.

He set the master oscillator running in his ship and then put the field-locator in his pocket. No matter where he went, he could return to his own craft, at least. Then he stepped out of his flier to inspect the damage.

A roaring went up that attracted Cal's attention. He turned, and started to beat through the swamp towards the noise.

Light caught his eyes, and he came upon the burning wreckage of Benj's flier. Benj was paying no attention to the burning mass behind him, nor was he interested in Tinker Elliott. He was working over Cal's original equipment furiously, plying tools deftly and making swift tests as he worked.

Tinker was struggling across the ground of the swamp, pulling herself along with her hands. Her hips and legs were following limply as though they had not a bit of life. Her face was strained with the effort, though she seemed to be in no pain.

She saw him, and inadvertently cried: "Cal!"

Benj leaped to his feet, his hand swinging one of the three-foot welding irons. He saw Cal, and with his other hand he whipped out the needle beam and fired. The beam seared the air beside Cal's thigh. Cursing Benj tried again, but nothing came from the beam. He hurled the useless weapon into the swamp and came forward in a crouch, waving the welding iron before him.

Cal ducked the first swing and caught Benj in the face with a fist. It hurtled Benj back, but he came forward again, waving the white-hot, needle-sharp iron before him.

Cal couldn't face that unarmed. He dropped below the thrust, and his hand fastened on the matching iron to the pair that went in every flier repair-kit. He flung himself back, and came up in a crouch as his thumb found the switch that heated his own point.

* * * * *

Silently, their feet making soggy sounds in the swamp, Cal and Benj crossed points in a guard of hatred.

Benj lunged in a feint, first. That started it. Cal blocked the feint swiftly and then crossed his iron down to block the real lunge that came low. While Benj recovered, Cal thrust and missed by inches. Benj brought the hot tip up and passed at Cal's face. Cal wiped the iron aside with a circular motion and caught Benj on the crook of the elbow. Smoke curled from the burn and Benj howled. It infuriated him and he pressed forward, engaging Cal's point. Cal blocked another thrust, parried a low swing, and drove Benj's point high. He dropped under the point and lunged in a thrust that almost went home. Benj dropped his white-hot iron and deflected the thrust. He jabbed forward as Cal regained his balance, and pressed forward again before Cal could get set.

The mugginess caught Benj's feet and slowed him. Cal was slowed too, but his backward scramble to regain balance was swifter than Benj's advance. The white-hot points made little circles in the foggy murk as they swung and darted.

Benj wound Cal's point in a circular motion and then disengaged to lunge forward. His point caught Cal in the thigh and the sear burned like live flame, laming Cal slightly. Cal parried, and then pressed forward with a bit of the fastest handwork Benj had ever seen. By sheer luck, Benj blocked and parried this encounter. The final lunge found Benj retreating fast enough to evade the thrust that might have caught him fair had he been slow in retreat.

He regained and forced Cal back. His dancing point kept Cal too busy blocking to counterthrust, and Cal fought a stubborn retreat. The ground behind him grew harder as he went back, and so he took a full backward step to get the benefit of hard, dry ground. He made his stand on the bit of dry knoll, and fought Benj to a standstill.

He fought defensively, waiting for Benj to come close enough to hit. Their irons danced in and out, and Benj circled Cal slowly. Part way around, Benj forced Cal's point up and rushed him. Cal backed away three steps--and tripped over Tinker's hips. He went rolling in a heap, curling his feet and legs up into his stomach.

Benj leaped over Tinker and rushed down on Cal, who kicked out with both feet and caught Benj hard enough to send him flying back.

Both men jumped to their feet, circled each other warily, waiting for an opening. Benj rushed forward and Cal went to meet the charge. The ring of the irons came again and the white-hot points fenced in and out.

Benj thrust forward, high, and Cal blocked him with the shaft of the iron. Their arms went up, shaft across shaft, and shoulder to shoulder they strived in a body-block.

"Steal my identity, will you?" snarled Cal.

"Destroy it," rasped Benj. "You've been asking for this."