‘Take it easy,’ Van Eyck advised dryly. ‘They made a dummy run based on your personality profile and it figured almost an even chance that you would be caught your first time out. We don’t like to expend men that fast.’
‘But -‘
‘Peace, lad. I’m sending you out to General Headquarters for assignment.’
‘General Headquarters? Where is that?’
‘You’ll know when you get there. Report to the staff metamorphist.’
Dr Mueller was the staff face-changer; I asked him what he had in mind for me. ‘How do I know until I find out what you are?’ He had me measured and photographed, recorded my voice, analyzed my walk, and had a punched card made up of my physical characteristics. ‘Now we’ll find your twin brother.’ I watched the card sorter go through several thousand cards and I was beginning to think I was a unique individual, resembling no one else sufficiently to permit me to be disguised successfully, when two cards popped out almost together. Before the machine whirred to a stop there were five cards in the basket.
‘A nice assortment,’ Dr Mueller mused as he looked them over, ‘one synthetic, two live ones, a deader, and one female. We can’t use the woman for this job, but we’ll keep it in mind; it might come in very handy someday to know that there is a female citizen you could impersonate successfully.’
‘What’s a synthetic?’ I enquired.
‘Eh? Oh, it’s a composite personality, very carefully built from faked records and faked backgrounds. A risky business-it involves tampering with the national archives. I don’t like to use a synthetic, for there really isn’t any way to fill in completely the background of a man who doesn’t exist. I’d much rather patch into the real background of a real person.’
‘Then why use synthetics at all?’
‘Sometimes we have to. When we have to move a refugee in a hurry, for example, and there is no real person we can match him with. So we try to keep a fairly broad assortment of synthetics built up. Now let me see,’ he added, shuffling the cards, ‘we have two to choose from -‘
‘Just a second, Doctor,’ I interrupted, ‘why do you keep dead men in the file?’
‘Oh, they aren’t legally dead. When one of the brethren dies and it is possible to conceal the fact, we maintain his public personality for possible future use. Now then,’ he continued, ‘can you sing?’
‘Not very well.’
‘This one is out, then. He’s a concert baritone. I can make a lot of changes in you, but I can’t make a trained singer of you. It’s Hobson’s choice. How would you like to be Adam Reeves, commercial traveler in textiles?’ He held up a card.
‘Do you think I could get away with it?’
‘Certainly-when I get through with you.’
A fortnight later my own mother wouldn’t have known me. Nor, I believe, could Reeves’s mother have told me from her son. The second week Reeves himself was available to work with me. I grew to like him very much while I was studying him. He was a mild, quiet man with a retiring disposition, which always made me think of him as small although he was of course, my height, weight, and bony structure. We resembled each other only superficially in the face.
At first, that is. A simple operation made my ears stand out a little more than nature intended; at the same time they trimmed my ear lobes. Reeves’s nose was slightly aquiline; a little wax under the skin at the bridge caused mine to match. It was necessary to cap several of my teeth to make mine match his dental repair work; that was the only part I really minded. My complexion had to be bleached a shade or two; Reeves’s work did not take him out into the sun much.
But the most difficult part of the physical match was artificial fingerprints. An opaque, flesh-colored flexible plastic was painted on my finger pads, then my fingers were sealed into molds made from Reeves’s fingertips. It was touchy work; one finger was done over seven times before Dr Mueller would pass it.