His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

"That's what the machine does," snapped Ballister. "Rearranges molecules to suit the pattern. Set the pattern for a man and feed in your raw material, and out come as many copies as you want. Perfect war-unit, perfect rapport between and among the slew of them. Perfect for spy-systems. And the Gestapo flair for disguises took care of enough variations to satisfy us. Hell, who'd look for a thing like that?"

The girl was scrambling up the stairs again. "Excuse me," she barked rudely at Bazasch. "Not at—" he was beginning to reply. He shut his mouth with a snap as she began to undress him without ceremony.

She pulled from his chest his home-made undershirt, fingered the soft, short-cropped fur. "Go right ahead," she said. "Thanks."

"Brilliant," admitted Ballister after a moment's thought. "Utterly brilliant. Very sure you can make it work?"

"For a simple thing like this, yes. After all, dead flesh-tissue ought to be fairly simple. Now where is the pattern-maker or whatever they call it?"

"Maybe this?" asked the man, indicating a sort of scanning-disk, like an old-style television set's.

"Nothing else!" she declared triumphantly as she set the hunk of clothing in the area covered by the disc.

Ballister picked up the corpses one by one and chucked them into the hopper.

Another hinged door raised itself and soft scraps of fur began to pour from it in a stream that ended in a few minutes, when the weight of the pile equalled about seven hundred pounds.

"Thank God for Hoe's dainty taste in undergarments," said the girl.

"Nothing less than mouse-fur for his skin!"

"Open the door, Hoe!" called Ballister. The little man obeyed, dumb and. surprised. There was an immediate influx of the duplicates of Sir Mallory, an influx that turned into a helpless pile of dying men, strangling in the last extremes of allergic reaction.

Grimly contemplating the last of the twitching Mallories, Ballister said:

"We'll clear the city by spreading these mouse-skins neatly through the streets. We can rain them on the forest, in case anybody's escaped."

"We can detect spies with them," said the girl.

"Right. A load will be useful when we fly back to Oslo in the morning."

"It's morning now," she said, indicating the ray of dawn that streaked through the door and splashed down the stairs.

"It is. Morning," said Ballister. "Morning over the world."

The Events Leading Down to the Tragedy

[F&SF, Jan 1958] DOCUMENT ONE

Being the First Draft of a Paper to be Read before the Tuscarora Township Historical Society by Mr. Hardeign Spoynte, B.A.

Madame President, members, guests:

It is with unabashed pride that I stand before you this evening. You will recall from your perusal of our Society's Bulletin (Vol. XLII, No. 3, Fall, 1955, pp. 7-8) [pp. correct? check before making fair copy. HS] that I had undertaken a research into the origins of that event so fraught with consequences to the development of our township, the Wat-ling-Fraskell duel. I virtually promised that the cause of the fatal strife would be revealed by, so to speak, the spotlight of science [metaphor here suff. graceful? perh. "magic" better? HS]. I am here to carry out that promise.

Major Wading did [tell a lie] prevaricate. Colonel Fraskell rightly reproached him with mendacity. Perhaps from this day the breach between Watlingist and Fraskellite may begin to heal, the former honestly acknowledging themselves in error and the latter magnanimous in victory.

My report reflects great credit on a certain modest resident of historic old Northumberland County who, to my regret, is evidently away on a well-earned vacation from his arduous labors [perh. cliche? No. Fine phrase. Stett HS]. Who he is you will learn in good time.

I shall begin with a survey of known facts relating to the Watling-Fraskell duel, and as we are all aware, there is for such a quest no starting point better than the monumental work of our late learned county historian, Dr. Donge. Donge states (Old Times on the Oquanantic, 2nd ed., 1873, pp. 771-2): "No less to be deplored than the routing of the West Brance Canal to bypass Eleusis was the duel in which perished miserably Major Elisha Watling and Colonel Hiram Fraskell, those two venerable pioneers of the Oquanantic Valley.