"Really," said Harry Zeckler loftily, "it was so obvious I'm amazed that it didn't occur to me first thing." He settled himself down comfortably in the control cabin of the Interplanetary Rocket and grinned at the outline of Altair IV looming larger in the view screen.

  Paul Meyerhoff stared stonily at the controls, his lips compressed angrily. "You might at least have told me what you were planning."

  "And take the chance of being overheard? Don't be silly. It had to come as a bombshell. I had to establish myself as a liar—the prize liar of them all, but I had to tell the sort of lie that they simply could not cope with. Something that would throw them into such utter confusion that they wouldn't dare convict me." He grinned impishly at Meyerhoff. "The paradox of Epimenides the Cretan. It really stopped them cold. They knew I was an Earthmen, which meant that my statement that Earthmen were liars was a lie, which meant that maybe I wasn't a liar, in which case—oh, it was tailor-made."

  "It sure was." Meyerhoff's voice was a snarl.

  "Well, it made me out a liar in a class they couldn't approach, didn't it?"

  Meyerhoff's face was purple with anger. "Oh, indeed it did! And it put all Earthmen in exactly the same class, too."

  "So what's honor among thieves? I got off, didn't I?"

  Meyerhoff turned on him fiercely. "Oh, you got off just fine. You scared the living daylights out of them. And in an eon of lying they never have run up against a short-circuit like that. You've also completely botched any hope of ever setting up a trading alliance with Altair I, and that includes uranium, too. Smart people don't gamble with loaded dice. You scared them so badly they don't want anything to do with us."

  Zeckler's grin broadened, and he leaned back luxuriously. "Ah, well. After all, the Trading Alliance was your outlook, wasn't it? What a pity!" He clucked his tongue sadly. "Me, I've got a fortune in credits sitting back at the consulate waiting for me—enough to keep me on silk for quite a while, I might say. I think I'll just take a nice, long vacation."

  Meyerhoff turned to him, and a twinkle of malignant glee appeared in his eyes. "Yes, I think you will. I'm quite sure of it, in fact. Won't cost you a cent, either."

  "Eh?"

  Meyerhoff grinned unpleasantly. He brushed an imaginary lint fleck from his lapel, and looked up at Zeckler slyly. "That—uh—jury trial. The Altairians weren't any too happy to oblige. They wanted to execute you outright. Thought a trial was awfully silly—until they got their money back, of course. Not too much—just three million credits."

  Zeckler went white. "But that money was in banking custody!"

  "Is that right? My goodness. You don't suppose they could have lost those papers, do you?" Meyerhoff grinned at the little con-man. "And incidentally, you're under arrest, you know."

  A choking sound came from Zeckler's throat. "Arrest!"

  "Oh, yes. Didn't I tell you? Conspiring to undermine the authority of the Terran Trading Commission. Serious charge, you know. Yes, I think we'll take a nice long vacation together, straight back to Terra. And there I think you'll face a jury trial."

  Zeckler spluttered. "There's no evidence—you've got nothing on me! What kind of a frame are you trying to pull?"

  "A lovely frame. Airtight. A frame from the bottom up, and you're right square in the middle. And this time—" Meyerhoff tapped a cigarette on his thumb with happy finality—"this time Idon't think you'll get off."

  Family Resemblance

  by

  Alan E. Nourse

  It really started off as a prank, as so many things do, and it would have remained a prank if Dr. Herman Tally hadn’t happened into the hospital nursery at precisely the moment he did—or if he hadn’t had a fight with Dr. Hogan just before, which worked his mind into fertile ground for the seed to fall. And there wouldn’t have been even a prank if it hadn’t been Tuesday, and if Miss Henderson had been somewhat less inclined to squeal when excited.

  But it was Tuesday, in the early summer, when life for a hospital interne was reaching its nadir, and many a fledgling doctor, like Dr. Barret, for instance, was practically driven to schemes to relieve the humdrum routine of patients and case histories. A most unimaginative cook was really to blame, for the three doctors were sitting about the internes’ table at St. Christopher’s Hospital that day, eating the inevitable Tuesday fare of pig-in-blanket and sauerkraut, and wondering dully what to discuss next.

  “What,” said Dr. Barret, in a moment of inspiration, viewing his dinner plate, “makes more noise than a pig under a gate?”

  “Two pigs,” muttered Dr. Hines, munching thoughtfully. “Or three pigs under a blanket. You’re out of date.”

  “Oh, no,” smiled Dr. Barret, the faintest gleam in his young hazel eyes. “For your information the answer is: Miss Henderson, when she’s suffered an emotional shock!”

  Miss Henderson, the newest proby nurse at St. Christopher’s, was at present assigned to uneasy duty with Dr. Barret on the maternity ward, and had suffered numerous emotional shocks, it seemed, under that gentleman’s tender care. Miss Henderson was, as they put it, a lush dish; she was also not too bright.

  Dr. Barrett chuckled in unashamed malice: “You should have heard her,” he grinned, “when she spotted that wiggly green lizard jiggling down my jacket front the other day. She squealed like five pigs under a gate!” The doctors laughed, and leaned closer to Dr. Barret, sensing a scheme under construction. “Now, Miss Henderson is in the nursery this afternoon,” he speculated softly. “What do you suppose she would do if she found—”

  It was very simple to arrange. Dr. Barret took a quick trip across the campus to the Agricultural Experiment Station after lunch, and returned to the hospital as unobtrusively as possible through a rear entrance, hoping that none of the staff would notice the odd bulge under his interne’s jacket. Five minutes later he exhibited his prize to his fellow conspirators in their rooms, where they scrubbed it with soap and water and sprinkled it liberally with baby powder, amid much outraged squealing, until the barest whiff of chloroform sedated it into a snuffing and uneasy sleep. Then the other two internes waylaid Miss Henderson, giggling and self-conscious, in the chart room while Dr. Barret placed the prize in a baby basket in the nursery, neatly wrapping it in a blue baby blanket, and arranging it between the basket tagged “Child Harrison” and the one labeled “Child Wojikowsky.” He left it there with a small but distinctly legible tag at the bottom of the basket: “Child Porker.”

  The three were watching from the nursery door, maintaining a studied and valiant calm, when Miss Henderson, still giggling and meditating future dates with handsome doctors, marched into the nursery with the two-o’clock bottles for Child Harrison and Child Wojikowsky. Her reaction was gratifying indeed. She stopped in her tracks, let out the prize squeal of her eighteen years, and fainted dead away.

  It would have remained a prank if at precisely that moment Dr. Herman Tally, Professor of Anthropology, student of infant development, and chief whipping-boy of Dr. Hogan’s anthropological research staff, had not made his weekly rounds of St. Christopher’s nursery. Dr. Tally was essentially a mild man, calmly gratified if his daily rountine was allowed to run its course without too many ragged edges, from rising in the morning to retiring at night. He was decidedly not mentally prepared for three startled internes, a bewildered nurse, and the apparition in the baby basket as he climbed the nursery stairs that afternoon.

  He was muttering to himself at the most recent indignities suffered at the hands of his chief. The lazy pig! It wasn’t enough that Dr. Hogan required him to type, rewrite, proofread, index, and play public relations supervisor for the Book—he had to collect the man’s research data for him, too, when Dr. Hogan didn’t feel like hoisting his porcine bulk down to St. Christopher’s nursery on a hot Tuesday afternoon. Dr. Tally sighed tiredly. For three years now the Book had occupied the entire working hours of the whole anthropology staff.

  “ ‘Back to the Apes,’ ” Dr. Hogan would beam, expounding enthusiastically, “will be the last word on the Origin of Man conflict—the last word, I say, the crowning blow to all opposing theories!” He would puff and wheeze, then, smiling his fat smile beneficently upon anyone who was still listening. “The final work will be published in ‘Back to the Apes,’ proving, I say provingthat Man and Ape alike can smile back on a common ancestor!” And then he would beam some more.

  Dr. Tally grimaced. He was so tired of going back to the apes. The title wasn’t even Dr. Hogan’s idea, and some of the harebrained ideas that were his, like these recent tests on infant reactions—Dr. Tally reached the top of the stairs unenthusiastically, and walked into the nursery.

  Miss Henderson was already enjoying the solicitous attention of the three young internes, so Dr. Tally looked immediately for the cause of her sudden collapse, and the squeal he had heard clear down the stairs. The sight of the basket took him quite aback. For a moment he stared at it in disbelief, until in a flash of insight he recognized all the earmarks of an interne’s sense of humor. Nevertheless, he still stared at the basket. And stared, and stared.

  The idea trickled into his mind, almost frightening him. Something there struck a chord, a beautiful harmony, far back in his memory. Some resemblance to something he had seen, or read—he ran a trembling hand through his sparse hair as he thought, probing the vast store of incidental and disorganized material in his mind. There had been so much to learn in anatomy, or physiology—or was it embryology? The more he studied Child Porker, snuffing in its basket, the stronger the idea became, forcing itself into his mind, carrying him closer and closer to the familiar link—

  Embryology! That was it! His heart was suddenly beating in his throat, and he jammed his hat on his head, beating a hasty retreat down the stairs. Embryology! Out of the depths of his mind, he knew excitedly, there was something about embryology. If he could only find the book—

  Dr. Tally was late for supper, and when he came up the walk from his battered Chewy, arms loaded with books, he viewed dinner with a certain degree of abstraction. It had been embryology, indeed, and much, much more. The afternoon had been spent in the library stacks, checking first one embryology text, then another. It was after an hour there that he grew certain that he had a trail to follow, but a complex trail, with many devious twistings. It took him into anatomy, into physiology, into biochemistry—He kissed his wife, hardly seeing her, and settled down to his belated supper, opening Benson’s “Parasitology” on one side of his plate, and Best and Taylor’s “Physiological Basis for Medical Practice” on the other side. In a matter of moments he was immersed, his thin shoulders trembling with agitation.

  “Dear,” said Mrs. Tally, hopefully, “are you enjoying your chops? They’re very expensive, nowadays.”

  “Chops?”

  “Pork chops. What you’re eating. Aren’t they delicious?”

  He looked up from his books, first at his wife, then at the chops, his face slightly green. “My dear,” he said, pushing his plate away gently but with finality. “I’m afraid I just can’t enjoy the . . . dinner . . . this evening. I’ve a great deal of work to do, and I’d like to be undisturbed tonight.” He rose unsteadily from the table, books under his arm, and beat a hasty retreat into his study.

  The trail was unmistakable, clear and distinct. For years people had nodded sagely and accepted authority unchallenged, even when they had walked past the trail in a dozen places. It was here, winding its way through a dozen books, never examined, never correlated—but here! Anyone with half an eye could find it. They had just missed it because they hadn’t dared to look. And all the palaver about scientific method! He pored over the “Parasitology,” then checked several chapters of human physiology. Darwin’s Origin of Species came next, then the embryology again and a huge text on dental surgery. Three large tomes on psychological conditioning and reflex reactions occupied him for almost an hour before he tossed them aside with a sigh and sought out a chapter on human nasal surgery. All here, all so clear— and nobody had thought to make the necessary correlation! His heart was in his throat, his whole mind afire with the expanse of his vision when his wife brought in a sandwich and milk, well past midnight. And she saw a gleam in her husband’s eye that she hadn’t seen in ten years under Dr. Hogan’s tyranny.

  “Darling,” said Dr. Tally, after munching for a while on the sandwich, “how would you like to go away for a while— take an extended vacation, for instance?”

  “Go away?” She looked up in surprise. “Why, Herman! We haven’t been on a vacation in ten years! Where to?”

  A faraway look came into the doctor’s eyes. “Some beautiful island, maybe in the South Pacific. Maybe we could go to New Zealand, or Central Africa. I hear they need anthropologists in Central Africa—”

  Here eyes were wide, and she brushed back her graying hair with studied care. “Herman, you aren’t yourself tonight. What’s wrong? Are you in trouble?”

  He stood up, swelling his thin chest with air. “The biggest trouble in ten years, my dear, and the most wonderful! I’ve found something that may lose me my job so fast I won’t know what hit me!”

  “Something that will oppose Dr. Hogan?”

  “Oppose him! It’ll knock him and his theories right out the door. And it’ll get me fired on the spot. The Board of Trustees may throw me out on my ear, if I can’t convince them, but I’m going to do it if they put me on a spit and roast me! The great Dr. Hogan has been rooting in my cornfield for years—and now I’ve got a stick big enough to drive him out!”

  Dr. Horace Hogan’s office was the largest, brightest, best equipped office-lab in the Zoology Building. His first book, “The Essence of the Ape,” had given him the laboratory, and the prestige, and the power over his subordinates, as well as altogether too much to eat in the past five years or so. He hoisted his blubbery bulk around in the swivel chair to face Dr. Tally, his fat red face heavy with annoyance.

  “Yes, yes, Dr. Tally—what is it? You know I’m not to be disturbed when I’m writing.”

  “Dr. Hogan, I have a question to ask you.” Dr. Tally’s face was drawn tight, a cold light of determination in his eyes. He wondered, abstractedly, how Dr. Hogan would look roasted, with an apple in his mouth.

  “Well, you’ll have to see me later. ‘Back to the Apes’ comes first in this office, you know. I’ve a deadline to make.” “Bother the deadline,” said Dr. Tally succinctly. “You won’t need to make it. And I want my question answered here”—he drew himself up straight and proud—“and now!” The fat man spluttered and swung back to face him. “All right,” he said testily. “Out with it, man. What’s the trouble?” “What is the complete biological classification of Man?” Dr. Hogan’s face went blank with surprise. “Chordata, Craniata, Mammalia, Primata, Hominidae, Homo sapiens,” he snapped mechanically. “Our freshman pre-medics were asked that question on their first-hour quiz, Dr. Tally.” “Yes,” said Dr. Tally softly. “I suppose they were also asked to trace the human evolutionary chain back to a common ancestor with the apes, weren’t they?”

  “Of course they were! That is undoubtedly the most precious and fundamental single item of knowledge they will ever have occasion to encounter!” The fat man quivered, his face red.

  Dr. Tally sniggered audibly. “But if they give your answer, they might be all wrong!”

  “Dr. Tally!” Dr. Hogan started to get to his feet, thought better of it, and assumed a pose of militant indignation from a sitting position. “Such a remark is heresy, Dr. Tally. Rank hersey!”

  Dr. Tally pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. “Listen to me for a moment, Dr. Hogan, and correct me if I’m wrong. In tracing the evolutionary line of any creature, we look to generalized rather than specialized forms, isn’t that right? And for that reason we consider Man from the point of view of the biological family, Hominidae, rather than the specialized genus and species Homo sapiens.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And we look to the ancestral form with similar generalized characteristics when we want to find the progenitor of Man?”

  “Of course. You know that.”

  “And are you wholeheartedly satisfied that Man’s evolutionary root was unquestionably of the Tarsius family, now represented by certain monkeys and apes?”

  Dr. Hogan wheezed in agitation. “For the dignity of Man, I am inalterably convinced, Dr. Tally. ‘Back to the Apes,’ I always say. All the evidence points—”

  “Not all the evidence, Dr. Hogan! The evidence found in anthropology, perhaps, and paleontology—but there are other lines of evidence, modern evidence, unmistakable evidence. You can’t twist scientific methods around a pole to suit your whims. There is evidence that does not point to Tarsius or the apes at all. It points directly and unmistakably to the Suidae!”

  Dr. Hogan gasped, his hoglike jowls bobbing up and down. “Preposterous!” he gasped. “Of course there may be certain faint resemblances, but to relate human beings—human beings, mind you, to PIGS—”

  Dr. Tally grinned a wicked grin. “There certainly are resemblances. Your evidence for the apes is anthropological, paleontological—but I have anatomical, physiological, and embryological evidence.” He settled down in a chair. “Look at the evidence, Dr. Hogan. I remembered, from back in my college days, that somebody had once remarked, during an embryology course, that we studied the embryos of pigs rather than human beings, because they were more easily available, and essentially the same! I checked it. They are indubitably the same, Dr. Hogan, in almost every way. Only in the last few weeks of gestation does a pig embryo become distinguishable from a human embryo. And after birth, what anatomical relation is there? The organs, the viscera, the internal arrangement of the pig ispractically identical with that of Man! The same size, placement, shape, function, for all the organs. The apes present a very different anatomical picture. Both men and pigs have similar vermiform appendixes—apes do not. Human teeth have either one root or two in the premolars and molars, while in monkeys and apes these same teeth have three roots. In pigs these teeth are rooted the same as in man. And other things—men and pigs have little or no vestigial tails, while apes and monkeys have either short or long tails. Men and pigs are essentially hairless; monkeys and apes, even up to the gorillas, all have hair in abundance—”