"You'll not go," said Cal. "Now we're at the same old impasse. We've come up against it for three years, Cal." "But why?" "Tony and I promised ourselves that we'd solve this mystery before we quit." Cal snorted. "You've been following in the footsteps of medical men who haven't solved Makin's Disease in the last hundred years. You might never solve it." "Then you'll have to play my way, Cal." "You know my opinion on that." "You persist in putting me over a barrel, Cal. I think a lot of you. Enough--and forgive me for thinking it--to ignore the fact that you are a twin. But I'll not marry you unless we can be together--somehow. I love surgery and medical research. I like adventuring into strange places and seeking the answer to strange things. Tony is my ideal and he loves this life too, as did our father. It's in our blood, Tony's and mine, and saying so isn't going to remove it." Cal nodded glumly. "Don't change," he said firmly. "Not willingly. I'm not going to be the guy to send someone to a psychiatrist to have his identity worked over. I've been hoping that you'd get your fill of roistering all over the Solar System, looking for rare bugs and viruses. I've almost been willing to get some conditioning myself so that I could join you--but you know what that would mean." "Poor Cal," said Tinker softly. "You do love me. But Cal, don't you change either! Understand? If you change your identity, you'll not be the Cal I love. If the change comes normally, good and well, but I'll not have an altered personality for my husband. You love your ciphers and your codes and your cryptograms. You are a romanticist, Cal, and you stick to the rapier and the foil." "Excepting that I get accused of cowardice every now and then," snorted Blair. "Cowardice?" "I've a rather quiet nature, you know. Nothing really roils me except Benj and his tricks. So I don't go around insulting people. I've been able to talk a lot of fights away by sheer reasoning, and when the battle is thrust upon me, I choose the rapier. There's been criticism, Tink, because some have backed out rather than cross rapiers with me, and those that do usually get pinked. I've been accused of fighting my own game." "That's smart. That's your identity, Cal, and don't let them ridicule you into trying drillers." "I won't. I can't shoot the side of a wall with a needle beam." "Stay as you are, Cal." "But that's no answer. You like space flying. I hate space flying. You love medicine and neurosurgery. I hate the smell of neoform. I hate space and I hate surgery--and you love 'em both. To combine them? To call them Life? No man in his right mind would do that. No, Tinker, I'll have nothing to do with either!" * * * * *