"Please accept the apology of the management," said the waiter sorrowfully. "Today we have no knolla."
"None?" asked Cal in surprise. "That's strange. Every restaurant has knolla."
"Not this one," smiled the waiter. "An accident, sir. The alloy disk containing the recording of the roast knolla dinner slipped from the chef's hands less than an hour ago and fell to the floor. It was thought to be undamaged, close inspection showed it all right. But it was tried, and the knolla came out with the most peculiar flavor. The master files haven't replaced it yet. It will be four hours before they get to our request for transmission of the disk. The engineer there laughed and said something about molecule-displacement when I mentioned the peculiar flavor. It was most peculiar. Not distressing, mind, but most alien. We're keeping the damaged disk. It may be a real unique."
"Good eating?"
"I'll reserve opinion on that until we find out how we like it ourselves," smiled the waiter. "I'd recommend something else, sir."
Cal ordered for both Tinker and himself. Then he leaned forward on his elbows and gave Tinker the highlights of his life for the past few weeks. He finished with the statement: "It's worthless, but somehow I can't see letting Benj get it."
"Worthless? Murdoch's Hoard?"
"Shall I go into that again? Look, Tinker. Murdoch's era was prior to the discovery of the matter-duplicator, which followed the Channing-Franks matter transmitter by only a few weeks. Now, anything that Murdoch could cache away would be in currency of that time. The period of duplication hadn't come yet, and the eventual invention or discovery of identium as a medium of exchange had not come. So what good is Murdoch's Hoard? It must be of some value. But what? I could discount everything as ignorance or hatred except Dr. Lange's quick desire for it. Lange is no fool, Tink. He knew what he was getting. Darn it all, I feel like going out and running the Hoard down myself!"
Tinker's laugh was genuine and spontaneous.