"I've been thinking," Captain Corelli said, "about what Gaffa said when he limited the time of the test, that we might or might not discover the reason for ourselves. Now what the hell did the grinning heathen mean by that? Is there a reason, or was he only dragging a red herring across the bogus Haslop's track?"
Gibbons looked thoughtful. I sat back while he pondered and watched the Quack, who was swallowing another antibiotic capsule.
"Wait a minute," Gibbons exclaimed. "Captain, you've hit on something there!"
He stared at the Haslops. They stared back, unimpressed.
"Gaffa said you two were exactly alike outside," Gibbons said. "And we've proved it. Does that mean you're not alike inside?"
"Sure," one of them said. "But what of it? You're sure as hell not going to cut one of us open to see!"
"You're confusing the issue," Gibbons snapped. "What I'm getting at is this—if you two aren't made alike inside, then you can't possibly exist on the same sort of diet. One of you eats the same sort of food as ourselves. The other can't. But which is which?"
One of the Haslops pointed a quivering finger at the other. "It's him!" he said. "I've watched him drink his dinner for twenty-two years—he's the fake!"
"Liar!" the other one yelled, springing up. Corelli stepped between them and the second Haslop subsided, grumbling. "It's true enough, only he's the one that drinks his meals. This stuff in the pitcher is the food he lives on—alcohol for energy, with minerals and other stuff dissolved in it. I drink it with him for kicks, but that phony can't eat anything else."