A short ruminative silence, and then Dr. Stefansson stirred uneasily, 'Are you going to break the news to Allen soon?'
The other nodded quietly, 'It will have to be done before we get to Mars, and the sooner the better.' He paused, then added in a tightened voice, 'I wonder how it feels to find out after twenty-five years that one has a twin brother whom one has never seen. It must be a damned shock.'
'How did George take it?'
'Didn't believe it at first, and I don't blame him. Markey had to work like a horse to convince him it wasn't a hoax. I suppose I'll have as hard a job with Allen.' He knocked the dottle from his pipe and shook his head.
'I have half a mind to go to Mars just to see those two get together,' remarked Dr. Stefansson wistfully.
'You'll do no such thing, Stef. This experiment's taken too long and means too much to have you ruin it by any such fool move.'
'I know, I know! Heredity versus environment! Perhaps at last the definite answer.' He spoke half to himself, as if repeating an old, familiar formula, 'Two identical twins, separated at birth; one brought up oh old, civilized Earth, the other on pioneer Ganymede. Then, on their twenty-fifth birthday brought together for the first time on Mars - God! I wish Carter had lived to see the end of it. They're his children.'
'Too bad! - But we're alive, and the twins. To carry the experiment to its end will be our tribute to him.'
There is no way of telling, at first seeing the Martian branch of Medicinal Products, Inc., that it is surrounded by anything but desert. You can't see the vast underground caverns where the native fungi of Mars are artificially nurtured into huge blooming fields. The intricate transportation system that connects all parts of the square miles of fields to the central building is invisible. The irrigation system; the air-purifiers; the drainage pipes, are all hidden.
And what one sees is the broad squat red-brick building and Martian desert, rusty and dry, all about.
That had been all George Carter had seen upon arriving via rocket-taxi, but him, at least, appearances had not deceived. It would have been strange had it done so, for his life on Ganymede had been oriented in its every phase towards eventual general managership of that very concern. He knew every square inch of the caverns below as well as if he had been born and raised in them himself.
And now he sat in Professor Lemuel Harvey's small office and allowed just the slightest trace of uneasiness to cross his impassive countenance. His ice-blue eyes sought those of Professor Harvey.
'This - this twin brother o' mine. He'll be here soon?'
Professor Harvey nodded, 'He's on his way over right now.'
George Carter uncrossed his knees. His expression was almost wistful, 'He looks a lot like me, d'ya rack on?'
'Quite a lot. You're identical twins, you know.'
'Hmm! Rackon so! Wish I'd known him all the time - on Ganny!' He frowned, 'He's lived on Airth all's life, huh?'
An expression of interest crossed Professor Harvey's face. He said briskly, 'You dislike Earthmen?'
'No, not exactly,' came the immediate answer. 'It's just the Airthmen are tenderfeet. All of 'm I know are.'
Harvey stifled a grin, and conversation languished.
The door-signal snapped Harvey out of his reverie and George Carter out of his chair at the same instant. The professor pressed the desk-button and the door opened.
The figure on the threshold crossed into the room and then stopped. The twin brothers faced each other.
It was a tense, breathless moment, and Professor Harvey sank into his soft chair, put his finger-tips together and watched keenly.
The two stood stiffly erect, ten feet apart, neither making a move to lessen the distance. They made a curious contrast - a contrast all the more marked because of the vast similarity between the two.
Eyes of frozen blue gazed deep into eyes of frozen blue. Each saw a long, straight nose over full, red lips pressed firmly together. The high cheekbones were as prominent in one as in the other, the jutting, angular chin as square. There was even the same, odd half-cock of one eyebrow in twin expressions of absorbed, part-quizzical interest.
But with the face, all resemblance ended. Allen Carter's clothes bore the New York stamp on every square inch. From his loose blouse, past his dark purple knee breeches, salmon-colored cellulite stockings, down to the glistening sandals on his feet, he stood a living embodiment of latest Terrestrial fashion.
For a fleeting moment, George Carter was conscious of a feeling of ungainliness as he stood there in his tight-sleeved, close-necked shirt of Ganymedan linen. His unbuttoned vest and his voluminous trousers with their ends tucked into high-laced, heavy-soled boots were clumsy and provincial. Even he felt it - for just a moment.
From his sleeve-pocket Allen removed a cigarette case - it was the first move either of the brothers had made - opened it, withdrew a slender cylinder of paper-covered tobacco that spontaneously glowed into life at the first puff.
George hesitated a fraction of a second and his subsequent action was almost one of defiance. His hand plunged into his inner vest pocket and drew therefrom the green, shriveled form of a cigar made of Ganymedan greenleaf. A match flared into flame upon his thumbnail and for a long moment, he matched, puff for puff, the cigarette of his brother.
And then Allen laughed - a queer, high-pitched laugh, 'Your eyes are a little closer together, I think.'
'Rackon 'tis, maybe. Y'r hair's fixed sort o' different.' There was faint disapproval in his voice. Allen's hand went selfconsciously to his long, light-brown hair, carefully curled at the ends, while his eyes flickered over the carelessly-bound queue into which the other's equally long hair was drawn.
'I suppose we'll have to get used to each other. - I'm willing to try.' The Earth twin was advancing now, hand outstretched.
George smiled, 'Y' bet. 'At goes here, too.'
The hands met and gripped.
'Y'r name's All'n, huh?' said George.
'And yours is George, isn't it?' answered Allen.
And then for a long while they said nothing more. They just looked - and smiled as they strove to bridge the twenty-five year gap that separated them.
George Carter's impersonal gaze swept over the carpet of low-growing purple blooms that stretched in plot-path bordered squares into the misty distance of the caverns. The newspapers and feature writers might rhapsodize over the 'Fungus Gold' of Mars - about the purified extracts, in yields of ounces to acres of blooms, that had become indispensable to the medical profession of the System. Opiates, purified vitamins, a new vegetable specific against pneumonia - the blooms were worth their weight in gold, almost.
But they were merely blooms to George Garter - blooms to be forced to full growth, harvested, baled and shipped to the Aresopolis labs hundreds of miles away.
He cut his little ground car to half-speed and leant furiously out the window, 'Hi y' mudcat there. Y' with the dairty face. Watch what y'r doing - keep the donined water in the channel.'
He drew back and the ground car leapt ahead once more. The Ganymedan muttered viciously to himself, 'These domned men about here are wairse than useless. So many machines t' do their wairk for 'm they give their brains a pairrnenent vacation. I rackon.'
The ground car came to a halt and he clambered out. Picking his way between the fungus plots, he approached the clustered group of men about the spider-armed machine in the plotway ahead.
"Well, here I am. What is 't, All'n?'
Allen's head bobbed up from behind the other side of the machine. He waved at the men about him, 'Stop it for a second!' and leaped toward his twin.
'George, it works. It's slow and clumsy, but it v/orks. We can improve it now that we've got the fundamentals down. And in no time at all, we'll be able to -'
'Now wait a while, All'n. On Ganny, we" go slow. Y' live long, that way. What y' got there?'