There is a limit to how perfecta counterfeit can be—a limit that cannot be passed withoutan odd phenomenon setting in.... __________________________________________ "Why shouldn't we continue with the plan until . . ." Kilby interrupted without change of expression. "Until we hear some day that billions of human beings are dying on the Federation's worlds?" Halder kept his eyes fixed on the traffic pattern ahead. "It won't come to that," he said. "Won't it? How can you be sure?" Kilby asked tonelessly. "Well," Halder asked, "what else can we do? You aren't suggesting that we give ourselves up —" "I've thought of it." "And be picked apart mentally and physically in the Federation's laboratories?" Halder shook his head. "In their eyes we'd be Kalechi's creatures . . . monsters. Even if we turn ourselves in, they'll think it's sometrick, that we'd realized we'd get caught anyway. We couldn't expect much mercy." But there "is" a limit to how perfect a counterfeit can be—a limit that cannot be passed without an odd phenomenon setting in...
Author
James Henry Schmitz (October 15, 1911–April 18, 1981) was an American writer born in Hamburg, Germany of American parents. Aside from two years at business school in Chicago, Schmitz lived in Germany until 1938, leaving before World War II broke out in Europe in 1939. During World War II, Schmitz served as an aerial photographer in the Pacific for the United States Army Air Corps. After the war, he and his brother-in-law ran a business which manufactured trailers until they broke up the business in 1949. Schmitz is best known as a writer of space opera, and for strong female characters (including Telzey Amberdon and Trigger Argee) that didn't fit into the damsel in distress stereotype typical of science fiction during the time he was writing. His first published story was Greenface, published in August 1943 in Unknown. Most of his works are part of the "Hub" series, though his best known novel is the non-Hub The Witches of Karres, concerning juvenile "witches" with genuine psi-powers and their escape from slavery. Karres was nominated for a Hugo Award. In recent years, his novels and short stories have been republished by Baen Books (which bought the rights to his estate for $6500), edited (sometimes heavily edited) and with notes by Eric Flint. Baen have also published new works based in the Karres universe. Schmitz died of congestive lung failure in 1981 after a five week stay in the hospital in Los Angeles. He was survived by his wife, Betty Mae Chapman Schmitz.
