7 thoughts on “Fruiting Bodies: Chapter 2, Page 27”

  1. As the two Professor Knipls are literally exact duplicates of each other, how does Claudia Hernandez tell which is meant to be at the office?

    • Well, she didn’t make those calendars up because she had nothing better to do with her time, you know.

      • Sorry. I wasn’t clear enough.
        Both maintain they are the real Professor Knipl. They are completely indistinguishable. If they are both at the office together and they both maintain they are the Professor Knipl with the right to be at the office at that time, how can she tell which is telling the truth?
        Indeed, there are some very interesting dilemmas. Do they both get Professor Knipl’s salary or is it divided between them? Do they both teach the same courses? Do they both carry out the same research? Despite their dislike, do they even collaborate in the interests of science?… If it weren’t for it’s lack of eroticism, there’d be an interesting story there.

        • Indeed, Professor Knipls can console themselves that they can fulfil Burns’s wish:
          O wad some Power the giftie gie us
          To see oursels as ithers see us!
          It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
          An’ foolish notion:
          What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
          An’ ev’n devotion!

          Though they don’t seem too happy about it.

        • But in this case, Alpha was on the calendar for being at lunch at the time that Beta stepped out of his office, and I imagine Claudia was present when Alpha went for his lunch and is familiar enough with their routine to know how long he’d be away, and when she confronted Beta, he didn’t try to pretend to be Alpha.

          Also, they might have some kind of minor physical difference, like the clones in Multiplicity.

          • ” when she confronted Beta, he didn’t try to pretend to be Alpha” but he could be Alpha pretending to be Beta. For all her admirable virtues, Claudia is the sort of person who would – as she puts it – rub scientists -especially mad scientists – up the wrong way. Mad science and duplication could have a very unfortunate effect on the sense of humour.

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