Way Station/Headscratchers

So we have Twinmaker teleporters. Sentient beings leave just a corpse when they're teleported, but they are an outright duplicator for non-living things, like the wood the Thuban gave to Enoch. The sensitives in charge of the Talisman go from planet to planet using the Portal Network. Wouldn't it just leave copies of the Talisman every time they travel? How is it even possible that there is just one?
- And, if the Talisman is altered by the teleportation so the copy left behind is unusable, wouldn't that make it qualify as a living being? Then doing as The Federation does to it would be kind of slavery.