The Eleventh Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack

by F. L. Wallace

  A robot came to wait on him.

  “I’d like to speak to the manager,” he said and the robot went away.

  Presently the manager appeared, middle aged, drowsy. “What can I do for you?”

  Luis laid the retrogression gun on the counter. “I’d like to know who this was sold to.”

  The manager coughed. “Well, there are millions of them, hundreds of millions.”

  “I know, but I have to find out.”

  The manager picked it up. “It’s a competitor’s make,” he said doubtfully. “Of course, as a courtesy to a customer.…” He fingered it thoughtfully. “Do you really want to know? It’s just a freezer. Not at all dangerous.”

  Luis looked at it with concern. Just a freezer—not a retro gun at all! Then it couldn’t have been the weapon used on him.

  Before he could take it back the manager broke it open. The drowsy expression vanished.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” exclaimed the manager, examining it. “This gun has been illegally altered.” He bent over the exposed circuits and then glanced up happily at Luis. “Come here, I’ll show you.”

  Luis followed him to the small workshop in the back of the store. The manager closed the door behind them and fumbled among the equipment. He mounted the gun securely in a frame and pressed a button which projected an image of the circuit onto a screen.

  The manager was enjoying himself. “Everybody’s entitled to self-protection,” he said. “That’s why we sell so many like these. They’re harmless, won’t hurt a baby. Fully charged, they’ll put a man out for half an hour, overload his nervous system. At the weakest, they’ll still keep him out of action for ten minutes. Below that, they won’t work at all.” He looked up. “Are you sure you understand this?”

  It had been included in his re-education, but it didn’t come readily to his mind. “Perhaps you’d better go over it for me.”

  The manager wagged his head. “As I said, the freezer is legal, won’t harm anyone. It’ll stop a man or an elephant in his tracks, freeze him, but beyond that will leave him intact. When he comes out of it, he’s just the same as before, nothing changed.” He seized a pointer and adjusted the controls so as to enlarge the image on the screen. “However, a freezer can be converted to a retrogression gun, and that’s illegal.” He traced the connections with the pointer. “If this wire, instead of connecting as it does, is moved to here and here, the polarity is reversed. In addition, if these four wires are interchanged, the freezer becomes a retrogressor. As I said, it’s illegal to do that.”

  The manager scrutinized the circuits closely and grunted in disgust. “Whoever converted this did a sloppy job. Here.” He bent over the gun and began manipulating micro-instruments. He worked rapidly and surely. A moment later, he snapped the weapon together and straightened up, handing it to Luis. “There,” he said proudly. “It’s a much more effective retrogressor than it was. Uses less power too.”

  Luis swallowed. Either he was mad or the man was, or perhaps it was the society he was trying to adjust to. “Aren’t you taking a chance, doing this for me?”

  The manager smiled. “You’re joking. A tenth of the freezers we sell are immediately converted into retrogressors. Who cares?” He became serious. “Do you still want to know who bought it?”

  Luis nodded—at the moment he didn’t trust his voice.

  “It will take several hours. No charge though, customer service. Tell me where I can reach you.”

  Luis jotted down the number of the screen at the Shelter and handed it to the manager. As he left, the manager whispered to him: “Remember, the next time you buy a freezer—ours can be converted easier than the one you have.”

  He went out into the sunlight. It didn’t seem the same. What kind of society was he living in? The reality didn’t fit with what he had re-learned. It had seemed an orderly and sane civilization, with little violence and vast respect for the law.

  But the fact was that any school child—well, not quite that young, perhaps—but anyone older could and did buy a freezer. And it was ridiculously easy to convert a freezer into something far more vicious. Of course, it was illegal, but no one paid any attention to that.

  This was wrong; it wasn’t the way he remembered.…

  He corrected himself: he didn’t actually remember anything. His knowledge came from tapes, and was obviously inadequate. Certain things he just didn’t understand yet.

  He wanted to talk to someone—but who? The counselor had given him all the information he intended to. The store manager had supplied some additional insight, but it only confused him. Luise—at the moment she was suspicious of him.

  There was nothing to do except to be as observant as he could. He wandered through the town, just looking. He saw nothing that seemed familiar. Negative evidence, of course, but it indicated he hadn’t lived here before.

  Before what? Before he had been retrogressed. He had been brought here from elsewhere, the same as Luise.

  He visited the spaceport. Again the evidence was negative; there was not a ship the sight of which tripped his memory. It had been too much to hope for; if he had been brought in by spaceship, it wouldn’t still be around for him to recognize.

  * * * *

  Late in the afternoon, he headed toward the center of town. He was riding the belt when he saw Luise coming out of a tall office building.

  He hopped off and let her pass, boarding it again and following her at a distance. As soon as they were out of the business district, he began to edge closer.

  A few blocks from the Shelter she got off the belt and waited, turning around and smiling directly at him. In the interim her attitude toward him had changed, evidently—for the better, as far as he was concerned. He couldn’t ignore her and didn’t want to. He stepped off the belt.

  “Hello,” she said. “I think you were following me.”

  “I was. Do you mind?”

  “I guess I don’t.” She walked along with him. “Others followed me, but I discouraged them.”

  She was worth following, but it was not that which was strange. Now she seemed composed and extraordinarily friendly, a complete reversal from last night. Had she learned something during the day which changed her opinion of him? He hoped she had.

  She stopped at the edge of the Shelter area. “Do you live here?”

  Learned something? She seemed to have forgotten.

  He nodded.

  “For the same reason?”

  His throat tightened. He had told her all that last night. Couldn’t she remember?

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I thought so. That’s why I didn’t mind your following me.”

  Here was the attraction factor that Borgenese had spoken of; it was functioning again, for which he was grateful. But still, why? And why didn’t she remember last night?

  They walked on until she came to her dwelling. She paused at the door. “I have a feeling I should know who you are, but I just can’t recall. Isn’t that terrible?”

  It was—frightening. Her identity was apparently incompletely established; it kept slipping backward to a time she hadn’t met him. He couldn’t build anything enduring on that; each meeting with her would begin as if nothing had happened before.

  Would the same be true of him?

  He looked at her. The torn dress hadn’t been repaired, as he’d thought at first; it had been replaced by the robots that came out of the wall at night. They’d done a good job fitting her, but with her body that was easy.

  It was frightening and it wasn’t. At least this time he didn’t have a handicap. He opened his mouth to tell her his name, and then closed it. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “I haven’t decided on a name,” he said.

  “It was that way with me too.” She gazed at him and he could feel his insides sloshing around. “Well, man with no name, do you want to come in? We can have dinner together.”

  He entered. But dinner was late that night. He had known it would be.
/>   * * * *

  In the morning light, he sat up and put his hand on her. She smiled in her sleep and squirmed closer. There were compensations for being nobody, he supposed, and this was one of them. He got up quietly and dressed without waking her. There were a number of things he wanted to discuss, but somehow there hadn’t been time last night. He would have to talk to her later today.

  He slipped out of the house and went across the court into his own. The screen he had ripped apart had been repaired and put back in place. A voice chimed out as he entered: “A call came while you were gone.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  The voice descended the scale and became that of the store manager. “The gun you brought in was sold six months ago to Dorn Starret, resident of Ceres and proprietor of a small gallium mine there. That’s all the information on record. I trust it will be satisfactory.”

  Luis sat down. It was. He could trace the man or have him traced, though the last might not be necessary.

  The name meant something to him—just what he couldn’t say. Dorn Starret, owner of a gallium mine on Ceres. The mine might or might not be of consequence; gallium was used in a number of industrial processes, but beyond that was not particularly valuable.

  He closed his eyes to concentrate. The name slid into vacant nerve cells that were responsive; slowly a picture formed, nebulous and incomplete at first. There was a mouth and then there were eyes, each feature bringing others into focus, unfolding as a germ cell divides and grows, calling into existence an entire creature. The picture was nearly complete.

  Still with eyes closed, he looked at the man he remembered. Dorn Starret, five-eleven, one hundred and ninety, flesh that had once been muscular and firm. Age, thirty-seven; black hair that was beginning to recede from his forehead. The face was harder to define—strong, though slightly hard, it was perhaps good looking. It was the eyes which were at fault, Luis decided—glinting often—and there were lines on the face that ought not to be there.

  There was another thing that set the man apart. Not clothing; that was conventional, though better than average. Luis stared into his memory until he was able to see it. Unquestionably the man was left-handed. The picture was too clear to permit a mistake on that detail.

  He knew the man, had seen him often. How and in what context? He waited, but nothing else came.

  Luis opened his eyes. He would recognize the man if he ever saw him. This was the man who owned the gun, presumably had shot him with it, and then had hidden it here in this room.

  He thought about it vainly. By itself, the name couldn’t take him back through all past associations with the man, so he passed from the man to Ceres. Here he was better equipped; re-education tapes had replaced his former knowledge of the subject.

  * * * *

  The asteroid belt was not rigidly policed; if there was a place in the System in which legal niceties were not strictly observed, it was there. What could he deduce from that? Nothing perhaps; there were many people living in the belt who were engaged in legitimate work: miners, prospectors, scientific investigators. But with rising excitement, he realized that Dorn Starret was not one of these.

  He was a criminal. The gallium mine was merely an attempt to cover himself with respectability. How did Luis know that? He wasn’t sure; his thought processes were hidden and erratic; but he knew.

  Dorn Starret was a criminal—but the information wasn’t completely satisfactory. What had caused the man to retrogress Luis and Luise Obispo? That still had to be determined.

  But it did suggest this: as a habitual criminal, the man was more than ordinarily dangerous.

  Luis sat there a while longer, but he had recalled everything that would come out of the original stimulus. If he wanted more, he would have to dig up other facts or make further contacts. But at least it wasn’t hopeless—even without the police, he had learned this much.

  He went over the room thoroughly once more. If there was anything hidden, he couldn’t find it.

  He crossed the court to Luise’s dwelling. She was gone, but there was a note on the table. He picked it up and read it:

  Dear man with no name:

  I suppose you were here last night, though I’m so mixed up I can’t be sure; there’s so little of memory or reality to base anything on. I wanted to talk to you before I left but I guess, like me, you’re out investigating.

  There’s always a danger that neither of us will like what we find. What if I’m married to another person and the same with you? Suppose…but there are countless suppositions—these are the risks we take. It’s intolerable not to know who I am, especially since the knowledge is so close. But of course you know that.

  Anyway I’ll be out most of the day. I discovered a psychologist who specializes in restoring memory; you can see the possibilities in that. I went there yesterday and have an appointment again today. It’s nice of him, considering that I have no money, but he says I’m more or less an experimental subject. I can’t tell you when I’ll be back but it won’t be late.

  Luise.

  He crumpled the note in his hand. Memory expert. Her psychologist was that—in reverse. Yesterday he had taken a day out of her life, and that was why Luise hadn’t recognized him and might not a second time.

  He leaned against the table. After a moment, he straightened out the note. A second reading didn’t help. There it was, if he could make sense from it.

  Luise and himself, probably in that order. There was no proof, but it seemed likely that she had been retrogressed first, since she had been discovered first.

  There was also Dorn Starret, the criminal from Ceres who had hidden the gun in the Shelter that he, Luis, had been found in. And there was now a fourth person: the psychologist who specialized in depriving retrogression victims of what few memories they had left.

  Luis grimaced. Here was information which, if the police would act on it properly…but it was no use, they wouldn’t. Any solution which came out of this would have to arise out of his own efforts.

  He folded the note carefully. It would be handy to have if Luise came back and didn’t know who he was.

  Meanwhile, the psychologist. Luise hadn’t said who he was, but it shouldn’t be difficult to locate him. He went to the screen and dialed the directory. There were many psychologists in it, but no name that was familiar.

  He pondered. The person who had retroed Luise and himself—what would he do? First he would take them as far from familiar scenes as he could. That tied in with the facts. Dorn Starret came from Ceres.

  Then what? He would want to make certain that his victims did not trace their former lives. And he would be inconspicuous in so doing.

  Again Luis turned to the screen, but this time he dialed the news service. He found what he was looking for in the advertisements of an issue a month old. It was very neat:

  DO YOU REMEMBER EVERYTHING—or is your mind hazy? Perhaps my system can help you recall those little details you find it so annoying to forget. MEMORY LAB.

  That was all. No name. But there was an address. Hurriedly Luis scanned every succeeding issue. The advertisement was still there.

  He was coming closer, very close. The ad was clever; it would attract the attention of Luise and himself and others like them, and almost no one else. There was no mention of fees, no claim that it was operated by a psychologist, nothing that the police would investigate.

  Night after night Luise had sat alone; sooner or later, watching the screen, she had to see the ad. It was intriguing and she had answered it. Normally, so would he have: but now he was forewarned.

  Part of the cleverness was this: that she went of her own volition. She would have suspected an outright offer of help—but this seemed harmless. She went to him as she would to anyone in business. A very clever setup.

  But who was behind MEMORY LAB? Luis thought he knew. A trained psychologist with a legitimate purpose would attach his name to the advertisement.

  Luis patted the retro gun in his poc
ket. Dorn Starret, criminal, and inventor of a fictitious memory system, was going to have a visitor. It wasn’t necessary to go to Ceres to see him.

  * * * *

  It was the only conclusion that made sense. Dorn Starret had retroed him—the gun proved that—and Luise as well. Until a few minutes ago, he had thought that she had been first and he later, but that was wrong. They had been retrogressed together and Dorn Starret had done it; now he had come back to make certain that they didn’t trace him.

  Neat—but it wasn’t going to work. Luis grinned wryly to himself. He had a weapon in his pocket that was assurance it wouldn’t work.

  He got off the belt near the building he had seen Luise leaving yesterday. He went into the lobby and located MEMORY LAB, a suite on the top floor. It wasn’t necessary, but he checked rental dates. The lab had been there exactly three weeks. This tied in with Luise’s release from retro-therapy. Every connection he had anticipated was there.

  He rode up to the top floor. There wasn’t a chance that Starret would recognize him; physically he must have changed too much since the criminal had last seen him. And while Luise hadn’t concealed that she was a retro and so had given herself away, he wasn’t going to make that mistake.

  The sign on the door stood out as he came near and disappeared as he went by. MEMORY LAB, that was all—no other name, even here. Naturally. A false name would be occasion for police action. The right one would evoke Luise’s and his own memories.

  He turned back and went into the waiting room. No robot receptionist. He expected that; the man didn’t intend to be around very long.

  “Who’s there?” The voice came from a speaker in the wall; the screen beside it remained blank, though obviously the man was in the next room. For a commercial establishment, the LAB was not considerate of potential clients.

  Luis smiled sourly and loosened the weapon in his pocket. “I saw your advertisement,” he said. No name; let him guess.

  “I’m very busy. Can you come back tomorrow?”

  Luis frowned. This was not according to plan. First, he didn’t recognize the voice, though the speaker could account for that if it were intentionally distorted. Second, Luise was inside and he had to protect her. He could break in, but he preferred that the man come out.