Memory Blank

by John Stith

  “That’s really quite interesting, Cal. One of the side effects of all you were going through is that I never knew you to exhibit the slightest signs of having a sense of humor. Maybe this blanking served as a catharsis. You might not be as bad off as I thought.”

  Cal still didn’t volunteer the fact that someone was trying to kill him. “But I never told you what was bothering me about work?”

  “I got the feeling you had been asked to do something you didn’t like to do, that maybe it went against your feelings of—oh, I don’t know—fairness, or justice—I really couldn’t tell. I just saw that you were upset by it.”

  “But I wouldn’t discuss it?”

  “Never. I tried. As for your paying me anonymously, that was another source of discussions for us. Your sense of pride was a little overblown. The idea that you might need personal counseling bothered you—as though you were ashamed at what you perceived to be a mark of personal failure.”

  “I take it you don’t think so?”

  “No two people are identical. No two people respond exactly the same to external circumstances. We all have our private fears and unique reactions to stress. I had hoped with our talks to help you see that you weren’t alone in having difficulty coping with pressure. By learning the danger signs associated with stress, we can all get better at dealing with it, by reducing it or avoiding it or living with it.”

  “Do you see me as someone who might have gone down to Forget-Me-Now to get away from it all?”

  Lopez scratched an itch on his nose. “No. I wouldn’t have predicted that.”

  “Tell me more about what may have been bothering me at work.”

  “I’m not sure I know much more. Whatever it was apparently started about four months ago. I didn’t detect any signs of it earlier.”

  “Could it have been simply a result of the guilt about Lynn getting stronger for some reason?”

  “Oh no.” Lopez shook his head emphatically. “I don’t know what caused it, but it was new and not associated with home. You were quite secretive. We had established what I thought were fairly good communications until that time, but suddenly you were harder to talk to, flatly refusing to talk about anything related to work.”

  “Did I—” Cal started, but felt a catch in his voice, so he cleared his throat. “Did I seem to be worried about Nikki dying?”

  “No,” said Lopez slowly. “You were worried that she might leave you, but you never seemed to think she might die. Why? Are you worried about that now?”

  “I’m not sure.” Cal saw the puzzled expression on Lopez’s face and added, “There’s nothing I’m aware of consciously. As my memories start to return, I seem to be aware of feelings before I remember actual events or people.”

  Vincent broke in with the message that Michelle was calling.

  “Tell her I’ll call back in five or ten minutes unless it’s an emergency,” Cal said. To Lopez he said, “I assume that I never told Nikki about the sessions with you?”

  “As far as I know you never told her. It was hard for you to admit something to her that you didn’t want to admit to yourself. That was part of the problem. We were just beginning to talk about barriers—personal barriers—last time.”

  “What do you think the chances are that I might have used the erasure parlor deliberately?”

  “Very small. You seemed to feel that going into a parlor was some form of suicide. Whatever other mistakes you might have made from time to time, whatever things you might have done to try to fix problems that plagued you, I don’t see you going in there freely. You’re what I call a survivor. I think you’ve got a lot of inner strength—enough that you can eventually overcome almost any obstacle.”

  “Like getting Nikki back?”

  Lopez didn’t flinch from his gaze. “Not necessarily obstacles like that. Just the ones that are in your power to influence.”

  “Meaning I have no influence over her?”

  “No. It’s just that you have no direct power over her. It would all be so simple if you could just command her to love you and stay with you.”

  Cal thought for a moment. “Did I ever mention specific names of people at work who might have been involved in something that made me feel uncomfortable?”

  “Sorry.”

  Cal decided he wouldn’t learn any more, so he paid Lopez the usual fee, not anonymously, thanked him, and left.

  The courtyard lacked adequate privacy, so he waited until he left the building and then called Michelle.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Domingo.” Michelle looked worried. “The police say they found a cache of weapons and drugs, after a second search of his apartment.”

  “They what?”

  “That’s what it says here. The report says they compared building plans against what they saw in his apartment, and realized that his closet was smaller than it was originally. The closet floor was about a meter square, but the plans said two square meters. Behind a fake wall, they found all the equipment.”

  Cal stood for a moment, visualizing the sizes she had mentioned and the closet he had seen. “Something’s wrong here,” he said slowly. “When I was in his apartment, the closet was full-size.”

  “But that would mean the police had to have known this before you were there. Or—”

  “Or they’re lying,” finished Cal. “Or I’m lying.”

  “I wasn’t going to list that possibility,” she said. “You’re going to have to put some faith in me.”

  “Sorry. But why would the police hold the information or lie about it?”

  “To flush out people who knew him? His accomplices?”

  “I’m baffled. Earlier I had myself almost talked into believing that Domingo and I had been acting as police spies. Now I don’t know what to think.”

  “Police spies? Spying on whom? And why?”

  “My very questions. I don’t know.”

  “Well, what next?” she asked.

  Cal explained about learning he had been lied to at the erasure parlor. “So I think it’s worth another visit. Maybe after that, I can spring Edmund’s name on a few people and see what reactions I get.”

  Michelle hung up a moment later. Cal was getting close to the tubeway station, so he sat on a bench and called Nikki.

  “You’re okay?” she asked.

  “No damage. Lopez is my analyst. I’ve been seeing him to work out a few problems.”

  “You were seeing an analyst?”

  “Nikki, don’t give me a hard time about it. It doesn’t indicate I was going crazy or anything. It just means I thought maybe it would help me. Help us.”

  “I didn’t intend to criticize. I was just surprised. You’ve had this aura of invincibility. You’re always so self-sufficient, so independent.”

  “Maybe it was hard for me to tell you I needed you.”

  Nikki’s face looked out at him from the screen for a long moment. “Cal, I—” she began. “Cal, I’ve got to go. There’s another call coming in.”

  “Right. I’ll talk to you later.” Cal fought to keep his voice calm. He wondered what she had been going to say, wishing desperately she had been going to soften, to tell him that maybe she needed him.

  After a short journey Cal was within sight of the erasure parlor. He called Michelle and let her know he was about to go in.

  He hesitated before the door, determining what approach he would use, and then entered.

  The front office was vacant. Cal took a quick look around, trying to remember the proprietor’s name. Paulo Frall, that was it.

  Cal could have pushed the service button on the desk, but he wanted to see Frall’s reactions when he had no advance notice of his visitor. He opened the door in the back of the shop.

  “I’m with a customer right now,” called a man in a white lab coat. “I’ll be out in just a minute.” The man was not Paulo Frall.

  Cal signaled acknowledgment and went back into the waiting room. He had a brochure in his hand
and was examining it when the door opened and the man he had seen a moment ago entered.

  The man was younger than Frall by quite a bit. He was perhaps in his mid-twenties.

  “Well, sir,” he said. “I should be able to start on you within a half hour. We’ll clean away the last year, and it won’t hurt a bit.”

  “That’s not why I’m here,” Cal said. “I’ve already been through it.”

  “Oh,” the man said, frowning slightly and readjusting. “What can I do for you then? Was everything satisfactory?”

  “No. But that’s not your fault.” Cal gave him the benefit of the doubt. “I wanted to talk to the fellow who was here before. Paulo Frall. Does he work a different shift?”

  “I’m afraid you just missed him.”

  “I could try back later.”

  “No. Sorry,” said the man. “What I mean is you just missed him before he went on vacation. He’s been thinking about it for a while now, and this morning he decided he’d been postponing it long enough.”

  “How about if you give me his home address?”

  “It wouldn’t do you much good. He’s gone to Luna for his holidays. He won’t be at home. But he’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”

  “A couple of weeks?” Cal realized too late that he sounded shocked. “I mean, are you sure he’ll be gone that long?”

  “That’s what his plans are. Of course, he has a tendency to change his plans abruptly. I could have him call you when he gets back.”

  “No. That won’t be necessary. But, while I’m here, could I see your records for four nights ago? I’d like to see if anyone I know was in that night.”

  The man was reluctant at first, but Cal smiled broadly and offered a substantial bribe, whereupon the man acquiesced.

  In a moment, Cal realized why the attendant was so willing to take the bribe. The record told him almost nothing. He had been the only “patient” between 21:00 and 11:00 the next morning. The transaction seemed just like the ones near it.

  “Sorry I couldn’t help you,” the attendant said.

  “Maybe you can. Would you mind doing one thing for me? I’d like to—to make sure Paulo is the same person I think he is. I’d really appreciate it if you would call him and ask him something about the shop. It doesn’t matter what. You could tell him you misplaced something.”

  The man resisted until Cal smiled again and said he would pay even more for the favor.

  Standing out of the range of the desk camera, but where he could see the received image, Cal watched the attendant make the call.

  It took Frall a long time to answer. Cal supposed the call had to be relayed through comm links not normally required for communications local to Daedalus. When he did answer, it was obvious that he wasn’t on the colony. He was in a passenger seat aboard a ship.

  “Yes, Anville. What is it?”

  The attendant asked him a brief question, and Frall gave him the answer before hanging up. Frall had seemed annoyed at the call.

  “Will that do it?” the man asked.

  “It sure will. It’s the same man.” Cal paid him. “Oh, one last question. Is your equipment portable? I mean, could you take it out of here to treat someone?”

  “I suppose so,” the man said. “It would be a bother, but it could be done.”

  Cal thanked him and left. “Vincent?” he said, once he was out on the street. “I want to see you blow up one or two of the frames with Frall in them. The upper right section.”

  “Coming up.”

  Cal examined the image carefully. Finally he said, “I don’t see any trace of image imperfections. What about you?”

  “Nope. Picture perfect.”

  “So it appears Frall is not the one who gave my picture to Edmund. But why would he have left just this morning? If he was afraid of me coming back, why not earlier?”

  “Ask your doctor.”

  “I asked you. If you’re as smart as you act sometimes, you should know everything.”

  “Bovine excrement.”

  “Vincent, I’m shocked. How about if you call Michelle?”

  She answered and asked, “What happened?”

  “I’m back out with my memories still intact, such as they are. The guy I saw here the day I woke up is on his way to Luna for a vacation.”

  “What miserable luck.”

  “I wonder if luck is any part of it. For all I know, someone is following me, or one of the people I’ve talked to has seen someone else afterward.”

  “You told me earlier you were going back to Forget-Me-Now. Are you saying—”

  “No. I’m not. I don’t believe you told anyone. It must simply be a coincidence that he left today. I don’t like coincidences, but they do happen once in a while.”

  “What next then?”

  “It’ll probably be too late to do anything about it, but would you check on Paulo Frall? Maybe he has a criminal record.”

  “Sure.”

  Cal caught himself examining Michelle’s image on Vincent’s screen. There were no image imperfections, but she was using her desk computer rather than her wristcomp, so that told him nothing. He forced his attention back to the conversation. He didn’t believe she could be responsible, but it was hard to shut off the suspicious thoughts.

  “You’ve got another message coming in,” said Vincent.

  Cal said good-bye to Michelle and answered the other call.

  To his surprise the caller was Pastor Welden from the Presodist church. She had let down her gray hair and looked more casual than during the service.

  “Yes,” said Cal, puzzled.

  “I’ll try not to take up too much of your time, Mr. Donley,” she said. “You came to one of our services yesterday. I thought perhaps I could answer some of your questions about the church, to encourage you to visit us again.”

  “Thanks, but I came out of curiosity more than anything else. I think you’d be wasting your time on me.” Cal didn’t say that, more to the point, she’d be wasting his time.

  “My time is never wasted,” she said. “I may just not realize immediately to what purpose it is being put.”

  “Well, I do have one question.”

  “And that is?”

  “Is the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah particularly central to your church? I mean, do you devote five Sundays a year to sermons about that story, or give it any other special attention?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say so. Easter and Christmas are the two biggest church holidays. Almost all the other areas of study are treated only occasionally, with no special attention. Why do you ask?”

  “Just runaway curiosity. I’ve heard that story mentioned several times recently, and I wondered if it was especially significant to the church.”

  “There are people who feel that God destroyed the Earth because the people there had done so much damage to the planet.”

  “Do you?” Cal asked.

  “Certainly not. We teach of a loving and understanding God, not a vengeful and angry one. The old testament is still quoted, but most of us don’t take it literally.”

  “What kind of people do believe theories like that?”

  Pastor Welden hesitated for the first time. “I’m not actually sure,” she said slowly. “Our church doesn’t officially promote that belief. You might have better luck finding people in other churches.”

  “But surely some of your members must think that too.”

  “Perhaps, but I wouldn’t know who.”

  The woman wasn’t an accomplished liar. Cal was sure from the flicker of her eyes that she did know a few names. Yet he still had the impression she was telling the truth about everything else. He believed her when she said the Presodists as a whole didn’t hold that among their beliefs.

  “Thanks for calling, Pastor,” Cal said. “I may get back to church.”

  Before she hung up, Cal saw a look in her eye that must have meant something like “Once a heathen, always a heathen,” but she quite politely thanked him for his time and
asked him to call her if he had any more questions.

  Cal had an idea for another call. After having Vincent verify that Russ Tolbor was not at his apartment, he said, “Get him on the phone, will you?”

  “Okay,” said Vincent. “But haven’t you got anything better to do than sit around all day phoning people?”

  “Just do it, you little anthropomorphidite.” Cal grinned down at Vincent’s screen.

  “Such language,” Vincent said, but when he finished speaking, Russ came up on the screen. “Yes, Cal. What can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering if you might have time to talk for a little while sometime before you leave.” Cal wanted to get the man’s reactions to a few questions without having to deal with a small screen.

  “I might be able to, but it’s getting very hectic around here, with all the last-minute preparations. We could always talk more leisurely after the Vittoria leaves. The communications equipment works quite well, thanks to you.”

  “Okay. I’ll do that.” Cal’s irritation grew. “Oh. I ran into someone who knows you. Fargo Edmund.”

  “Edmund? Sorry, the name doesn’t seem familiar. Where did he say I knew him from?” Tolbor’s face and voice showed no indications of nervousness.

  “That’s funny. He said he went to the same church.”

  “I go to a big church. I really can’t place the name. Was it important?”

  “No. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay, Vincent,” Cal said after Tolbor had hung up. “Let’s see some blowups of Tolbor’s picture.” The man had been using his wristcomp.

  “Nothing I can see,” said Vincent, displaying the upper right portion of the video received moments earlier.

  “Me neither. Damn. He could be the wrong person. It could be a conspiracy with him being only one of the members. Or it could be someone else entirely. Leroy Krantz. Tom Horvath. Maybe Paulo Frall. Maybe, maybe, maybe.” Maybe even someone closer, he thought, but he couldn’t accept the idea.

  Cal got up from the bench. It would do him no good just to sit there. As he began walking he realized how hungry he was. It was mid-afternoon, and he hadn’t stopped for a meal. By the time he approached the tubeway, he knew what he would do.

  The news station was on the way to where he wanted to go next. A few minutes later he knocked on Michelle’s office door.