Memory Blank

by John Stith

  “Want to buy me a steak in your lunchroom?” he asked when she answered his knock.

  “How about a sandwich?”

  “Terrific.”

  “How about if we eat back here, though?” she asked. “I’ve got something you might want to hear.”

  They got their food, Michelle taking only a container of orange juice, and returned to her office.

  “Tolbor got back to his office a little while ago,” she said. “I take it you called him recently?”

  Cal nodded.

  “You may not like this, but here it is.” Michelle touched a switch, and a new collection of random environmental noises joined the ones in her office.

  Then Tolbor’s voice sounded. “I know. He’s done a fine job. I wish he could be part of the team on Vittoria. We could use people with his drive and talents. But I’m a little worried about him.”

  The other voice, male, sounded as though it came from the communications console in Tolbor’s office rather than from inside the room. There weren’t any of the soft random sounds associated with the second person. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  “He called me a little while ago. Said he wanted to talk but was real vague. Not like Cal. Then he mentioned some friend of his I’d never heard of and seemed not to want to let the topic go.”

  “Maybe there’s just a lot on his mind.”

  “Maybe,” Tolbor said. “Or maybe all the pressure’s getting to him finally. It can happen to the best of us.”

  From there the conversation turned toward final preparations for the journey. Michelle switched it off.

  Cal sat silent for a moment, looking at her. Her eyes were slightly puffy, as though she was not sleeping much better than Cal. “So,” he said at last. “Am I cracking under pressure?”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m not trying to back out or anything stupid like that. I’m just wondering if we might have the wrong man.”

  Cal took a deep breath. He was absolutely certain he was not going crazy. But it would have hurt for Michelle to back out. “I’ve been wondering that myself. I guess I’ve been hanging on to him because he seemed to fit all the constraints. If it’s not him, then we’re that much farther away from the real answer.”

  “Maybe Paulo Frall?”

  “Maybe. But I don’t get that feeling about him. Oh, I’m sure he lied to me, and probably gave me the treatment himself, but I don’t see him as an instigator. Just an assistant.”

  “But you don’t have anything to back that up?”

  “No.”

  “I think we’d better concentrate on anyone else you can think of besides Tolbor. Everyone on the Evangeline will be resurrected before he does something illegal.”

  “The Evangeline? That name sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “Oh, that’s right. It was the last ship to leave Earth. It’s in Earth orbit—’Earth obit’ as the jokers say. It would have been destroyed, but the biologists still plan to see if they can develop some means of protection against the bacteria, without having to go back down to Earth.”

  Cal considered the information for a moment and then let it drop. “Okay. I’ve got to agree with you about Tolbor. But let’s keep monitoring him, just in case. Thanks for not losing faith.”

  “Would you stop that?” said Michelle, smiling to let him know she wasn’t angry. “What next, then? I can start a database inquiry into relationships that include Domingo, the Presodist church, and drugs.”

  “That sounds good. Listening to Tolbor makes me think my next attempts to try Edmund’s name on people, or check on image peculiarities, better be slightly more subtle. If I do talk to whoever’s responsible, I need to be less transparent. I’ll start with Leroy Krantz. He has an office near mine. I don’t have any good reason to check up on him, but I don’t have any better reason for anyone else.”

  “So you’re going back over to Vittoria?”

  “Right. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “You do that,” Michelle said. She smiled at him as he left, but he could tell she was as worried as he was. By now they should have found some indications of who was responsible. Departure time was all too close.

  It seemed like each trip to Vittoria took longer than the last. Finally Cal was walking down the hall in his office building.

  Leroy was in his office, and alone, so Cal stopped in.

  “You still want to go for that drink, Leroy?” he asked.

  Leroy was obviously not terribly interested. He hesitated for just a moment before apparently deciding he should go, since he had suggested it. “Well, okay,” he said. “But let’s hurry a little. I’ve got a lot to do here.”

  “Fine. Let’s just not hurry as much as Fargo Edmund.”

  Just as Leroy’s gaze met Cal’s, Vincent interrupted. “You’ve got a call coming in.”

  Damn. Leroy’s eyes had focused on Vincent, and Cal had lost the opportunity of seeing his expression unaltered by any external events. “I’ll answer it in just a minute,” Cal said.

  “Who’s Fargo Edmund?” Leroy asked calmly.

  “A jogger who died this morning. He was evidently in a big hurry and fell off a tier in Machu Picchu.”

  “I hadn’t heard the news today. I didn’t realize jogging was so dangerous.”

  “Neither did I. Can you wait just a minute while I answer this call?” Cal retreated to his office, annoyed at having lost the opportunity.

  It was Michelle. She looked disturbed, her lips pressed tightly together. “Are you sitting down?” she asked.

  “Damn it, I hate it when people start out conversations like that,” Cal said, feeling suddenly weak. “Give me the bad news.”

  She swallowed hard. “A bomb just destroyed your office on Daedalus. And it killed someone.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Headway

  Cal slumped in his desk chair shakily. “Who did the bomb kill?” he asked, his voice suddenly hoarse.

  “I don’t know,” said Michelle. Even on Vincent’s small screen, her agitation was obvious.

  “Let me put you on hold for just a minute. I’ve got to see if Nikki’s all right.” To Vincent, Cal said, “Call her. Right away.”

  “There’s no answer,” Vincent said several seconds later. “I don’t know if she’s just not answering or what.”

  “Keep trying, damn it.”

  “Will do.”

  Cal’s fist clenched tightly as he wondered who had been killed in his office. Please don’t let it be Nikki. Anyone but her.

  The office was uncomfortably hot. The sweat beaded on Cal’s forehead.

  “I’m going over there,” he said suddenly, rising.

  “Wait a minute,” said Vincent. “She just answered.”

  “Thank God you’re all right,” Cal said explosively when he saw Nikki’s image.

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know who it was yet, but someone was just killed by a bomb going off in my office on Daedalus.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Nikki, there’s nothing I can do here. I’m going over there. Please be careful, whatever you do. I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything more.”

  “You’re sure it’s safe to go?”

  “It seems like right after an accident is the best time to do anything. Why am I saying accident? Just be careful, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Michelle was listening to an earphone when she came back on the screen. She waited a moment longer before she said, “Someone in the hall thought he saw a man enter your office just before it blew. That’s all they know so far. They haven’t been able to get to the body yet.”

  “I’ve got to go over there.”

  She nodded and said, “I’ll meet you there.”

  Cal had forgotten about Leroy. As he passed the man’s office, he remembered. “How about some other time?” he asked curtly.

  “Fine,” said Leroy, a surprised expression on his face.

  Cal h
urried down the hall, worried, wondering who might have been killed in his office. And why. Maybe it was someone trying to place an explosive in the office. A faltering hand, a wire touching something it shouldn’t.

  When he arrived, the area around the building was cordoned off. An acrid smell hung in the air. The bomb had somehow triggered a small fire. He was allowed into the lobby, but not into the office hallway. Michelle was there, with more reporters and a few people who seemed to be occupants of other offices in the building.

  “What the hell’s going on?” asked a tall, nervous man Cal didn’t remember. He gripped Cal’s arm.

  “I don’t know. I’m as puzzled as you are.” Cal freed himself and joined Michelle.

  “No more information yet, obviously,” she said. She seemed nervous too. “A couple of people in nearby offices were treated for minor injuries, but no one was seriously hurt except the man they think was in your office.”

  Cal looked down the hall. A couple of paramedics stood near the edge of the activity. Several people with bulky white suits struggled with sections of the ceiling that had collapsed in spots. Apparently they were trying to reach his office through one of its walls, rather than through the pile of rubble near the door.

  Cal felt a bitter taste in his mouth. He shook himself. It could so easily have been him as the focal point of the cleanup crew.

  He and Michelle waited for another twenty minutes before the crew was able to clear enough rubble so they could reach the office. Shortly thereafter two paramedics went in and then came back out with a body on a stretcher.

  Cal stopped them on the way out. “This was my office. I’ve got to know who was killed.”

  One of the two glanced at the other and received a nod. They put the body down. Cal pulled down the sheet, uncovering the bloody head of the victim.

  “Oh, God,” Cal said quietly. His stomach twisted. “It’s my boss. Tom Horvath.”

  As Cal looked at the dead man whose only sin was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, another mass of memories stirred in the depths, rising on a new current to tell Cal, too late, the dead man had been a friend. Not just a good friend, but a deep, firm friend. Cal wished the memories hadn’t returned, and that Tom were still alive. It was too high a price to pay.

  Even after they covered Horvath’s bloody face, Cal could still see him. And he saw something more. He saw Tom staying up all night with Cal and Nikki, talking with them, consoling them, trying sometimes unsuccessfully to contain his own grief. Tom had almost seen Lynn as his own daughter.

  A hand on Cal’s shoulder brought him back out of it, and he realized that he was crying, shaking uncontrollably.

  “Are you all right?” Michelle asked.

  “I’ll be okay, I guess,” Cal said a moment later. “I just didn’t realize how good a friend I had here, and now he’s gone, because of me.”

  “What do you mean, ‘because of me’?” asked a male voice from behind Cal.

  Cal turned to face Lt. Dobson, the policeman who had questioned him the morning before. “I mean it was my office,” he said, trying to regain his composure. “Tom’s dead because someone was angry enough with me to put a bomb in my office.”

  “How about if we step into one of these other offices and talk for a few minutes?” asked the policeman.

  “Whatever you want,” Cal said resignedly. “I’ll see you soon, Michelle.”

  The nearest office was unoccupied, so they went in, and Dobson shut the door. “Well, now,” he said, getting settled. “What have you done to get someone this angry with you?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” said Cal, looking at his hands in his lap.

  “Do you think Horvath himself was the intended victim?”

  “In my office? It doesn’t seem likely.”

  “People can be killed anywhere. No one needs to feel guilty just because the victim happened to be near them or on their property.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Cal said, looking back up at the policeman and feeling that the man’s eyes were softer now than they had been yesterday. “But I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt Tom Horvath. You couldn’t find a more thoughtful or gentle man.”

  “So you were good friends?”

  “The best. I’ve got to talk to his wife Dorothy, to tell her what’s happened.”

  Lt. Dobson looked into Cal’s eyes for a long moment, perhaps seeing the pain Cal felt. “Who do you think might have done this?”

  Cal could have told him Fargo Edmund did, but Edmund was dead, and that would require Cal to tell the rest of the story, and that led to much longer sessions with lots of more painful questions, so he simply said, “I don’t know. I don’t know anyone angry enough with me to do something like this. I don’t even know anyone irritated enough to track dirt into my office.”

  “Obviously someone is a little more upset than that. Assuming this was deliberate. And I can’t imagine this was an accident. Explosives are just about at the top of the list of items you don’t want to be found guilty of possessing.”

  Cal hadn’t really thought about it before, but he realized now that explosives on Daedalus would cause much more interest than on Earth. On Earth your neighbor could destroy his entire house and property and maybe not cause any permanent damage to you. With possession of explosives, Edmund had taken an even bigger risk than Cal had realized.

  Dobson continued questioning Cal for several minutes before concluding with a request. “If you learn anything that explains why someone might have done this, I want you to call me.” He rose, and looked steadily at Cal to give emphasis to his words. “It doesn’t matter what time it is. Call me.”

  Cal agreed. They left the office and went back to the lobby. A cleanup crew was busy stripping blackened wall sections off their mountings.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Cal said to Michelle. “This air is giving me a headache.”

  Outside, it was almost as though nothing had happened. The damages were invisible, the sun shone brightly, and the air was fresh.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” Michelle said. “You didn’t remember anything about him until just now?”

  “No. I saw him on the phone earlier, but it wasn’t until I saw him dead that something clicked inside. Maybe pathways that link emotional responses in my brain are somehow in better shape than straight chronological or associational links.”

  “Do you remember anything that might help us figure out who’s responsible?”

  “I don’t think so. I remember Nikki better now, and Lynn, and obviously Tom. But I don’t see anything more.”

  “I learned some more today, if you want to hear it.”

  “Go ahead,” Cal said.

  “I had turned in an information search on travel authorizations. The report came back just a little while ago. Tolbor hasn’t been on Earth in ten years. The closest he’s been was an orbital inspection after the disaster. So he couldn’t have been there prior to the disaster.”

  “So. That’s just one more piece of confirmation. I hope I haven’t wasted too much time on him while the real criminal is loose. What does all this do to your motivation? I had the feeling that you lost someone special down there, and that was part of the reason you agreed to help.”

  “I’m still helping. Maybe you were wrong about the disaster. But someone is definitely up to something. You need help, and I like you.”

  “Thanks, Michelle. I guess I’ve said that a lot lately. So I lose one good friend and gain another.”

  “I wish I could bring Tom back.”

  Cal reached over to squeeze her arm. “I’ve got to tell Nikki about Tom. And warn her to be even more careful. I’ll talk to you as soon as I’ve got any more ideas.”

  “Right.”

  Cal went to the clinic. He couldn’t give Nikki news like that any other way. She came out shortly after an associate took in a note. They went into an empty waiting room.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, obviously reading Cal’s
expression.

  Cal told her straight out, knowing that delaying the news would just make it worse. “It’s Tom Horvath. He’s dead.”

  Nikki began to cry. Cal pulled her to him and stroked the hair at the back of her neck, letting her cry. Finally she asked, “What happened?”

  “The explosion in my office. He’d said something on the phone about bringing me a plant.”

  Nikki stiffened and pushed herself back so she could see Cal’s eyes. He was positive her look was accusing.

  “Damn it all,” he said. “I’m sorry. Don’t you think it hurts me too? But what could I have done? Warn anyone who might come in contact with me to stay at least a hundred meters away from me, or my property, or anywhere I might go?”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m worried about you.”

  Cal stood silent, looking into her eyes. “God, I’m good with guilt,” he said finally. “It’s amazing I don’t feel personally responsible for the human condition. I’m sorry, Nikki.”

  “It’s all right,” she said quietly. “I haven’t made it much easier.”

  “I don’t blame you for not trusting me, for thinking I might be seeing another woman.”

  Nikki looked at him quizzically.

  “Seeing Tom lying there dead was a jolt in more ways than one. It also jarred some more of my memories loose. Before I saw him, I didn’t remember the time the four of us went to Luna. Or a lot of other things. I’m still not in a position to tell you for sure what happened, but I know I wasn’t having an affair. I think maybe I was acting as a spy for the police. On who, or why, I don’t know.”

  Nikki looked at him without speaking.

  “Well,” he said. “What do you think about all of this?”

  “I’m beginning to think the man I married is still buried deep in you.”

  “Go on.” Cal smiled, finding uncomfortably that he could feel something good despite Tom’s death.

  “Just don’t press too hard right now. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I hate to break things up,” said Vincent. “But you’ve got a call coming in.”

  “Does that thing get jealous?” asked Nikki. “Or am I paranoid, too?”