The Classic Sci-Fi Collection

by Ayn Rand

  Regis got a few drops down, painfully, and said, “My own fault. The moment I saw—Jay Allison—I knew he was a madman. I’d have stopped him sooner only he took me by surprise.”

  “But—you say him—I’m Jay Allison,” I said, and then my knees went weak and I sat down. “What in hell is this? I’m not Jay—but I’m not Jason, either—”

  I could remember my entire life, but the focus had shifted. I still felt the old love, the old nostalgia for the trailmen; but I also knew, with a sure sense of identity, that I was Doctor Jason Allison, Jr., who had abandoned mountain climbing and become a specialist in Darkovan parasitology. Not Jay who had rejected his world; not Jason who had been rejected by it. But then who?

  Regis said quietly, “I’ve seen you before—once. When you knelt to the Old One of the trailmen.” With a whimsical smile he said, “As an ignorant superstitious Darkovan, I’d say that you were a man who’d balanced his god and daemon for once.”

  I looked helplessly at the young Hastur. A few seconds ago my hands had been at his throat. Jay or Jason, maddened by self-hate and jealousy, could disclaim responsibility for the other’s acts.

  I couldn’t.

  Regis said, “We could take the easy way out, and arrange it so we’d never have to see each other again. Or we could do it the hard way.” He extended his hand, and after a minute, I understood, and we shook hands briefly, like strangers who have just met. He added, “Your work with the trailmen is finished, but We Hasturs committed ourselves to teach some of the Terrans our science—matrix mechanics. Dr. Allison—Jason—you know Darkover, and I think we could work with you. Further, you know something about slipping mental gears. I meant to ask; would you care to be one of them? You’d be ideal.”

  I looked out the window at the distant mountains. This work—this would be something which would satisfy both halves of myself. The irresistible force, the immovable object—and no ghosts wandering in my brain. “I’ll do it,” I told Regis. And then, deliberately, I turned my back on him and went up to the quarters, now deserted, which we had readied for the trailmen. With my new doubled—or complete—memories, another ghost had roused up in my brain, and I remembered a woman who had appeared vaguely in Jay Allison’s orbit, unnoticed, working with the trailmen, tolerated because she could speak their language. I opened the door, searched briefly through the rooms, and shouted, “Kyla!” and she came. Running. Disheveled. Mine.

  At the last moment, she drew back a little from my arms and whispered, “You’re Jason—but you’re something more. Different ...”

  “I don’t know who I am,” I said quietly, “but I’m me. Maybe for the first time. Want to help me find out just who that is?”

  I put my arm around her, trying to find a path between memory and tomorrow. All my life, I had walked a strange road toward an unknown horizon. Now, reaching my horizon, I found it marked only the rim of an unknown country.

  Kyla and I would explore it together.