The Seventh Science Fiction Megapack

by Robert Silverberg

  Mrs. Thompson nodded, staring, making no move toward amenities.

  “The coffee was strong but good.” He smiled down at her woebegone face. “Tell Jimmy hello.”

  Her eyes followed him out to the back porch, lost him when he turned from the door.

  I was a fool to come up here, to run for my mother, he thought as he walked briskly down the street. I should have questioned the girl instead of running out on her the way I did. She could have told me what happened, where I found her, what we were doing in the motel, where I got these clothes.

  He noticed again that he could not see any great distance and he wondered if he were living in a shell beyond which things ceased to exist, to be created before him, to be destroyed behind him, depending upon which direction he was going, but then he thought that’s not so fantastic if I can change from twenty-five to thirty-seven overnight anything is possible.

  Then the thought he’d been holding in the back of his mind and had not dared think about came crashing home: maybe this is the beginning, the beginning of what my father had, that forgetfulness, that dazed condition between violences I came to know so well in him, all of it so long ago, and all of it preceding the horrible things that came later. The thought made his flesh crawl.

  Going crazy!

  No. He made himself repeat the word over and over until he felt some measure of calm. I can still think logically. Or is that what they all think just before… No! What is this really now? I’m not insane, only forgetful, forgetful of—eleven years. A long time to forget, and to forget so completely.

  Amnesia?

  I’ve got to talk to that girl!

  Three

  SHERWOOD’S STEPS, so brisk when he left Mrs. Thompson’s, slowed as he neared the Coronado Motel, and stopped altogether when he reached the drive he had walked down more than an hour before. He stood on the driveway in the shade of the office, an ambivalent man, suddenly wishing he had a cigarette. For the first time since he left the motel he searched pockets of the coat and trousers. They were empty.

  He wanted to see the girl, talk to her, yet was held back by what he did not know of her, or himself. If he went in and revealed his inability to recall the events that led to their sharing the motel and bed, it might complicate rather than simplify things. But was there any choice? If he left there with only the clothes on his back and nothing in his pockets, what would he do? Wherever he went, whatever he did, he’d have to explain why he had no money, and who would believe his story? He’d no doubt end up in a psychiatric ward, and he thought maybe that’s where I’ll end up anyway after I start talking to the girl, or maybe I ought to bypass her and just give myself up and have done with it.

  As he mused, he ran a finger along his jaw, feeling the stubble there. At the same time he identified the vague ache in his stomach as that of hunger. Suddenly he knew there was no alternative; he’d have to go in.

  He crunched up the driveway, walked up the steps and opened the screen door. The inside door was locked. He was baffled again, looked around to make sure he had the right place, saw the button and pushed it, hearing the pleasant chime inside. No one came.

  Sherwood moved off the steps, pondering his next move, wondering if the girl had gone back to sleep (no, she wouldn’t have done that), if she just refused to answer the door (that was more likely), or if she had gone out (possible).

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Fisher, forget your key?”

  Sherwood turned to look into the amused eyes of a tall, lanky man in a sports shirt and Levis coming up the drive,

  “I’m not—” Sherwood started to say he wasn’t a man named Fisher, but thought the better of it. For some reason he must have given this man that name; considering the girl inside, he could understand why.

  “I’m not sure what I did with it,” he said instead.

  The man was old, and his crew-cut seemed at first incongruous with the deeply etched face, but he did have bounce, stepping lightly to the door and inserting a key.

  “Be surprised how many folks forget their keys,” the motel man said. “Happens all the time. Always forgetting something, they are. Be surprised, too, how many things they leave behind.” He turned and spat a blob of yellow over the iron railing. “Always getting a telegram or a special delivery letter saying ‘Send me this’ or ‘Send me that’ and telling me what cottage they left it in.” He chuckled. “Once they even left a baby, but they knew I couldn’t send that. Came back for it awful quick. But they did leave a dog once. Still got it, too.” And as Sherwood made a move to go inside, the man went on, “Everything all right, Mr. Fisher?”

  “Everything’s just fine,” Sherwood said with a straight face.

  “Well, you just let me know if it isn’t. Have to keep you folks happy, you know, or business will go right by the door.” He chuckled again. “Or maybe I should say ‘doors,’ eh?” He laughed now. Sherwood guessed it was his standard joke. “Be seeing you, Mr. Fisher.”

  Sherwood closed the door softly behind him. The inside was dim and it took a moment for his eyes to get used to it, but even before they did he knew she wasn’t there. There was no sound, no light, no sense of occupancy.

  He walked into the combination living room-bedroom, saw that the bed had been made, but of the girl there was no sign. He told himself ruefully she didn’t live there, so there was no sense in her leaving anything, clearing out after it was all over, maybe wanting to be sure to be gone by the time he got back. But her face kept flashing in his mind like a neon sign.

  He moved about the room, saw the folded pajamas on the chair. Had she done that? Or was it the cleaning woman? He opened the paneled doors of a storage compartment, saw a man’s suit, sports coat and trousers hanging there, two pairs of shoes and a pair of slippers on the floor. Two suitcases were there, too; they bore the initials MDF in gold. He opened them; they were empty. He went to the bureau, opened the drawers, found shirts, socks, underwear and ties, then examined the objects on top. Billfold, road map of California, a book of Traveler’s Checks, glasses in a case, a soiled handkerchief, a ring of keys, comb, lighter and a pack of cigarettes.

  Sherwood took a cigarette, lighted it, trying not to feel like a thief. He drew a gratifying breath, then turned to the other items. The glasses—would they fit him? He withdrew them from the leather case. Horn-rimmed. They did not look to be of great magnification. He was about to put them on when he had a thought. He went to the bathroom, turned on the lights and looked at his face in the mirror. On the bridge of his nose he saw two faint marks. Only then did he put the glasses on. They fitted perfectly and brought his eyes more clearly in focus.

  So I wear glasses, he thought, returning to the living room. That is, if I am the man to whom all this belongs, and I’m beginning to doubt I’m anybody else. I should have worn the damn things when I went out before. Maybe I’d have seen things better.

  Now Sherwood picked up the billfold, withdrew an Illinois driver’s license. He stared in amazement at the name. Morley Donn Fisher. Address: 1213 Summit Ave. City: Wester. County: Macon. Sex: Male. Height: 6’ 1”. Weight: 185 pounds. Date of birth: July 14, 1920. Color hair: Black. Color eyes: Blue. The license was due to expire Jan. 10, 1958. The description, except for the name, fitted him perfectly.

  He took out the rest of the papers. Social Security card for Morley Donn Fisher. Number 320-01-7129. He didn’t remember his number, but he doubted it was this one. Honorable discharge facsimile in laminated plastic case. Mr. Fisher again, serial number 36741234, same physical description. The tour of duty even covered much of the same area Sherwood had been in, but his own serial number had been 35552952. Car license certificate for Mr. Fisher. He drove a 1956 Chevrolet. He wondered if it was in the garage adjoining the motel.

  It was.

  He returned from the garage to sit on the bed and give serious consideration to the problem. He had changed his identity for a reason. What reason? Criminal? His thoughts turned inward to probe the degree of crime he would be capable
of. Then he thought of the honorable discharge. I never served in the army under that name and I could never get the army to help me cover up my identity so this must be bigger than that. The question is, how big? Now there are two problems: First, how and why did I lose my memory, and second, how and why did I lose my identity as Walter Evan Sherwood? Plus the business about the girl, I mustn’t forget that.

  He chewed his lower lip in frustration, the magnitude of these questions and the total absence of even the beginning of an answer to any of them becoming apparent for the first time. As his mind revolved about the dilemma, he once more became conscious of his hunger. He decided he would make better progress fortified with a good meal, but first there was a little question of being able to pay for it.

  The billfold on the bureau yielded nothing. There was no change either, which was strange. He thought of the girl again and decided. he must have been trustful of her the night before, maybe a little too trustful. Then Sherwood picked up the Traveler’s Checks, counted eight one hundred dollar checks still attached. There would be no problem with the signature. It was exactly as he would sign Morley Donn Fisher, a plain, exact, slanting bit of penmanship.

  He put the checkbook in his pocket, left the motel, careful to see that one of the keys fitted the lock, and made his way down Colorado, entering the first place he came to, a clean, airy establishment that specialized in milk shakes and grilled hamburgers.

  As he sat eating the first meal he could remember in eleven years, he became conscious of the stare of the man who sat on the stool next to his. At any other time he would have ignored the attention, for Los Angeles seemed to breed a certain species of people who spend their lives looking into other people’s faces for a message, but under the circumstances Sherwood couldn’t be sure what the man was reading into his.

  Believing it best to meet such a challenge openly and boldly, Sherwood turned his head to the other, only to see the man turn away to his own meal. The stranger was a substantial man with graying hair, puffy cheeks and a receding chin who chewed his food as if he had no teeth. He was dressed in a crumpled bright summer suit; his black shirt was open at the collar, exposing a wrinkled neck.

  When Sherwood started to eat again, he felt the man’s eyes on his cheek. He turned to him once more, quickly this time. The stranger, caught staring, leaned back, blew out his cheeks a little, and blinked his eyes.

  “Pardon me,” the man said in a thin, flat voice.

  “Why?” Sherwood asked.

  “I guess I mistook you for somebody else.”

  “Who did you think I was?” He had been right about the man; he had no teeth. Sherwood wondered how he managed to eat his French fries and hamburger.

  “You ever work at Paramount?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “You look like a guy I used to know over there.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Gil Wetson. You sure you ain’t him?”

  “I’d know my own name, wouldn’t I?”

  “Sure, sure.” The man took another chunk of the hamburger by putting it in his mouth, clamping his gums down on it, and tearing off what remained outside. He chewed it ruminatively, eyeing Sherwood all the while. “Sure is amazing,” he said when he had followed his food with a little of the milk shake. “You and Gil’d pass as brothers, you know that?”

  “I pity him.”

  “Oh, he’s a nice guy, Gil is. But I ain’t seen him for years. Wonder whatever happened to him.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  They ate in silence for a few minutes, then the man said, “My name’s Allerby, Hank Allerby.”

  And, Sherwood said to himself, it’s a reliable device to get my name. He said, “What would you say if I told you my name is Walter Sherwood?”

  “What should I say? ‘Please to meet you’?”

  “But it isn’t Walter Sherwood.”

  “No?” Allerby looked at him skeptically.

  “At least not at the moment it isn’t. It’s Morley Donn Fisher.”

  “Is that so?”

  Sherwood nodded. “Does the name mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “Your name doesn’t mean anything to me either.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” Allerby sounded genuinely disappointed. Then he brightened, dipped a hand into a coat pocket. “Say, what you doing this aft?”

  “This afternoon?”

  “Yeah. Look.” He showed Sherwood two tickets. “The reason I asked if you was Gil is I got passes to the game. You want to go?”

  “Even if I’m not Gil?”

  “Sure.”

  “What game is it?”

  “What game? Why, the Angels—Los Angeles—of course.” He withdrew the tickets. He eyed Sherwood suspiciously. “Maybe you ain’t familiar with the teams we got out here.”

  “Well,” Sherwood said, lacking anything better to say, “if it were the Cincinnati Reds now—”

  “Reds!” Allerby glared. “You mean Redlegs, don’t you?”

  “Redlegs?”

  “Where you been? Just where are you from, Mr. Fisher?”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t sound like you keep up with baseball.”

  “Haven’t followed-it for about ten years.”

  “Well, no wonder, then.”

  Sherwood drank the last of his milk shake. “You mentioned this Gil Wetson.”

  “You know anything about him?”

  “Suppose he were my brother?”

  “Now we’re getting someplace.”

  “And suppose he told me he woke up one morning and couldn’t remember anything that happened during the past eleven years?”

  Allerby smiled knowingly. “Not Gil. He wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

  “Just suppose it happened, though. You look like an intelligent man, Mr. Allerby. What would you advise me to tell him?”

  Allerby pursed his lips. “Gosh, I don’t know. Maybe see a head shrinker, I guess.”

  “Head shrinker?”

  “Nut doctor. Say, nothing like that happened to Gil, did it?”

  “Could be, Mr. Allerby. People lose their memories every day.”

  Allerby scowled into his food. “I sure hope nothing like that happened to him. Say, you sure you ain’t Gil’s brother?”

  “No,” Sherwood said, getting up. He left the man in the bright summer suit staring after him.

  He had difficulty with the Traveler’s Checks, but the girl at the cash register summoned the proprietor who cashed it for him. Then he went outside to Colorado Boulevard feeling much refreshed. He walked slowly along it, marveling at the changes, the new cars, and wondered whatever did happen to Gil Wetson, thinking I hope I don’t turn out to be Mr. Allerby’s old friend but anything seems possible. He noticed that his glasses helped him see distant scenes; the haze was still there, but at least he could define the objects he saw.

  As he strolled along he let his mind wander to yesterday—the yesterday of his memory—and was surprised at the clarity of recall. He had picked up Marian at seven-thirty at her home, and he remembered every detail of her dress and how she looked, what they had done, his sullen mood, how long they had talked by the ocean and how it had somehow soothed him to do so. And then he had gone home, sick of indecision, to ponder what he must do with his life. The Walter Sherwood of that yesterday seemed strangely immature to him now.

  I did something with my life, all right, he told himself wryly, and I don’t even know what it is. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad, to run in fear of my life or relax and enjoy myself in my new identity. I have eight hundred dollars, a car and clothes. I could have a real fling on that. Or maybe I should buy an island—it would have to be a small one for eight hundred dollars—and settle down there and try to figure this out.

  The little talk with Mr. Allerby, pointless as it had been in most respects, had taught him one thing: He didn’t know how things had changed in the past ten years. A little insignificant
thing like the Cincinnati Redlegs (Why in the world did I ever mention them? I never even followed them back in 1946.) was a prime example. Now why had they changed the name? And then a thought struck him: I don’t even know who is President.

  It was early afternoon and Sherwood, seeking a remedy for the vacant decade of his mind, went to the nearest library to find it. He had the place to himself, except for the gimlet-eyed librarian who looked as if she expected him to slip a volume or two beneath his shirt any minute. Why, he mused, am I getting all these stares from people? Or am I just self-conscious?

  “Can I help you?” the librarian said at last, coming over to the newspaper rack where he had been reading the headlines, some of which had no meaning for him. She was a thin creature with hair in a bun on the back of her neck, and wore thick glasses that gave her eyes that intense look. He yearned to tell her she ought to play a librarian’s part in the movies.

  “You might be able to help at that.” Sherwood looked sourly at the papers. “It appears eleven years are missing.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Do you have a file of Los Angeles papers from May sixteenth, nineteen forty-six, to date?”

  “I’m afraid not,” she said. “We keep them only a month. They are on microfilm at the downtown library, however.”

  “I see.”

  “You were looking for a certain news story? Perhaps the New York Times Index would help.”

  “I’m just trying to catch up on all the news for the past eleven years.” She gave him such an uncomprehending look he hastened to add, “You’ll get the picture better if you think of me as a man just freed after being in solitary confinement for eleven years.”

  She continued to ogle him, now with an overtone of repulsion, then came to a rapid decision. Marching to a shelf of reference books, she brought back a standard-size brown volume. “This is the current World Almanac,” she said. “It has a chronology.” She opened it, put it on the arm of the leather chair he was sitting in, pointed to a paragraph. “Nineteen forty-six begins right here. It takes you right up to late last year.”