to apply against this, “Who?”
“Dead,” Talley said.
“If this request is in reaction to that—”
“A long time ago,” Talley said, cutting that off. Nothing more.
An angel’s face. Humanity without flaw. Birth labs? The thought came to him
unbidden. It had always been abhorrent to him, Union’s engineered soldiers. His
own possible prejudice worried at him. “I haven’t read your file in full,” he
admitted. “This has been handled at other levels. They thought they had this
settled. It bounced back to me. You had family, Mr. Talley?”
“Yes,” Talley said faintly, defiantly, making him ashamed of himself.
“Born where?”
“Cyteen.” The same small, flat voice, “I’ve given you all that. I had parents. I
was born, Mr. Konstantin. Is that really pertinent?”
“I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. I want you to understand this: it’s not final. You
can change your mind, right up to the moment the treatment begins. All you have
to say is stop, I don’t want this. But after it goes so far, you’re not
competent. You understand… you’re no longer able. You’ve seen Adjusted men?”
“They recover.”
“They do recover. I’ll follow the case, Mr. Talley… Lt Talley… so much as I can.
You see to it,” he said to the supervisor, “that any time he sends a message, at
any stage of the process, it gets to me on an emergency basis, day or night You
see that the attendants understand that too, down to the orderlies. I don’t
think he’ll abuse the privilege.” He looked at Jacoby. “Are you satisfied about
your client?”
“It’s his right to do what he’s doing. I’m not pleased with it. But I’ll witness
it. I’ll agree it solves things… maybe for the best.”
The comp printout arrived. Damon handed the papers to Jacoby for scrutiny.
Jacoby marked the lines for signature and passed the folder to Talley. Talley
folded it to him like something precious.
“Mr. Talley,” Damon said, rising, and on impulse offered his hand, against all
the distaste he felt The young armscomper rose and took it, and the look of
gratitude in his suddenly brimming eyes cancelled all certainties. “Is it
possible,” Damon asked, “is it remotely possible that you have information you
want wiped? That that’s why you’re doing this? I warn you it’s more likely to
come out in the process than not. And we’re not interested in it, do you
understand that? We have no military interests.”
That was not it. He much doubted that it could be. This was no high officer, no
one like himself, who knew comp signals, access codes, the sort of thing an
enemy must not have. No one had discovered the like in this man… nothing of
value, not here, not at Russell’s.
“No,” Talley said. “I don’t know anything.”
Damon hesitated, still nagged by conscience, the feeling that Talley’s counsel,
if no one else, ought to be protesting, doing something more vigorous, using all
the delays of the law on Talley’s behalf. But that got him prison; got him… no
hope. They were bringing Q outlaws into detention, far more dangerous; men who
might know him, if Talley was right. Adjustment saved him, got him out of there;
gave him the chance for a job, for freedom, a life. There was no one sane who
would carry out revenge on someone after a mind-wipe. And the process was
humane. It was always meant to be.
“Talley… have you complaint against Mallory or the personnel of Norway?”
“No.”
“Your counsel is present. It would be put on record… if you wanted to make such
a complaint.”
“No.”
So that trick would not work. No delaying it for investigation. Damon nodded,
walked out of the room, feeling unclean. It was a manner of murder he was doing,
an assistance in suicide. They had an abundance of those too, over in Q.
iii
Pell: sector orange nine: 5/20/52; 1900 hrs.
Kressich winced at the crash of something down the hall, beyond the sealed door,
tried not to show his terror. Something was burning, smoke reaching them through
the ventilation system. That more frightened him, and the half hundred gathered
with him in this section of hallway. Out on the docks the police and the rioters