The door closed. His wife had left. Finally!
A voice behind him said, “Well, that’s that. Now put up your hands, Quail. And also please turn around and face this way.”
He turned, instinctively, without raising his hands.
The man who faced him wore the plum uniform of the Interplan Police Agency, and his gun appeared to be UN
issue. And, for some odd reason, he seemed familiar to Quail; familiar in a blurred, distorted fashion which he could not pin down. So, jerkily, he raised his hands.
“You remember,” the policeman said, “your trip to Mars.
We know all your actions today and all your thoughtsin particular your very important thoughts on the trip home from Rekal, Incorporated.” He explained, “We have a telep-transmitter wired within your skull; it keeps us constantly informed.”
A telepathic transmitter; use of a living plasma that had been discovered on Luna. He shuddered with self-aversion.
The thing lived inside him, within his own brain, feeding, listening, feeding. But the Interplan police used them; that had come out even in the homeopapes. So this was probably true, dismal as it was.
“Why me?” Quail said huskily. What had he doneor thought? And what did this have to do with Rekal, Incorporated?
“Fundamentally,” the Interplan cop said, “this has nothing to do with Rekal; it’s between you and us.” He tapped his right ear. “I’m still picking up your mentational processes by way of your cephalic transmitter.” In the man’s ear Quail saw a small white-plastic plug. “So I have to warn you: anything you think may be held against you.” He smiled. “Not that it matters now; you’ve already thought and spoken yourself into oblivion. What’s annoying is the fact that under narkidrine at Rekal, Incorporated you told them, their technicians and the owner, Mr. McClane, about your trip; where you went, for whom, some of what you did. They’re very frightened. They wish they had never laid eyes on you.” He added reflectively, “They’re right.”
Quail said, “I never made any trip. It’s a false memory-chain improperly planted in me by McClane’s technicians.”
But then he thought of the box, in his desk drawer, containing the Martian life forms. And the trouble and hardship he had had gathering them. The memory seemed real. And the box of life forms; that certainly was real. Unless McClane had planted it. Perhaps this was one of the “proofs” which McClane had talked glibly about.
The memory of my trip to Mars, he thought, doesn’t convince mebut unfortunately it has convinced the Interplan Police Agency. They think I really went to Mars and they think I at least partially realize it.
“We not only know you went to Mars,” the Interplan cop agreed, in answer to his thoughts, “but we know that you now remember enough to be difficult for us. And there’s no use expunging your conscious memory of all this, because if we do you’ll simply show up at Rekal, Incorporated again and start over. And we can’t do anything about McClane and his operation because we have no jurisdiction over anyone except our own people. Anyhow, McClane hasn’t committed any crime.” He eyed Quail. “Nor, technically, have you. You didn’t go to Rekal, Incorporated with the idea of regaining your memory; you went, as we realize, for the usual reason people go therea love by plain, dull people for adventure.”
He added, “Unfortunately you’re not plain, not dull, and you’ve already had too much excitement; the last thing in the universe you needed was a course from Rekal, Incorporated.
Nothing could have been more lethal for you or for us. And, for that matter, for McClane.”
Quail said. “Why is it ‘difficult’ for you if I remember my tripmy alleged tripand what I did there?”
“Because,” the Interplan harness bull said, “what you did is not in accord with our great white all-protecting father public image. You did, for us, what we never do. As you’ll presently rememberthanks to narkidrme. That box of dead worms and algae has been sitting in your desk drawer for six months, ever since you got back. And at no time have you shown the slightest curiosity about it. We didn’t even know you had it until you remembered it on your way home from Rekal; then we came here on the double to look for it.” He added, unnecessarily, “Without any luck; there wasn’t enough time.”
A second Interplan cop joined the first one; the two briefly conferred. Meanwhile, Quail thought rapidly. He did re-
. member more, now; the cop had been right about narkidrine.
TheyInterplanprobably used it themselves. Probably? He knew darn well they did; he had seen them putting a prisoner on it. Where would that be? Somewhere on Terra? More likely Luna, he decided, viewing the image rising from his highly defectivebut rapidly less somemory.
And he remembered something else. Their reason for sending him to Mars; the job he had done.
No wonder they had expunged his memory.
“Oh god,” the first of the two Interplan cops said, breaking off his conversation with his companion. Obviously, he had picked up Quail’s thoughts. “Well, this is a far worse problem, now; as bad as it can get.” He walked toward Quail, again covering him with his gun. “We’ve got to kill you,” he said.
“And right away.”
Nervously, his fellow officer said, “Why right away? Can’t we simply cart him off to Interplan New York and let them”
“He knows why it has to be right away,” the first cop said; he too looked nervous, now, but Quail realized that it was for an entirely different reason. His memory had been brought back almost entirely, now. And he fully understood the officer’s tension.
“On Mars,” Quail said hoarsely, “I killed a man. After getting past fifteen bodyguards. Some armed with sneaky-pete guns, the way you are.” He had been trained, by Interplan, over a five year period to be an assassin. A professional killer.
He knew ways to take out armed adversaries … such as these two officers; and the one with the ear-receiver knew it, too.
If he moved swiftly enough
The gun fired. But he had already moved to one side, and at the same time he chopped down the gun-carrying officer. In an instant he had possession of the gun and was covering the-other, confused, officer.
. “Picked my thoughts up,” Quail said, panting for breath.
“He knew what I was going to do, but I did it anyhow.”
Half sitting up, the injured officer grated, “He won’t use that gun on you, Sam; I pick that up, too. He knows he’s finished, and he knows we know it, too. Come on, Quail.”
Laboriously, grouting with pain, he got shakily to his feet. He held out his hand. “The gun,” he said to Quail. “You can’t use it, and if you turn it over to me I’ll guarantee not to kill you; you’ll be given a hearing, and someone higher up in Interplan will decide, not me. Maybe they can erase your memory once more; I don’t know. But you know the thing I was going to kill you for; I couldn’t keep you from remembering it. So my reason for wanting to kill you is in a sense past.”
Quail, clutching the gun, bolted from the conapt, sprinted for the elevator. If you follow me, he thought, I’ll kill you. So don’t. He jabbed at the elevator button and, a moment later, the doors slid back.
The police hadn’t followed him. Obviously they had picked up his terse, tense thoughts and had decided not to take the chance.
With him inside the elevator descended. He had gotten awayfor a time. But what next? Where could he go?
The elevator reached the ground floor; a moment later Quail had joined the mob of peds hurrying along the runnels.
His head ached and he felt sick. But at least he had evaded death; they had come very close to shooting him on the spot, back in his own conapt.
And they probably will again, he decided. When they find me. And with this transmitter inside me, that won’t take too long.
Ironically, he had gotten exactly what he had ‘asked Rekal, Incorporated for. Adventure, peril, Interplan police at work, a secret and dangerous trip to Mars in which his life was at stakeeverything he had wanted as a false memory.
The advantages of it being a memoryand nothing more could now be appreciated.
On a park beach, alone, he sat dully watching a flock of perts’ a semi-bird imported from Mars’ two moons, capable of soaring flight, even against Earth’s huge gravity.
Maybe I can find my way back to Mars, he pondered. But then what? It would be worse on Mars; the political Organization whose leader he had assassinated would spot him the moment he stepped from the ship; he would have Interplan and them after him, there.
Can you hear me thinking? he wondered. Easy avenue to paranoia; sitting here alone he felt them tuning in on him, monitoring, recording, discussing … he shivered, rose to his feet, walked aimlessly, his hands deep in his pockets. No matter where I go, he realized. You’ll always be with me. As long as I have this device inside my head.