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The science fiction writers of this world are resolutely
different from mankind and from each other-except that
Philip K. Dick is more different. He goes his own way,
writing his own kind of book, irrespective of changing moods
and styles, true unto himself and his own inner vision. He
produces steadily, but never badly, and won a well-deserved
Hugo for his "Man in the High Castle." Here he is at his
deep-probing best, keeping the reader on the run, exploring
levels of consciousness and worrying but worrying well the
SF worrying-tooth of "what is reality?"
WE CAN REMEMBER IT
FOR YOU WHOLESALE
Philip K. Dick
He awoke and wanted Mars. The valleys, he thought. What
would it be like to trudge among them? Great and greater yet:
the dream grew as he became fully conscious, the dream and
the yearning. He could almost feel the enveloping presence of
the other world, which only Government agents and high
officials had seen. A clerk like himself? Not likely.
"Are you getting up or not?" his wife Kirsten asked
drowsily, with her usual hint of fierce crossness. "If you are,
push the hot coffee button on the darn stove."
"Okay," Douglas Quail said, and made his way barefoot
from the bedroom of their conapt to the kitchen. There,
having dutifully pressed the hot coffee button, he seated
himself at the kitchen table, brought out a yellow, small tin of
fine Dean Swift snuff. He inhaled briskly, and the Beau Nash
mixture stung his nose, burned the roof of his mouth. But still
he inhaled; it woKe him up and allowed his dreams, his
nocturnal desires and random wishes, to condense into a
semblance of rationality.
I will go, he said to himself. Before I die I'll see Mars.
It was, of course, impossible, and he knew this even as he
dreamed. But the daylight, the mundane noise of his wife now
brushing her hair before the bedroom mirror, everything
conspired to remind him of what he was. A miserable little
salaried employee, he said to himself with bitterness. Kirsten
reminded him of this at least once a day and he did not blame
her; it was a wife's job to bring her husband down to Earth.
Down to Earth, he thought, and laughed. The figure of speech
in this was literally apt.
"What are you sniggering about?" his wife asked as she
swept into the kitchen, her long busy-pink robe wagging after
her. "A dream, I bet. You're always full of them."
"Yes," he said, and gazed out the kitchen window at the
hovercars and traffic runnels, and all the little energetic people
hurrying to work. In a little while he would be among them.
As always.
"I'll bet it has to do with some woman," Kirsten said
witheringly.
"No," he said. "A god. The god of war. He has wonderful
craters with every kind of plant-life growing deep down in
them."
"Listen." Kirsten crouched down beside him and spoke
earnestly, the harsh quality momentarily gone from her voice.
"The bottom of the oceanour ocean is much more, an
infinity of times more beautiful. You know that; everyone
knows that. Rent an artificial gill-outfit for both of us, take a
week off from work, and we can descend and live down there
at one of those year-round aquatic resorts. And in addition"
She broke off. "You're not listening. You should be. Here is
something a lot better than that compulsion, that obsession
you have about Mars, and you don't even listen!" Her voice
rose piercingly. "God in heaven, you're doomed, Doug!
What's going to become of you?"
"I'm going to work," he said, rising to his feet, his break-
fast forgotten. "That's what's going to become of me."
She eyed him. "You're getting worse. More fanatical every
day. Where's it going to lead?"
"To Mars," he said, and opened the door to the closet to
get down a fresh shirt to wear to work.
-
Having descended from the taxi Douglas Quail slowly
walked across three densely-populated foot runnels and to the
modern, attractively inviting doorway. There he halted, im-
peding mid-morning traffic, and with caution read the shift-
ing-color neon sign. He had, in the past, scrutinized this sign
before... but never had he come so close. This was very
different; what he did now was something else. Something
which sooner or later had to happen.
REKAL, INCORPORATED
Was this the answer? After all, an illusion, no matter how
convincing, remained nothing more than an illusion. At least
objectively. But subjectively quite the opposite entirely.
And anyhow he had an appointment. Within the next five
minutes.
Taking a deep breath of mildly smog-infested Chicago air,
he walked through the dazzling poly-chromatic shimmer of
the doorway and up to the receptionist's counter.
The nicely-articulated blonde at the counter, bare-bosomed
and tidy, said pleasantly, "Good morning, Mr. Quail."
"Yes," he said. "I'm here to see about a Rekal course. As I
guess you know."
"Not 'rekal' but recall," the receptionist corrected him. She
picked up the receiver of the vidphone by her smooth elbow
and said into it, "Mr. Douglas Quail is here, Mr. McClane.
May he come inside, now? Or is it too soon?"
"Giz wetwa wum-wum wamp," the phone mumbled.
"Yes, Mr. Quail," she said. "You may go on in; Mr.
McClane is expecting you." As he started off uncertainly she
called after him, "Room D, Mr. Quail. To your right."
After a frustrating but brief moment of being lost he found
the proper room. The door hung open and inside, at a big
genuine walnut desk, sat a genial-looking man, middle-aged,
wearing the latest Martian frog-pelt gray suit; his attire alone
would have told Quail that he had come to the right person.
"Sit down, Douglas," McClane said, waving his plump
hand toward a chair which faced the desk. "So you want to
have gone to Mars. Very good."
Quail seated himself, feeling tense. "I'm not so sure this is
worth the fee," he said. "It costs a lot and as far as I can see I
really get nothing." Costs almost as much as going, he
thought.
"You get tangible proof of your trip," McClane disagreed
emphatically. "All the proof you'll need. Here; I'll show you."
He dug within a drawer of his impressive desk. "Ticket stub."
Reaching into a manila folder he produced a small square of
embossed cardboard. "It proves you wentand returned.
Postcards." He laid out four franked picture 3-D full-color
postcards in a neatly-arranged row on the desk for Quail to
see. "Film. Shots you took of local sights on Mars with a
rented movie camera." To Quail he displayed those, too.
"Plus the names of people you met, two hundred poscreds
worth of souvenirs, which will arrive from Marswithin
the following month. And passport, certificates listing the
shots you received. And more." He glanced up keenly at
Quail. "You'll know you went, all right," he said. "You won't
remember us, won't remember me or ever having been here.
It'll be a real trip in your mind; we guarantee that. A full two
weeks of recall; every last piddling detail. Remember this: if
at any time you doubt that you really took an extensive trip to
Mars you can return here and get a full refund. You see?"
"But I didn't go," Quail said. "I won't have gone, no matter
what proofs you provide me with." He took a deep, unsteady
breath. "And I never was a secret agent with Interplan." It
seemed impossible to him that Rekal, Incorporated's extra-
factual memory implant would do its job despite what he
had heard people say.
"Mr. Quail," McClane said patiently. "As you explained in
your letter to us, you have no chance, no possibility in the
slightest, of ever actually getting to Mars; you can't afford it,
and what is much more important, you could never qualify as
an undercover agent for Interplan or anybody else. This is the
only way you can achieve your, ahem, life-long dream; am I
not correct, sir? You can't be this; you can't actually do this."
He chuckled. "But you can have been and have done. We see
to that. And our fee is reasonable; no hidden charges." He
smiled encouragingly.
"Is an extra-factual memory that convincing?" Quail asked.
"More than the real thing, sir. Had you really gone to Mars
as an Interplan agent, you would by now have forgotten a
great deal; our analysis of true-mem systemsauthentic rec-
ollections of major events in a person's life shows that a
variety of details are very quickly lost to the person. Forever.
Part of the package we offer you is such deep implantation of
recall that nothing is forgotten. The packet which is fed to
you while you're comatose is the creation of trained experts,
men who have spent years on Mars; in every case we verify
details down to the last iota. And you've picked a rather easy
extra-factual system; had you picked Pluto or wanted to be
Emperor of the Inner Planet Alliance we'd have much more
difficulty . . . and the charges would be considerably greater."
Reaching into his coat for his wallet, Quail said, "Okay. It's
been my life-long ambition and I can see I'll never really do
it. So I guess I'll have to settle for this."
"Don't think of it that way," McClane said severely.
"You're not accepting second-best. The actual memory, with
all its vagueness, omissions and ellipses, not to say distortions
that's second-best." He accepted the money and pressed a
button on his desk. "All right, Mr. Quail," he said, as the door
of his office opened and two burly men swiftly entered.
"You're on your way to Mars as a secret agent." He rose,
came over to shake Quail's nervous, moist hand. "Or rather,
you have been on your way. This afternoon at four-thirty you
will, um, arrive back here on Terra; a cab will leave you off at
your conapt and as I say you will never remember seeing me
or coming here; you won't, in fact, even remember having
heard of our existence."
His mouth dry with nervousness, Quail followed the two
technicians from the office; what happened next depended on
them.
Will I actually believe I've been on Mars? he wondered.
That I managed to fulfill my lifetime ambition? He had a
strange, lingering intuition that something would go wrong.
But just what he did not know.
He would have to wait to find out.
The intercom on McClane's desk, which connected him
with the work area of the firm, buzzed and a voice said, "Mr.
Quail is under sedation now, sir. Do you want to supervise
this one, or shall we go ahead?"
"It's routine," McClane observed. "You may go ahead,
Lowe; I don't think you'll run into any trouble." Program-
ming an artificial memory of a trip to another planet with or
without the added fillip of being a secret agent showed up
on the firm's work-schedule with monotonous regularity. In
one month, he calculated wryly, we must do twenty of these
... ersatz interplanetary travel has become our bread and
butter.
"Whatever you say, Mr. McClane," Lowe's voice came,
and thereupon the intercom shut off.
Going to the vault section in the chamber behind his office,
McClane searched about for a Three packet trip to Mars
and a Sixty-two packet: secret Interplan spy. Finding the two
packets, he returned with them to his desk, seated himself
comfortably, poured out the contents merchandise which
would be planted in Quail's conapt while the lab technicians
busied themselves installing the false memory.
A one-poscred sneaky-pete side arm, McClane reflected;
that's the largest item. Sets us back financially the most. Then
a pellet-sized transmitter, which could be swallowed if the
agent were caught. Code book that astonishingly resembled
the real thing... the firm's models were highly accurate:
based, whenever possible, on actual U.S. military issue. Odd
bits which made no intrinsic sense but which would be woven
into the warp and woof of Quail's imaginary trip, would
coincide with his memory: half an ancient silver fifty cent
piece, several quotations from John Donne's sermons written
incorrectly, each on a separate piece of transparent tissue-
thin paper, several match folders from bars on Mars, a stain-
less steel spoon engraved PROPERTY OF DOME-MARS
NATIONAL KIBBUZIM, a wire tapping coil which
The intercom buzzed. "Mr. McClane, I'm sorry to bother
you but something rather ominous has come up. Maybe it
would be better if you were in here after all. Quail is already
under sedation; he reacted well to the narkidrine; he's com-
pletely unconscious and receptive. But"
"I'll be in." Sensing trouble, McClane left his office; a
moment later he emerged in the work area.
On a hygienic bed lay Douglas Quail, breathing slowly and
regularly, his eyes virtually shut; he seemed dimly but only
dimly aware of the two technicians and now McClane
himself.
"There's no space to insert false memory-patterns?"
McClane felt irritation. "Merely drop out two work weeks;
he's employed as a clerk at the West Coast Emigration
Bureau, which is a government agency, so he undoubtedly has
or had two weeks vacation within the last year. That ought to
do it." Petty details annoyed him. And always would.
"Our problem," Lowe said sharply, "is something quite
different." He bent over the bed, said to Quail, "Tell Mr.
McClane what you told us." To McClane he said, "Listen
closely."
The gray-green eyes of the man lying supine in the bed
focussed on McClane's face. The eyes, he observed uneasily,
had become hard; they had a polished, inorganic quality, like
semi-precious tumbled stones. He was not sure that he liked
what he saw; the brilliance was too cold. "What do you want
now?" Quail said harshly. "You've broken my cover. Get out
of here before I take you all apart." He studied McClane.
"Especially you," he continued. "You're in charge of this
counter-operation."
Lowe said, "How long were you on Mars?"
"One month," Quail said gratingly.
"And your purpose there?" Lowe demanded.
The meager lips twisted; Quail eyed him and did not speak.
At last, drawling the words out so that they dripped with
hostility, he said, "Agent for Interplan. As I already told you.
Don't you record everything that's said? Play your vid-aud
tape back for your boss and leave me alone." He shut his
eyes, then; the hard brilliance ceased. McClane felt, instantly,
a rushing splurge of relief.
Lowe said quietly, "This is a tough man, Mr. McClane."
"He won't be," McClane said, "after we arrange for him to
lose his memory-chain again. He'll be as meek as before." To
Quail he said, "So this is why you wanted to go to Mars so
terribly badly."
Without opening his eyes Quail said, "I never wanted to go
to Mars. I was assigned it they handed it to me and there I
was: stuck. Oh yeah, I admit I was curious about it; who
wouldn't be?" Again he opened his eyes and surveyed the
three of them, McClane in particular. "Quite a truth drug
you've got here; it brought up things I had absolutely no mem-
ory of." He pondered. "I wonder about Kirsten," he said, half
to himself. "Could she be in on it? An Interplan contact
keeping an eye on me ... to be certain I didn't regain my
memory? No wonder she's been so derisive about my wanting
to go there." Faintly, he smiled; the smile one of under-
standing disappeared almost at once.
McClane said, "Please believe me, Mr. Quail; we stumbled
onto this entirely by accident. In the work we do"
"I believe you," Quail said. He seemed tired, now; the drug
was continuing to pull him under, deeper and deeper. "Where
did I say I'd been?" he murmured. "Mars? Hard to remember
I know I'd like to see it; so would everybody else. But
me" His voice trailed off. "Just a clerk, a nothing clerk."
Straightening up, Lowe said to his superior, "He wants a
false memory implanted that corresponds to a trip he actually
took. And a false reason which is the real reason. He's telling
the truth; he's a long way down in the narkidrine. The trip is
very vivid in his mind at least under sedation. But apparent-
ly he doesn't recall it otherwise. Someone, probably at a
government military-sciences lab, erased his conscious mem-
ories; all he knew was that going to Mars meant something
special to him, and so did being a secret agent. They couldn't
erase that; it's not a memory but a desire, undoubtedly the
same one that motivated him to volunteer for the assignment
in the first place."
The other technician, Keeler, said to McClane, "What do
we do? Graft a false memory-pattern over the real memory?
There's no telling what the results would be; he might
remember some of the genuine trip, and the confusion might
bring on a psychotic interlude. He'd have to hold two oppo-
site premises in his mind simultaneously: that he went to Mars
and that he didn't. That he's a genuine agent for Interplan
and he's not, that it's spurious. I think we ought to revive him
without any false memory implantation and send him out of
here; this is hot."
"Agreed," McClane said. A thought came to him. "Can
you predict what he'll remember when he comes out of
sedation?"
"Impossible to tell," Lowe said. "He probably will have
some dim, diffuse memory of his actual trip, now. And he'd
probably be in grave doubt as to its validity; he'd probably
decide our programming slipped a gear-tooth. And he'd
remember coming here; that wouldn't be erased unless you
want it erased."
"The less we mess with this man," McClane said, "the
better I like it. This is nothing for us to fool around with;
we've been foolish enough to or unlucky enough to un-
cover a genuine Interplan spy who has a cover so perfect that
up to now even he didn't know what he was or rather is."
The sooner they washed their hands of the man calling
himself Douglas Quail the better.
"Are you going to plant packets Three and Sixty-two in his
conapt?" Lowe said.
"No," McClane said. "And we're going to return half his
fee."
"Half! Why half?"
McClane said lamely, "It seems to be a good compromise."
As the cab carried him back to his conapt at the residential
end of Chicago, Douglas Quail said to himself, It's sure good
to be back on Terra.
Already the month-long period on Mars had begun to
waver in his memory; he had only an image of profound
gaping craters, an ever-present ancient erosion of hills, of
vitality, of motion itself. A world of dust where little hap-
pened, where a good part of the day was spent checking and
rechecking one's portable oxygen source. And then the life
forms, the unassuming and modest gray-brown cacti and
maw-worms.
As a matter of fact he had brought back several moribund
examples of Martian fauna; he had smuggled them through
customs. After all, they posed no menace; they couldn't
survive in Earth's heavy atmosphere.
Reaching into his coat pocket he rummaged for the con-
tainer of Martian maw-worms
And found an envelope instead.
Lifting it out he discovered, to his perplexity, that it
contained five hundred and seventy poscreds, in 'cred bills of
low denomination.
Where'd I get this? he asked himself. Didn't I spend every
'cred I had on my trip?
With the money came a slip of paper marked: one-half fee
ret'd. By McClane. And then the date. Today's date.
"Recall," he said aloud.
"Recall what, sir or madam?" the robot driver of the cab
inquired respectfully.
"Do you have a phone book?" Quail demanded.
"Certainly, sir or madam." A slot opened; from it slid a
microtape phone book for Cook County.
"It's spelled oddly," Quail said as he leafed through the
pages of the yellow section. He felt fear, then; abiding fear.
"Here it is," he said. "Take me there, to Rekal, Incorporated.
I've changed my mind; I don't want to go home."
"Yes sir, or madam, as the case may be," the driver said. A
moment later the cab was zipping back in the 'opposite
direction.
"May I make use of your phone?" he asked.
"Be my guest," the robot driver said. And presented a shiny
new emperor 3-D color phone to him.
He dialed his own conapt. And after a pause found himself
confronted by a miniature but chillingly realistic image of
Kirsten on the small screen. "I've been to Mars," he said to
her.
"You're drunk." Her lips writhed scornfully. "Or worse."
" 'S god's truth."
"When?" she demanded.
"I don't know." He felt confused. "A simulated trip, I
think. By means of one of those artificial or extra-factual or
whatever it is memory places. It didn't take."
Kirsten said witheringly, "You are drunk." And broke the
connection at her end. He hung up, then, feeling his face
flush. Always the same tone, he said hotly to himself. Always
the retort, as if she knows everything and I know nothing.
What a marriage. Keerist, he thought dismally.
A moment later the cab stopped at the curb before a
modern, very attractive little pink building, over which a
shifting, polychromatic neon sign read: REKAL, INCORP-
ORATED.
The receptionist, chic and bare from the waist up, started
in surprise, then gained masterful control of herself. "Oh
hello Mr. Quail," she said nervously. "H-how are you? Did
you forget something?"
"The rest of my fee back," he said.
More composed now the receptionist said, "Fee? I think
you are mistaken, Mr. Quail. You were here discussing the
feasibility of an extrafactual trip for you, but" She
shrugged her smooth pale shoulders. "As I understand it, no
trip was taken."
Quail said, "I remember everything, miss. My letter to
Rekal, Incorporated, which started this whole business off. I
remember my arrival here, my visit with Mr. McClane. Then
the two lab technicians taking me in tow and administering a
drug to put me out." No wonder the firm had returned half
his fee. The false memory of his "trip to Mars" hadn't taken
at least not entirely, not as he had been assured.
"Mr. Quail," the girl said, "although you are a minor clerk
you are a good-looking man and it spoils your features to
become angry. If it would make you feel any better, I might,
ahem, let you take me out . . ."
He felt furious, then. "I remember you," he said savagely.
"For instance the fact that your breasts are sprayed blue; that
stuck in my mind. And I remember Mr. McClane's promise
that if I remembered my visit to Rekal, Incorporated I'd
receive my money back in full. Where is Mr. McClane?"
After a delay probably as long as they could manage he
found himself once more seated facing the imposing walnut
desk, exactly as he had been an hour or so earlier in the day.
"Some technique you have," Quail said sardonically. His
disappointment and resentment were enormous, by now.
"My so-called 'memory' of a trip to Mars as an undercover
agent for Interplan is hazy and vague and shot full of
contradictions. And I clearly remember my dealings here with
you people. I ought to take this to the Better Business Bureau."
He was burning angry, at this point; his sense of being
cheated had overwhelmed him, had destroyed his customary
aversion to participating in a public squabble.
Looking morose, as well as cautious, McClane said, "We
capitulate. Quail. We'll refund the balance of your fee. I fully
concede the fact that we did absolutely nothing for you." His
tone was resigned.
Quail said accusingly, "You didn't even provide me with
the various artifacts that you claimed would 'prove' to me I
had been on Mars. All that song-and-dance you went into it
hasn't materialized into a damn thing. Not even a ticket stub.
Nor postcards. Nor passport. Nor proof of immunization
shots. Nor"
"Listen, Quail," McClane said. "Suppose I told you" He
broke off. "Let it go." He pressed a button on his intercom.
"Shirley, will you disburse five hundred and seventy more
'creds in the form of a cashier's check made out to Douglas
Quail? Thank you." He released the button, then glared at
Quail.
Presently the check appeared; the receptionist placed it
before McClane and once more vanished out of sight, leaving
the two men alone, still facing each other across the surface
of the massive walnut desk.
"Let me give you a word of advice," McClane said as he
signed the check and passed it over, "Don't discuss your,
ahem, recent trip to Mars with anyone."
"What trip?"
"Well, that's the thing." Doggedly, McClane said, "The trip
you partially remember. Act as if you don't remember;
pretend it never took place. Don't ask me why; just take my
advice: it'll be better for all of us." He had begun to perspire.
Freely. "Now, Mr. Quail, I have other business, other clients
to see." He rose, showed Quail to the door.
Quail said, as he opened the door, "A firm that turns out
such bad work shouldn't have any clients at all." He shut the
door behind him.
On the way home in the cab Quail pondered the wording of
his letter of complaint to the Better Business Bureau, Terra
Division. As soon as he could get to his typewriter he'd get
started; it was clearly his duty to warn other people away
from Rekal, Incorporated.
When he got back to his conapt he seated himself before
his Hermes Rocket portable, opened the drawers and rum-
maged for carbon paper and noticed a small, familiar box.
A box which he had carefully filled on Mars with Martian
fauna and later smuggled through customs.
Opening the box he saw, to his disbelief, six dead maw-
worms and several varieties of the unicellular life on which
the Martian worms fed. The protozoa were dried-up, dusty,
but he recognized them; it had taken him an entire day
picking among the vast dark alien boulders to find them. A
wonderful, illuminated journey of discovery.
But I didn't go to Mars, he realized.
Yet on the other hand
Kirsten appeared at the doorway to the room, an armload
of pale brown groceries gripped. "Why are you home in the
middle of the day?" Her voice, in an eternity of sameness,
was accusing.
"Did I go to Mars?" he asked her. "You would know."
"No, of course you didn't go to Mars; you would know
that, I would think. Aren't you always bleating about going?"
He said, "By God, I think I went." After a pause he added,
"And simultaneously I think I didn't go."
"Make up your mind."
"How can I?" He gestured. "I have both memory-tracks
grafted inside my head; one is real and one isn't but I can't
tell which is which. Why can't I rely on you? They haven't
tinkered with you." She could do this much for him at least
even if she never did anything else.
Kirsten said in a level, controlled voice, "Doug, if you don't
pull yourself together, we're through. I'm going to leave you."
"I'm in trouble." His voice came out husky and coarse.
And shaking. "Probably I'm heading into a psychotic episode;
I hope not, but maybe that's it. It would explain everything,
anyhow."
Setting down the bag of groceries, Kirsten stalked to the
closet. "I was not kidding," she said to him quietly. She
brought out a coat, got it on, walked back to the door of the
conapt. "I'll phone you one of these days soon," she said
tonelessly. "This is goodbye, Doug. I hope you pull out of this
eventually; I really pray you do. For your sake."
"Wait," he said desperately. "Just tell me and make it
absolute; I did go or I didn't tell me which one." But they
may have altered your memory-track also, he realized.
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 thoughts in
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 done or
thought? And what did this have to do with Rekal, Incorpo-
rated?
"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 me but unfortunately it has convinced the Inter-
plan 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 there a 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 trip and 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
remember thanks 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.
They Interplan probably 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 defective but rapidly less so memory.
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
away for 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
stake everything he had wanted as a false memory.
The advantages of it being a memory and 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 Organiza-
tion 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.
-~ I'll make a deal with you, he thought to himself and to
them. Can't you imprint a false-memory template on me
again, as you did before, that I lived an average, routine life,
never went to Mars? Never saw an Interplan uniform up close
and never handled a gun?
A voice inside his brain answered, "As has been carefully
explained to you: that would not be enough."
Astonished, he halted.
"We formerly communicated with you in this manner," the
voice continued. "When you were operating in the field, on
Mars. It's been months since we've done it; we assumed, in
fact, that we'd never have to do so again. Where are you?"
"Walking," Quail said, "to my death." By your officers'
guns, he added as an afterthought. "How can you be sure it
wouldn't be enough?" he demanded. "Don't the Rekal tech-
niques work?"
"As we said. If you're given a set of standard, average
memories you get restless. You'd inevitably seek out Rekal
or one of its competitors again. We can't go through this a
second time."
"Suppose," Quail said, "once my authentic memories have
been cancelled, something more vital than standard memories
are implanted. Something which would act to satisfy my
craving," he said. "That's been proved; that's probably why
you initially hired me. But you ought to be able to come up
with something else something equal. I was the richest man
on Terra but I finally gave all my money to educational
foundations. Or I was a famous deep-space explorer. Any-
thing of that sort; wouldn't one of those do?"
Silence.
"Try it," he said desperately. "Get some of your top-notch
military psychiatrists; explore my mind. Find out what my
most expansive daydream is." He tried to think. "Women," he
said. "Thousands of them, like Don Juan had. An interplane-
tary playboy a mistress in every city on Earth, Luna and
Mars. Only I gave that up, out of exhaustion. Please," he
begged. "Try it."
"You'd voluntarily surrender, then?" the voice inside his
head asked. "If we agreed to arrange such a solution? If it's
possible?"
After an interval of hesitation he said, "Yes." I'll take the
risk, he said to himself. That you don't simply kill me.
"You make the first move," the voice said presently. "Turn
yourself over to us. And we'll investigate that line of possibil-
ity. If we can't do it, however, if your authentic memories
begin to crop up again as they've done at this time, then"
There was silence and then the voice finished, "We'll have to
destroy you. As you must understand. Well, Quail, you still
want to try?"
"Yes," he said. Because the alternative was death now
and for certain. At least this way he had a chance, slim as it
was.
"You present yourself at our main barracks in New York,"
the voice of the Interplan cop resumed. "At 580 Fifth
Avenue, floor twelve. Once you've surrendered yourself
we'll have our psychiatrists begin on you; we'll have
personality-profile tests made. We'll attempt to determine your
absolute, ultimate fantasy wish and then we'll bring you
back to Rekal, Incorporated, here; get them in on it, fulfilling
that wish in vicarious surrogate retrospection. And good
luck. We do owe you something; you acted as a capable
instrument for us." The voice lacked malice; if anything, they
the organization felt sympathy toward him.
"Thanks," Quail said. And began searching for a robot cab.
"Mr. Quail," the stern-faced, elderly Interplan psychiatrist
said, "you possess a most interesting wish-fulfillment dream
fantasy. Probably nothing such as you consciously entertain
or suppose. This is commonly the way; I hope it won't upset
you too much to hear about it."
The senior ranking Interplan officer present said briskly,
"He better not be too much upset to hear about it, not if he
expects not to get shot."
"Unlike the fantasy of wanting to be an Interplan under-
cover agent." the psychiatrist continued, "which, being rela-
tively speaking a product of maturity, had a certain plausibil-
ity to it, this production is a grotesque dream of your
childhood; it is no wonder you fail to recall it. Your fantasy
is this: you are nine years old, walking alone down a rustic
lane. An unfamiliar variety of space vessel from another star
system lands directly in front of you. No one on Earth but
you, Mr. Quail, sees it. The creatures within are very small
and helpless, somewhat on the order of field mice, although
they are attempting to invade Earth; tens of thousands of
other such ships will soon be on their way, when this advance
party gives the go-ahead signal."
"And I suppose I stop them," Quail said, experiencing a
mixture of amusement and disgust. "Single-handed I wipe
them out. Probably by stepping on them with my foot."
"No," the psychiatrist said patiently. "You halt the inva-
sion, but not by destroying them. Instead, you show them
kindness and mercy, even though by telepathy their mode of
communication you know why they have come. They have
never seen such humane traits exhibited by any sentient
organism, and to show their appreciation they make a cove-
nant with you."
Quail said, "They won't invade Earth as long as I'm alive."
"Exactly." To the Interplan officer the psychiatrist said,
"You can see it does fit his personality, despite his feigned
scorn."
"So by merely existing," Quail said, feeling a growing
pleasure, "by simply being alive, I keep Earth safe from alien
rule. I'm in effect, then, the most important person on Terra.
Without lifting a finger."
"Yes indeed, sir," the psychiatrist said. "And this is bedrock
in your psyche; this is a life-long childhood fantasy. Which,
without depth and drug therapy, you never would have
recalled. But it has always existed in you; it went underneath,
but never ceased."
To McClane, who sat intently listening, the senior police
official said, "Can you implant an extra-factual memory
pattern that extreme in him?"
"We get handed every possible type of wish-fantasy there
is," McClane said. "Frankly, I've heard a lot worse than this.
Certainly we can handle it. Twenty-four hours from now he
won't just wish he'd saved Earth; he'll devoutly believe it
really happened."
The senior police official said, "You can start the job, then.
In preparation we've already once again erased the memory in.
him of his trip to Mars."
Quail said, "What trip to Mars?"
No one answered him, so, reluctantly, he shelved the
question. And anyhow a police vehicle had now put in its
appearance; he, McClane' and the senior police officer
crowded into it, and presently they were on their way to
Chicago and Rekal, Incorporated.
"You had better make no errors this time," the police
officer said to heavy-set, nervous-looking McClane.
"I can't see what could go wrong," McClane mumbled,
perspiring. "This has nothing to do with Mars or Interplan.
Single-handedly stopping an invasion of Earth from another
star-system." He shook his head at that. "Wow, what a kid
dreams up. And by pious virtue, too; not by force. It's sort of
quaint." He dabbed at his forehead with a large linen pocket
handkerchief.
Nobody said anything.
"In fact," McClane said, "it's touching."
"But arrogant," the police official said starkly. "Inasmuch
as when he dies the invasion will resume. No wonder he
doesn't recall it; it's the most grandiose fantasy I ever ran
across." He eyed Quail with disapproval. "And to think we
put this man on our payroll."
When they reached Rekal, Incorporated the receptionist,
Shirley, met them breathlessly in the outer office. "Welcome
back, Mr. Quail," she fluttered, her melon-shaped breasts
today painted an incandescent orange bobbing with agita-
tion. "I'm sorry everything worked out so badly before; I'm
sure this time it'll go better."
Still repeatedly dabbing at his shiny forehead with his
neatly-folded Irish linen handkerchief, McClane said, "It
better." Moving with rapidity he rounded up Lowe and
Keeler, escorted them and Douglas Quail to the work area,
and then, with Shirley and the senior police officer, returned
to his familiar office. To wait.
"Do we have a packet made up for this, Mr. McClane?"
Shirley asked, bumping against him in her agitation, then
coloring modestly.
"I think we do." He tried to recall; then gave up and
consulted the formal chart. "A combination," he decided
aloud, "of packets Eighty-one, Twenty, and Six." From the
vault section of the chamber behind his desk he fished out the
appropriate packets, carried them to his desk for inspection.
"From Eighty-one," he explained, "a magic healing rod given
him the client in question, this time Mr. Quail by the race
of beings from another system. A token of their gratitude."
"Does it work?" the police officer asked curiously.
"It did once," McClane explained. "But he, ahem, you see,
used it up years ago, healing right and left. Now it's only a
memento. But he remembers it working spectacularly." He
chuckled, then opened packet Twenty. "Document from the
UN Secretary General thanking him for saving Earth; this
isn't precisely appropriate, because part of Quail's fantasy is
that no one knows of the invasion except himself, but for the
sake of verisimilitude we'll throw it in." He inspected packet
Six, then. What came from this? He couldn't recall; frowning,
he dug into the plastic bag as Shirley and the Interplan police
officer watched intently.
"Writing," Shirley said. "In a funny language."
"This tells who they were," McClane said, "and where they
came from. Including a detailed star map logging their flight
here and the system of origin. Of course it's in their script, so
he can't read it. But he remembers them reading it to him in
his own tongue." He placed the three artifacts in the center of
the desk. "These should be taken to Quail's conapt," he said
to the police officer. "So that when he gets home he'll find
them. And it'll confirm his fantasy. SOP standard operating
procedure." He chuckled apprehensively, wondering how
matters were going with Lowe and Keeler.
The intercom buzzed. "Mr. McClane, I'm sorry to bother
you." It was Lowe's voice; he froze as he recognized it, froze
and became mute. "But something's come up. Maybe it would
be better if you came in here and supervised. Like before,
Quail reacted well to the narkidrine; he's unconscious, relaxed
and receptive. But"
McClane sprinted for the work area.
On a hygienic bed Douglas Quail lay breathing slowly and
regularly, eyes half-shut, dimly conscious of those around
him.
"We started interrogating him," Lowe said, white-faced.
"To find out exactly when to place the fantasy-memory of
him single-handedly having saved Earth. And strangely
enough"
"They told me not to tell," Douglas Quail mumbled in a
dull drug-saturated voice. "That was the agreement. I wasn't
even supposed to remember. But how could I forget an event
like that?"
I guess it would be hard, McClane reflected. But you did
until now.
"They even gave me a scroll," Quail mumbled, "of grati-
tude. I have it hidden in my conapt; I'll show it to you."
To the Interplan officer who had followed after him,
McClane said, "Well, I offer the suggestion that you better not
kill him. If you do they'll return."
"They also gave me a magic invisible destroying rod,"
Quail mumbled, eyes totally shut, now. "That's how I killed
that man on Mars you sent me to take out. It's in my drawer
along with the box of Martian maw-worms and dried-up plant
life."
Wordlessly, the Interplan officer turned and stalked from
the work area.
I might as well put those packets of proof-artifacts away,
McClane said to himself resignedly. He walked, step by step,
back to his office. Including the citation from the UN Secre-
tary General. After all
The real one probably would not be long in coming.
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