Chapter Chapter 6 · 第6章

Again Luis turned to the screen, but this time he dialed the news

service. He found what he was looking for in the advertisements of an

issue a month old. It was very neat:

DO YOU REMEMBER EVERYTHING--or is your mind hazy? Perhaps my

system can help you recall those little details you find it

so annoying to forget. MEMORY LAB.

That was all. No name. But there was an address. Hurriedly Luis

scanned every succeeding issue. The advertisement was still there.

He was coming closer, very close. The ad was clever; it would attract

the attention of Luise and himself and others like them, and almost no

one else. There was no mention of fees, no claim that it was operated

by a psychologist, nothing that the police would investigate.

Night after night Luise had sat alone; sooner or later, watching the

screen, she had to see the ad. It was intriguing and she had answered

it. Normally, so would he have: but now he was forewarned.

Part of the cleverness was this: that she went of her own volition.

She would have suspected an outright offer of help--but this seemed

harmless. She went to him as she would to anyone in business. A very

clever setup.

But who was behind MEMORY LAB? Luis thought he knew. A trained

psychologist with a legitimate purpose would attach his name to the

advertisement.

Luis patted the retro gun in his pocket. Dorn Starret, criminal, and

inventor of a fictitious memory system, was going to have a visitor.

It wasn't necessary to go to Ceres to see him.

* * * * *

It was the only conclusion that made sense. Dorn Starret had retroed

him--the gun proved that--and Luise as well. Until a few minutes ago,

he had thought that she had been first and he later, but that was

wrong. They had been retrogressed together and Dorn Starret had done

it; now he had come back to make certain that they didn't trace him.

Neat--but it wasn't going to work. Luis grinned wryly to himself. He

had a weapon in his pocket that was assurance it wouldn't work.

He got off the belt near the building he had seen Luise leaving

yesterday. He went into the lobby and located MEMORY LAB, a suite on

the top floor. It wasn't necessary, but he checked rental dates. The

lab had been there exactly three weeks. This tied in with Luise's

release from retro-therapy. Every connection he had anticipated was

there.

He rode up to the top floor. There wasn't a chance that Starret would

recognize him; physically he must have changed too much since the

criminal had last seen him. And while Luise hadn't concealed that she

was a retro and so had given herself away, he wasn't going to make

that mistake.

The sign on the door stood out as he came near and disappeared as he

went by. MEMORY LAB, that was all--no other name, even here.

Naturally. A false name would be occasion for police action. The right

one would evoke Luise's and his own memories.

He turned back and went into the waiting room. No robot receptionist.

He expected that; the man didn't intend to be around very long.

"Who's there?" The voice came from a speaker in the wall; the screen

beside it remained blank, though obviously the man was in the next

room. For a commercial establishment, the LAB was not considerate of

potential clients.

Luis smiled sourly and loosened the weapon in his pocket. "I saw your

advertisement," he said. No name; let him guess.

"I'm very busy. Can you come back tomorrow?"

Luis frowned. This was not according to plan. First, he didn't

recognize the voice, though the speaker could account for that if it

were intentionally distorted. Second, Luise was inside and he had to

protect her. He could break in, but he preferred that the man come

out.

He thought swiftly. "I'm Chals Putsyn, gallium importer," he called.

"Tomorrow I'll be away on business. Can you give me an appointment for

another time?"

There was a long silence. "Wait. I'll be out."

He'd _thought_ the mention of gallium would do it. True, the mine

Starret owned was probably worthless, but he couldn't restrain his

curiosity.

* * * * *

The door swung open and a man stepped out, closing the door before

Luis could see inside.

He had erred--the man was not Dorn Starret.

The other eyed him keenly. "Mr. Chals Putsyn? Please sit down."

Luis did so slowly, giving himself time to complete a mental

inventory. The man _had_ to be Dorn Starret--and yet he wasn't. No

disguise could be that effective. At least three inches shorter; the

shape of his head was different; his body was slighter. Moreover, he

was right-handed, not left, as Starret was.

Luis had a story ready--names, dates, and circumstances. It sounded

authentic even to himself.

The man listened impatiently. "I may not be able to help you," he

said, interrupting. "Oddly enough, light cases are hardest. It's the

serious memory blocks that I specialize in." There was something

strange about his eyes--his voice too. "However, if you can come back

in two days, late in the afternoon, I'll see what I can do."

Luis took the appointment card and found himself firmly ushered to the

door. It was disturbing; Luise was in the next room, but the man gave

him no opportunity to see her.

He stood uncertainly in the hall. The whole interview had taken only a

few minutes, and during that time all his previous ideas had been

upset. If the man was not Dorn Starret, who was he and what was his

connection? The criminal from Ceres was not so foolish as to attempt

to solve his problems by assigning them to another person. This was a

one-man job from beginning to end, or ought to be.

Luis took the elevator to the ground floor and walked out aimlessly on

the street. There was something queer about the man on the top floor.

It took time to discover what it was.

The man was not Starret--but he was disguised. His irises were stained

another color and the voice was not his own--or rather it was, but

filtered through an artificial larynx inserted painfully in his

throat. And his face had been recently swabbed with a chemical

irritant which caused the tissues beneath his skin to swell, making

his face appear plumper.

Luis took a deep breath. Unconsciously he had noticed details too

slight for the average person to discern. This suggested something

about his own past--that he was trained to recognize disguises.

But more important was this: that the man was disguised at all. The

reason was obvious--to avoid evoking memories.

The man's name--what was it? It hadn't even been registered in the

building--he'd asked on his way out. And Luise couldn't tell him. She

was no longer a reliable source of information. He had to find out,

and there was only one way that suggested itself.

Luise was still in there, but not in physical danger. The police were

lax about other things, but not about murder, and the man knew that.

She might lose her memories of the past few weeks; regrettable if it

happened, but not a catastrophe.

[Illustration]

But who was the man and what was his connection?

He spent the rest of the day buying equipment--not much, but his money

dwindled rapidly. He considered going back to the Shelter and then

decided against it. By this time Luise would be back, and he would be

tempted not to leave her.

After dark, when the lights in the offices went out, he rented an

aircar and set it down on the top of the building.

* * * * *

He walked across the roof, estimating the distances with practiced

ease, as if he'd undergone extensive training and the apprenticeship

period had been forgotten and only the skill remained. He knelt and

fused two small rods to a portion of the roof, and then readjusted the

torch and cut a small circular hole. He listened, and when there was

no alarm, lifted out the section. There was nothing but darkness

below.

He fastened a rope to the aircar. He dropped the rope through the hole

and slid down. Unless he had miscalculated, he was where he wanted to

be, having bypassed all alarm circuits. There were others inside, he

was reasonably certain of that, but with ordinary precautions he

could avoid them.

He flashed on a tiny light. He had guessed right; this was MEMORY

LAB--the room he'd wanted to see this afternoon but hadn't been able

to. In front of him was the door to the waiting room, and beyond that

the hall. He swung the light in an arc, flashing it over a desk and a

piece of equipment the nature of which he didn't know. Behind him was

still another door.

The desk was locked, but he took out a small magnetic device and

jiggled it expertly over the concealed mechanism and then it was

unlocked. He went hurriedly through papers and documents, but there

was nothing with a name on it. He rifled the desk thoroughly and then

went to the machine.

He didn't expect to learn anything, but he might as well examine it.

There was a place for a patient to sit, and a metal hood to fit over

the patient's head. He snapped the hood open and peered into it. It

seemed to have two functions. One circuit was far larger and more

complicated, and he couldn't determine what it did. But he recognized

the other circuit; essentially it was a retrogressor, but whereas the

gun was crude and couldn't be regulated, this was capable of fine

adjustment--enough, say, to slice a day out of the patient's life, and

no more.

That fitted with what had happened to Luise. She had been experimented

on in some way, and then the memory of that experiment had been

erased. But the man had grown careless and had taken away one day too

many.

He snapped the mechanism closed. This was the method, but he still

didn't know who the man was nor why he found it necessary to do all

this.

There was a door behind him and the answer might lie beyond it. He

listened carefully, then swung the door open and went through.

The blow that hit him wasn't physical; nothing mechanical could take

his nerves and jerk them all at once. A freezer. As he fell to the

floor, he was grateful it was that and not a retro gun.

Lights flooded the place, and the man of the afternoon interview was

grinning at him.

"I thought you'd be back," he said, pleased. "In fact, I knew you

would."