บทที่ บทที่ 1 · 第1章

Chapter 1. 泄密的心

Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1954.

Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.

FORGET ME NEARLY

By F. L. Wallace

Illustrated by EMSH

_What sort of world was it, he puzzled, that wouldn't help

victims find out whether they had been murdered or had

committed suicide?_

* * * * *

The police counselor leaned forward and tapped the small nameplate on

his desk, which said: _Val Borgenese._ "That's my name," he said. "Who

are you?"

[Illustration]

The man across the desk shook his head. "I don't know," he said

indistinctly.

"Sometimes a simple approach works," said the counselor, shoving aside

the nameplate. "But not often. We haven't found anything that's

effective in more than a small percentage of cases." He blinked

thoughtfully. "Names are difficult. A name is like clothing, put on or

taken off, recognizable but not part of the person--the first thing

forgotten and the last remembered."

The man with no name said nothing.

"Try pet names," suggested Borgenese. "You don't have to be sure--just

say the first thing you think of. It may be something your parents

called you when you were a child."

The man stared vacantly, closed his eyes for a moment and then opened

them and mumbled something.

"What?" asked Borgenese.

"Putsy," said the man more distinctly. "The only thing I can think of

is Putsy."

The counselor smiled. "That's a pet name, of course, but it doesn't

help much. We can't trace it, and I don't think you'd want it as a

permanent name." He saw the expression on the man's face and added

hastily: "We haven't given up, if that's what you're thinking. But

it's not easy to determine your identity. The most important source of

information is your mind, and that was at the two year level when we

found you. The fact that you recalled the word Putsy is an

indication."

"Fingerprints," said the man vaguely. "Can't you trace me through

fingerprints?"

"That's another clue," said the counselor. "Not fingerprints, but the

fact that you thought of them." He jotted something down. "I'll have

to check those re-education tapes. They may be defective by now, we've

run them so many times. Again, it may be merely that your mind refused

to accept the proper information."

The man started to protest, but Borgenese cut him off. "Fingerprints

were a fair means of identification in the Twentieth Century, but this

is the Twenty-second Century."

* * * * *

The counselor then sat back. "You're confused now. You have a lot of

information you don't know how to use yet. It was given to you fast,

and your mind hasn't fully absorbed it and put it in order. Sometimes

it helps if you talk out your problems."

"I don't know if I have a problem." The man brushed his hand slowly

across his eyes. "Where do I start?"

"Let me do it for you," suggested Borgenese. "You ask questions when

you feel like it. It may help you."

He paused, "You were found two weeks ago in the Shelters. You know

what those are?"

The man nodded, and Borgenese went on: "Shelter and food for anyone

who wants or needs it. Nothing fancy, of course, but no one has to ask

or apply; he just walks in and there's a place to sleep and

periodically food is provided. It's a favorite place to put people

who've been retroed."

The man looked up. "Retroed?"

"Slang," said Borgenese. "The retrogression gun ionizes animal tissue,

nerve cells particularly. Aim it at a man's legs and the nerves in

that area are drained of energy and his muscles won't hold him up. He

falls down.

"Aim it at his head and give him the smallest charge the gun is

adjustable to, and his most recent knowledge is subtracted from his

memory. Give him the full charge, and he is swept back to a childish

or infantile age level. The exact age he reaches is dependent on his

physical and mental condition at the time he's retroed.

"Theoretically it's possible to kill with the retrogression gun. The

person can be taken back to a stage where there's not enough nervous

organization to sustain the life process.

"However, life is tenacious. As the lower levels are reached, it takes

increasing energy to subtract from anything that's left. Most people

who want to get rid of someone are satisfied to leave the victim

somewhere between the mental ages of one and four. For practical

purposes, the man they knew is dead--or retroed, as they say."

"Then that's what they did to me," said the man. "They retroed me and

left me in the Shelter. How long was I there?"

* * * * *

Borgenese shrugged. "Who knows? That's what makes it difficult. A day,

or two months. A child of two or three can feed himself, and no record

is kept since the place is free. Also, it's cleaned automatically."

"I know that now that you mention it," said the man. "It's just that

it's hard to remember."

"You see how it is," said the counselor. "We can't check our files

against a date when someone disappeared, because we don't know that

date except within very broad limits." He tapped his pen on the desk.

"Do you object to a question?"

"Go ahead."

"How many people in the Solar System?"

The man thought with quiet desperation. "Fourteen to sixteen billion."

The counselor was pleased. "That's right. You're beginning to use some

of the information we've put back into your mind. Earth, Mars and

Venus are the main population centers. But there are also Mercury and

the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as the asteroids. We can

check to see where you might have come from, but there are so many

places and people that you can imagine the results."

"There must be _some_ way," the man said painfully. "Pictures,

fingerprints, something."

"Something," Borgenese nodded. "But probably not for quite a while.

There's another factor, you see. It's a shock, but you've got to face

it. And the funny thing is that you'll never be better able to than

now."

He rocked back. "Take the average person, full of unsuspected anxiety,

even the happiest and most successful. Expose him to the retrogression

gun. Tensions and frustrations are drained away.

"The structure of an adult is still there, but it's empty, waiting to

be filled. Meanwhile the life of the organism goes on, but it's not

the same. Lines on the face disappear, the expression alters

drastically, new cell growth occurs here and there throughout the

body. Do you see what that means?"

The man frowned. "I suppose no one can recognize me."

"That's right. And it's not only your face that changes. You may grow

taller, but never shorter. If your hair was gray, it may darken, but

not the reverse."

"Then I'm younger too?"

"In a sense, though it's actually not a rejuvenation process at all.

The extra tension that everyone carries with him has been removed, and

the body merely takes up the slack.

"Generally, the apparent age is made less. A person of middle age or

under seems to be three to fifteen years younger than before. You

appear to be about twenty-seven, but you may actually be nearer forty.

You see, we don't even know what age group to check.

"And it's the same with fingerprints. They've been altered by the

retrogression process. Not a great deal, but enough to make

identification impossible."

* * * * *

The nameless man stared around the room--at Val Borgenese, perhaps

fifty, calm and pleasant, more of a counselor than a policeman--out of

the window at the skyline, and its cleanly defined levels of air

traffic.

Where was his place in this?

"I guess it's no use," he said bleakly. "You'll never find out who I

am."

The counselor smiled. "I think we will. Directly, there's not much we

can do, but there are indirect methods. In the last two weeks we've

exposed you to all the organized knowledge that can be put on

tapes--physics, chemistry, biology, math, astrogation, the works.

"It's easy to remember what you once knew. It isn't learning; it's

actually relearning. One fact put in your mind triggers another into

existence. There's a limit, of course, but usually a person comes out

of re-education with slightly more formal knowledge than he had in his

prior existence." The counselor opened a folder on his desk. "We gave

you a number of tests. You didn't know the purpose, but I can tell you

the results."

He leafed slowly through the sheets. "You may have been an

entrepreneur of some sort. You have an excellent sense of power

ethics. Additionally, we've found that you're physically alert, and

your reactions are well coordinated. This indicates you may have been

an athlete or sportsman."

Val Borgenese laid down the tests. "In talking with you, I've learned

more. The remark you made about fingerprints suggests you may have

been a historian, specializing in the Twentieth Century. No one else

is likely to know that there was a time in which fingerprints were a

valid means of identification."

"I'm quite a guy, I suppose. Businessman, sportsman, historian." The

man smiled bitterly. "All that ... but I still don't know who I am.

And you can't help me."

"Is it important?" asked the counselor softly. "This happens to many

people, you know, and some of them do find out who they were, with or

without our help. But this is not simple amnesia. No one who's been

retroed can resume his former identity. Of course, if we had tapes of

the factors which made each person what he is...." He shrugged. "But

those tapes don't exist. Who knows, really, what caused him to develop

as he has? Most of it isn't at the conscious level. At best, if you

should learn who you were, you'd have to pick up the thread of your

former activities and acquaintances slowly and painfully.

"Maybe it would be better if you start from where you are. You know as

much as you once did, and the information is up to date, correct and

undistorted. You're younger, in a sense--in better physical condition,

not so tense or nervous. Build up from that."