Forget Me Nearly Page 5

hadsomething else to work on! It was _the_ weapon, of course. It had beenused on him and then hidden behind the screen.

  It was a good place to hide it. The screens never wore out or neededadjustment, and the cleaning robots that came out of the wall nevercleaned there. The police should have found it, but they hadn'tlooked. He smiled bitterly. They weren't interested in solvingcrimes--merely in ameliorating the consequences.

  Though the police had failed, he hadn't. It could be traced back tothe man who owned it, and that person would have information. Heturned the retro gun over slowly; it was just a gun; there werecountless others like it.

  He finished dressing and dropped the gun in his pocket. He wentoutside and looked across the court. He hesitated and then walked overand knocked.

  "Occupied," said the door. "But the occupant is out. No definite timeof return stated, but she will be back this evening. Is there anymessage?"

  "No message," he said. "I'll call back when she's home."

  He hoped she wouldn't refuse to speak to him. She'd been away fromretro-therapy longer than he and possibly had developed her ownleads--very likely she was investigating some of them now. Whatevershe found would help him, and vice versa. The man who'd retroed herhad done the same to him. They were approaching the problem fromdifferent angles. Between the two of them, they should come up withthe correct solution.

  He walked away from the Shelters and caught the belt to the center oftown; the journey didn't take long. He stepped off, and wandered inthe bright sunshine, not quite aimlessly. At length he found anElectronic Arms store, and went inside.

  * * * * *

  A robot came to wait on him. "I'd like to speak to the manager," hesaid and the robot went away.

  Presently the manager appeared, middle aged, drowsy. "What can I dofor you?"

  Luis laid the retrogression gun on the counter. "I'd like to know whothis was sold to."

  The manager coughed. "Well, there are millions of them, hundreds ofmillions."

  "I know, but I have to find out."

  The manager picked it up. "It's a competitor's make," he saiddoubtfully. "Of course, as a courtesy to a customer...." He fingeredit thoughtfully. "Do you really want to know? It's just a freezer. Notat all dangerous."

  Luis looked at it with concern. Just a freezer--not a retro gun atall! Then it couldn't have been the weapon used on him.

  Before he could take it back the manager broke it open. The drowsyexpression vanished.

  "Why didn't you say so?" exclaimed the manager, examining it. "Thisgun has been illegally altered." He bent over the exposed circuits andthen glanced up happily at Luis. "Come here, I'll show you."

  Luis followed him to the small workshop in the back of the store. Themanager closed the door behind them and fumbled among the equipment.He mounted the gun securely in a frame and pressed a button whichprojected an image of the circuit onto a screen.

  The manager was enjoying himself. "Everybody's entitled toself-protection," he said. "That's why we sell so many like these.They're harmless, won't hurt a baby. Fully charged, they'll put a manout for half an hour, overload his nervous system. At the weakest,they'll still keep him out of action for ten minutes. Below that, theywon't work at all." He looked up. "Are you sure you understand this?"

  It had been included in his re-education, but it didn't come readilyto his mind. "Perhaps you'd better go over it for me."

  The manager wagged his head. "As I said, the freezer is legal, won'tharm anyone. It'll stop a man or an elephant in his tracks, freezehim, but beyond that will leave him intact. When he comes out of it,he's just the same as before, nothing changed." He seized a pointerand adjusted the controls so as to enlarge the image on the screen."However, a freezer can be converted to a retrogression gun, andthat's illegal." He traced the connections with the pointer. "If thiswire, instead of connecting as it does, is moved to here and here, thepolarity is reversed. In addition, if these four wires areinterchanged, the freezer becomes a retrogressor. As I said, it'sillegal to do that."

  * * * * *

  The manager scrutinized the circuits closely and grunted in disgust."Whoever converted this did a sloppy job. Here." He bent over the gunand began manipulating micro-instruments. He worked rapidly andsurely. A moment later, he snapped the weapon together andstraightened up, handing it to Luis. "There," he said proudly. "It's amuch more effective retrogressor than it was. Uses less power too."

  Luis swallowed. Either he was mad or the man was, or perhaps it wasthe society he was trying to adjust to. "Aren't you taking a chance,doing this for me?"

  The manager smiled. "You're joking. A tenth of the freezers we sellare immediately converted into retrogressors. Who cares?" He becameserious. "Do you still want to know who bought it?"

  Luis nodded--at the moment he didn't trust his voice.

  "It will take several hours. No charge though, customer service. Tellme where I can reach you."

  Luis jotted down the number of the screen at the Shelter and handed itto the manager. As he left, the manager whispered to him: "Remember,the next time you buy a freezer--ours can be converted easier than theone you have."

  He went out into the sunlight. It didn't seem the same. What kind ofsociety was he living in? The reality didn't fit with what he hadre-learned. It had seemed an orderly and sane civilization, withlittle violence and vast respect for the law.

  But the fact was that any school child--well, not quite _that_ young,perhaps--but anyone older could and did buy a freezer. And it wasridiculously easy to convert a freezer into something far morevicious. Of course, it was illegal, but no one paid any attention tothat.

  This was wrong; it wasn't the way he remembered....

  He corrected himself: he didn't actually remember anything. Hisknowledge came from tapes, and was obviously inadequate. Certainthings he just didn't understand yet.

  He wanted to talk to someone--but who? The counselor had given him allthe information he intended to. The store manager had supplied someadditional insight, but it only confused him. Luise--at the moment shewas suspicious of him.

  There was nothing to do except to be as observant as he could. Hewandered through the town, just looking. He saw nothing that seemedfamiliar. Negative evidence, of course, but it indicated he hadn'tlived here before.

  Before what? Before he had been retrogressed. He had been brought herefrom elsewhere, the same as Luise.

  He visited the spaceport. Again the evidence was negative; there wasnot a ship the sight of which tripped his memory. It had been too muchto hope for; if he had been brought in by spaceship, it wouldn't stillbe around for him to recognize.

  Late in the afternoon, he headed toward the center of town. He wasriding the belt when he saw Luise coming out of a tall officebuilding.

  * * * * *

  He hopped off and let her pass, boarding it again and following her ata distance. As soon as they were out of the business district, hebegan to edge closer.

  A few blocks from the Shelter she got off the belt and waited, turningaround and smiling directly at him. In the interim her attitude towardhim had changed, evidently--for the better, as far as he wasconcerned. He couldn't ignore her and didn't want to. He stepped offthe belt.

  "Hello," she said. "I think you were following me."

  "I was. Do you mind?"

  "I guess I don't." She walked along with him. "Others followed me, butI discouraged them."

  She was worth following, but it was not that which was strange. Nowshe seemed composed and extraordinarily friendly, a complete reversalfrom last night. Had she learned something during the day whichchanged her opinion of him? He hoped she had.

  She stopped at the edge of the Shelter area. "Do you live here?"

  Learned something? She seemed to have forgotten.

  He nodded.

  "For the same reason?"

  His throat tightened. He had told her all that last night. Couldn'tshe remembe
r?

  "Yes," he said.

  "I thought so. That's why I didn't mind your following me."

  Here was the attraction factor that Borgenese had spoken of; it wasfunctioning again, for which he was grateful. But still, why? And whydidn't she remember last night?

  They walked on until she came to her dwelling. She paused at the door."I have a feeling I should know who you are, but I just can't recall.Isn't that terrible?"

  It was--frightening. Her identity was apparently incompletelyestablished; it kept slipping backward to a time she hadn't met him.He couldn't