Dick, Philip K - We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

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2024-12-23 0 0 129.35KB 19 页 5.9玖币

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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

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 breakfast

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, impeding mid-

morning traffic, and with caution read the shifting-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

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 went - and 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 Mars - within 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 extrafactual memory implant would

do its job - despite what he had heard people say.

"Mr. Quail," McClane said patiently. "As you explained in your

analysis of true-mem systems - authentic recollections of major

events in a person's lifeshows 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, urn, 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

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摘要：

PhilipK.DickHeawokeandwantedMars.Thevalleys,hethought.Whatwoulditbeliketotrudgeamongthem?Greatandgreateryet:thedreamgrewashebecamefullyconscious,thedreamandtheyearning.Hecouldalmostfeeltheenvelopingpresenceoftheotherworld,whichonlyGovernmentagentsandhighofficialshadseen.Aclerklikehimself?Notlikely."...

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