Anthony, Piers - Total Recall

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Total Recall

by Piers Anthony

Based on the Screenplay by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon & Gary Goldman

Inspired by the short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick

Review

A Valuable read whether you liked the movie or not., January 22,

1999

Reviewer:

This is an excellent book for those who saw the movie and thought "This idea had

potential." The Piers Anthony version of this story is superior to both the movie and the

screen play. This book gives insight into the mind of a alien race and what it might expect

from a species that considers itself mature enough for space travel. Mr. Anthony puts a

relatively new face on the oft used concept of colonialism extended to interplanetary

colonization. We see that the downtrodden are not always forgotten. We are also given

the opportunity to wrestle with the question, of what makes a person themselves; is it

ones actions(past, present, or future) or is it ones thoughts and ideas (remembered and

forgotten). While the "Total Recall" story is taken from a short story entitled, "We can

remember it for you wholesale." Piers Anthony offers a fresh look at the timeless

concepts.

AVON BOOKS

A division of

The Hearst Corporation

105 Madison Avenue

New York, New York 10016

Published by arrangement with Caroleo Pictures Inc.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 89-34208

ISBN: 0-380-70874-4

whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law.

Published in hardcover by William Morrow and Company, Inc.; for information address Permissions

Department, William Morrow and Company, Inc., 105 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

First Avon Books Printing: June 1990

Printed in the U.S.A.

RA 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Contents

CHAPTER 1 Mars

CHAPTER 2 Lori

CHAPTER 3 Dream

CHAPTER 4 Work

CHAPTER 5 Rekall

CHAPTER 6 41A

CHAPTER 7 Problem

CHAPTER 8 Harry

CHAPTER 9 “Wife”

CHAPTER 10 Subway

CHAPTER 11 Help

CHAPTER 12 Johnny

CHAPTER 13 Hauser

CHAPTER 14 Ship

CHAPTER 15 Spaceport

CHAPTER 16 Venusville

CHAPTER 17 Melina

CHAPTER 18 Edgemar

CHAPTER 19 Escape

CHAPTER 20 Kuato

CHAPTER 21 Revelation

CHAPTER 22 Betrayal

CHAPTER 23 Worse

CHAPTER 24 Break

CHAPTER 25 Reactor

CHAPTER 26 Decision

CHAPTER 1 Mars

Two moons hung in the dark red sky. One was full, the other crescent. One seemed to

be four times the diameter of the other, and neither was exactly round. In fact, both might

better have been described as egglike: a chicken egg and a robin egg. Perhaps even

potatolike, large and small.

The big one was Phobos, named after the personification of fear: the type that

possessed armies and caused their defeat. The small one was Deimos, the personification

of terror. This was appropriate, for these were the companions of the ancient Roman god

of war and agriculture, Mars.

The landscape of Mars was ugly. As far as the horizon, which was closer than it would

have been on Earth, there were barren rock formations, overhanging ledges, and dust.

There might have been a war here, fracturing the terrain, but there was obviously no

agriculture. This was no-man’s-land in the truest sense.

Douglas Quaid stood on the jaggedly sloping surface. He wore a lightweight space suit

with breathing apparatus, for the atmospheric pressure here was only a hundred and

fiftieth that of Earth at ground level, and the temperature was about a hundred degrees

below zero, Fahrenheit. There would have been arctic snow, if the scant air had had

enough water vapor to form it. Any failure of his suit, any little tear on the edge of one of

the rocks, would finish him just about as quickly as it would in deep space. About the

only thing Mars had going for it that the vacuum of space didn’t was gravity: slightly

better than a third of Earth’s. At least it provided some notion of what was up and what

was down, and made it possible to walk.

Quaid hardly needed low gravity to help him walk. He was a massive man, so

muscular that even the space suit could not hide his physique. He seemed to exude raw

power. His chiseled features within the helmet were set, reflecting his indomitable will. It

was obvious that he was here by no accident. He had a mission, and not even the hell that

was this planet would balk him for long.

He scanned the horizon. As he turned, the jumbled terrain changed, until it reared up

into the most phenomenal mountain known in the Solar System: Olympus Mons, ten

miles above the point where he stood. In its totality, it was closer to fifteen miles, more

than triple the height of Earth’s largest, Mauna Loa of Hawaii, most of whose mass was

hidden beneath the Pacific Ocean. Like that one, this was volcanic, but on a scale

unknown on Earth. The base of its cone was some 350 miles in diameter, with radially

spreading lava flows now frozen in place. A mighty scarp over two miles high ringed its

base, defining it strangely but clearly. Olympus Mons was a wonder to make even a man

like Quaid pause in admiration.

There was a sound behind him, audible more as vibration in the rock than as any wave

in the trace atmosphere. Someone was approaching: a woman. Quaid turned as if

expecting her, unsurprised, and gazed at her with appreciation. She was worth it: she was

as well formed for her sex as he was for his, voluptuous within her space suit. Behind her

visor her hair showed brown, and her eyes were great and dark. She gazed back at him,

and her posture suggested her interest: if she was not in love with him, she was getting

there.

But this was hardly the place for romance! The suits would have made anything

significant impossible, even if they had it in mind. This was business.

She turned and walked toward a pyramid-shaped mountain he hadn’t looked at before.

Hardly on the scale of Olympus Mons, it remained big enough to be impressive. It

seemed almost artificial in its symmetry. How had such a curious feature come to be on

Mars? Well, it was no bigger a mystery than the human faces sculpted in other rocks, or

the many little alien artifacts scattered about, evidence that man had not been the first

here.

Quaid followed, regretting that only her helmet was translucent. Even so, it was a

pleasure to watch her walk. She led him to a tortured opening in the side of the mountain,

evidently a fault that had sprung during one of the eruptions. It was a cave whose walls

were sheer. Just enough light filtered in through crevices to enable them to find secure

footing as the passage wound into the mountain.

They came to a ledge deep inside. They were in a roughly circular chamber of

considerable size. No, it was a depression, a hole; the sky of Mars showed above. Its floor

was a pit so deep that it seemed to have no bottom. Quaid’s eyes, adapting to the deep

shade at this level, made out only the curving rim and the cylindrical rise of the rock

above. Was this a natural cavity or a chamber hewn by man? It had aspects of both, and

neither. He felt an awe of it that related only partly to its size and mystery. Somehow he

knew that the significance of the place transcended anything any ordinary man or woman

might compass, and that what the two of them did here was more important than anyone

on Earth could guess.

The woman walked to the right. She reached down and drew out a slender cable. It

seemed to be anchored to a large rock or projection from the wall. She backed away,

hauling on the cable, and it extended. She turned, and Quaid saw that the end she held

was connected to an apparatus somewhat like a fishing reel mounted on a solid belt.

She brought this belt to him and stretched out its ends. She bent to reach around his

waist, wrapping the belt until it snapped together behind him. Now the reel was in front,

and he was tied to the rock.

Quaid tested it himself, stepping back and watching the cable pay out. It was coiled

within the reel, flattening there but becoming round as it reached toward the rock anchor.

There was actually a considerable length of it, but it weighed only a few pounds.

He put his two gloved hands on the cable and pulled them apart. The cable held. He

increased the pull, his muscles showing. Still it held. He gestured to the woman, and she

approached. He formed a loop in the cable and signaled that she should sit in it.

Awkwardly, she did, holding on to the top to maintain her balance. Quaid lifted his arm

and drew her readily into the air. Of course, she weighed only forty-five pounds in the

Mars gravity, but it was obvious that he could have lifted her full weight almost as easily.

She smiled.

He let her down, smiling also. The cable would do.

They grasped their clumsy suited hands, bidding each other farewell. They embraced,

touching visors, unable to kiss. If there was one thing he really hated about a space suit. .

Quaid let her go and stepped to the edge of the rim. He put his hands on it, then swung

his legs over and down in a maneuver that would have been difficult in Earth gravity. He

gripped the cable, facing toward the wall, and lowered himself into the dark chasm, hand

under hand.

A lesser man would have rappelled, passing the cable under his left thigh and over his

right shoulder, using a double line that he allowed to lengthen slowly for the descent.

Quaid didn’t bother; he simply handed himself down almost as if on a ladder. His feet

jumped down the wall a yard at a time, keeping him away from it. Child’s play!

He paused a few yards down, looking up. The woman leaned over the rim. The upper

portion of her body showed in silhouette, her head seeming to be lighted because of the

translucence of the helmet. She looked like an angel on a painted ceiling. The full moon

Phobos floated above her head, completing the halo.

She put her hand to her helmet, then flung it out, blowing him a kiss.

Quaid felt a surge of emotion. God, she was beautiful!

But he had business. He waved back, then resumed his downward progress. He

realized that he didn’t have to use his hands; the reel could be set to pay out the cable at a

steady rate. He adjusted it and let go.

Sure enough, he continued down at the same rate as before. This freed his hands for

anything else they might be needed for. He relaxed and looked around.

Moonlight illuminated the pit, showing him details he had not been able to see from

above. There were dozens of gigantic vertical pipes rising from the depths, reminding

him vaguely of a monstrous calliope. Somehow he was sure they didn’t play music! But

what did they do? They weren’t here as a work of Martian art!

There was a vibration at his waist. Something was going wrong with the reel! He

grabbed for it, but his clumsy gloves either had no effect or made things worse. The cable

uncoiled at a terrifying rate.

Quaid plunged into the bottomless abyss. He flailed wildly, trying to stop himself. His

feet lost contact with the wall, and he spun around, seeing the wall, the pipes, and the

space between them whirl dizzyingly as he fell.

“Doug!” It was the woman, calling in alarm from above.

He tried to answer, but was too disoriented even to do that. He kept falling, hurtling

down into the void, out of control.

“Doug!” her voice came, despairingly, faint in the distance.

The abyss filled with bright white light. Quaid knew it was the end. Somehow he

wasn’t frightened; all he could do was meet his destiny.

CHAPTER 2 Lori

Quaid woke, startled. He was in bed, on Earth, quite safe. The bedroom was bathed in

morning light. As he reoriented and his heartbeat returned to normal, he realized that he

should have known that his experience wasn’t real. He had never been to Mars, so how

could he have found himself there, without even questioning it, without knowing how he

had come? He had simply popped into existence on the barren surface, and met a girl, and

gone into a cave or crevice in the side of a mountain shaped like a pyramid, and down

into a huge hole. Did any of that make sense on any rational basis? In the dream he had

accepted it, but that was the way of dreams.

Now his mind reviewed it, finding place after place where the scene broke down. All

that light from that tiny moon? Well, maybe; how could he know, without being there?

But that cable -- why hadn’t he simply grabbed it and halted his fall? There was no

question of his ability to do that; it was attached to him, so he could have circled it at its

exit from the reel with his gloved hand, and clamped down, and held on.

With his weight only a fraction of its Earth amount, and the power of his arms, it

would have been like catching a huge turkey someone threw to him. A jolt, but not

impossible. Only the ambience of the dream had made that fall seem inevitable.

Yet a trifling detail bothered him most. Doug! the woman had called. That meant she

knew him, though he could not draw her name from his memory. Not Mr. Quaid, not

Douglas, but Doug, cried out with feeling. That feeling summoned a return feeling from

him, even now that he was out of the dream, back in reality. She was important to him,

more than important; she --

Then the rest of it clicked into place. How had he been able to hear her call -- there in

the near-vacuum of Mars’ atmosphere? They had not spoken throughout the dream, but

there at the end the verisimilitude, the semblance of truth, had broken down.

The bright light at the conclusion -- that was this light, the light of day on Earth, more

intense than that of Mars. Not the brilliance of Heaven or the inferno of Hell encountered

at his death, but the ordinary brightness of ordinary day when he overslept. That was a

relief!

Yet that voice still tugged at him. That woman. . .

There was someone with him. Quaid blinked and looked.

A beautiful creature was leaning over him. She wore a filmy nightgown that was

falling open with a readiness that had to be intentional, to reveal portions of her splendid

anatomy. She was not the girl of the dream; she was a stunning blond Amazon. His wife,

Lori. How could he have forgotten!

“You were dreaming,” she said sympathetically as she reached forward to wipe the

sweat from his brow.

He did not answer, distracted by the clear sight of her full breasts within the hanging

nightgown. He had of course seen them many times before, but somehow he never got

tired of looking. Talk of impressive architecture. . .

“Mars again?” she inquired solicitously. Her breasts moved as her arm did, as she

completed cleaning his face.

He nodded, still upset by the experience, though he was rapidly coming to terms with

the current situation. What did the woman of the dream have that Lori didn’t? Brown

hair, maybe; nothing else. And Lori wasn’t exactly wearing a space suit.

Suddenly he realized that the Mars-woman’s voice had not been an error in the dream.

They had been in space suits, and space suits had intercoms or whatever. He had heard

her via his helmet system! It encouraged him to make that connection; it meant that his

dream wasn’t quite as farfetched as he had thought.

Lori, mistaking his distraction, started to caress him. Her hand trailed down his neck,

and she squeezed the muscle of his shoulder. She liked his muscles, and liked touching

them; they were a turn-on for her, and he hardly objected to that.

“My poor baby,” she murmured, stroking his pectoral muscle. “Poor thing, with those

bad dreams, those horrible nightmares.” She brought her head down, kissing the crotch of

his neck and shoulder in a way that might have been comforting, but was becoming

erotic. “Is that better?”

Her lips were moving across his chest, pausing in the region of the nipple. Her eyes

angled up to sight on his face. He didn’t want her to stop. “Mm-hmm,” he said.

Lori resumed progress, working her way down toward his belly. She was trying to

seduce him, he knew, to take his mind off the dream, and she was good at it. He was

happy to let her continue. If only the woman of Mars hadn’t been in that space suit! He

could imagine it was her. . .

“Was she there?” she asked nonchalantly.

Oh-oh. Did she have antennae to pick up his thoughts? He felt guilty, thinking of the

other woman when it was manifest that Lori was all that any man could desire. But Lori’s

interest in that other was amusing in its way.

He played dumb. “Who?”

“You know.” Lori lifted her head, making a contemplative moue. She was playing

dumb too, pretending that she couldn’t quite remember or describe that other woman.

“The girl with the. . .” She cupped her hands in the universal gesture for large breasts.

He smiled. “Oh, her.” As if Lori weren’t of that type.

But she refused to let it go. “Well, was she?”

He laughed. “Amazing! You’re jealous of a dream!” The thing was, this did intrigue

him, perhaps because it lent some reality to a figure he knew existed only in his

imagination.

Lori punched him in the stomach and twisted away. He tried to grab her, but she

struggled to get out of the bed. They had always played rough, but not too rough; he

never hit her back.

“It’s not funny, Doug,” she said, half off the bed. “Let met go!” Now gravity was

helping her; if he let go, she would fall on the floor. “You’re on Mars every night now.”

All too true! “But I’m always back by morning,” he protested weakly. He realized that

there was only so far this could go without turning ugly, because he really did have a

secret passion for that nonexistent woman, and Lori was catching on.

He succeeded in pulling her back on the bed. Now Lori occupied his full attention, as

surely had been her purpose. They wrestled, and she got her legs around him, squeezing

him in a harmless but most interesting scissors grip. He pinned her arms to her sides and

tried to kiss her. She turned her head from side to side to avoid his lips.

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摘要：

TotalRecallbyPiersAnthonyBasedontheScreenplaybyRonaldShusett,DanO’Bannon&GaryGoldmanInspiredbytheshortstory“WeCanRememberItforYouWholesale”byPhilipK.DickReviewAValuablereadwhetheryoulikedthemovieornot.,January22,1999Reviewer:Thisisanexcellentbookforthosewhosawthemovieandthought"Thisideahadpotential....

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Anthony, Piers - Total Recall

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