“What senator?”

  “Maxwell! The anti-science one that everybody hates so bad. He thinks you’re a hero.”

  “He would, the bastard.”

  “George, what can I do?”

  “Tell them all to wait until I come home. Tve got some things to talk about with Waite.”

  “George, don’t you have any sense of responsibility?”

  “I have a sense of being very tired. Tell the reporters that we’ve already got a solution to a lot of the problem. Tell the Institute they want to see me tomorrow afternoon whether they hate me or not. And tell the senator to go shove a bill up his—”

  “George, do you have to be profane?”

  “Coarse and vulgar, Aggie, but never profane. It’s four a.m. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “What if I’m not home when you get there, you rotten—”

  He hung up. He had a habit of shutting people out when they were getting abusive. It saved him from a lot of unnecessary anguish. Particularly since they were often correct.

  In two weeks he was no longer a pariah, no longer unemployed. Congress had approved the creation of a research office to solve the somec problem.

  And George Rines was in charge of it., “Your type of science we need more of,” the senator told George. “Courageous. Thinking the new angles.”

  Raking up the muck, George silently filled in. But he accepted the job and went ahead. It meant a move to California, because Waite and all the equipment were at Berkeley. Aggie and the girls raised hell about it.

  “Diane has only another year in high school!” Aggie complained.

  “Then stay here,” George finally exploded. “It’s not as if I needed you out there! I can get twice as much done if I don’t have to move the whole family.”

  He regretted saying it. He apologized. It made no difference. Aggie and Diane and Anita stayed behind, and he had beeen in Berkeley only a week when the notice of their legal separation reached him. He tried to call. He even flew back. But they had moved, too, and left no address except the post office box where he’d better send money every month or find himself in court for abandonment, as the lawyer so carefully put it.

  For the entire flight back George was distraught. His world was falling apart.

  He and Aggie had meant everything to each other for years.

  Then he got to Berkeley and never thought about his family except when he got to the motel, and later to the apartment, and realized that there was no one there. Damn them anyway, he thought. Who needs baggage? I’m accomplishing things of lasting value. I’m taking a dangerous drug and making it fulfil its potential for good. And if that doesn’t matter as much as the stinking last year in a stupid high school . . .

  The government money poured in and the research quickly took over an entire building in the new research complex. One department carefully verified the extent of somec damage: when chimps, too, reverted to the behavior of newborn infants despite tremendous amounts of previously learned behavior. The memory loss was total.

  Another department continuously played with the braintaping techniques and equipment. One branch of research tried to separate certain kinds of knowledge and memory from others, it met repeated failures and no success at all. Another branch simplified the method of taping brain patterns and imposing them on another subject. It got to the point where even complex chimpanzee behavior could be taught in three minutes with a taper. The trouble was, the chimpanzees were hopelessly insane within fifteen minutes.

  It was the third department that George supervised personally. There somec was mixed with braintaping technology. And there they found the first hopes of success.

  The somec story had been front-page news. Now, however, the story was buried; each new success seemed to be timed perfectly to coincide with world events that filled the airwaves and the newspapers.

  For example, when George first verified that if a trained rat was braintaped before being drugged with somec, and then the tape was re-impinged on the same, rat’s brain after it woke up, the rat immediately regained all its former training, with no measurable impairment at all. And for six weeks afterward there was no sign of insanity. The results were encouraging enough to call a news conference. The reporters came.

  But the same day, the president announced that aerial photographs proved that while the missiles had been taken out of Quebec, large concentrations of Russian troops were unloading from the trawlers that were making ridiculously heavy traffic between Leningrad and Montreal. There was only one reason for Russian troops to be in Quebec. “Defense,” said the Quebecois PM, during the first interview, before he knew the Russians were going to try to deny it. “Attack,” said the U.S. President, and put the troops on alert. “Just try it,” said the Russian General Secretary.

  The U.S. President didn’t, and the somec story was never noticed.

  When George found that trained chimps could be taped and their tapes played into other chimps’ brains without ill effect provided the receivers had been drugged with somec first, the story was worthy of note, certainly. The reporters thought so, even though the chimps had only been out for a week—

  since insanity had always occurred in such a case within an hour, it seemed that the somec had solved the problem. And the Congressional oversight committee authorized George to begin working to try to save the humans who had been put under somec.

  However, that news never reached the American public because that week Russian, Polish, Hungarian, and East German troops lurched across the heavily defended border of West Germany and the not particularly heavily defended border of Austria. “Stop,” the American President said, “Make us,” the General Secretary said. “Use your missiles,” cried the Chancellor of West Germany. “We can’t be the first to use nuclear weapons,” answered the anguished American President. “De Gaulle told you so,” the French newspapers, now suddenly Gaullist, cried in print. But no one in Germany read them, the Russian troops were pouring into Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark by now. And though American troops were dying, the president could not push the button or give the order or even find anyone willing to do it for him. “American promises are a fart in the wind,” said the ranking Tory MP, and the Labor PM didn’t even deplore the crudity.

  George Rines taped the brains of the next of kin of the five healthiest sleepers. They woke up believing they were the other person, but George’s staff and the relatives carefully helped the former sleeper realize his true identity and step into that role. Four days after the five humans were awakened, the chimps that had been given another chimp’s memories all went crazy. At once. As if on cue.

  And only a week, later, the sleepers joined them.

  Dialogue with Thomas N. Cortia, the last of the five to remain sane: Good morning, Tom.

  “Morning, George.”

  No use hiding this from you.

  “Mrs. Feean went off the deep end.”

  You’re the miracle man now, Tom. How do you do it?

  “Maybe I’m just stubborn and maybe I’m too old to go crazy and maybe I’m already halfway crazy and we don’t know it yet.”

  There’s not much hope.

  “Can’t say I mind.”

  What’s it feel like, Tom?

  “Doesn’t feel too normal. For one thing, it sounds strange even now to have you calling me Tom. All my memories right now have everybody calling me Bill. My brother, right? Don’t feel like my brother. It feels like me.”

  Really?

  “No.”

  Not really?

  “I mean it don’t feel like me. I mean those memories, they just aren’t right at all. Not at all. I know Bill pretty well right now, and I know he’d hate it if he knew how complete my knowledge of his past really is. I never knew he screwed my cousin Sally. At a family reunion, right in the bathroom. That memory’s just been eating at me, George. Cause I wouldn’t have done that.

  There’s no time in my life I would’ve rutted on a woman like that. That’s not my style.”

  What is your style, Tom?

  “I don’t know, dammit. All my memories is telling me that is my style, but it’s wrong. Dead wrong. I don’t know why.”

  What about yourself? Tom, not the Bill memories.

  “All I know about me is the way Bill remembers me. George, it’s impossible to see myself as a stinkin’ little tagalong who’s worth less than horse manure.

  I wasn’t like that. But Bill knows me better than any other living human being knows me, right? It isn’t me, though. Lord, it isn’t me. And I wouldn’t said what Bill said.”

  When?

  “Ever! George, you don’t know what it’s like. As far as I know, I’m Bill. But every damn memory I have is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I wouldn’t act that way. I wouldn’t do those things. I wouldn’t married that tight little bitch he picked up in New York. I wouldn’t raised my kids so pussyfoot easy, they all turned into bastards. My life’s turned out all wrong, George, and I can’t handle that. I’ve done everything wrong in my life, at least that’s how I remember it, and you can tell me it isn’t true and tell me I’m really Tom and not Bill but that doesn’t change what I remember and what I remember doesn’t change the fact that Bill just doesn’t act the way I’d act and . . .

  Calm down, now, Tom. Don’t let it get to you.

  “It was easier the first few days. Hell, George, I was like a man trying out a brand new body. My fingers didn’t act right. My legs kept walking shorter than they oughta. I had plenty to occupy my mind. Especially the cancer. My brother’s memories don’t include himself having any cancer, you know.”

  They can cure it.

  “They can’t cure my head. George, I promise you I’ll hang on as long as I can, but I’ll go bonkers soon enough.”

  Don’t do it on my account.

  “No. No sir, wouldn’t put myself out none for you.”

  Tom, when you go crazy, if you do, we’ll just put you under somec again. And we’ll try to bring you out of it when we know how to do it better.

  “Forget it, George. If it means somebody else’s head in mine, forget it. It’s hell, George. When I die, they’re sending me to hell, and it’ll be just like this.”

  See you tomorrow, Tom.

  “Fat chance, George. But you’re a nice young bastard, even if you are screwing up people’s heads. Have a good day.”

  You too, Tom.

  They tried it again. They started with the assumption that it was too confusing to use a near relative as the source of memories. It was too difficult when the patient knew he had once been someone else. So they took five more; again, those with the least advanced cancer. They gave them the braintapes of people their age and their sex, but told the patients nothing of the experiment. Instead, the patients were told that they had had amnesia and a serious illness, but they were getting better.

  It made no difference.

  Dialogue with Marian Williamson, the last of the five to remain sane. She believed her name was Lydia Harper:

  Lydia, how did you sleep?

  “It was hideous.”

  Hideous? Why?

  “I kept dreaming.”

  About what?

  “You told me you weren’t a shrink.”

  I lied. Haven’t you ever lied?

  “Yes, Dr. Rines, I have.”

  Are you good at it?

  “Very, very good.” [Patient weeps.]

  What’s wrong, Lydia?

  “Doctor, I don’t know, I don’t know, I keep dreaming terrible dreams, I keep seeing myself doing hideous things, what’s wrong with me?”

  I don’t know. You were sick.

  “Not that sick. Oh, I have an occasional pain in my stomach, but nothing too serious, I’m not a hypochondriac, I refuse to complain, but doctor, I can’t bear living with myself.”

  Come now. You’ve lived with yourself all your life.

  “I don’t know how I did it. Dr. Rines, is it possible for a person to keep doing things all her life and then suddenly wish she had never done them? Suddenly wonder how in the world she had ever done them?”

  Like what?

  “I’m not Catholic. I don’t like confessing.”

  Is it that terrible?

  “Sometimes.”

  Tell me the other times.

  “It’ll sound so silly.”

  I promise not to laugh unless you laugh first.

  “I’ll hold you to that, doctor. Because I won’t laugh. And I won’t tell you something silly. I’ll tell you the worst thing of all.”

  Only if you want to.

  “I have to. Oh, God, help me. I’m not an old woman, doctor. I’m only thirty-eight. I haven’t seen a mirror since I woke up after my amnesia, but even if I’m ugly now, doctor, I was once quite a pretty young woman. Doctor, I, even this might sound silly, but it’s true, I haven’t been particularly inhibited, sexually, during my life.”

  It doesn’t seem to be expected these days.

  “And I don’t regret that. But in college, I was strapped for money. Maybe you don’t remember the recession of the seventies, doctor, but my parents couldn’t keep me in school any longer and I was determined to get an education. So I started, I started charging for it.”

  For sex?

  “I was a whore. I’d make appointments through a couple of men I had had as lovers. I charged twenty dollars. I was cheap. But I stayed in college.”

  You aren’t the first woman to have done that.

  “I know it. That isn’t it, it isn’t that I disapprove, though I do. I mean, I disapprove now, but until I woke up just now I never did. What matters is that I can’t believe I ever did it.”

  Yet you remember that you did.

  “But I wouldn’t do that!”

  But you did it. You’re just denying the truth.

  “I know, I know it, but doctor, in the name of God I swear I would never, never, never do that. It is impossible. I can’t live with myself having done that!” [Patient weeps uncontrollably.]

  It’s just one thing, Lydia.

  “It’s not. It’s the way I wore my makeup, deliberately to be seductive. I can see myself sitting there at the mirror, relishing the effect. The memory makes me sick. And the way I always let my father run my life. For years I did whatever he said to do. I was so sorry when he died. Now I’m glad he’s dead.

  And that’s terrible, because I remembered that I loved him. Why should I forget how much I loved him?”

  I don’t know.

  “Because he was a selfish, controlling bastard, that’s why. Oh, I can’t believe I said that. I don’t use language like that, doctor. I sleep with men for money, but I don’t use language like that. I’m going crazy, doctor. I’m losing my mind.

  Nothing in my life seems to fit together anymore. I keep wanting to kill myself.”

  I hope you won’t.

  “Do you think these pains in my stomach could be cancer?”

  We can have that checked.

  “If I have cancer, doctor, I’ll kill myself. That would be the last straw.”

  We’ll have you checked. But don’t talk about killing yourself.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve never talked that way before. I don’t know why I’m talking like that now. Thanks for listening to me, Dr. Rines. Am I really insane?”

  You sound quite healthy to me.

  “Really? You wouldn’t lie?”

  I would lie, if I thought it would do any good. But right now I’m not lying.

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  I’ll see you tomorrow.

  When George saw her the next day, she was catatonic and would not speak.

  George examined the dossier that had been vaulted away along with her body when she first went on somec. The dossier on Marian Williamson, not on Lydia Harper. The woman was a ruthless businesswoman, had ruined dozens of other men and women in her race to the top of the business world.

  She couldn’t cope with failure, she stated that in her own autobiography. She refused to be thwarted, even by cancer. That was why she had taken somec.

  The autobiography also mentioned a psychotherapist in Boston, and George used government funds to bring him out to Berkeley.

  “Dr. Manwaring, you don’t know how much I appreciate your coming.”

  “When you explained the situation, how could I refuse?”

  “I’m going to ask you to violate your ethics, doctor. You know the situation Marian Williamson is in. It would help us a lot to understand what happened to her if you could tell us what she was. like before the somec.”

  “It’s unethical, all right, but I knew that’s what you’d want to know, and that’s why I came out. I’m prepared to help. I’m sure she’d approve of my violating her confidence if it might help to save her life. She’s in favor of survival. Or rather, of survival on the best possible terms.”

  George Rines showed him transcripts of the dialogues with Marian Williamson, who now believed herself to be Lydia Harper.

  “This is odd,” Dr. Manwaring pointed out.

  “I know,” George said. “How odd?”

  “Well, I should tell you that I don’t believe in a soul. I don’t even believe in a mind, apart from brain activity. But I don’t know how to explain this without resorting to something like that.”

  “You haven’t told me what you’re trying to explain.”

  “Marian Williamson was a very religious woman. Not in any formal way, of course. Not with any organization. But she believed profoundly in God. And believed that he was taking a direct role in her life. Whenever she overcame a rival for a position in her business, she ascribed the victory to God. Actually, of course, she had undercut the poor devil and eaten the ground out from under him. Or her. She had no favoritism for either sex. She’d shaft anybody.

  But, you see, in this dialogue it could be Marian. ‘Oh, God, help me,’ she says.

  I think she says that in three of the dialogues, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes.

  “And something else. This sex thing. Marian had an active sex life. She was no prude. Never married, never had children, but certainly knew plenty of men and tasted the fruits of the garden of Eden, so to speak. But this passage in the last dialogue, where she talks about selling herself. That was very important to her. She’d never sleep with anybody who ever worked in her field. She never involved her business in her love life. She was very emphatic about that, sex was for love, not for money. You see? This could have been her. Not the speech patterns, necessarily, I’m not an expert on that. But from what you told me of somec, there shouldn’t be any survival of memory, should there?”