“Walking,” Quail said, “to my death.” By your officers’ guns, he added as an afterthought. “How can you be sure it wouldn’t be enough?” he demanded. “Don’t the Rekal techniques work?”

  “As we said. If you’re given a set of standard, average memories you get—restless. You’d inevitably seek out Rekal or one of its competitors again. We can’t go through this a second time.”

  “Suppose,” Quail said, “once my authentic memories have been canceled, something more vital than standard memories are implanted. Something which would act to satisfy my craving,” he said. “That’s been proved; that’s probably why you initially hired me. But you ought to be able to come up with something else—something equal. I was the richest man on Terra but I finally gave all my money to educational foundations. Or I was a famous deep-space explorer. Anything of that sort; wouldn’t one of those do?”

  Silence.

  “Try it,” he said desperately. “Get some of your top-notch military psychiatrists; explore my mind. Find out what my most expansive daydream is.” He tried to think. “Women,” he said. “Thousands of them, like Don Juan had. An interplanetary playboy—a mistress in every city on Earth, Luna and Mars. Only I gave that up, out of exhaustion. Please,” he begged. “Try it.”

  “You’d voluntarily surrender, then?” the voice inside his head asked. “If we agreed, to arrange such a solution? If it’s possible?”

  After an interval of hesitation he said, “Yes.” “I’ll take the risk, he said to himself, that you don’t simply kill me.

  “You make the first move,” the voice said presently. “Turn yourself over to us. And we’ll investigate that line of possibility. If we can’t do it, however, if your authentic memories begin to crop up again as they’ve done at this time, then—” There was silence and then the voice finished, “Well have to destroy you. As you must understand. Well, Quail, you still want to try?”

  “Yes,” he said. Because the alternative was death now—and for certain. At least this way he had a chance, slim as it was.

  “You present yourself at our main barracks in New York,” the voice of the Interplan cop resumed. “At 580 Fifth Avenue, floor twelve. Once you’ve surrendered yourself well have our psychiatrists begin on you; well have personality-profile tests made. Well attempt to determine your absolute, ultimate fantasy wish—then we’ll bring you back to Rekal, Incorporated, here; get them in on it, fulfilling that wish in vicarious surrogate retrospection. And—good luck. We do owe you something; you acted as a capable instrument for us.” The voice lacked malice; if anything, they—the organization—felt sympathy toward him.

  “Thanks,” Quail said. And began searching for a robot cab.

  “Mr. Quail,” the stern-faced, elderly Interplan psychiatrist said, “you possess a most interesting wish-fulfillment dream fantasy. Probably nothing such as you consciously entertain or suppose. This is commonly the way; I hope it won’t upset you too much to hear about it.”

  The senior ranking Interplan officer present said briskly, “He better not be too much upset to hear about it, not if he expects not to get shot.”

  “Unlike the fantasy of wanting to be an Interplan undercover agent,” the psychiatrist continued, “which, being relatively speaking a product of maturity, had a certain plausibility to it, this production is a grotesque dream of your childhood; it is no wonder you fail to recall it. Your fantasy is this: you are nine years old, walking alone down a rustic lane. An unfamiliar variety of space vessel from another star system lands directly in front of you. No one on Earth but you, Mr. Quail, sees it. The creatures within are very small and helpless, somewhat on the order of field mice, although they are attempting to invade Earth; tens of thousands of other such ships will soon be on their way, when this advance party gives the go-ahead signal.”

  “And I suppose I stop them,” Quail said, experiencing a mixture of amusement and disgust. “Single-handed I wipe them out. Probably by stepping on them with my foot.”

  “No,” the psychiatrist said patiently. “You halt the invasion, but not by destroying them. Instead, you show them kindness and mercy, even though by telepathy—their mode of communication—you know why they have come. They have never seen such humane traits exhibited by any sentient organism, and to show their appreciation they make a covenant with you.”

  Quail said, “They won’t invade Earth as long as I’m alive.”

  “Exactly.” To the Interplan officer the psychiatrist said, “You can see it does fit his personality, despite his feigned scorn.”

  “So by merely existing,” Quail said, feeling a growing pleasure, “by simply being alive, I keep Earth safe from alien rule. I’m in effect, then, the most important person on Terra. Without lifting a finger.”

  “Yes, indeed, sir,” the psychiatrist said. “And this is bedrock in your psyche; this is a lifelong childhood fantasy. Which, without depth and drug therapy, you never would have recalled. But it has always existed in you; it went underneath, but never ceased.”

  To McClane, who sat intently listening, the senior police official said, “Can you implant an extra-factual memory pattern that extreme in him?”

  “We get handed every possible type of wish-fantasy there is,” McClane said. “Frankly, I’ve heard a lot worse than this. Certainly we can handle it. Twenty-four hours from now he won’t just wish he’d saved Earth; he’ll devoutly believe it really happened.”

  The senior police official said, “You can start the job, then. In preparation we’ve already once again erased the memory in him of his trip to Mars.”

  Quail said, “What trip to Mars?”

  No one answered him, so reluctantly, he shelved the question. And anyhow a police vehicle had now put in its appearance; he,’ McClane and the senior police officer crowded into it, and presently they were on their way to Chicago and Rekal, Incorporated.

  “You had better make no errors this time,” the police officer said to heavyset, nervous-looking McClane.

  “I can’t see what could go wrong,” McClane mumbled, perspiring. “This has nothing to do with Mars or Interplan. Single-handedly stopping an invasion of Earth from another star-system.” He shook his head at that. “Wow, what a kid dreams up. And by pious virtue, too; not by force. It’s sort of quaint.” He dabbed at his forehead with a large linen pocket handkerchief.

  Nobody said anything.

  “In fact,” McClane said, “it’s touching.”

  “But arrogant,” the police official said starkly. “Inasmuch as when he dies the invasion will resume. No wonder he doesn’t recall it; it’s the most grandiose fantasy I ever ran across.” He eyed Quail with disapproval. “And to think we put this man on our payroll.”

  When they reached Rekal, Incorporated the receptionist, Shirley, met them breathlessly in the outer office. “Welcome back, Mr. Quail,” she fluttered, her melon-shaped breasts—today painted an incandescent orange—bobbing with agitation. “I’m sorry everything worked out so badly before; I’m sure this time it’ll go better.”

  Still repeatedly dabbing at his shiny forehead with his neatly-folded Irish linen handkerchief, McClane said, “It better.” Moving with rapidity he rounded up Lowe and Keeler, escorted them and Douglas Quail to the work area, and then, with Shirley and the senior police officer, returned to his familiar office. To wait.

  “Do we have a packet made up for this, Mr. McClane?” Shirley asked, bumping against him in her agitation, then coloring modestly.

  “I think we do.” He tried to recall, then gave up and consulted the formal chart. “A combination,” he decided aloud, “of packets Eighty-one, Twenty, and Six.” From the vault section of the chamber behind his desk he fished out the appropriate packets, carried them to his desk for inspection. “From Eighty-one,” he explained, “a magic healing rod given him—the client in question, this time Mr. Quail—by the race of beings from another system. A token of their gratitude.”

  “Does it work?” the police officer asked curiously.

  “It did once,” McClane explained. “But he, ahem, you see, used it up years ago, healing right and left. Now it’s only a memento. But he remembers it working spectacularly.” He chuckled, then opened packet Twenty. “Document from the UN Secretary General thanking him for saving Earth; this isn’t precisely appropriate, because part of Quail’s fantasy is that no one knows of the invasion except himself, but for the sake of verisimilitude we’ll throw it in.” He inspected packet Six, then. What came from this? He couldn’t recall; frowning, he dug into the plastic bag as Shirley and the Interplan police officer watched intently.

  “Writing,” Shirley said. “In a funny language.”

  “This tells who they were,” McClane said, “and where they came from. Including a detailed star map logging their flight here and the system of origin. Of course it’s in their script, so he can’t read it. But he remembers them reading it to him in his own tongue.” He placed the three artifacts in the center of the desk. “These should be taken to Quail’s conapt,” he said to the police officer. “So that when he gets home he’ll find them. And it’ll confirm his fantasy. SOP—standard operating procedure.” He chuckled apprehensively, wondering how matters were going with Lowe and Keeler.

  The intercom buzzed. “Mr. McClane, I’m sorry to bother you.” It was Lowe’s voice; he froze as he recognized it, froze and became mute. “But something’s come up. Maybe it would be better if you came in here and supervised. Like before, Quail reacted well to the narkidrine; he’s unconscious, relaxed and receptive. But—”

  McClane sprinted for the work area.

  On a hygienic bed Douglas Quail lay breathing slowly and regularly, eyes half-shut, dimly conscious of those a-round him.

  “We started interrogating him,” Lowe said, white-faced. “To find out exactly when to place the fantasy-memory of him single-handedly having saved Earth. And strangely enough—”

  “They told me not to tell,” Douglas Quail mumbled in a dull drug-saturated voice. “That was the agreement. I wasn’t even supposed to remember. But how could I forget an event like that?”

  I guess it would be hard, McClane reflected. But you did—until now.

  “They even gave me a scroll,” Quail mumbled, “of gratitude. I have it hidden in my conapt; I’ll show it to you.”

  To the Interplan officer who had followed after him, McClane said, “Well, I offer the suggestion that you better not kill him. If you do they’ll return.”

  “They also gave me a magic invisible destroying rod,” Quail mumbled, eyes totally shut now. “That’s how I killed that man on Mars you sent me to take out. It’s in my drawer along with the box ^of Martian maw-worms and dried-up plant life.”

  Wordlessly, the Interplan officer turned and stalked from the work area.

  I might as well put those packets of proof-artifacts away, McClane said to himself resignedly. He walked, step by step, back to his office. Including the citation from the UN Secretary General. After all—

  The real one probably would not be long in coming.

  CAPTIVE MARKET

  Saturday morning, about eleven o’clock, Mrs. Edna Berthelson was ready to make her little trip. Although it was a weekly affair, consuming four hours of her valuable business time, she made the profitable trip alone, preserving for herself the integrity of her find.

  Because that was what it was. A find, a stroke of incredible luck. There was nothing else like it, and she had been in business fifty-three years. More, if the years in her father’s store were counted—but they didn’t really count. That had been for the experience (her father made that clear); no pay was involved. But it gave her the understanding of business, the feel of operating a small country store, dusting pencils and unwrapping fly paper and serving up dried beans and chasing the cat out of the cracker barrel where he liked to sleep.

  Now the store was old, and so was she. The big heavyset, black-browed man who was her father had died long ago; her own children and grandchildren had been spawned, had crept out over the world, were everywhere. One by one they had appeared, lived in Walnut Creek, sweated through the dry, sun-baked summers, and then gone on, leaving one by one as they had come. She and the store sagged and settled a little more each year, became a little more frail and stem and grim. A little more themselves.

  That morning very early Jackie said: “Grandmaw, where are you going?” Although he knew, of course, where she was going. She was going out in her truck as she always did; this was the Saturday trip. But he liked to ask; he was pleased by the stability of the answer. He liked having it always the same.

  To another question there was another unvarying answer, but this one didn’t please him so much. It came in answer to the question: “Can I come along?”

  The answer to that was always no.

  Edna Berthelson laboriously carried packages and boxes from the back of the store to the rusty, upright pickup truck. Dust lay over the truck; its red-metal sides were bent and corroded. The motor was already on; it was wheezing and heating up in the midday sun. A few drab chickens pecked in the dust around its wheels. Under the porch of the store a plump white shaggy sheep squatted, its face vapid, indolent, indifferently watching the activity of the day. Cars and trucks rolled along Mount Diablo Boulevard. Along Lafayette Avenue a few shoppers strolled, farmers and their wives, petty businessmen, farm hands, some city women in their gaudy slacks and print shirts, sandals, bandanas. In the front of the store the radio tinnily played popular songs.

  “I asked you a question,” Jackie said righteously. “I asked you where you’re going.”

  Mrs. Berthelson bent stiffly over to lift the last armload of boxes. Most of the loading had been done the night before by Arnie the Swede, the hulking white-haired hired-man who did the heavy work around the store. “What?” she murmured vaguely, her gray, wrinkled face twisting with concentration. “You know perfectly well where I’m going.”

  Jackie trailed plaintively after her, as she re-entered the store to look for her order book. “Can I come? Please, can I come along? You never let me come—you never let anybody come.”

  “Of course not,” Mrs. Berthelson said sharply. “It’s nobody’s business.”

  “But I want to come along,” Jackie explained.

  Slyly, the little old woman turned her gray head and peered back at him, a worn, colorless bird taking in a world perfectly understood. “So does everybody else.” Thin lips twitching in a secret smile, Mrs. Berthelson said softly: “But nobody can.”

  Jackie didn’t like the sound of that. Sullenly, he retired to a corner, hands stuck deep in the pockets of his jeans, not taking part in something that was denied him, not approving of something in which he could not share. Mrs. Berthelson ignored him. She pulled her frayed blue, sweater around her thin shoulders, located her sunglasses, pulled the screen door shut after her, and strode briskly to the truck.

  Getting the truck into gear was an intricate process. For a time she sat tugging crossly at the shift, pumping the clutch up and down, waiting impatiently for the teeth to fall into place. At last, screeching and chattering, the gears meshed; the truck leaped a little, and Mrs. Berthelson gunned the motor and released the hand brake.

  As the truck roared jerkily down the driveway, Jackie detached himself from the shade by the house and followed along after it. His mother was nowhere in sight. Only the dozing sheep and the two scratching chickens were visible. Even Amie the Swede was gone, probably getting a cold coke. Now was a fine time. Now was the best time he had ever had. And it was going to be sooner or later anyhow, because he was determined to come along.

  Grabbing hold of the tailboard of the truck, Jackie hoisted himself up and landed face-down on the tightly-packed heaps of packages and boxes. Under him the truck bounced and bumped. Jackie hung on for dear life; clutching at the boxes he pulled his legs under him, crouched down, and desperately sought to keep from being flung off. Gradually the truck righted itself, and the torque diminished. He breathed a sigh of relief and settled gratefully down.

  He was on his way. He was along, finally. Accompanying Mrs. Berthelson on her secret weekly trip, her strange covert enterprise from which—he had heard—she made a fabulous profit. A trip which nobody understood, and which he knew, in the deep recesses of his child’s mind, was something awesome and wonderful, something that would be well worth the trouble.

  He had hoped fervently that she wouldn’t stop to check her load along the way.

  With infinite care, Tellman prepared himself a cup of “coffee.” First, he carried a tin cup of roasted grain over to the gasoline drum the colony used as a mixing bowl. Dumping it in, he hurried to add a handful of chicory and a few fragments of dried bran. Dirt-stained hands trembling, he managed to get a fire started among the ashes and coals under the pitted metal grate. He set a pan of tepid water on the flames and searched for a spoon.

  “What are you up to?” his wife demanded from behind him.

  “Uh,” Tellman muttered. Nervously, he edged between Gladys and the meal. “Just fooling around.” In spite of himself, his voice took on a nagging whine. “I have a right to fix myself something, don’t I? As much right as anybody else.”

  “You ought to be over helping.”

  “I was. I wrenched something in my back.” The wiry middle-aged man ducked uneasily away from his wife; tugging at the remains of his soiled white shirt, he retreated toward the door of the shack. “Damn it, a person has to rest, sometimes.”

  “Rest when we get there.” Gladys wearily brushed back her thick dark-blonde hair. “Suppose everybody was like you.”

  Tellman flushed resentfully. “Who plotted our trajectory? Who’s done all the navigation work?”

  A faint ironic smile touched his wife’s chapped lips. “We’ll see how your charts work out,” she said. “Then we’ll talk about it.”

  Enraged, Tellman pinned out of the shack, into the blinding late-aftemoon sunlight.