"Now, if you please, General Crawford-"

  "The fee," Carlotta said.

  "Ah. Yes. Yes, of course." Magalhaes pulled crumpled old dirty bills

  from his wallet, imperial money, green and gold. "Will this be enough,

  do you think?"

  She stared. It was more than she made in six months. But some demon

  took hold of her and she said, recklessly, "Another five hundred should do

  it."

  "Of course," the Brazilian said. "No problem!" He put another bill on

  the edge of the table and aimed his lens at the old man. "I am so

  eager to record his memories, I can hardly tell you. Now, if you would

  ask the general to discuss the day of the famous battle, first-"

  Carlotta bent close to the old man's audio intake and said, "Uncle,

  this man wants you to talk about your war experiences. He's going to

  record a sort of memoir of you. Just say whatever you can remember,

  all right? He'll be taking your picture, and this machine will record

  your words."

  "The war," Uncle James said. And immediately lapsed into silence.

  The Brazilian watched, big-eyed, holding his breath as if he feared it

  would interfere with the flow of the old man's words.

  But there were no words. Carlotta, who had tactfully left the Brazilian's

  money on the table, thinking it would look a little better not to pocket it

  until after the interview, began to wish now that she had taken it right

  away.

  The silence became very long indeed.

  She reached down and gave the old man a little spurt of

  heptocholinase through the IV line. That seemed to do it.

  "-the invasion," Uncle James said, as if he'd been speaking silently

  for some time and only now was bothering to come up to the audible

  level. And then words poured out of him as she had never heard them come

  before, bubbling nonstop spew. It was like the breaking of a dam. "We were

  dug into the trenches, you understand, and the Boche infantry came

  sneaking up at us from the east, under cover of mustard gas-oh, that

  was awful, the gas-but we called in an air strike right away, we hit them

  hard with napalm and antipersonnel shrapnel, and then we came ashore

  with our landing craft, hit them at Anzio and Normandy both. That was

  the beginning of it. Our entire strategy, you understand, was built around

  a terminal nuclear hit at Bull Run, but first we knew we had to close

  the Dardanelles and knock out their command center back of Cam Ranh

  Bay. Once we had that, we'd only need to worry about the Prussian

  cavalry and the possibility of a Saracen suicide charge, that wasn't a real big

  risk, we figured, all the Rebels were pretty well demoralized already

  and it didn't make sense that they'd have the balls to come back at us

  after all we'd thrown at them, so-"

  "What is he saying, please?" the Brazilian asked softly. "He speaks so

  quickly. I am not quite understanding him, I think."

  "He does sound a little confused," said Carlotta.

  "Well, we drove the Turks completely out of the Gulf of Corinth, and

  were heading on toward Lepanto with sixty-four galleys, full steam

  ahead. Then came a message from Marlborough, get our asses over to

  Blenheim fast as we knew how, the French were trying to break

  through--or was it the Poles?-- well, hell, it was a mess, the winter was

  coming on, that lunatic Hitler actually thought he could take out

  Russia with a fall offensive and damned if he didn't get within eighty

  miles of Moscow before the Russkies could stop him, and then-then-"

  Uncle James looked up. There was a stunned expression on his face. All

  his indicators were flashing in the caution zone. His cheeks were flushed

  and he was breathing hard.

  Carlotta let her hand rest lightly on the little stack of bank notes.

  "He's very overexcited," she explained. "This has been a big day for

  him. He hasn't been in San Francisco for forty-three years, you know."

  "Wait," Uncle James said. He stretched a hand toward the Brazilian.

  "There's something that I need to say."

  There was an unfamiliar note in his voice suddenly, a forcefulness, a

  strange clarity. The cloudiness was gone from it, the husky senile

  woolliness. It sounded now like the voice of someone else entirely,

  someone a hundred years younger than Uncle James.

  The Brazilian nodded vigorously. "Yes, tell us everything, General!

  Everything."

  Uncle James smiled. There was an eerie look on his face. "I wasn't a

  general, for one thing. I was a programmer. I never fought an actual battle.

  I certainly never killed anybody. Not anybody. It's all a lie, that I was

  any kind of hero. It was just an error in the computer records and I

  never said anything about it to anybody, and now it's so long ago that

  nobody remembers what was what. Nobody but me. And most of the time

  I don't even remember it myself."

  Uh-oh, Carlotta thought.

  As secretively as she could manage it, she slid the bills from the table

  into her purse. The Brazilian didn't appear to notice.

  Uncle James said, "It was only a two-bit war, anyway. A lot of miserable

  skirmishes between a bunch of jerkwater towns gone wild with envy of

  what they each thought the other one had, and in fact nobody had

  anything at all. That was what ended the war, when we all figured out

  that there was nothing anywhere, that we were wiped out from top to

  bottom." He laughed. "And there I sat in the command center at the

  university the whole time, writing software. That was how I spent the

  war. A hundred goddamn years ago."

  The Brazilian said, "His voice is so clear, suddenly."

  "He's terribly tired," said Carlotta. "He doesn't know what he's

  saying. I should have just taken him right home. The interview's over.

  It's too much of a strain on him."

  "Could we not have him continue a small while longer? But perhaps we

  should allow him to rest for a little," the Brazilian suggested.

  "Rest," Uncle James said. "That's all I fucking want. But they don't

  ever let you rest. You fight the Crusades, you fight the Peloponnesian,

  you fight the Civil, you get so tired, you get so fucking tired. All

  those wars. I fought 'em all. Every one of them at once. You run the

  simulations and you've got the Nazis over here and Hannibal there and

  the Monterey crowd trying to bust in up the center, and Hastings, and

  Tours, and San Jose-Grant and Lee-Charlemagne-Napoleon-Eisenhower-Patton . .

  . "

  His voice was still weirdly lucid and strong.

  But it was terrible to sit here listening to him babbling like this.

  Enough is enough, Carlotta decided. She reached down quickly and hit

  main cerebral and put him to sleep. Between one moment and the next

  he shut down completely.

  The Brazilian gasped. "What has happened? He has not died, has he?"

  "No, he's all right. Just sleeping. He was too tired for this. I'm

  sorry, Mr. Magal-Magal-" Carlotta rose. The money was safely stowed

  away. "He's badly in need of rest, just as you heard him say. I'm going

  to take him home. Perhaps we can do this interview some other time.

  I don't know when. I have your card. I'll call you, all right?"

  She flexed her palm and sent the chair moving out into the main lobby

  of the hotel, and toward the door.

  The driver, thank God, was still sitting there. Carlotta beckoned to him.

  They were halfway across the bay before she brought the old man back

  to consciousness. He sat up rigidly in the chair, looked around, peered

  for a moment at the scenery, the afternoon light on the East Bay

  hills ahead of them, the puffy clouds that had come drifting down from

  somewhere.

  "Pretty," he said. His voice had its old muddled quality again. "What a

  goddamn pretty place! Are we on the bridge? We were in the city, were

  we?"

  "Yes," she told him. "For the anniversary of the Armistice. We had

  ourselves a time, too. The Emperor himself hung that medal around your

  neck."

  "The Emperor, yes. Fine figure of a man. Norton the Ninth."

  "Fourteenth, I think."

  "Yes. Yes, right. Norton the Fourteenth," the old man said vaguely. "I

  meant Fourteenth." He fingered the medal idly and seemed to disappear

  for a moment into some abyss of thought where he was completely alone.

  She heard him murmuring to himself, a faint indistinct flow of

  unintelligible sound. Then suddenly he said, reverting once more to that

  tone of the same strength and lucidity that he had been able to muster

  for just a moment at the Imperial Hotel, "What happened to that

  slick-looking rich foreigner? He was right there. Where did he go?"

  "You were telling him about General Patton at Bull Run, and you got

  overexcited, and you weren't making any sense, Uncle. I had to shut

  you down for a little time."

  "General Patton? Bull Run?"

  "It was that time you nuked the Rebels," Carlotta said. "It's not

  important if you don't remember, Uncle. It was all so long ago. How

  could anyone expect you to remember?" She patted him gently on the

  shoulder. "Anyway, we had ourselves a time in the city today, didn't

  we? That's all that matters. You got yourself a medal, and we had

  ourselves a time."

  He chuckled and nodded, and said something in a voice too soft to

  understand, and slipped off easily into sleep.

  The car sped onward, eastward across the bridge, back toward Berkeley.

  ======================

  The Man Who Never Forgot

  by Robert Silverberg

  ======================

  Copyright (c)1958, 1996 by Agberg, Ltd.

  First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Feb. 1958

  Fictionwise Contemporary

  Science Fiction

  ---------------------------------

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the purchaser. If you did not purchase this ebook directly from Fictionwise.com then you are in violation of copyright law and are subject to severe fines. Please visit www.fictionwise.com to purchase a legal copy. Fictionwise.com offers a reward for information leading to the conviction of copyright violators of Fictionwise ebooks.

  ---------------------------------

  He saw the girl waiting in line outside a big Los Angeles movie house, on a mildly foggy Tuesday morning. She was slim and pale, barely five-three, with stringy flaxen hair, and she was alone. He remembered her, of course.

  He knew it would be a mistake, but he crossed the street anyway and walked up along the theatre line to where she stood.

  'Hello,' he said.

  She turned, stared at him blankly, flicked the tip of her tongue out for an instant over her lips. 'I don't believe I -- '

  'Tom Niles,' he said. 'Pasadena, New Year's Day, 1955. You sat next to me. Ohio State 20, Southern Cal 7. You don't remember?'

  'A football game? But I hardly ever -- I mean -- I'm sorry, mister. I -- '

  Someone else in the line moved forward towards him with a tight hard scowl on his face. Niles knew when he was beaten. He smiled apologetically and said, 'I'm sorry, miss. I guess I made a mistake. I took you for someone I knew -- a Miss Bette Torrance. Excuse me.'

  And he strode rapidly away. He had not gone more than ten feet when he heard the little surprised gasp and the 'But I _am_ Bette Torrance!' -- but he kept going.

  _I should know better after twenty-eight years, he thought bitterly. But I forget the most basic fact -- that even though I remember people, they don't necessarily remember me -- _

  He walked wearily to the corner, turned right, and started down a new street, one whose shops were totally unfamiliar to him and which, therefore, he had never seen before, His mind, stimulated to its normal pitch of activity by the incident outside the theatre, spewed up a host of tangential memories like the good machine it was: _1 Jan. 1955. Rose Bowl Pasadena California Seat G126; warm day, high humidity, arrived in stadium 12:03 P.M., PST. Came alone. Girl in next seat wearing blue cotton dress, while oxfords, carrying Southern Cal pennant. Talked to her. Name Bette Torrance, senior at Southern Cal, government major. Had a date for the game but he came down with flu symptoms night before, insisted she see game anyway. Seat on other side of her empty. Bought her a hot dog, $.20 (no mustard) --

  There was more, much more. Niles forced it back down. There was the virtually stenographic report of their conversation all that day:

  ('... I hope we win. I saw the last Bowl game we won, two years ago...'

  '... Yes, that was 1953. Southern Cal 7, Wisconsin 0 ... and two straight wins in 1944-45 over Washington and Tennessee ...'

  '... Gosh, you know a lot about football! What did you do, memorize the record book?')

  And the old memories. The jeering yell of freckled Joe Merritt that warm April day in 1937 -- _who are you, Einstein?_ And Buddy Call saying acidly on 8 November 1939, _Here comes Tommy Niles, the human adding machine. Get him!_ And then the bright stinging pain of a snowball landing just below his left clavicle, the pain that he could summon up as easily as any of the other pain-memories he carried with him. He winced and closed his eyes suddenly, as if struck by the icy pellet here on a Los Angeles street on a foggy Tuesday morning.

  They didn't call him the human adding machine any more. Now it was the human tape recorder; the derisive terms had to keep pace with the passing decades. Only Niles himself remained unchanging, The Boy With The Brain Like A Sponge grown up into The Man With The Brain Like A Sponge, still cursed with the same terrible gift.

  His data-cluttered mind ached. He saw a diminutive yellow sports car parked on the far side of the street, recognized it by its make and model and colour and licence number as the car belonging to Leslie F. Marshall, twenty-six, blond hair, blue eyes, television actor with the following credits --

  Wincing, Niles applied the cutoff circuit and blotted out the upwelling data. He had met Marshall once, six months ago, at a party given by a mutual friend -- an erstwhile mutual friend; Niles found it difficult to keep friends for long. He had spoken with the actor for perhaps ten minutes and had added that much more baggage to his mind.

  It was time to move on, Niles decided. He had been in Los Angeles ten months. The burden of accumulated memories was getting too heavy; he was greeting too many people who had long since forgotten him _(curse my John Q. Average build, 5 feet 9, 163 pounds, brownish hair, brownish eyes, no unduly prominent physical features, no distinguishing scars except those inside,_ he thought). He contemplated returning to San Francisco, and decided against it. He had been there only a year ago; Pasadena, two years ago; the time had come, he realized, for another eastward jaunt.

  _Back and forth across the face of America goes Thomas Richard Niles, Der fliegende Hollander, the Wandering Jew, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Human Tape Recorder_. He smiled at a newsboy who had sold him a copy of the Examiner on 13 May past, got the usual blank stare in return, and headed for the nearest bus terminal.

  For Niles the long journey had begun on 11 October 1929, in the small Ohio town of Lowry Bridge. He was third of three children, born of seemingly normal parents, Henry Niles (b. 1896), Mary Niles (b. 1899). His older brother and sister had shown no extraordinary manifestations. Tom had.

  It began as soon as he was old enough to form words; a neighbour woman on the front porch peered into the house where he was playing, and remarked to his mother, 'Look how _big_ he's getting, Mary!'

  He was less than a year old. He had replied, in virtually the same tone of voice, _'Look how_ big _he's getting, Mary!'_ It caused a sensation, even though it was only mimicry, not even speech.

  He spent his first twelve years in Lowry Bridge, Ohio. In later years, he often wondered how he had been able to last there so long.

  He began school at the age of four, because there was no keeping him back; his classmates were five and six, vastly superior to him in physical coordination, vastly inferior in everything else. He could read. He could even write, after a fashion, though his babyish muscles tired easily from holding a pen. And he could remember.

  He remembered everything. He remembered his parents' quarrels and repeated the exact words of them to anyone who cared to listen, until his father whipped him and threatened to kill him if he ever did _that_ again. He remembered that too. He remembered the lies his brother and sister told, and took great pains to set the record straight. He learned eventually not to do that, either. He remembered things people had said, and corrected them when they later deviated from their earlier statements.

  He remembered everything.

  He read a textbook once and it stayed with him. When the teacher asked a question based on the day's assignment, Tommy Niles' skinny arm was in the air long before the others had even really assimilated the question. After a while, his teacher made it clear to him that he could _not_ answer every question, whether he had the answer first or not; there were twenty other pupils in the class. The other pupils in the class made that abundantly clear to him, after school.