Chapter 5 — DORIAN GRAY

They brought me into the painful light again and cleaned me up for another interview. "Do you remember any more?" the interrogator inquired.

Did I remember more? Most of my first year on the planet of Jupiter had suddenly been revealed to me. Now I knew that it was the arena of politics I had entered after my departure from the Navy. It had all been triggered by the key word MEGAN. Somehow I had prepared myself to respond in that manner to that key word, when I understood that it was a key, much as a computer will respond to the touch on a particular button only when programmed to do so. But this new memory I surely had to conceal from my captors, for it was well within the range they believed they had erased.

"Some more," I said guardedly, glancing at the pain-box.

"Your military service."

Oh. I concentrated on that. "Yes, I went through basic training. There was a girl, Juana—I shared quarters with her. She was a Hispanic refugee, like me. A very nice, very pretty young woman. But I had to leave her, when..." I found that the tremendous volume of experience triggered by the word Megan was an isolated thing; my military experience remained at the prior pace of recovery. Except that, as if it were a glimpse into the future, I knew I had married more than once and left the service with the rank of captain. I just had no memory of how I had achieved it. Perhaps there was a key term to evoke that experience. But it seemed that my prior self had not wished me to have that information at this stage, and I had to trust the judgment of that self. Thus my Navy memories were returning at the normal crawl permitted by recovery from the mem-wash; it would probably take months to cover the fifteen years or so I had evidently spent there.

"You like women?" Scar asked.

I was somewhat taken aback by this seeming camaraderie, "Yes," I answered.

"How do you feel?"

I considered that. "Low," I concluded.

"Nauseous?"

"No. Just low." The malaise had developed slowly, so that only now did I realize I had it.

"Try this," he said, bringing me another cup of the beverage he had given me before.

I drank it without protest. I knew he would torture me with the pain-box if I did not, but also I welcomed this distraction from the subject of my returning memories. In a moment I began to feel better, physically. "Yes, good," i said. "What is it?"

He shrugged. "Merely an upper. You will have all you want, if you cooperate with us."

"But I don't know what you want of me," I said plaintively.

"Merely your cooperation," he said. "A positive attitude. With that, all else is possible."

Just as I had endeavored to gain the positive attitude of Megan. This man evidently wanted a lot more of me than I would ordinarily give. But this was not the time to arouse his suspicion. "Anything you want," I agreed.

"First, a lesson-session," he said.

He brought me simple gray clothing—shirt, trousers, slippers—and I donned it, relieved that the pain-box had not been invoked. I felt much better now; clothing has a strong psychological effect. But, of course, the drug contributed considerably, though the high did not seem to be as strong as it had been before. Maybe they had given me a weaker dose. I didn't like getting drugged, but I still didn't see any point in resisting. They would do with my body as they wished. And there was something from my Megan memory—a reference to my supposed immunity to addiction. Could that be true?

We entered a separate chamber where there was a tiny library of books and two easy chairs. I was told to sit down. It was a luxury to inhabit such a chair after the hard and filthy floor of my dark cell.

"Do you remember how the present political order came about?" the man asked me, taking the other chair. It was easy to imagine that we were merely two acquaintances indulging in a postprandial conversation. But I had not forgotten the dark cell or the pain-box—nor was I intended to. This was a technique I recognized: the carrot and the stick.

I focused on the question. "The—the nations of Earth laid claim to the properties of the Solar System, in accordance with their representations on the mother planet," I said, as my early education came back to me. "When the gee-shield made System colonization feasible, there was an agreement in the old United Nations, now called the United Planets. They tried to do it very fairly, so there would be no war in space." I paused to smile, and Scar smiled with me. We both knew that there were as many wars in space as there had been on Earth, so that this aspect of the compromise had been a foolish dream. Man had exported his nature with his technology. "The nations of old Europe took the planet Uranus, with its moons and rings, and set up governments like those they had on Earth, along with their individual languages and cultures. The Asian nations took over Saturn, with its more spectacular moons and rings, and the American nations got the big prize, Jupiter. The Africans got the hot planets; Mercury and Venus. Of course, the pattern isn't perfect, but in a general way it is true that the contemporary political Solar System resembles the planet of prediaspora Earth, but on a larger scale. The languages, the cultures, even the histories conform to a remarkable extent. The two Solar wars—"

"Do you approve of war as an instrument of political policy?"

That brought me up short. "I don't really know," I confessed. "I suppose it depends on the situation. Certainly there have been unjust or foolish wars, and war is certainly one of the most dangerous and costly ways to settle differences. But when the Deutsch Reich of Uranus set out to conquer that planet and Saturn, too, what was there to do but make war to stop it?"

"You believe in the existing order, then?"

"Well, I'm not sure about that. As long as the existing order tolerates piracy in space—"

"The pirates are gone," he said. "You had a hand in that, Hubris."

"I did?" Almost, I remembered it directly, instead of as the memory of a statement made in the time of my introduction to life on Jupiter. Hero of the Belt! "I'm glad. They had to be extirpated."

"By lawful means," he said.

"Certainly." What was he getting at? Did this have something to do with my confinement here? Could I have broken the law and required rather special rehabilitation? No, that did not seem likely.

"The existing government of Jupiter is working to solve the problems of the day," he said. "Do you believe that?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I don't remember the current government. That is, which party is in power, or who is President now. When I was a refugee in space, the government seemed to have no interest in dealing with the problems of refugees or the eradication of piracy. But that was... I think it must have been some time ago. Maybe it's better now. Certainly the Jupiter system of government is a good one, perhaps the best in a flawed Solar System. But—"

"That's enough," he said, and terminated the interview.

I was not returned to my dark and stinking cell. Instead I was conducted to a larger, brighter one, with a conventional hammock and a lavatory facility. What an improvement! Evidently I had pleased my captors, and this was my reward.

What had I said to please them? I had only described the contemporary Solar System, which was familiar to all school children, and expressed my support for the type of government Jupiter possessed, with my reservations for specific practices. Why should that deserve reward?

Had I become a revolutionist, trying to overthrow the system? If so, I could hardly protest my fate. But this treatment seemed overly harsh and secretive—and why should anyone bother to rehabilitate a revolutionary? At any rate, I did appreciate my improved quarters and would try to continue pleasing my captors. Clean, clothed, comfortable—what more could I ask?

Freedom, I answered myself mentally. But I knew that wish was useless.

Apart from that, I lacked entertainment. There were no books, no holo units, not even any old-fashioned board games. And no one with whom to play them.

Ah, there was the crux! Companionship! It was hard to be continually alone.

Still, I knew when I was relatively well off. I lay on the hammock and contemplated the patterns in the paint on the ceiling of the chamber and slept.

I dreamed of Annabel Lee, who had lived in a kingdom by the sea:

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

 

My memory of Helse, of course. Every so often she visited me, though she was long dead, and I always appreciated it.

In due course a meal was brought. This time it was on a tray, and there was variety: some sort of juice, mashed protein mix, and a pastry. Royal treatment indeed—all because I had expressed support for the present order?

I finished, used the lavatory, and sat on the hammock. Now that my lot had improved, I was bored. My feeling of malaise was returning. Why should this be?

I thought about it, and the answer came: The drug they had given me to drink was wearing off. I was suffering withdrawal. So much for being immune!

Restlessly I paced the cell, trying to abate the discomfort. It wasn't actually extreme, but something prompted me to make a show. They were trying to addict me, to make me malleable; suppose they realized that the effect was uncomfortable but not truly compulsive? If my immunity was working partially, it was better to persuade them otherwise.

Soon Scar appeared. "What is your problem, Hubris?"

"That drink," I said. "Could I have another—now?"

He smiled. "Indeed." He departed and returned in a moment with the drink. I took it and gulped it down eagerly. Point made.

I was left alone again. The euphoria of the drug took me, more mildly than before, so that instead of enjoying it I remained bored. Apparently my immunity was a slowly developing thing, cutting down the highs and lows with greater facility as time went on. Good enough; I had caught the hint in time to conceal the nature of my resistance to the drug.

I explored my cell. It was about eight feet by twelve feet, with a ceiling of eight feet. That was palatial, for a sub. The hammock was at one end, the lavatory section at the other, the door in the middle. The walls were featureless, and I didn't dare scratch them, knowing that my marks would immediately be apparent. No secret codes here.

There was a glassy window in the door, really a narrow slit that sufficed only to allow the captor to observe the captive. All I could see from inside the cell was a segment of the access passage, and the door to the opposite cell, with its own vision slit. Not much to entertain me there.

Yet I looked. In fact, I stared, having nothing to do. I oriented on that opposite portal as if it were my gateway to escape.

I don't know how long I remained there, staring. Certainly my vision fogged, and perhaps I slept. But abruptly I spied an eye in the opposite slit. There was another prisoner there.

This transformed my awareness. I had company. Oh, I couldn't talk with him or shake his hand or even see him clearly; the window allowed little more than one eye and a vertical slice of face to show through. But he was a fellow captive, and that made up for the inadequacy of appearance.

He saw me, too, for his eye locked gazes with mine, and then he winked. I winked back. We had established communication. Oh, no words, no written message, but communication nonetheless. It was enormously gratifying to have a companion in isolation, as it were, even without words.

Then a guard came, and we had to get away from the window slits. But the guard only turned out the lights—for night—and departed. We were alone again.

I returned to my hammock, as there was nothing to be seen in the dark. But the lingering effect of the drug kept me hyped up. Now that I knew I had company I could not be satisfied with ignorance. I had to know more about him. Why was he here? Had he been memory-washed, confined in filth, and tortured? Did he know anything about our captors or our prospects for release? It didn't matter what the answers were; I simply had to know.

I considered the door. My prior cell had had a sliding panel that bolted tightly in place; no hope for escape. But this one had a regular door catch, the kind that was slanted on one side and slid into place because of a spring. Child's play to force that open. Why the superior mechanisms of recent centuries had not been employed was a mystery; I conjectured that this vessel had begun its career as a yacht, with deliberately archaic furnishings and mechanisms as a signal of status, and later converted into a sub. At any rate, this was a major break for me, as my military training had schooled me in lock-picking, among other things. All I needed was a bit of wire or metal.

Well, I had left my rivet in the other cell—and, anyway, I wasn't sure that was suitable for this. It was too small. What else offered?

I checked my new clothing. It was soft, without buttons or stays. I might have used an eating utensil, but that was gone with the meal tray.

I got up to find the sanitary unit in the darkness—what a blessing that was, in contrast to my prior circumstance!—and as I used it I realized that this could be the answer. The unit was standard for spacecraft: a tube leading away into a central processing apparatus, a moderate suction conveying solids and liquids there. In free-fall it tended to be more complicated, and primitive ships required separate facilities for solid and liquid wastes. But evidently this ship maintained centrifugal gee steadily enough to warrant more conventional facilities. The toilet was sealed by an airtight panel; the unit was flushed when a lever was operated to slide the panel momentarily aside, allowing the gee and suction to draw the refuse down.

Sure enough, I was able to unscrew part of the connecting rod and detach it. I had my instrument!

I paused. Was I under observation, here in the cell? Well, I might be, but if I was, why did my captors need to lock me in? Probably they could monitor me but didn't bother unless there seemed to be immediate reason. There might be a continuing holo-tape of activity within this cell, but it would be a boring job reviewing that tape. After a while the clerk in charge would get slack and leave it to the computer. The behavior patterns of human beings were so strange as to defy computer analysis, however, so probably this action of mine would not be called out as either an attempt to escape or an attempt to commit suicide.

At any rate, if I allowed the fear of observation to restrain me, I was captive indeed! I would take my action and discover what the consequence was. Some risk had to be taken, in order to gain. I used the thin rod to jam open the door latch, then pulled the door in to me. It swung on armored hinges, proof against any tampering except what I had done. Designers tend to overlook the obvious.

I peeked out into the dark hall. I saw nothing, of course—and trusted that no one could see me. Infrared light could do it, but again, why bother when the doors were locked? I started to step out and paused again. What about an alarm?

Again, why use a lock, if a laser alarm system was in place? It could be done and should be done, but probably wasn't. I decided to risk it.

I moved into the hall. Nothing happened. That did not necessarily mean there was no alarm; it could be silent, a light blinking elsewhere in the ship. If so, I would soon be in trouble.

I waited. Nothing happened. Apparently my captors were asleep, and there was no alarm. I deemed that to be criminally careless. Maybe they just weren't worried, knowing that I could not escape from the sub no matter how cunning I might be. Captors do tend to underestimate the potentials of captives, perhaps assuming that natural selection accounts for the roles.

Meanwhile, I felt deliriously free. Certainly I remained trapped in the sub and subject to the will of my captors, but I had achieved a measure of independence they had not granted me. I was, to this limited extent, master of my destiny. That did great things for my self-esteem.

I did not bother to walk down the passage; I knew the cell block was sealed off by airlock, not simple gates. If I broke that I would really be testing my luck. I closed my door, then went instead to the cell door opposite mine. I knocked.

There was no response. I knocked again, not loudly, sure that the inmate heard me. He would be wondering what was happening, assuming that it was a guard, puzzled because the lights had not been turned on.

I knocked a third time. At last there was a response—a hesitant return knock. I tapped on the window, then used my rod to work the latch. In a moment the door swung open.

"Make no sound," I whispered. "I'm from the other cell. I used the bar on the sanitary fixture to jimmy the lock."

After a moment a hand touched mine. Fingers caught me, drawing me in. I went and quietly closed the door behind me. If any guard made a spot check all would seem to be in order. He would have to turn on the lights and peer into the cells to discover that I had moved.

"This is folly," my fellow-prisoner said, alarmed.

I froze in surprise. Those words showed me two things. First, my companion was Hispanic, like me, for they had been spoken in Spanish. Second, my companion was female.

"A woman?" I asked in Spanish. I realized that I had not been able to see enough of the face through the two window slits to identify gender; I had merely assumed male. I myself had missed an obvious alternative.

"All my life," she agreed. "What I can remember of it."

"Memory-washed?"

"Yes. You?"

"The same."

We paused, there in the darkness. After a moment she said, "What if they catch you here?"

"What can they do to me that they haven't already?"

"But you must go back to your cell soon, so they don't know."

"Why?"

"Because if they catch you, they'll see that we never meet again."

There was that. To be effectively deprived of company now that I had found it—that would be torture indeed. "Soon," I agreed. There was risk, but I had to get to know her better.

"I—hardly know you," she said. "I can't see you at all. May I... may I touch you? Your face, so I can recognize you?"

"Touch me anywhere," I said generously. I had not considered what I might do after reaching my fellow captive and remained surprised that it was a woman.

She stepped close, so that I inhaled the special female atmosphere of her, which was not a matter of perfume, for she wore none. She reached up her hands to find my head and face. The darkness remained impenetrable; I could not see any part of her. On a planetary surface, I understand, darkness is seldom absolute, because of the diffusion of light in the atmosphere. But here in the closed cell of a ship, there was none at all. It was as if I were back in my degradation cell—except that there was no woman there.

Her hands stroked lightly over my forehead, eyes, and nose, then down to my mouth. Her touch was ticklish on my lips. There was something ineffably sensual about it, causing me to become sexually aroused. "Oh, you're bearded," she said.

"They gave me no way to shave," I explained apologetically, though I had not thought of the matter before.

"It's all right," she said quickly. "I was just surprised." Her fingers traveled on down across my face and to my neck and shoulders and arms. This, too, aroused me; I hoped she wouldn't go farther down, lest I suffer embarrassment. "I suppose I know you now," she said.

"Do I get to check you similarly?" I asked.

"I suppose so." I could tell she was smiling.

She stood for me while I ran my fingers over her face. I was not used to this and may have poked her in the eye, but she did not complain. Despite my ineptitude, I became aware of one thing: These were extremely comely features.

"What's your name?" I asked as my hands passed across her firm young chin and her smooth neck.

She shook her head, not answering. Because I was touching her, I could read her to some extent. My question caused her to tighten; she knew her name but did not feel free to tell me.

"Then I will name you," I decided as my hands continued down. No, I did not handle her torso, though the temptation was there; I checked her shoulders and arms, as she had mine. "Dorian Gray."

"Who?" she asked. She was relaxing now, a hurdle evidently having been negotiated. That was interesting; I had expected her to become tense as my hands reached hers, as the further exploration might be more intimate than she liked.

"The one whose face I cannot see," I explained. "It's a historical or literary reference."

"Oh." She shrugged. "You'd better go back to your cell now."

"But I don't know anything about you," I protested. "Why are you here? Have they—?"

"I don't know why I'm here," she said. "The mem-wash, remember? Yes, they used the pain-box on me, but they didn't ask me any questions, they just made me hurt. I don't know what they want of me."

"Any lesson-sessions?"

"They showed me how to bake bread. I knew it was for prisoners, so I slipped some rivets into it, so maybe they could use them. I don't know."

"You put those rivets in?" I asked. "I chewed on one!"

"I didn't know how else to do it. Did you get any use of it?"

"I thought of using it to scratch a message on the wall, but there was already a message there."

"Oh? What did it say?"

"Well, it was in code. It took me a while to figure it out, but, of course, I had plenty of time and few distractions. Then it turned out to be only advice not to hope."

She laughed. "How can you, of all people, abandon hope? It's your name!"

"It may be good advice, anyway. This is a sub, a ship hidden in space. It's impossible to escape."

"But there has to be hope," she said.

I shrugged. "Maybe so. I haven't found it yet."

"Now you'd really better go. A guard could come anytime."

She was correct, of course. I used my bar to jimmy the door again, exited, and got back into my own cell. I restored the bar to the toilet fixture, then lay on my hammock. It had been quite a little adventure; soon I would learn whether I had gotten away with it.

Nothing happened. Gradually I relaxed. It seemed that our cells were not being monitored.

But sleep did not come. Something was bothering me, and as the first nervousness abated, that secondary concern loomed larger. What was it?

First, my excursion had been too easy. There should have been an alarm of some sort. This was a modern sub, whatever kind of yacht it might have been before conversion; the modernity had to do with the technology of concealment, not of vessel construction. They wouldn't be primitive about observation procedures, external or internal. My captors had to know when I left the cell. Why hadn't they pounced on me?

Second, there was something about my dialogue with Dorian Gray. I had noticed it on one level of attention while conversing with her on another. In a moment I had it: We had not exchanged names. I had asked her, and she hadn't answered, so I had named her myself. I had not told her mine. Yet she had known it. How?

Oh, there could be explanations. A guard could have told her. She could have been a captive longer than I, or at least longer than the time since my mem-wash. She could have sent me a rivet before my wash, enabling me to scratch my message to myself. She could have seen my name written on a cell door or something. But I doubted it. For one thing, she had not been telling the truth. I had been touching her when she told of her own mem-wash and pain-box treatment, and her body reactions had suggested that she was lying or, at any rate, not telling the whole truth.

Third, the facility with which I had escaped the cell. A latch that could be jimmied, a rod available to do it. It was almost as if my captors had wanted me to escape.

To get out, thinking myself unobserved, and meet my fellow captive, who just happened to be a lovely young Hispanic woman who had helped me make messages to myself? Perhaps I would have believed that, if I had remained mem-washed to the extent my captors believed me to be. But my secret message to myself—the one not intended for my captors to read—had triggered the recollection of a major sequence, and that substantially modified my outlook. For one thing, I now remembered my association with Megan, the woman I loved. That canceled any romantic interest I might have had in a mysterious young woman.

If this had been set up for me, what course did my captors plan? It fell into place readily enough. Their program was threefold. First, they washed out my memories and tortured me, making me vulnerable to change. Second, they addicted me to a drug, making me dependent on them for gratification. And, third, they meant to literally seduce me from my prior associations. They wanted me to cleave to my fellow captive, to know her and love her, so that I would be emotionally compromised before my memory of Megan returned.

But my message to myself had foiled the wash, and my body was throwing off or muting the addiction, and now I knew the true face of Dorian Gray. How aptly I had named her. She was no fellow captive; she was an enemy agent planted to complete my corruption.

But this insight did not ameliorate my situation. Why was I here? How could I prevail? I did not yet know enough of my real life to grasp why I had been taken captive. Probably I was a politician; that was what I had been headed for when my vision memory ended. Had I become important enough to be worth eliminating? But they hadn't killed me; they were trying to change me. If I were a figure in a powerful office, that might make sense, but surely my absence would be noted. So I still didn't have that answer.

There was also a problem about the woman. Now I knew her to be a spy or agent, but how could I safely reject her? If I did, my captors might suspect that their program was not working. Then they would try something else, and that other thing might be more effective. Suppose they lobotomized me? I would not be able to recover from that. Or they might simply give it up as a bad job, kill me, and start over with some more amenable captive.

No, I could not afford to show my captors the extent of their failure. Which meant I could not turn down the offering they were making in the person of Dorian. I had to play the part of a fish securely hooked, three ways. If that meant loving Dorian, I would love her—with my body only.

Forgive me, Megan! I thought fervently. I was not at all sure she would. I was of the new school, pragmatic, doing what I had to do. She was of the old school; there were some compromises she would not make. Of course, my memory did not take me as far as intimacy with Megan; we had married, but there had been no certainty that there would be anything more than the formality. It was possible that we had existed for the duration in that mock marriage and that I was free to dally wherever else I wished. But I doubted it.

Perhaps I was making a mistake. But at the moment this seemed to be the reasonable compromise. Only if I fooled my captors completely could I hope to survive—and for me, survival was my first priority.

At last I slept, ill at ease. Recognition of the realities of one's situation does not necessarily make for a feeling of well-being.

 

In the morning the lights came on, and food arrived. I begged another drink of the drug, and it was granted. At this point I really had no physical need of the drink; it had become pure charade.

I was taken for another lesson-session. This one was about general economics and the advantages of a stable industrial system, and I was happy to agree. For one thing, this represented my best route to knowledge of what my captors really wanted of me. Evidently they were satisfied with my progress, for when I was returned to my cell, I was given a book to read. It was an instructive tome on the subject we had been discussing, written in English, excellent as far as it went but biased toward a conservative, authoritarian outlook. I perused it with interest; after all, any book was far, far better than none. But I assimilated it cynically. Some points were valid; others were not.

At night the lights went out again, and I knew my captors would be expecting me to stray and would be suspicious if I did not pay a call on Dorian Gray. So I had to do it, but with misgivings, for I suspected the art she would practice on me.

I was not disappointed. I still could not see her, but she touched my face to identify me—as if there could be any other man in this cell block!—and required me to do the same to her. Logically this was nonsensical, but esthetically it reminded me how well-formed her features were. This time she insisted on getting better acquainted, passing her hands down along my torso, and, of course, I had to do the same for her. She was young and voluptuous; on the proverbial scale of ten, she was overqualified.

My captors had not merely made corruption possible for me; they had made it compelling. Even knowing what I did, thanks to my Megan memory flash, I felt the temptation to do... what I would have to do. I had somehow believed I might play along by rote, my true face averted; now I knew I would have to answer to my wife not only for my body, but also for my mind.

But not yet. These things took time, and I intended to take all the time I could that was consistent with my situation and my presumed situation. First Dorian and I had to get to know each other.

We sat together in her hammock and talked in whispers, exchanging histories. I told her of my upbringing on Callisto, of my two sisters, and of the problem that had led to our abrupt departure to the peripheral society of the Jupiter Ecliptic—the Juclip—my year as a migrant worker in the agricultural belt, and my entry into the Jupiter Navy at age sixteen. "I don't know how long I remained in the Navy," I concluded. "Maybe I'm still there." That was a lie, but I could not tell her of my Megan memory, which put a cap on my military experience. "I don't even know how old I am, but I suspect I am twice your age."

She laughed. "But I don't know my age, either. Maybe I'm middle-aged."

It was my turn to laugh. "If so, you will go down in history as possessing the secret of eternal youth. Your body is twenty."

"You are an expert in bodies, Don Hope?" she inquired archly.

"I don't know," I admitted. "But I am certainly capable of appreciating what I encounter."

She took my hand, drew me to her, and kissed me. There was a certain fragrance about her, perhaps this time enhanced by some perfume, and her hair was like a velvet curtain. I was sure that she was experienced at this; her every motion and mannerism was completely seductive. Oh, yes, she knew what she was doing. But she, too, was constrained by her role; she had a part to play, and she had to play it well enough to deceive me. So we were deceiving each other.

She was, she said, a refugee from the Communist colony of Ganymede. She had been born five years after that revolution occurred and the leftist premier assumed power, but her parents had never accepted the new order. (I should clarify that revolutions, like elections, occurred frequently in the System, as they had on old Earth; Ganymede had changed governments and types of government many times following its colonization. Each change was welcomed by some and detested by some, and there was generally a certain attendant unpleasantness.) Her family had been especially concerned about her schooling, not wanting her to be indoctrinated into the Communist ideology. So they had joined the bubble-lift of 2640, which was their first opportunity to flee the planet, and came to Jupiter.

I was startled. 2640? That was six years, no, eight years after my most recent memory. I had had the (misfortune to be born at the turn of the century, so that my age always matched the date. I had, as well as I could reconstruct it, served in the Jupiter Navy from 2616 to 2630. I would have been forty years old at the time of the bubble-lift that Dorian Gray spoke of, and that was evidently some time in the past.

"I was but fifteen then," Dorian said. "Much of my education was already behind me, but I had resisted the indoctrination. Of course, I had to learn English and adjust to the Saxon culture, and it was hard at first, but I did complete my schooling, and..." She paused. "And I don't remember."

So she remained memory-blocked from the time she was seventeen to the present, according to her story. She was lying, but only about the mem-wash; her dates were otherwise accurate, according to her body signals. I judged her to be about twenty-two, which would make the present date 2047, and my own age forty-seven, with an error factor of as much as three years. I was older than I had feared. I was indeed over twice her age, and a great deal more of my own history remained forgotten. She had perhaps given me more valuable information than she knew.

If I was forty-seven years old, with about fifteen missing following my Navy career, what had I done in that anonymous time? It must have been something to make me worthy of being captured and mem-washed and trapped by drugs and sex. They wanted to have a firm hold on me, to change my way of thinking. What could possibly be worth the trouble they were taking?

"You are silent," Dorian murmured.

I started. "Sorry. I was thinking."

"I would offer two cents for your thoughts, if I had any money."

I considered quickly. There seemed to be no reason I couldn't tell her my thoughts this time. "With your help I have now calculated my age as between forty-five and fifty, and I wonder what I have been doing in all the missing years since I was sixteen, to warrant being here."

"That's a good thought," she said, unsurprised by my age; she had known it. "There must be good reason. Did you work in some sensitive military job where a seemingly minor decision could make a big difference?"

"I wish I knew," I said.

"Maybe you knew too much about something in the Hispanic sphere."

"Maybe. I just don't remember."

"I don't, either, though I suppose less of my life is missing than yours. It must be pretty important."

"It must be," I agreed. "Perhaps if you reviewed the major System events that occurred during your life, which falls in the period of my life that has been washed out, I could remember—"

She put her hand on mine. "Hope, since you came to me yesterday, I've been thinking about you so much. I was alone—no one to meet except my torturers—and suddenly I saw your face across the hall—part of your face—and then I touched you. You gave me something to live for just by existing. In one day it's as if I've known you all my life."

I knew she was playing a part, and I noted how adroitly she had diverted my suggestion about catching up on System events; but she played that part very well. I had had in mind obtaining some information from her, not only to try to trigger more of my memory, but also to account for any slip I might make about the period I did remember, such as Tocsin's rise in politics. Obviously Dorian was under orders to tell me nothing of this period. I had to admire the finesse with which she distracted me; it would have been easy to believe she was sincere. Now I knew it would be hard to come up with some excellent reason to distract her forthcoming physical advances very long. This trap was closing on me. "I think time dilates in a situation like this," I said.

She nudged closer. "I don't even know whether I'm married," she said. "But I don't think so, though I'm not a virgin. I feel so close to you, though we are of different ages."

That was my cue to confess that I didn't know my own marital state and to deny that age made a difference. She had let me know the state of her availability. I had to think fast. "I—I think I was married, in the Navy. I remember a girl I shared residence with. Her name was Juana."

"Hispanic?"

"Yes. She was a really nice girl."

"But those service liaisons are impermanent," she pointed out. "Only for the duration of an assignment."

"True. So I suppose it didn't endure." I tensed, as if just thinking of something. "Maybe I'm involved in some sexual scandal!"

She laughed. "No, it's not that!"

"You know?"

She retreated hastily. "I overheard once... about a prisoner who was a politician. I think it must have been you."

"So it's something political!"

"I suppose so." I knew she regretted her slip. Now I knew that she knew why I was here. Could I get that information from her? Surely not by asking for it. But perhaps if I turned the ploy and seduced her emotions....

But that would take careful management. First, I had to show some mettle of my own. "I'll ask them," I said.

"Don't do that!" she exclaimed in genuine alarm. "They'll torture you!"

They probably would. "Well, maybe I'll just argue with them and force them to show what they really want of me."

"I don't like this," she said. "You are flirting with real trouble."

"Some things just have to be done. I'll tell you what I find out."

"Can't I talk you out of this folly?" she asked, moving very close to me.

"If I could be talked out of folly," I said firmly, "I probably wouldn't be here."

To that she had to agree. "Be careful, Hope. I don't want anything to happen to you."

And with that we separated, for too long a stay was risky. The seduction was forgotten for now. The ironic thing was, she was now genuinely concerned for me. She had her mission, but she was coming to respect me as a person.

 

Next day I implemented my decision. I had more than one reason for my course. I wanted to impress Dorian with my character, to reassure her that I trusted her. Of course, she would tell my captors, so they would be prepared, but they would not give her away. They, too, would know that I trusted her, and that she was doing her job. This trust and reinforcement of positions was important in a project like this. But also, I wanted to be punished by being returned to my original cell. I was sure they wouldn't leave me there long, for that would interfere with Dorian's subversion of my emotion. They would incarcerate me just long enough to bring home to me the consequence of my unreasonableness.

We were discussing taxation. My textbook recommended the so-called flat tax, a concept that had existed for centuries, perhaps for millennia, but somehow had not become established. It consisted of a personal deduction for each person in a family, certain necessary business deductions, and a set percentage of taxation on the remainder of earned income. It was quite simple.

"What's wrong with the present system?" I demanded. "It's worked well enough for centuries, hasn't it?"

Scar demurred. "It has bumbled along for centuries. There are three serious flaws in it. First, its immense complexity, which forces every taxpayer to spend interminable time merely calculating what he owes and requires many to seek some kind of professional help to draw up the required forms. Second, its loopholes, which enable clever or unscrupulous people to escape without paying their proper share, thus shifting the burden of payment to others. Third, its graduated stages, so that the person who earns more pays a larger percentage of his income to the government. That discourages initiative and penalizes the hardest or most efficient workers."

"It's not complex for the average wage earner," I countered. "He has no loopholes. It's only fair that he pay the lowest rate; he barely has enough to survive on as it is. When I was with the migrant workers—"

"He would be no worse off with a simple flat tax," Scar pointed out. "In fact he would benefit by—"

"No!" I exclaimed unreasonably. "The old system's good enough for me. I won't listen to anything else!"

He looked at me and sighed. "I'm sorry to hear you say that."

The session was over, I was conducted to my dark, filthy original cell, which had been saved unchanged. The smell almost gagged me as the hatch slid open. This was my punishment for being recalcitrant, and I knew that if my attitude did not improve, I would face more sessions with the pain-box and deprivation of the drug-beverage. Two of those were real punishments, and the third I would have to honor as if it were equally effective. Oh, yes, it was easy to reconsider my position with my self-interest so obviously in the balance.

But now I was where, ironically, I wanted to be. I needed more information, and this was where I could get it. I squatted in the grime and supported myself with my hands, and slowly I slid my fingers under the muck, feeling out the next set of symbols. I had an irrational fear that the scratches would be gone, but they were there:

which meant 7, counted off from the N in ABANDON, or T. , which was 19, counted off from the space following ABANDON, or H. meaning 8, counted from the H in HOPE—oh, the new significance of my name!—or O. , 4, from the O, or R. , 34, from P, or L. , 1 from E, which, of course, was the same letter, E. , 34 again, this time from the comma following HOPE. I wrestled with that and decided that most likely the order of punctuation in the font was space, period, comma; on that basis it came to Y. , 1, which was a space, translating itself into itself, a space. I had my word.

I assembled the letters mentally, so that I could appreciate them as the word, so that my second memory-vision could commence:

THORLEY.