Chapter IV

It was quiet, here in Nelva Guthrie's office in the Record Center. She said, "It takes a few minutes for the cell-sheets to come through, Mr. Dane, and I know you must be tired. Why don't you lie down on the couch while we're waiting?"

"Thanks. I will." Gratefully, Dane stretched out; drank in the cool greens and soft blues of the decor. The climatizer's rhythmic whisper lulled him.

Yet restful though it all was, complete relaxation somehow would not come. In spite of all his efforts, Dane found himself heir to twitching muscles, sudden tensings. Half a dozen times, he caught himself watching Nelva sidewise as she checked through a pile of papers, as if he were afraid to leave her unobserved.

Why? Because he felt drawn to her as a woman? Because he feared that she might slip away?

Or, because the contrast between the mask of distance she now wore, as compared to the things he'd seen when their eyes first met, was so marked as to make him permanently wary, unwilling to trust her?

The thought set irritation pricking at him. Abruptly, he sat up. "It's no use."

"To try to rest, you mean, when you don't know who you are or where you come from?"

"That's right." Dane spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "Why should I be the first man in more than a hundred years to have this happen to him? You said yourself amnesia's been wiped out."

"True enough," the woman nodded, ash-blonde hair shimmering. "In your case, however, some rather unusual factors complicate the picture."

Dane frowned. "What kind of factors?"

For a long moment Nelva studied him, as if debating. Then, at last, she said, "I guess there's no real harm in telling you. The reason we know you're a victim of amnesia is because the survey ship's psychman ran a narcoanalysis on you. And what you thought was a perception test, downstairs here, was really a hypnoanalysis to check the psychman's findings."

"So?"

"The results were most interesting. For one thing, you didn't respond to treatment. Amnesia's an adaptive reaction to inner conflict, a sort of hysterical inhibition. When the inhibition's released by the Egrisanto technique, under deep analysis, ordinarily the block to memory goes with it, and recall returns." Nelva ran a slim forefinger along the edge of her papers; eyed Dane. "Do you follow me?"

Dane nodded slowly. "I think so."

"Then you'll understand how it startled me when I found no trace of any real inhibition, no sensitive areas you were trying to protect." Nelva spread her hands. "As a matter of fact you reacted freely on every subject covered by the standard tests. And you showed a rather remarkable fund of information on virtually every topic."

Dane groped. "Then what--?"

"Don't you see? You're holding back nothing--yet there's not even the slightest hint as to where that knowledge came from! It's almost as if you were a robot, with built-in reaction patterns and knowledge tapes instead of a human brain."

A chill ran through Dane. He sat very still.

What was it the fiend-faced man, the Being-Without-A-Name, had said to him in those first delirious moments of his awareness that now seemed so long ago?--"Bow down to your creator?"

Involuntarily, Dane shuddered.

Nelva said, "You're thinking about your dream, aren't you? About how the man said he'd created you?" Her voice was warm with sympathy.

Dane looked up sharply. "How did you know--?"

"Simple logic. The analysis gave me all the things in your mind--about the man with the hairless skull who was your master, and the silver needle, and the Kalquoi. When I mentioned robots, it was almost certain to make you think about--the man."

"Oh."

"You don't need to worry, either. You're not a robot. Robots don't have feelings. Besides, the celloscope would have shown it if you were. As for the rest--the shaft--the Kalquoi--I imagine they're some sort of delusion. Tied in with your amnesia, perhaps--specialized situations the standard tests weren't geared to touch."

"I see." Dane studied his knuckles.

Yet what did he see? What, really? He wondered.

Certainly not that the fiend-faced man and the silver needle and the Kalquoi were delusions!

For as Nelva talked, her words had come faster and faster. A new note had crept into her voice--a note of tension. And now, as he watched her obliquely, he became acutely aware that her fingers were all at once ever so restless. Her lips showed a minute tendency to tremble, also, and the grey eyes stayed clear of him, as if the things she said were creating some under-current of conflict in her that she feared to let him see.

* * * * *

Dane's jaw tightened. Breathing carefully, evenly, he thought back once again to the way the girl had first looked at him--and then, how the blinds had come down, shutting him out.

How could he trust this woman, while that hidden barrier in her eyes still stood between them? How dared he throw aside all suspicion, all caution, so long as she held back secrets?

No; at root the dilemma still was his, and always would be. Not even Nelva Guthrie could share it with him. He had no choice but to go his own road, fight through to his private destiny.

And what better time to start than now?

Tight-lipped, he said, "All this is fine. But it looks to me like it's going in a circle."

Nelva's hands moved nervously. Her eyes opened a trifle wider than seemed normal. "A circle--?"

"You claim I've got amnesia, don't you? Only then you tell me I don't react right for it." Dane laughed, harsh and curt. "To me, that says we're getting nowhere."

A knock broke off the conversation. Quickly, as if relieved at the interruption, Nelva crossed the room and opened the door.

A uniformed tech held out a plastic cylinder. "Here's that cell-sheet, Miss Guthrie."

"Good!" There was an air of relief in the way Nelva said it. She turned to Dane; gestured triumphantly with the cylinder. "This is the answer to your problems, Clark! Your cellemental analysis sheet! Come on!"

Shrugging, Dane fell in beside her. He wondered wryly how he had so suddenly been promoted to first-name status.

Nelva was still talking: "A cell-sheet's proof positive of identity, Clark. By Federation law, one's made for every human at birth, everywhere among the inner planets. All records on that person then are filed under the cell-sheet's pattern. So you won't be a lost soul much longer. Two minutes after we put this cylinder into the interplanetary index system, we'll know everything there is to know about you...."

They were in another room now--a long, narrow room through which busy techs hurried. The walls on either side were banked solid, floor to ceiling, with varicolored index flashers. A black, box-like unit, shoulder-high, occupied the center of the floor. Beyond it, at the room's far end, double doors like those through which Dane and Nelva had just entered provided a second exit.

"This way," Nelva commanded briskly. Leading Dane to the box-like unit, she flipped open one of a row of hinged cases lining each edge, fitted Dane's cell-sheet onto a spool, closed the lid once more, and pressed a button.

She kept up a running fire of small-talk as she worked. It came out just a trifle too animated. Dane decided her primary purpose was to forestall embarrassing questions rather than to convey data.

Now she pointed to a slot below the cylinder-spool. "This is the place, Clark. And in just two minutes!"

In spite of himself, Dane couldn't tear his eyes from the slot.

Seconds, ticking by ... dragging out to what seemed eons....

Then a bell rang, a single sharp, imperative note. A card spilled from the slot.

It seemed to Dane for an instant as if Nelva had stiffened. A nearby tech looked up sharply.

But already Nelva's hand was darting out. Deftly, she caught the card before it reached the tray and, turning, studied it. Whether by accident or design, her body shielded the record so Dane couldn't see it. When he would have stepped round her, she flipped the card over and stood scrutinizing the punch-marks and code-symbols on the reverse side.

With an effort, Dane held his voice level. "Well? What does it say?"

"Say--? Oh, it--it tells the file we have to send to for your records."

But Nelva's voice shook. Her face had paled. Tight-lipped, Dane body-blocked her against the machine and snatched the card from her; turned it over.

The legend's top line was printed in red letters a good inch tall:

NO RECORD

And then, smaller, beneath it:

HOLD SUBJECT IN TOP SECURITY ISOLATION PENDING INTENSIVE
INVESTIGATION AND APPROPRIATE TESTS FOR PSYCHOPATHY, CRIMINALITY,
AND/OR POSSIBLE KALQUOI CONNECTIONS.