Bob Shaw - Who Goes Here.pdf - Bob Shaw - margozap

WHO GOES HERE?

except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the

publisher.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is

purely coincidental.

An ACE Book by arrangement with Victor Gollancz, Ltd.

First Ace printing: August 1978

Printed in U.S.A.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

"YOU FEEL BETTER now, don't you?" The pretty technician-nurse smiled at Peace as she

leaned across and removed the terminals from his forehead. She had coppery hair and her

fingernails were manicured to the perfection of rose petals. "Tell me how you feel."

"I'm fine," Peace said unthinkingly, then realized it was true. He was aware of tensions fleeing

from his body, being driven out by the warm sense of ease which was spreading downwards

from his brain. Relaxing into the skilfully contoured chair, he looked around the gleaming

surgery with benign approval. "I feel great."

"I'm so glad." The girl placed the medallion-like terminals and associated leads on top of a

squat machine and pushed it away on noiseless casters.'' You know, I get a lot of personal

satisfaction through helping people like you."

"I'm sure you do."

"It's a kind of___" She smiled again, shyly. "I

guess the word is fulfilment."

"I'll bet it is." Peace gazed happily at her for a moment, then a stray thought obtruded. "By the

way," he said, "what exactly have you done for

me?"

"Well, damn you!" she snapped, her face growing pale with anger. "Thirty seconds you

waited before you started asking your bloody stupid questions. Thirty seconds! How much

personal satisfaction and fulfilment is a girl expected to cram into thirty seconds?"

"I... Wait a mo...." Peace was so shocked by her abrupt change of attitude that he found diffi-

culty in speaking. "I only asked. ..."

"That's right—you only asked. You couldn't simply accept my gift of happiness and be

grateful, could you? You had to start checking up on things."

"I don't understand," Peace pleaded. "What's

going on here?"

"Come on, buster— out!" The girl marched to the door of the surgery, flung it open and spoke

to somebody in the next room. "Private Peace is ready for you now, sir."

"There must be some mistake," Peace said, getting to his feet. "I'm not a private. I'm not in

the____"

"You want to bet?" the girl said nastily as she pushed him into the adjoining room and

slammed the door. His bewildered eyes took in the details of a square office whose walls were

decorated with militaria and a large banner of midnight blue on which were embroidered, in

silver, the words: SPACE LEGION—203 Regiment. There was a single desk, behind which

was seated a pudgy man wearing the uniform of a Space Legion captain. The blue carpet

featured the Space Legion crest, and the various items of office equipment around the room,

including the tubs which held ornamental plants, were similarly stencilled or engraved.

Nodding a silent greeting, the captain waved Peace into a chair which had "Space Legion"

woven into the fabric of the back and cushion.

"What is this place?" Peace demanded.

"Would you believe," the officer's gaze flicked around the room, "the headquarters of the

YWCA?"

The sarcasm missed Peace by several light years. "That woman in the next room called me a

private," he said anxiously.

"Pay no attention to Florence—she gets a bit edgy. The frustrations of the job, you know."

Peace sighed with relief. "For a moment I thought I'd done something stupid."

"No, you haven't done anything stupid. Not in the slightest." The pudgy man began to

scrutinize his fingers with great care, as though taking inventory. "I'm Captain Widget—the

local induction officer for the Space Legion."

"When I said I thought I had done something stupid," Peace said, alarm bells clamoring in his

mind, "I meant something like joining the Space Legion."

Widget lowered his face into his hands, and his shoulders quivered slightly. He remained that

way for perhaps a minute, during which Peace stared at the top of his head with growing

concern, then he straightened up, apparently making a great effort to bring himself under

control.

"Warren," he said, "may I call you Warren?"

"That's my name," Peace said noncommitally.

"Thank you. Warren, doesn't the idea of being in the Legion appeal to you?"

Peace gave a hoot of derision. "Are you kidding? I've heard all about that—getting shipped all

over the galaxy, getting shot at, getting burned up, getting frozen up, getting ate up by

monsters, getting. ..." Peace stopped speaking as his suspicions crystallized into certainty that

something awful had happened. "Why should I do anything as crazy as joining the Legion?"

"You've no idea?"

"Of course not."

"There you are, then!" Widget said triumphantly. "There you are!"

"Captain, what are you talking about?"

"Let me put it this way, Warren.'" Widget leaned across his desk and, unaware that he had

placed one of his elbows in a well-used ashtray, fixed Peace with an intense stare. "Back in

the old days—three or four hundred years ago—why did men join the French Foreign

Legion?"

"I don't want to play games with you, Captain."

"Why did they join, Warren?"

"To forget," Peace said peevishly. "Everybody knows that, but I. ..."

"And today, Warren, why do men join the Space Legion?"

"To forget—but I haven't got anything I want to forget."

"Not any more you haven't." Widget leaned back in his chair, satisfied he had made his point.

"You've forgotten it."

Peace's jaw sagged. "This is stupid. What have I forgotten?"

"If I told you that it would spoil everything," Widget said reasonably. "Besides, I don't even

know what was on your mind when you came in here thirty minutes ago. The Legion respects

a man's privacy. We don't ask embarrassing questions—we just hook you up to the machine,

and . . . bleep! . . . it's all gone."

"Bleep?"

"Yes. Bleep! The crushing burden of guilt and shame is lifted from your soul."

"I. . . . " Peace delved into his memory and found he had no recollection of having walked

into the recruiting office. A smothering sense of panic developed within him as he discovered

he had no memories at all of a previous life. It was as if he had been created, conjured up out

of thin air, a few minutes earlier in the surgery next door.

"What have you done to me?" he mumbled, tentatively pressing his head with his fingertips as

though it was a puffball which could cave in at the slightest touch. "I can't remember

anything! No past life! No childhood! No nothing!"

Widget raised his eyebrows. "That's unusual. The machine usually blanks out the previous

day

or two in their entirety—because of neuro surge—then it becomes selective to take out

specific memories. If you can't remember anything at all you must have been a hard case,

Warren. Everything you ever did must have been rotten."

"This is terrible." Peace was unable to keep a quaver out of his voice. "I can't even remember

what's-her-name—my mother."

"That makes me feel a lot better," Widget said. He sat upright and the curvatures of his well-

padded face firmed out and became shiny as he smiled. "It really churns me up when I have to

reorientate nice young men—clean-cut boys who perhaps made only one mistake in their

whole lives—but you're different. You must have been evil, Warren.

"It's a good thing for you that you didn't have to spend years of hard soldiering trying to wipe

out the memories of your guilty past, because you'd probably have never made it. It's a good

thing for you we've reached the stage where memories can be electronically erased, and that

the Legion is prepared to accept you and. ..."

"Shut up!" Peace bellowed, overwhelmed with fear and the urge to find a quiet place where he

could concentrate on forcing his brain to do all the things normally expected of it. He rose to

his feet. "I've got to get out of here."

"I can understand that desire," Widget said gleefully, "but there's a snag." "What is it?"

Widget picked up a sheet of pale blue paper.

"This contract—it binds you to serve in the Legion for thirty years."

"You know what you can do with that," Peace sneered. "I'm not going to sign it."

"But you've already signed it," Widget said. "Before we put you on the machine."

"I did not." Peace shook his head emphatically. "What are you trying to pull here? I can't re-

member anything about myself, but there's one thing I do know, and that is that I would never

ever, not in a million years, never ever sign a thing like that, so you can...." His voice faded

away as Widget pressed a button on a control panel built into his desk and a moving image

glimmered into existence on the wall behind him. It depicted a tall young man with a doll-

pink face, wide mouth, blue eyes and blond hair which was fashionably thinned above the

forehead. Peace had difficulty in recognizing himself at first, then he realized it was

because—in the picture—he was a caricature of despair. His eyes were dull and broody, his

mouth was turned down at the corners, and his whole drooping, defeated posture suggested a

spirit which had broken under some unguessable load.

As Peace watched, his other self sagged into a chair at a table, picked up a pen and signed a

pale blue document which was recognizably the same as the one now in Widget's hands.

Florence, the technician-nurse, appeared and led an obedient Peace away as would a zoo-

keeper attending to a sickly chimp. The images faded from the wall.

"You should see your face!" Widget put a hand over his mouth and nostrils and gave a

prolonged snort of amusement. "Boy, I'm really enjoying this. I'm going to feel good all day

after this."

"Let me see that paper," Peace said, reaching for the document.

"Certainly." There was a curious light, which might have been a gleam of anticipation, in

Widget's eyes as he handed the sheet across the desk.

"Thank you." Peace looked at the contract only for as long as it took to satisfy himself that he

had actually signed it and that it was printed on ordinary paper instead of indestructible

plastic. He held it up by one edge, pinched it between his forefingers and thumbs with an

extravagant flourish, and made ready to rip the sheet in half.

"Don't tear that," Widget snapped. There was a clear note of command in his voice, but he re-

mained at ease and made an attempt to retrieve the document. The glow in his eyes seemed

brighter.

Peace gave a contemptuous sniff and tried to pull the sheet apart. A painful and nauseating

sensation, like somebody briskly scrubbing the surface of his brain with a rough towel, filled

his cranium—and his fingers refused to move.

Widget pointed at the desk. "Set the paper down there."

Peace shook his head, but in the same instant his right hand leapt forward and placed the sheet

exactly where Widget had indicated. He was staring at his hand, shocked by its treachery,

when Widget spoke again.

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