Robert Silverberg - Second Start

The name they gave me at the Rehabilitation Center on Earth was Paul Macy. It was as good as any other, I guess. The name I was born with was Nat Hamlin, but when you become a Rehab you have to give up your name.

I didn’t mind that. What I did mind was the idea of having my face changed, since I was pretty well content with my looks the way they were. They gave me the option of choosing either a refacing job or else getting outside the Four Parsec Zone and staying there, and I opted to keep my face and leave Earth. This was how I happened to settle on Palmyra, which is Lambda Scorpii IX, 205 light-years from Earth. I met Ellen on Palmyra. And Dan Helgerson met me. I didn’t figure to run into Helgerson there, but it’s a smaller universe than you think.

Helgerson was a sometime business associate of Nat Hamlin’s—the late Nat Hamlin, because that was the way I thought of my former identity. Hamlin had been in the jewel-trading business. Also the jewel-stealing business, the jewelry-fencing business, and the jewelry-smuggling business, and toward the end of his varied career, after he had made contact with an enterprising Sirian who owned a fusion forge, the jewel-making business.

Hamlin was quite a guy. If it had to do with pretty pebbles, and if it happened to be illegal, you could bet Hamlin was mixed up in it. That was why the Galactic Crime Commission finally had to crack down, grab Hamlin, and feed him through the psychic meatgrinder that is the Rehabilitation Center. What came out on the other end, purged of his anti-social impulses and stuff like that, was Paul Macy.

Me.

Naturally they confiscated Hamlin’s wealth, which included a cache of gold in Chicago, a cache of pure iron on Grammas VI, a cache of tungsten on Sirius XIX, and a cache here and there of whatever was most precious to a particular planet. Hamlin had been a smart operator. He had been worth a couple of billions when they caught him. After they finished turning him into me, they gave me five thousand bucks in Galactic scrip—not a hell of a lot of money by Nat Hamlin’s standards—he used to carry that much as pocket-change for tips—but more than enough for Paul Macy to use in starting his new life.

The Rehab people found me a good job on Palmyra, as a minor executive in a canning factory. It was the sort of job where I could make use of Nat Hamlin’s organizational abilities, channelling them constructively into the cause of faster and more efficient squid-canning. Canned squid is Palmyra’s big industry. The fishermen bring them in from the wine-colored sea in the billions, and we ship them all over the universe.

I got good pay from the canning people and I found a nice bachelor home on the outskirts of Palmyra City. I found a nice girl, too—Ellen Bryce was her name, Earthborn, 24, soft violet hair and softer green eyes. She worked in the shipping department of our place. I started noticing her around, and then I started dating her, and then before I knew it I was starting to think of getting married.

But then one night after I left my office I stopped into the bar on the corner for a vraffa martini as a bracer, and I saw Dan Helgerson sitting at one of the tables.

I tried to pretend I didn’t see him. I hunched down at the bar and sipped at my cocktail.

But out of the corner of my eye I saw him get up and start sauntering over to me. Wildly I hoped I was mistaken, that this was not Helgerson but someone else.

It was Helgerson, all right. And when he slid in next to me, clapped me on the back, and said, “Hello, Nat. Long time no see,” I knew I was in trouble.

My hand tightened on the stem of my cocktail glass. I looked up at Helgerson and tried to keep my face blank, unrecognizing.

“There must be some mistake. My name isn’t Nat.”

“Come off it, pal. You’re Nat Hamlin or I’m drunker than I think I am. And I don’t get that drunk on one shot of booril.”

“My name is Paul Macy,” I said in a tight voice. “I don’t know you.”

Helgerson chuckled thickly. “You’re a damn good actor, Nat. Always were. But don’t push a joke too far. I’ve been looking for you for weeks.”

“Looking for me?”

“There’s a privacy booth over there, Nat. Suppose we go over and talk in there. I’ve got a proposition you might want to hear.”

I felt a muscle twanging in my cheek. I said, “Look, fellow, my name is Macy, not Nat Hamlin. I’m not interested in any propositions you might have.”

I shook my head. “No, Helgerson. Just keep away and leave me alone.”

A slow smile rippled out over Helgerson’s face. “If your name is Macy and you don’t know me, how come you know my name? I don’t remember introducing myself.”

It was like a kick in the ribs. I had blundered; it had been an accident. But it had happened before I could stop it. The Rehab treatment had altered Hamlin’s personality, but it hadn’t wiped out his old memories. As Paul Macy, I had no business knowing Helgerson’s name—but I did.

I scowled and said, “Okay. Let’s go over to the privacy booth and I’ll fill you in on the news.”

Scooping up my half-finished drink, I followed Helgerson across the room to the privacy booth. On the way I glanced at my watch. It was quarter after five. Ellen was expecting me at half past six at her place, for dinner. I had been figuring on a leisurely shower and shave first, but if it took too long to get rid of Helgerson I would probably have to skip everything and go straight out to Ellen’s.

He slipped a coin into the slot and the crackling blue privacy field built up around us, shielding our little booth in an electronic curtain impervious to spybeams and eavesdroppers. He said, “Okay, Nat. What’s this Paul Macy bit? Some new dodge?”

“No. No dodge.”

I reached into my breast pocket, and Helgerson’s jowly face twitched in momentary alarm, as if he half expected me to yank out a blaster. Instead I drew out my wallet and silently handed him my identity card—not the blue one that everyone has to carry, but the other one, the yellow card they had given me when I left the Rehabilitation Center.

He read both sides of it and when he handed it back to me his face was a lot different.

“So they got Nat Hamlin. Whaddya know. And they left your face alone?”

“I took the Four Parsec option. As long as I keep away from Earth I can wear my old face. I figured it was safe, on Palmyra. Nobody in our line operated on Palmyra.”

“We do now.”

It was my turn to twitch in alarm. “How?”

“We’re setting up an import chain. The Palmyrans are getting interested in owning pretty jewelry. They weren’t, before, but we’ve been working on them. It’s a virgin market, Nat.”

“My name is Macy.”

“Sorry. Anyway, we’re setting up a pipeline. And you’re the key man.”

The muscle in my cheek twanged again. “I’m not in the business any more, Helgerson.”

“Listen to me, Nat—Macy, whatever you call yourself. I’ve checked up on you ever since I heard you were here. You got a good posi-tion—you’re respected—trusted. I figured you were setting some-thing up for yourself. But I guess it was just because you were a Rehab. Well, anyway, it’s a natural. We could send the stones in wrapped up in those squid-cans—call them market returns, code the wrappers. All you have to do is grab the loaded cans and turn them over to me. I’ll guarantee you three quarters of a million a year for it.”

I felt sick. I wanted to get out of that booth fast. “I’m not in the business,” I said bleakly.

“Eight hundred thousand. Nat, this setup is a peach!”

“I told you—”