Rob Chilson - Refuge

But the Robot City dreams were different…they didn’t even seem like dreams. They seemed frighteningly real. In the mornings Derec’s hands shook, and he hoped the doctors never started asking serious questions. They’d know for sure he was crazy.

He was dreaming that Robot City was inside him. He dreamed of gleaming buildings rising on the lobes of his liver, great dark-red plains stacked above each other, or on his ribs, or inside his lungs, the buildings expanding and contracting as he breathed. Then the dreams seemed to become much clearer, and he “knew,” in the crazy dream way, that Robot City was in his bloodstream.

Enclosed buildings, like space cities on lonely rocks, he thought. Yeah! But jeering didn’t drive off the frightened, helpless feeling, the feeling of being invaded and used.

1 suppose that’s the source of this dream, he thought, trying to comfort himself. I’ve been moved and manipulated from the beginning.

The next time he walked into the Friends’ Lounge, Korolenko brought him Dr. Li and an unsmiling. athletic young man with the look of eagles in his eyes.

“Yes?” Derec said to the stranger.

“This is Special Agent Donovan,” said Dr. Li, frowning slightly. “Of the Terrestrial Bureau of Investigation.”

The Terry followed him and Dr. Li to a more private conference room, where Dr. Li left them.

The special agent looked Derec over intently, but not in a hostile manner. Derec braced himself, shaky. Above all, he mustn’t mention Robot City. Neither could he mention Aranimas and Wolruf. They’d consider him crazy.

Any break in his story would mean endless questioning, queries to the Spacer worlds, questions about Dr. Avery, the discovery of Wolruf in orbit about Kappa Whale, perhaps the discovery of all that Dr. Avery was doing…not all of that bad, but it would take time! Worst of all, the investigation would ultimately uncover Robot City…and that secret had to be kept at all costs.

Derec and Ariel had to get back there.

“I must warn you that this conversation is being recorded, and that anything you say may be used against you. Further, you have the right to remain silent, if you feel that your interests might be threatened by answering. On the other hand, we have as yet no positive evidence that any crime has been committed. The Bureau has been called in primarily because you are allegedly a Spacer…diplomatic reasons, that is,”

Derec nodded, throat tight.

“Who are you?” the agent asked abruptly.

“Derec.”

“And your last name?”

Derec debated, decided not, and said, “I sit mute.”

“That is your right. Do you wish a witness that you have not been coerced?”

“Waived, but, uh,” Derec could not quite remember the Spacer legal formula-so far it had seemed close to Earth’s. If anything, Earth was more fanatical about preserving the individual’s rights than the Spacer worlds were. “Oh, I wish to retain the right to ask for a witness later.”

“Waived right to a witness pro tern,” said Donovan, nodding shortly once, in faint approval. “I assume then that you do not mean to sit mute to all questions. Therefore, I ask you: have you ever had Burundi’s disease, popularly known as amnemonic plague?”

“I don’t remember.” Derec smiled faintly at the other and received a faint smile back.

“Do you remember your last visit to Towner Laney Memorial Hospital, two days ago, and the blood sample that was taken at that time?”

Derec remembered the visit, but not the blood sample. Even when Donovan pointed at the red scab inside his left elbow, he still didn’t remember the sample being taken.

Concerned, Donovan said, “Do you assert that it was taken without your knowledge; particularly, do you accuse anyone of using anesthesia on you against your will?”

“Is that a crime on Earth? No, I make no such-uh-assertion. I just don’t remember…I was probably in a fog. I usually am, these days.”

The agent looked at him. “Isn’t unauthorized anesthesia a crime on the Spacer worlds?”

“It might be, but I doubt it. I doubt that it happens often enough for anyone to pass a law against it. The robots would prevent it, usually.”

“Hmmm,” said the Terry, possibly reflecting that a robot-saturated society might have its points. “In any case, I now inform you that a blood sample was taken from you on that occasion and carefully studied. The conclusion of the doctors here, and at the Mayo, and in Bethesda, is that though you have antitoxins to Burundi’s, you have never had the disease in its severe form.”

Derec stared at him.

Donovan continued, “Yet, something you said to the Spacer plague victim, and which she answered, indicates that your memory was lost in the characteristic fashion of this disease. Can you elucidate that, or do you wish to sit mute?”

The robots. thought Derec. Furniture to a Spacer, he had paid no attention. And usually a robot’s discretion was proverbial, so much so that their testimony was rarely heard even in Spacer courts. But these had been instructed to record and play back everything that Ariel said. Derec couldn’t remember what she and he had said, but they’d given the game away more than an Earthly week ago.

Had they mentioned Robot City?

“Why do you ask?” he asked warily.

“Do you suffer from amnesia?” the other countered.

Derec ought to sit mute. He considered that seriously, wondered if perhaps it was already too late, then thought of a possible way around.

“Why do you ask? Surely it’s no crime to suffer amnesia. Nor would I expect the Terries to be called in even if a Spacer suffered. The condition isn’t contagious, you know.”

“There are laws against harboring certain diseases, nevertheless,” said Donovan automatically, but he waved that aside. “Public policy. No, the question here is more serious. Essentially, two things about you alarm us. One is that you do not remember your past. The other is that you are not on Earth.”

Derec gaped at him, almost started to ask exactly where St. Louis was.

“Officially, I mean,” said Donovan, frowning in irritation. “We’ve done a thorough computer check, and we find no sign of you before you appeared here a couple of weeks ago, eating at the section kitchen, big as life and twice as natural. This was brought to our attention by the hospital’s accountants and computer operators, who have never discovered how your partner’s records vanished out of the hospital’s computer.”

The Terry looked at him again. “Normally I wouldn’t reveal so much, but there’s a good deal of alarm in Washington. It’s considered that you are not the source of the mystery, and may in fact be unaware of it. Who sent you to Earth, and why?”

Derec’s mind was spinning like a wheel, but he managed to say, “I suppose you figure the ones who sent us have done this computer trick. How could they possibly have?”

Donovan shrugged angrily. “Any number of ways, I suppose. There’s talk of bandit programs that take over computers. More realistically, there’s talk of disappearing programs, that automatically wipe themselves after a certain time-that is, they contain instructions that cause the computer to wipe them, do you see?”

Derec nodded, a memory clicking into place. He’d heard of such programs as toys, but a good computer could usually retain them. And a network of computers…if you were getting food or lodging with your ration tag, that allocation would have to be routed through so many computers that though the first computer might lose the program, the memory of the transaction would remain. His little erasure at the hospital had been simple, and he’d caught the accounting trail early, so there was no trace.