VERSION 0.5 DTD 032600
The science fiction writers of this world are resolutely
differentfrom mankind and from each other-except that
Philip K. Dick is more different. He goes his own way,
writing his own kind of book, irrespective of changing moods
and styles, true unto himself and his own inner vision. He
produces steadily, but never badly, and won a well-deserved
Hugo for his "Man in the High Castle." Here he is at his
deep-probing best, keeping the reader on the run, exploring
levels of consciousness and worryingbut worrying wellthe
SF worrying-tooth of "what is reality?"
WE CAN REMEMBER IT
FOR YOU WHOLESALE
Philip K. Dick
He awokeand wanted Mars. The valleys, he thought. What
would it be like to trudge among them? Great and greater yet:
the dream grew as he became fully conscious, the dream and
the yearning. He could almost feel the enveloping presence of
the other world, which only Government agents and high
officials had seen. A clerk like himself? Not likely.
"Are you getting up or not?" his wife Kirsten asked
drowsily, with her usual hint of fierce crossness. "If you are,
push the hot coffee button on the darn stove."
"Okay," Douglas Quail said, and made his way barefoot
from the bedroom of their conapt to the kitchen. There,
having dutifully pressed the hot coffee button, he seated
himself at the kitchen table, brought out a yellow, small tin of
fine Dean Swift snuff. He inhaled briskly,, and the Beau Nash
mixture stung his nose, burned the roof of his mouth. But still
he inhaled; it woKe him up and allowed his dreams, his
nocturnal desires and random wishes, to condense into a
semblance of rationality.
I will go, he said to himself. Before I die I'll see Mars.
It was, of course, impossible, and he knew this even as he
dreamed. But the daylight, the mundane noise of his wife now
brushing her hair before the bedroom mirroreverything
conspired to remind him of what he was. A miserable little
salaried employee, he said to himself with bitterness. Kirsten
reminded him of this at least once a day and he did not blame
her; it was a wife's job to bring her husband down to Earth.
Down to Earth, he thought, and laughed. The figure of speech
in this was literally apt.
"What are you sniggering about?" his wife asked as she
swept into the kitchen, her long busy-pink robe wagging after
her. "A dream, I bet. You're always full of them."
"Yes," he said, and gazed out the kitchen window at the
hovercars and traffic runnels, and all the little energetic people
hurrying to work. In a little while he would be among them.
As always.
"I'll bet it has to do with some woman," Kirsten said
witheringly.
"No," he said. "A god. The god of war. He has wonderful
craters with every kind of plant-life growing deep down in
them."
"Listen." Kirsten crouched down beside him and spoke
earnestly, the harsh quality momentarily gone from her voice.
"The bottom of the oceanour ocean is much more, an
infinity of times more beautiful. You know that; everyone
knows that. Rent an artificial gill-outfit for both of us, take a
week off from work, and we can descend and live down there
at one of those year-round aquatic resorts. And in addition"
She broke off. "You're not listening. You should be. Here is
something a lot better than that compulsion, that obsession
you have about Mars, and you don't even listen!" Her voice
rose piercingly. "God in heaven, you're doomed, Dougl
What's going to become of you?"
"I'm going to work," he said, rising to his feet, his break-
fast forgotten. "That's what's going to become of me."
She eyed him. "You're getting worse. More fanatical every
day. Where's it going to lead?"
"To Mars," he said, and opened the door to the closet to
get down a fresh shirt to wear to work.-
Having descended from the taxi Douglas Quail slowly
walked across three densely-populated foot runnels and to the
modern, attractively inviting doorway. There he halted, im-
peding mid-morning traffic, and with caution read the shift-
ing-color neon sign. He had, in the past, scrutinized this sign
before... but never had he come so close. This was very
different; what he did now was something else. Something
which sooner or later had to happen.
REKAL, INCORPORATED
Was this the answer? After all, an illusion, no matter how
convincing, remained nothing more than an illusion. At least
objectively. But subjectivelyquite the opposite entirely.
And anyhow he had an appointment. Within the next five
minutes.
Taking a deep breath of mildly smog-infested Chicago air,
he walked through the dazzling poly-chromatic shimmer of
the doorway and up to the receptionist's counter.
The nicely-articulated blonde at the counter, bare-bosomed
and tidy, said pleasantly, "Good morning, Mr. Quail."
"Yes," he said. "I'm here to see about a Rekal course. As I
guess you know."
"Not 'rekal' but recall," the receptionist corrected him. She
picked up the receiver of the vidphone by her smooth elbow
and said into it, "Mr. Douglas Quail is here, Mr. McClane.
May he come inside, now? Or is it too soon?"
"Giz wetwa wum-wum wamp," the phone mumbled.
"Yes, Mr. Quail," she said. "You may go on in; Mr.
McClane is expecting you." As he started off uncertainly she
called after him, "Room D, Mr. Quail. To your right."
After a frustrating but brief moment of being lost he found
the proper room. The door hung open and inside, at a big
genuine walnut desk, sat a genial-looking man, middle-aged,
wearing the latest Martian frog-pelt gray suit; his attire alone
would have told Quail that he had come to the right person.
"Sit down, Douglas," McClane said, waving his plump
hand toward a chair which faced the desk. "So you want to
have gone to Mars. Very good."
Quail seated himself, feeling tense. "I'm not so sure this is
worth the fee," he said. "It costs a lot and as far as I can see I
really get nothing." Costs almost as much as going, he
thought.
"You get tangible proof of your trip," McClane disagreed
emphatically. "All the proof you'll need. Here; I'll show you."
He dug within a drawer of his impressive desk. "Ticket stub."
Reaching into a manila folder he produced a small square of
embossed cardboard. "It proves you wentand returned.
Postcards." He laid out four franked picture 3-D full-color
postcards in a neatly-arranged row on the desk for Quail to
see. "Film. Shots you took of local sights on Mars with a
rented movie camera." To Quail he displayed those, too.
"Plus the names of people you met, two hundred poscreds
worth of souvenirs, which will arrivefrom Marswithin
the following month. And passport, certificates listing the
shots you received. And more." He glanced up keenly at
Quail. "You'll know you went, all right," he said. "You won't
remember us, won't remember me or ever having been here.
It'll be a real trip in your mind; we guarantee that. A full two
weeks of recall; every last piddling detail. Remember this: if
at any time you doubt that you really took an extensive trip to
Mars you can return here and get a full refund. You see?"
"But I didn't go," Quail said. "I won't have gone, no matter
what proofs you provide me with." He took a deep, unsteady
breath. "And I never was a secret agent with Interplan." It
seemed impossible to him that Rekal, Incorporated's extra-
factual memory implant would do its jobdespite what he
had heard people say.
"Mr. Quail," McClane said patiently. "As you explained in
your letter to us, you have no chance, no possibility in the
slightest, of ever actually getting to Mars; you can't afford it,
and what is much more important, you could never qualify as
an undercover agent for Interplan or anybody -else. This is the
only way you can achieve your, ahem, life-long dream; am I
not correct, sir? You can't be this; you can't actually do this."
He chuckled. "But you can have been and have done. We see
to that. And our fee is reasonable; no hidden charges." He
smiled encouragingly.
"Is an extra-factual memory that convincing?" Quail asked.
"More than the real thing, sir. Had you really gone to Mars
as an Interplan agent, you would by now have forgotten a
great deal; our analysis of true-mem systemsauthentic rec-
ollections of major events in a person's lifeshows that a
variety of details are very quickly lost to the person. Forever.
Part of the package we offer you is such deep implantation of
recall that nothing is forgotten. The packet which is fed to
you while you're comatose is the creation of trained experts,
men who have spent years on Mars; in every case we verify
details down to the last iota. And you've picked a rather easy
extra-factual system; had you picked Pluto or wanted to be
Emperor of the Inner Planet Alliance we'd have much more
difficulty . . . and the charges would be considerably greater."
Reaching into his coat for his wallet, Quail said, "Okay. It's
been my life-long ambition and I can see I'll never really do
it. So I guess I'll have to settle for this."
"Don't think of it that way," McClane said severely.
"You're not accepting second-best. The actual memory, with
all its vagueness, omissions and ellipses, not to say distortions
that's second-best." He accepted the money and pressed a
button on his desk. "All right, Mr. Quail," he said, as the door
of his office opened and two burly men swiftly entered.
"You're on your way to Mars as a secret agent." He rose,
came over to shake Quail's nervous, moist hand. "Or rather,
you have been on your way. This afternoon at four-thirty you
will, urn, arrive back here on Terra; a cab will leave you off at
your conapt and as I say you will never remember seeing me
or coming here; you won't, in fact, even remember having
heard of our existence."
His mouth dry with nervousness, Quail followed the two
technicians from the office; what happened next depended on
them.
Will I actually believe I've been on Mars? he wondered.
That I managed to fulfill my lifetime ambition? He had a
strange, lingering intuition that something would go wrong.
But just whathe did not know.
He would have to wait to find out.
The intercom on McClane's desk, which connected him
with the work area of the firm, buzzed and a voice said, "Mr.
Quail is under sedation now, sir. Do you want to supervise
this one, or shall we go ahead?"
"It's routine," McClane observed. "You may go ahead,
Lowe; I don't think you'll run into any trouble." Program-
ming an artificial memory of a trip to another planetwith or
without the added fillip of being a secret agentshowed up
on the firm's work-schedule with monotonous regularity. In
one month, he calculated wryly, we must do twenty of these
... ersatz interplanetary travel has become our bread and
butter.
"Whatever you say, Mr. McClane," Lowe's voice came,
and thereupon the intercom shut off.
Going to the vault section in the chamber behind his office,
McClane searched about for a Three packettrip to Mars
and a Sixty-two packet: secret Interplan spy. Finding the two
packets, he returned with them to his desk, seated himself
comfortably, poured out the contentsmerchandise which
would be planted in Quail's conapt while the lab technicians
busied themselves installing the false memory.
A one-poscred sneaky-pete side arm, McClane reflected;
that's the largest item. Sets us back financially the most. Then
a pellet-sized transmitter, which could be swallowed if the
agent were caught. Code book that astonishingly resembled
the real thing... the firm's models were highly accurate:
based, whenever possible, on actual U.S. military issue. Odd
bits which made no intrinsic sense but which would be woven
into the warp and woof of Quail's imaginary trip, would
coincide with his memory: half an ancient silver fifty cent
piece, several quotations from John Donne's sermons written
incorrectly, each on a separate piece of transparent tissue-
thin paper, several match folders from bars on Mars, a stain-
less steel spoon engraved PROPERTY OF DOME-MARS
NATIONAL KIBBUZIM, a wire tapping coil which
The intercom buzzed. "Mr. McClane, I'm sorry to bother
you but something rather ominous has come up. Maybe it
would be better if you were in here after all. Quail is already
under sedation; he reacted well to the narkidrine; he's com-
pletely unconscious and receptive. But"
"I'll be in." Sensing trouble, McClane left his office; a
moment later he emerged in the work area.
On a hygienic bed lay Douglas Quail, breathing slowly and
regularly, his eyes virtually shut; he seemed dimlybut only
dimlyaware of the two technicians and now McClane
himself.
"There's no space to insert false memory-patterns?"
McClane felt irritation. "Merely drop out two work weeks;
he's employed as a clerk at the West Coast Emigration
Bureau, which is a government agency, so he undoubtedly has
or had two weeks vacation within the last year. That ought to
do it." Petty details annoyed him. And always would.
"Our problem," Lowe said sharply, "is something quite
different." He bent over the bed, said to Quail, "Tell Mr.
McClane what you told us." To McClane he said, "Listen
closely."
The gray-green eyes of the man lying supine in the bed
focussed on McClane's face. The eyes, he observed uneasily,
had become hard; they had a polished, inorganic quality, like
semi-precious tumbled stones. He was not sure that he liked
what he saw; the brilliance was too cold. "What do you want
now?" Quail said harshly. "You've broken my cover. Get out
of here before I take you all apart." He studied McClane.
"Especially you," he continued. "You're in charge of this
counter-operation."
Lowe said, "How long were you on Mars?"
"One month," Quail said gratingly.
"And your purpose there?" Lowe demanded.
The meager lips twisted; Quail eyed him and did not speak.
At last, drawling the words out so that they dripped with
hostility, he said, "Agent for Interplan. As I already told you.
Don't you record everything that's said? Play your vid-aud
tape back for your boss and leave me alone." He shut his
eyes, then; the hard brilliance ceased. McClane felt, instantly,
a rushing splurge of relief.
Lowe said quietly, "This is a tough man, Mr. McClane."
"He won't be," McClane said, "after we arrange for him to
lose his memory-chain again. He'll be as meek as before." To
Quail he said, "So this is why you wanted to go to Mars so
terribly badly."
Without opening his eyes Quail said, "I never wanted to go
to Mars. I was assigned itthey handed it to me and there I
was: stuck. Oh yeah, I admit I was curious about it; who
wouldn't be?" Again he opened his eyes and surveyed the
three of them, McClane in particular. "Quite a truth drug
you've got here; it brought up things I had absolutely no mem-
ory of." He pondered. "I wonder about Kirsten," he said, half
to himself. "Could she be in on it? An Interplan contact
keeping an eye on me ... to be certain I didn't regain my
memory? No wonder she's been so derisive about my wanting
to go there." Faintly, he smiled; the smileone of under-
standingdisappeared almost at once.
McClane said, "Please believe me, Mr. Quail; we stumbled
onto this entirely by accident. In the work we do"
"I believe you," Quail said. He seemed tired, now; the drug
was continuing to pull him under, deeper and deepef. "Where
did I say I'd been?" he murmured. "Mars? Hard to remember
1 know I'd like to see it; so would everybody else. But
me" His voice trailed off. "Just a clerk, a nothing clerk."
Straightening up, Lowe said to his superior, "He wants a
false memory implanted that corresponds to a trip he actually
took. And a false reason which is the real reason. He's telling
the truth; he's a long way down in the narkidrine. The trip is
very vivid in his mindat least under sedation. But apparent-
ly he doesn't recall it otherwise. Someone, probably at a
government military-sciences lab, erased his conscious mem-
ories; all he knew was that going to Mars meant something
special to him, and so did being a secret agent. They couldn't
erase that; it's not a memory but a desire, undoubtedly the
same one that motivated him to volunteer for the assignment
in the first place."
The other technician, Keeler, said to McClane, "What do
we do? Graft a false memory-pattern over the real memory?
There's no telling what the results would be; he might
remember some of the genuine trip, and the confusion might
bring on a psychotic interlude. He'd have to hold two oppo-
site premises in his mind simultaneously: that he went to Mars
and that he didn't. That he's a genuine agent for Interplan
and he's not, that it's spurious. I think we ought to revive him
without any false memory implantation and send him out of
here; this is hot."
"Agreed," McClane said. A thought came to him. "Can
you predict what he'll remember when he comes out of
sedation?"
"Impossible to tell," Lowe said. "He probably will have
some dim, diffuse memory of his actual trip, now. And he'd
probably be in grave doubt as to its validity; he'd probably
decide our programming slipped a gear-tooth. And he'd
remember coming here; that wouldn't be erasedunless you
want it erased."
"The less we mess with this man," McClane said, "the
better I like it. This is nothing for us to fool around with;
we've been foolish enough toor unlucky enough toun-
cover a genuine Interplan spy who has a cover so perfect that
up to now even he didn't know what he wasor rather is."
The sooner they washed their hands of the man calling
himself Douglas Quail the better.
"Are you going to plant packets Three and Sixty-two in his
conapt?" Lowe said.
"No," McClane said. "And we're going to return half his
fee."
"Half! Why half?"
McClane said lamely, "It seems to be a good compromise."
As the cab carried him back to his conapt at the residential
end of Chicago, Douglas Quail said to himself, It's sure good
to be back on Terra.
Already the month-long period on Mars had begun to
waver in his memory; he had only an image of profound
gaping craters, an ever-present ancient erosion of hills, of
vitality, of motion itself. A world of dust where little hap-
pened, where a good part of the day was spent checking and
rechecking one's portable oxygen source. And then the life
forms, the unassuming and modest gray-brown cacti and
maw-worms.
As a matter of fact he had brought back several moribund
examples of Martian fauna; he had smuggled them through
customs. After all, they posed no menace; they couldn't
survive in Earth's heavy atmosphere.
Reaching into his coat pocket he rummaged for the con-
tainer of Martian maw-worms
And found an envelope instead.
Lifting it out he discovered, to his perplexity, that it
contained five hundred and seventy poscreds,...
januszernest