But the probe bored its way through, drilled through the hard barrier
of amnesia in his mind.
And suddenly he was back on Iapetus, in Project Headquarters.
He was saying, "Commander Dubrow, the androids running the
atmosphere-generators are lying down on the job. They don't seem to be
working."
Dubrow glared at him coldly. "Stick to your own job, Lieutenant
Mannion. Coleridge is supervising the androids out there."
"No, he isn't! Coleridge isn't there."
"He must be there, Lieutenant."
"Commander, I'm going out there to see what's wrong. Those androids
have been acting up strangely all day and I don't like it."
"I order you to stay here!" Dubrow snapped.
"But--"
Hesitantly Mannion took a few steps toward the airlock. The androids
outside were sauntering casually around like unemployed thieves. It
wasn't a natural way for androids to behave.
"Sir, I request special permission to go out there and investig--_sir_!"
Dubrow was throwing open the airlock--and the androids came rushing in!
_He's crazy_, Lieutenant Mannion thought. _I've got to take
charge--keep those androids from wrecking the Project--_
"Get away from there, sir! Close the lock!"
"Don't give me orders, Mannion!"
Dan shook his head and started to run toward his superior officer. But
suddenly Dubrow charged him.
The abrupt assault bowled him over. Dan ducked and tried to land a
punch but Dubrow had his blaster out. A blow crashed into Mannion's
forehead. He tried to clear away the cobwebs but Dubrow hit him again
and all went dim.
He had a vague memory of Dubrow's directing the androids in a
methodical destruction of the Project. Then it was all over and
the androids were back where they belonged. Dubrow was holding a
hypnomech in front of his eyes, spinning around and around, a dizzying
sleep-inducing confusing blare of many colors, around and around,
around and around....
And then he was asleep.
* * * * *
"We owe you a great apology, Lieutenant Mannion," the technician was
saying. "If you hadn't forced us to probe your mind we would have sent
an innocent man to mnemonic erasure. But now we have the record of what
actually happened--"
"Hang on to it," Mannion said. "I've got to get upstairs and find
Dubrow before he gets out of here."
Without waiting for a word of protest, Dan threw off the mind-probe
apparatus, jumped off the table, and raced out into the hall.
He caught the lift tube going up. In all likelihood Dubrow, Virginia,
and the judge would still be in the courtroom, working out some
settlement of the former Lieutenant Mannion's private property.
He was right.
"Mannion! What are you doing--"
Dan ignored the judge's outcry. "Hello, Dubrow. I just had some of my
amnesia removed. That was a pretty clever story you told, wasn't it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Mannion."
"The hell you don't! You don't know anything about the hypnomech you
used to block my mind and--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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