“What's more,” she said, “I know why your wife left you. Jenny told me. She is too kind to tell you, but I'm not. Your wife left you because she was bored. She didn't die. She went to another building, a strange building. Can you imagine that? Rather than continue to live with dull, boring Laurence, she went to a strange building and found herself another life among strangers. Because she couldn't stand you anymore. She couldn't stand—"
Laurence slapped her. The blow was unpremeditated, and as soon as his hand touched her face, he was sorry. She sprawled on the floor and looked up at him, holding one hand to her cheek.
He did not speak. He sat down at the console and tried to read the manuscript page the computer had put before him.
Click.
EVERY VISITED HOUSE TO BE MARKED.
That every House visited, be marked with a Red Cross of a foot long, in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with these usual Printed words, that is to say, Lord have mercy upon us, to be set close over the same Cross, there to continue until lawful opening of the same House.
When he awoke, the beautiful bright child was back, golden in his bed, quicksilver in his arms, honey-sweet to his lips, and for a moment he rejoiced. But then suspicion swept joy aside.
He unwound her from him and went to the lavatory. The capsule was gone—no doubt she had cast it into the waste disposal—but the injector was too big for the lavatory, and the waste disposal had rejected it because it was metal.
She could have obtained them only one way: in the night she had discovered how to instruct the console to provide her with what she craved.
When he turned, sickness trembling along every nerve, she was standing beside the bed, holding out her golden arms. “Love,” she said tenderly, “we've been cruel to each other when we should have been kind. People should make each other happy. Enjoy! Enjoy!"
He let her lead him back to bed and into paradise.
Later, when she was asleep, he sat at the console one last time. In one hand was the injector, in the other a capsule marked “Abélard."
On the screen of the console was a new page of manuscript.
Click.
This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and “Lord have mercy upon us” writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that, to my remembrance, I ever saw.
He inserted the capsule in the injector, pushed back his sleeve, and pressed the nozzle of the injector to his arm. For one brief moment, before the synthetic peptides began to reconstruct his memories, his eyes filled with tears and he could not read.
The Mnemonist II
So I awoke, and behold it was a dream.
—John Bunyan
The spidery gray body of the Mnemonist stirred with the chemical echoes that reverberated through his old veins. He could not entirely resist the ancient emotions, but they no longer had the power to enslave his will—if they ever had. The philosophical questions disturbed him more. “If not a man in love with what I love,” the Mnemonist said, “where can I turn for help when I must have help?” He looked again at the empty mattress beside him, round like a symbol of nothingness, dusty like a reproach. “What kind of world do we live in, where even the strong succumb and the strength of their desires is the power that brings them down?"
it is not now
as it hath been
of yore
turn wheresoeer i may
by night or day
the things
which I have seen
i now can
see no more
ungar said
first we have
to break
the code
in which memory
is recorded
in the brain
in terms of
molecular structure
analyze
all children
for interest
in history
we are
going
to need
new
historians
“Is it possible,” the Mnemonist asked, “that the historian was not strong at all, only untested?” His eyes, weak and watering from the unusual demands placed upon them, regarded the rest of the room dispassionately. It was a small round space without doors or shafts, a bit dirty with the debris not of living but of time passing. Spiders wove webs in corners and waited with insufferable patience for prey that never came their way; perhaps they lived by eating each other. So the poppets lived by consuming each other's dreams. So he lived by consuming dry data provided for him by the urban center and the dusty memories stirred up by the computers. Had there once been something else: other people, other places? Had his mouth once tasted food; had his parched throat once been wet by drink? Had his flesh touched other flesh?
swift as a shadow
short as any dream
brief as the lightning
in the collied night
that in a spleen
unfolds both heaven
and earth and ere
a man hath power
to say behold
the jaws of darkness
do devour it up
so quick bright things
come to confusion
ungar said
each molecule
corresponds
to some
different
specific type
of information
to the pathways
which conduct
the nerve impulses
representing
the information
the
brain
tumor
is
inoperable
for
now
put
him
in
low
level
maintenance
“Must a person's character include a certain measure of self-sacrifice to occupy this position?” the Mnemonist asked. He himself had entered this room once, long ago, not like a martyr but like a bridegroom to his bride. He had entered—and so, there must be a door. His predecessor had been removed—there must be a door. Somewhere in the room. He thought it strange that he could not remember where it was when he could remember everything else. Memory was his life, his chosen work. “Is it necessary,” he asked, “to shut out the world of sense in order to realize the world of understanding?"
a thousand
fantasies begin
to throng
into my memory
of calling shapes
and beckoning
shadows dire
of airy tongues
that syllable
men's names
on sands and shores
and desert
Wildernesses
ungar said
when the memory
is acquired
during training
the molecule
is synthesized
in increased amounts
in the brain
when we extract it
and inject the extract
into another animal
we communicate
it to him
soybean
storage
bin 616
has
developed
a leak
fumigate
for
pests
and
fungal
infections
and reseal
He searched his feelings. The process was unusual and awakened in him unexpected sensations, but he could not discover any trace of sacrifice. He had gained, not lost. True, he had not “lived” in the sense of the ordinary citizen, experiencing through his senses the pleasures and pains of existence. He had not touched others since he had left the crèche, nor had he popped the experiences of others, as the poppets did.
But he had known all there was to know—no, not all, because information still flowed in him without cease; he was a turbine in the river of knowledge—and he remembered it all. “Am I unique,” he asked, “or only exceptional?"
we are
Creatures
of a day
what is one
what is one not
man is
the dream
of a shadow
ungar said
the only way
to make this information
practically useful
is to break the code
and learn
to synthesize
these molecules
room 1251
has exhibited
no signs
of life
in five periods
check to see
if the occupant
has expired
He considered what had brought him to this room. It was not in one of the towers but in the central service core, not hidden away but tucked into a convenient and unfrequented area, where all the protein-coded information that flowed like life itself through the plastic arteries of this almost-living structure passed and was absorbed. As a young man he had injected a series of information capsules to satisfy his insatiable curiosity about the way things worked. Then, he remembered, with what he considered daring and ingenuity, he had plugged himself into a console to avoid the interruptions and delays in the delivery of what he craved: knowledge. And in that information flow a series of data clues had led him to the room in which he had found the old Mnemonist.
give me the old
Enthusiasms back
the ardent longings
that I lack
the glorious dreams
that fooled me
in my youth
the sweet mirage
that lured me
on its track
and take away
the bitter barren
Truth
ungar said
the transfer factors
are peptides
that is
small proteins
consisting of
alignments of
amino acids
twenty
amino acids
differently combined
make up all the proteins
like an alphabet
effluent
pipe 4338
in field 313
is broken
and
spreading
its
fertilizer
unevenly
replace
the
broken
piece
“Was I seduced?” the Mnemonist asked. Surely he was guided. He would not have found this place without assistance. But he had been pointed in this direction, he thought, ever since he could identify in himself hungers that were not satisfied by what appeased others. Not for him the food that fed others; the dreams that sated other minds; the eyes, the lips, the entwining limbs that drew other men into forgetfulness. Had there ever been that for him? Once, twice he had a fleeting glimpse of white flesh, a tactile sense of silken softness. But perhaps that was only someone else's memory. And what he found in this room was the idealized version of what he had rigged up on his own. “Is all life a seduction,” he asked, “opening doors through which we can walk if we wish—but only if the ability to wish to walk through those particular doors is born in us?"
to die to sleep
to sleep
perchance to dream
ay theres the rub
for in that sleep
of death
what dreams may come
when we have shuffled
off this mortal coil
must give us pause
ungar said
he had calculated
that there must be
in the brain
something on the order of
ten to a hundred million
of these substances
so this is
a big dictionary
to compile
the
information
is
public
knowledge
give her
the
list
of
surgeons
“Would it be possible to shape someone else's life so that he or she would choose this place of mine?” the Mnemonist asked. He could start early in the educational process of some appropriate child, insinuating an affection for data and a dislike for contact with others, and gradually nurture these inclinations into love and hate until it was time to bring the young adult to this room, as he had been brought. But he knew, with the certainty of a hundred million particles of information, that the seduction would not work without predisposition, and he thought that if it would he could not do it.
canst thou
not minister
to a mind diseased
pluck from the memory
a rooted sorrow
raze out the written
troubles of the brain
and with some sweet
oblivious antidote
Cleanse
the stuffed bosom
of that perilous stuff
which weighs
upon the heart
ungar said
if we learn
how the brain
works
how the mind
works
we can help
in mental
disease
and we also
can improve
the functioning
of the
normal mind
check
all
routine
blood
samples
for
innate
tendencies
toward
altruism
particularly
among
the
volunteers
On the other hand,” the Mnemonist said, “could the computer network maintain this urban center without human mediation?” He had never asked himself that question before, and it was tempting to believe that it might be true. Too tempting, perhaps. Certainly it could handle matters during his brief periods of sleep, but over entire periods and cycles could the computers and their dependent mechanisms make the necessary decisions and initiate the necessary actions without his direction? He doubted that it was possible, but he realized that his skepticism might stem from the fact that he had always decided and directed. It would make an interesting experiment.
while
memory
holds a seat