“Now, Tallon — time for a little editing.” Cherkassky’s powdery face had become businesslike.
“Here? In the hotel?”
“Why not? The longer you have the information in your head, the greater chance you have of transferring it to someone else.”
“But it takes a trained psychologist to isolate any specific sequence of thoughts,” Tallon protested. “You’re likely to blot out whole areas of my memory that have nothing to — ” He stopped as Cherkassky’s head began to make little self-satisfied swaying movements on the turkey neck. Tallon swore silently at himself. He had intended to take it all without a word, absorb anything they could hand out — but he had begun to squeal before they had even touched him. So much for the short and spectacular career of Iron Man Tallon. He compressed his lips and sat staring straight ahead as Cherkassky positioned the linked terminals on his head. The sergeant gave a signal, and the encircling wall of gray uniforms retreated into the corridor, making the room suddenly bigger and colder. In the dismal light the single cobweb still waved inanely from the warm-air vent.
Cherkassky stood beside the chair that held the gray box, stooping slightly to make adjustments on the verniers. He ran his eyes over the dials and glanced up at Tallon’s face.
“Did you know, Tallon, that your basal resistance is abnormally low? Perhaps you perspire easily; that always lowers the skin resistance. You aren’t a sweaty person, are you?” Cherkassky’s nose wrinkled in distaste, and the sergeant chuckled quietly.
Tallon scowled past him toward the window. It had misted over during the time the room was crowded, and the few city lights that were visible looked like balls of illuminated cotton. He longed to be outside, breathing the sharp starry air. Myra had liked walking on frosty nights… .
“Mr. Tallon wants us to stop wasting time,” Cherkassky said severely. “He’s right, of course. Let’s get down to business. Now, Tallon, just so that there are absolutely no misconceptions on either side — you are in your present predicament because you are part of an intelligence network that by pure chance obtained details of portal coordinates, jump increment, and jump bearings of the planet Aitch Mühlenberg, a territorial acquisition of the revered government of Emm Luther. The information was transferred to you, and you have committed it to memory. Correct?”
Tallon nodded compliantly, wondering if the brain-brush would be as unpleasant as the capsule. Cherkassky picked up the remote control and poised his thumb over the red button. It dawned on Tallon that the instrument being used on him was a standard model, the same model as used by less reputable psychiatrists. He began to wonder just how unofficial his present treatment was. On Emm Luther, with its single continent run by a single world government, there had never been any need to develop the huge, highly organized intelligence and counterespionage agencies that still proliferated on Earth. For this reason the three Lutherian network executives were given an almost free hand, like contractors on any normal government undertaking, but they were answerable to the Temporal Moderator, the planet’s equivalent of a president. The question was, how far was a man like Cherkassky allowed to indulge his own idiosyncrasies?
“All right, then,” Cherkassky said. “We want you to focus your thoughts on the information. Try to get it nice and clean. And don’t try to fool us by thinking about something else; we will be checking. I will raise my hand when I’m going to erase, which will be about five seconds from now.”
Tallon worked to marshal the strings of figures, all at once desperately afraid of losing his own name. Cherkassky’s hand made a preliminary movement, and Tallon fought down his panic as the figures refused to flow properly, even with his Block-trained memory, then nothing. The numerals that would have given Earth a whole new world were gone. There had been no pain, no sound, no sensation of any kind, but the vital fragment of knowledge was no longer his. As the expectation of pain faded Tallon relaxed a little.
“That wasn’t too horrible, was it?” Cherkassky smoothed the thick crown of glossy hair, which seemed to thrive like a parasite at the expense of his frail, dry body. “Quite painless, I’m told.”
“I didn’t feel anything,” Tallon conceded.
“But the information has been erased?”
“Yes. It’s gone.”
“Astonishing!” Cherkassky’s voice became conversational. “I never fail to be astonished at what this little box of tricks can do. You know, it makes libraries unnecessary. All anyone has to do is get one book he really likes, then he can go on reading and erasing, reading and erasing for the rest of his life.”
“It’s an idea,” Tallon said suspiciously. “Do you mind if I take this thing off now?”
“Don’t even twitch your toes until Mr. Cherkassky gives the word.” The blond sergeant tapped Tallon on the shoulder with his hornet gun.
“Oh, come on now, Sergeant,” Cherkassky protested amiably. “You mustn’t be too hard on him. After all, he has been very cooperative. Very communicative, too. I mean, look how much he told earlier about that girl he knew back on Earth. Most men keep that sort of stuff to themselves. What was her name, Tallon? Ah, I remember — Mary.”
“Myra,” Tallon corrected automatically, then noticed the broadening smile on the sergeant’s face.
Cherkassky’s thumb had come down on the red button.
Tallon stared up into his thin, strangely triumphant face with an overwhelming feeling of having been robbed. Something, some part of him was gone. But what? He tried to explore his own mind, looking for dark gaps in his memory. There was nothing but a lingering sense of loss.
Anger came fountaining up through him then, clean and pure. Tallon felt it burn away all caution and common sense, and was grateful.
“You’re filth, Cherkassky,” he said quietly. “You’re a disease.”
The muzzle of the hornet gun came down on his shoulder, viciously, and at the same time he saw Cherkassky’s thumb go for the button again. Tallon tried to throw an unwanted scrap of thought up into the forefront of his mind before the contact was made.
The brittle-star is a marine animal related to the— Blank!
Cherkassky backed away from Tallon, mouth twitching violently, thumb poised over the button. This can go on all night, Tallon thought. By morning I’ll be as good as dead, because Sam Tallon is the total of all his remembered experiences and Cherkassky is going to whittle them down to nothing.
“Go ahead, Lorie,” the sergeant said. “Give him another jab. Keep at him.”
“I will, Sergeant, I will; but it has to be done systematically.” Cherkassky had backed almost to the window, stretching the control cable to its limit. The street, Tallon remembered, was seven stories down. Not very far, but far enough.
He drove forward out of the chair, his suddenly heightened senses clearly distinguishing the sound of the chair falling, the satisfying crunch of his head into Cherkassky’s face, the angry whine of the hornet gun, the splintering impact as the window gave way … then they were out in the cold, black air, with the street lights blossoming below.
Cherkassky’s body went rigid in Tallon’s arms, and he screamed as they fell. Tallon fought to gain an upright position, but the higher gravity of Emm Luther was giving him very little time. He let go of Cherkassky, but Cherkassky’s arms were locked around Tallon’s chest like steel straps. Moaning with panic, Tallon twisted until his legs were below him. The thrust shoes, triggered automatically by the proximity of the ground, reacted forcefully. As his knees buckled under the deceleration Tallon felt Cherkassky’s grip tear loose, and the little man went on down, thrashing like a hooked fish. Tallon heard the impact of his body on the footpath.