“Can you do anything for his memory?” Allison asked. She had stood against the far wall while Harttle worked, but now she moved forward. She was a stunningly sinuous creature, all sleek soft lines and lovely angles.
“Probably,” Harttle said. When he shook his head he actually snapped it as if it were connected to his neck by a tight spring. “Oh, we can probably take care of the memory. Sure, sure!”
“How?” Joel asked.
He thought he could see a film of dust in the doctor's left nostril, like a gossamer membrane. No. Impossible. If there was a membrane of dust in Harttle's nostril, it mean that he wasn't breathing.
“Hypnosis,” Harttle said. “That's the cure!” He winked at both of them. “And even if that doesn't work, we have no worries. We can use a telepathist to enter your mind and give you a nudge or two. Simple matter. This is the Twenty-third Century, after all, not the Dark Ages. We have means.” He looked at Allison and smiled. “You used the medpac as I directed?”
“Yes.”
“Good!” Harttle said. “Wonderful!” He used both words a few more times, bobbing his head up and down like a badly operated puppet. He took a packet of red capsules from his satchel and placed them on the nightstand. “If you have any trouble sleeping,” he told Joel, “you just take two of these.”
“I don't want to sleep,” Joel said. His chest was tight with fear. His throat was constricted. What in the name of God was going on here? Twenty-third Century? Who were they kidding? And why?
“Of course you don't want to sleep,” Harttle said. “That's what I mean. I know you want to be up and about, re-learning your identity. But it can't be done all at once, can it? Of course it can't! You must rest, eat, sleep well.” He snapped his black bag shut, nodded to both of them, promised that he would be around the following morning, and went out, closing the door behind.
Allison went to the door and locked it.
Joel watched her closely.
What was their game?
“I feel so much better now that he's seen you,” she said as she came back across the room toward the bed.
“Did he seem strange to you?”
“Strange?” She laughed. “Willie's been strange as long as I've known him, but he's been our family doctor for fourteen years. Bursting with energy. Did you notice?”
“I noticed,” he said. “But that's not what I meant. Did you see the — dust?”
“Dust?” she asked, looking down at him.
“You didn't see it.”
“I don't know what you mean.”
He realized, then, that she was undressing, and he let the conversation die like a last breath of life. She peeled off the boots, rolled down her shorts. She unbuttoned the blouse and took it off, dropped it on the floor. She was not wearing underclothes. Her thighs were warm and golden, her pubic thatch thick and curly and as black as the hair on her head. Tiny waist, too tiny to be true. Heavy breasts, thrusting upwards, nipples stiff and long. She was the most perfectly formed woman he had ever seen.
She chuckled throatily. “Is this what you meant?”
“Look,” he said, clearing his throat with effort, “you better think about this.”
“Oh,” she said wickedly, “I've thought and thought about it.”
“Are you sure you know what you're doing? After all, it's almost like we're strangers, like this is the first time we've met.”
“For you maybe,” she said.
Slipping under the sheets, she hugged him.
He said, “What?”
She said, “I remember you quite well.”
“Allison—”
She rolled against him. Her long legs slithered around him, entwined with his own legs. He shivered and, unable to resist, put his arms around her. She kissed him on the mouh, her tongue moving like a snake's tongue.
“And,” she said, “I'm going to have you remembering me soon enough.”
He pulled back the covers and stared at her. She was stunning, and she enjoyed his admiration.
“You're going to remember me so well,” she said, “that you won't ever be able to forget me again.”
Just as she touched the light and brought darkness down upon them, he saw the dust that lay between the ripe cones of her breasts. Not much dust. Just a trace. And then he could see nothing but deep shadows and color behind his eyes. She was over him, mounting him, moving — and he soon ceased to care about the dust.
IV
The following afternoon, having taken a light lunch together, they went on a tour of the great house to see if he could remember anything of it. There were sixteen rooms and four baths. Each room was large and airy. The furniture was elegant and expensive, though too decorative and heavily carved for Joel's taste. And all of it was new to him.
Two servants saw to Henry Galing's comfort. One of them was a handyman and male cook, Richard, who was nearly Joel's size. He was a quiet, almost shy Nordic type with white-blond hair and even features, eyes gray and steady. His bleak smile contained no humor, and beneath the surface servility there lay, Joel thought, a deep pool of hatred and resentment. The maid, a young woman named Gina, was attractive in an ingenuous way. She had a clean, milky complexion dotted with freckles. Her nose was upturned, her mouth a bit too small. She blushed like a young girl, with little provacation.
Both servants were uncommunicative, and both of them were rude in little ways, insulting in an indefinable manner. But Allison did not seem to notice and was confused by Joel's references to the staff's surliness.
That was merely Allison's nature, or course. In only one night and morning he had come to know her and to like her enormously. In many ways she was childlike and naive, too trusting, too certain that everyone was as open and gentle as she herself. She was not a woman for sarcasm; she could neither deliver nor understand it. He doubted that she ever got angry with anyone no matter how much justification there might be; her relationship with the world was joyous, fundamental, and deeply physical. She was aware of beauty in everything she saw, and she spent a great deal of time pointing out to him the loveliness in some bit of daily life which he had not seen himself. If the servants were somewhat rude and, beneath a thin surface of servility, resentful, Allison would think of them, in their silence, as being only shy and self-conscious.
Yet, even with her at his side, he felt that the house was cold and empty, as desolate as if no one actually lived in it. Not for the first time since he'd awakened here, he thought of a stage play, an elaborate but hollow production… Here and there he saw pieces of furniture skinned with dust while the rest of the room looked freshly polished, and he remembered, on such occasions, the dust on Dr. William Harttle…
He also remembered the dust on Allison's breasts, and he trembled uncontrollably, possessed by a fear which he could not pin down and examine. He said nothing to her about it, for he was afraid of what she might say. Was this all an illusion — or was he simply insane? He wondered… And then she would touch him, hold his hand, say something to draw his attention — and such incongruities as the dust would escape his notice for a time.
In the den, as they stood by the window and watched the rain slice through a grove of pine trees at the end of the south lawn, he said, “Where did I fall and hurt myself?” The moment he had asked, he wondered why he'd taken so long to pose the question; it was as if he'd been programmed not to ask.
Her face paled. “It was awful.”
“I can't remember.”
Her hand tightened on his. “You'd gotten on a ladder… You were climbing up to the garage roof to get Jasper.”