Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
FORGET ME NEARLY
By F. L. Wallace
Illustrated by EMSH
_What sort of world was it, he puzzled, that wouldn't help victims find out whether they had been murdered or had committed suicide?_
* * * * *
The police counselor leaned forward and tapped the small nameplate onhis desk, which said: _Val Borgenese._ "That's my name," he said. "Whoare you?"
The man across the desk shook his head. "I don't know," he saidindistinctly.
"Sometimes a simple approach works," said the counselor, shoving asidethe nameplate. "But not often. We haven't found anything that'seffective in more than a small percentage of cases." He blinkedthoughtfully. "Names are difficult. A name is like clothing, put on ortaken off, recognizable but not part of the person--the first thingforgotten and the last remembered."
The man with no name said nothing.
"Try pet names," suggested Borgenese. "You don't have to be sure--justsay the first thing you think of. It may be something your parentscalled you when you were a child."
The man stared vacantly, closed his eyes for a moment and then openedthem and mumbled something.
"What?" asked Borgenese.
"Putsy," said the man more distinctly. "The only thing I can think ofis Putsy."
The counselor smiled. "That's a pet name, of course, but it doesn'thelp much. We can't trace it, and I don't think you'd want it as apermanent name." He saw the expression on the man's face and addedhastily: "We haven't given up, if that's what you're thinking. Butit's not easy to determine your identity. The most important source ofinformation is your mind, and that was at the two year level when wefound you. The fact that you recalled the word Putsy is anindication."
"Fingerprints," said the man vaguely. "Can't you trace me throughfingerprints?"
"That's another clue," said the counselor. "Not fingerprints, but thefact that you thought of them." He jotted something down. "I'll haveto check those re-education tapes. They may be defective by now, we'verun them so many times. Again, it may be merely that your mind refusedto accept the proper information."
The man started to protest, but Borgenese cut him off. "Fingerprintswere a fair means of identification in the Twentieth Century, but thisis the Twenty-second Century."
* * * * *
The counselor then sat back. "You're confused now. You have a lot ofinformation you don't know how to use yet. It was given to you fast,and your mind hasn't fully absorbed it and put it in order. Sometimesit helps if you talk out your problems."
"I don't know if I have a problem." The man brushed his hand slowlyacross his eyes. "Where do I start?"
"Let me do it for you," suggested Borgenese. "You ask questions whenyou feel like it. It may help you."
He paused, "You were found two weeks ago in the Shelters. You knowwhat those are?"
The man nodded, and Borgenese went on: "Shelter and food for anyonewho wants or needs it. Nothing fancy, of course, but no one has to askor apply; he just walks in and there's a place to sleep andperiodically food is provided. It's a favorite place to put peoplewho've been retroed."
The man looked up. "Retroed?"
"Slang," said Borgenese. "The retrogression gun ionizes animal tissue,nerve cells particularly. Aim it at a man's legs and the nerves inthat area are drained of energy and his muscles won't hold him up. Hefalls down.
"Aim it at his head and give him the smallest charge the gun isadjustable to, and his most recent knowledge is subtracted from hismemory. Give him the full charge, and he is swept back to a childishor infantile age level. The exact age he reaches is dependent on hisphysical and mental condition at the time he's retroed.
"Theoretically it's possible to kill with the retrogression gun. Theperson can be taken back to a stage where there's not enough nervousorganization to sustain the life process.
"However, life is tenacious. As the lower levels are reached, it takesincreasing energy to subtract from anything that's left. Most peoplewho want to get rid of someone are satisfied to leave the victimsomewhere between the mental ages of one and four. For practicalpurposes, the man they knew is dead--or retroed, as they say."
"Then that's what they did to me," said the man. "They retroed me andleft me in the Shelter. How long was I there?"
* * * * *
Borgenese shrugged. "Who knows? That's what makes it difficult. A day,or two months. A child of two or three can feed himself, and no recordis kept since the place is free. Also, it's cleaned automatically."
"I know that now that you mention it," said the man. "It's just thatit's hard to remember."
"You see how it is," said the counselor. "We can't check our filesagainst a date when someone disappeared, because we don't know thatdate except within very broad limits." He tapped his pen on the desk."Do you object to a question?"
"Go ahead."
"How many people in the Solar System?"
The man thought with quiet desperation. "Fourteen to sixteen billion."
The counselor was pleased. "That's right. You're beginning to use someof the information we've put back into your mind. Earth, Mars andVenus are the main population centers. But there are also Mercury andthe satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as the asteroids. We cancheck to see where you might have come from, but there are so manyplaces and people that you can imagine the results."
"There must be _some_ way," the man said painfully. "Pictures,fingerprints, something."
"Something," Borgenese nodded. "But probably not for quite a while.There's another factor, you see. It's a shock, but you've got to faceit. And the funny thing is that you'll never be better able to thannow."
He rocked back. "Take the average person, full of unsuspected anxiety,even the happiest and most successful. Expose him to the retrogressiongun. Tensions and frustrations are drained away.
"The structure of an adult is still there, but it's empty, waiting tobe filled. Meanwhile the life of the organism goes on, but it's notthe same. Lines on the face disappear, the expression altersdrastically, new cell growth occurs here and there throughout thebody. Do you see what that means?"
The man frowned. "I suppose no one can recognize me."
"That's right. And it's not only your face that changes. You may growtaller, but never shorter. If your hair was gray, it may darken, butnot the reverse."
"Then I'm younger too?"
"In a sense, though it's actually not a rejuvenation process at all.The extra tension that everyone carries with him has been removed, andthe body merely takes up the slack.
"Generally, the apparent age is made less. A person of middle age orunder seems to be three to fifteen years younger than before. Youappear to be about twenty-seven, but you may actually be nearer forty.You see, we don't even know what age group to check.
"And it's the same with fingerprints. They've been altered by theretrogression process. Not a great deal, but enough to makeidentification impossible."
* * * * *
The nameless man stared around the room--at Val Borgenese, perhapsfifty, calm and pleasant, more of a counselor than a policeman--out ofthe window at the skyline, and its cleanly defined levels of airtraffic.
Where was his place in this?
&nb
sp; "I guess it's no use," he said bleakly. "You'll never find out who Iam."
The counselor smiled. "I think we will. Directly, there's not much wecan do, but there are indirect methods. In the last two weeks we'veexposed you to all the organized knowledge that can be put ontapes--physics, chemistry, biology, math, astrogation, the works.
"It's easy to remember what you once knew. It isn't learning; it'sactually relearning. One