Dreamers Read online

  “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

  or more exactly

  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