"You think not? My memory system isn"t a fraud. Admittedly, I didn"t use it properly on Luise, but in a public demonstration I can prove that it does work."
Luis nodded wearily to himself. He"d half suspected that it did work.
Here he was, with the solution so close--this man knew his ident.i.ty and that of Luise, and where Dorn Starret came into the tangle--and he couldn"t force Putsyn to tell.
He couldn"t go to the police. They would ignore his charges, because they were based on unprovable suspicions ... ignore him or arrest him for breaking and entering.
"Everything"s in your favor," he said, raising the gun. "But there"s one way to make you leave us alone."
"Wait," cried Putsyn, covering his face with his uninjured hand, as if that would shield him. "Maybe we can work out an agreement."
Luis didn"t lower the gun. "I mean it," he said.
"I know you mean it--I can"t let you take away my life"s work."
"Talk fast," Luis said, "and don"t lie."
He stood close and listened while Putsyn told his story.
This is what had happened, he thought. This is what he"d tried so hard to learn.
"I had to do it that way," Putsyn finished. "But if you"re willing to listen to reason, I can cut you in--more money than you"ve dreamed of--and the girl too, if you want her."
Luis was silent. He wanted her--but now the thought was foolish.
Hopeless. This must be the way people felt who stood in the blast area of a rocket--but for them the sensation lasted only an instant, while for him the feeling would last the rest of his life.
"Get up," he said.
"Then it"s all right?" asked Putsyn nervously. "We"ll share it?"
"Get up."
Putsyn got to his feet, and Luis. .h.i.t him. He could have used the freezer, but that wasn"t personal enough.
He let the body fall to the floor.
He dragged the inert form into the waiting room and turned on the screen and talked to the police. Then he turned off the screen and kicked open the door to the hall. He shouldered Putsyn and carried him up to the roof and put him in the aircar.
Luise was there, puzzled and sleepy. For reasons of his own, Borgenese had sent a squad to bring her in. Might as well have her here and get it over with, Luis thought. She smiled at him, and he knew that Putsyn hadn"t lied about that part. She remembered him and therefore Putsyn hadn"t had time to do much damage.
Borgenese was at the desk as he walked in. Luis swung Putsyn off his shoulder and dropped him into a chair. The man was still unconscious, but wouldn"t be for long.
"I see you brought a visitor," remarked Borgenese pleasantly.
"A customer," he said.
"Customers are welcome too," said the police counselor. "Of course, it"s up to us to decide whether he _is_ a customer."
Luise started to cross the room, but Borgenese motioned her back. "Let him alone. I think he"s going to have a rough time."
"Yeah," said Luis.
It was nice to know that Luise liked him now--because she wouldn"t after this was over.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead; all of it hadn"t come from physical exertion.
"Putsyn here is a scientist," he said. "He worked out a machine that reverses the effects of the retro gun. He intended to go to everyone who"d been retrogressed, and in return for giving them back their memory, they"d sign over most of their property to him.
"Naturally, they"d agree. They all want to return to their former lives that bad, and, of course, they aren"t aware of how much money they had. He had it all his way. He could use the machine to investigate them, and take only those who were really wealthy. He"d give them a partial recovery in the machine, and when he found out who they were, give them a quick shot of a built-in retro gun, taking them back to the time they"d just entered his office. They wouldn"t suspect a thing.
"Those who measured up he"d sign an agreement with, and to the other poor devils he"d say that he was sorry but he couldn"t help them."
Putsyn was conscious now. "It"s not so," he said sullenly. "He can"t prove it."
"I don"t think he"s trying to prove that," said Borgenese, still calm.
"Let him talk."
Luis took a deep breath. "He might have gotten away with it, but he"d hired a laboratory a.s.sistant to help him perfect the machine. She didn"t like his ideas; she thought a discovery like that should be given to the public. He didn"t particularly care what she thought, but now the trouble was that she could build it too, and since he couldn"t patent it and still keep it secret, she was a threat to his plans." He paused. "Her name was Luise Obispo."
He didn"t have to turn his head. From the corner of his eye, he could see startlement flash across her face. She"d got her name right; and it was he who had erred in choosing a name.
"Putsyn hired a criminal, Dorn Starret, to get rid of her for him," he said harshly. "That was the way Starret made his living. He was an expert at it.
"Starret slugged her one night on Mars. He didn"t retro her at once.
He loaded her on a s.p.a.ceship and brought her to Earth. During the pa.s.sage, he talked to her and got to like her a lot. She wasn"t as developed as she is now, kind of mousy maybe, but you know how those things are--he liked her. He made love to her, but didn"t get very far.
"He landed in another city on Earth and left his s.p.a.ceship there; he drugged her and brought her to the Shelter here and retroed her.
That"s what he"d been paid to do.
"Then he decided to stick around. Maybe she"d change her mind after retrogression. He stayed in a Shelter just across from the one she was in. And he made a mistake. He hid the retro gun behind the screen.
"Putsyn came around to check up. He didn"t like Starret staying there--a key word or a familiar face sometimes triggers the memory. He retroed Starret, who didn"t have a gun he could get to in a hurry.
Maybe Putsyn had planned to do it all along. He"d built up an airtight alibi when Luise disappeared, so that n.o.body would connect him with that--and who"d miss a criminal like Starret?
"Anyway, that was only part of it. He knew that people who"ve been retroed try to find out who they are, and that some of them succeed.
He didn"t want that to happen. So he put an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper that she"d see and answer. When she did, he began to use his machine on her, intending to take her from the present to the past and back again so often that her mind would refuse to accept anything, past or present.
"But he"d just started when Starret showed up, and he knew he had to get him too. So he pulled what looked like a deliberate slip and got Starret interested, intending to take care of both of them in the same way at the same time."
He leaned against the wall. It was over now and he knew what he could expect.
"That"s all, but it didn"t work out the way Putsyn wanted it. Starret was a guy who knew how to look after his own interests."
Except the biggest and most important one; there he"d failed.