The Planet Savers.
by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
_Marion Zimmer Bradley has written some of the finest science fiction in print. She has been away from our pages too long. So this story is in the nature of a triumphant return. It could well be her best to date._
By the time I got myself all the way awake I thought I was alone. I was lying on a leather couch in a bare white room with huge windows, alternate gla.s.s-brick and clear gla.s.s. Beyond the clear windows was a view of snow-peaked mountains which turned to pale shadows in the gla.s.s-brick.
Habit and memory fitted names to all these; the bare office, the orange flare of the great sun, the names of the dimming mountains. But beyond a polished gla.s.s desk, a man sat watching me. And I had never seen the man before.
He was chubby, and not young, and had ginger-colored eyebrows and a fringe of ginger-colored hair around the edges of a forehead which was otherwise quite pink and bald. He was wearing a white uniform coat, and the intertwined caduceus on the pocket and on the sleeve proclaimed him a member of the Medical Service attached to the Civilian HQ of the Terran Trade City.
I didn"t stop to make all these evaluations consciously, of course. They were just part of my world when I woke up and found it taking shape around me. The familiar mountains, the familiar sun, the strange man.
But he spoke to me in a friendly way, as if it were an ordinary thing to find a perfect stranger sprawled out taking a siesta in here.
"Could I trouble you to tell me your name?"
That was reasonable enough. If I found somebody making himself at home in my office--if I had an office--I"d ask him his name, too. I started to swing my legs to the floor, and had to stop and steady myself with one hand while the room drifted in giddy circles around me.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The man in the mirror was a stranger.]
"I wouldn"t try to sit up just yet," he remarked, while the floor calmed down again. Then he repeated, politely but insistently, "Your name?"
"Oh, yes. My name." It was--I fumbled through layers of what felt like gray fuzz, trying to lay my tongue on the most familiar of all sounds, my own name. It was--why, it was--I said, on a high rising note, "This is d.a.m.n silly," and swallowed. And swallowed again. Hard.
"Calm down," the chubby man said soothingly. That was easier said than done. I stared at him in growing panic and demanded, "But, but, have I had amnesia or something?"
"Or something."
"What"s my _name_?"
"Now, now, take it easy! I"m sure you"ll remember it soon enough. You can answer other questions, I"m sure. How old are you?"
I answered eagerly and quickly, "Twenty-two."
The chubby man scribbled something on a card. "Interesting.
In-ter-est-ing. Do you know where we are?"
I looked around the office. "In the Terran Headquarters. From your uniform, I"d say we were on Floor 8--Medical."
He nodded and scribbled again, pursing his lips. "Can you--uh--tell me what planet we are on?"
I had to laugh. "Darkover," I chuckled, "I hope! And if you want the names of the moons, or the date of the founding of the Trade City, or something--"
He gave in, laughing with me. "Remember where you were born?"
"On Samarra. I came here when I was three years old--my father was in Mapping and Exploring--" I stopped short, in shock. "He"s dead!"
"Can you tell me your father"s name?"
"Same as mine. Jay--Jason--" the flash of memory closed down in the middle of a word. It had been a good try, but it hadn"t quite worked.
The doctor said soothingly, "We"re doing very well."
"You haven"t told me anything," I accused. "Who are you? Why are you asking me all these questions?"
He pointed to a sign on his desk. I scowled and spelled out the letters.
"Randall ... Forth ... Director ... Department ..." and Dr. Forth made a note. I said aloud, "It is--_Doctor_ Forth, isn"t it?"
"Don"t you know?"
I looked down at myself, and shook my head. "Maybe _I"m_ Doctor Forth,"
I said, noticing for the first time that I was also wearing a white coat with the caduceus emblem of Medical. But it had the wrong feel, as if I were dressed in somebody else"s clothes. _I_ was no doctor, was I? I pushed back one sleeve slightly, exposing a long, triangular scar under the cuff. Dr. Forth--by now I was sure _he_ was Dr. Forth--followed the direction of my eyes.
"Where did you get the scar?"
"Knife fight. One of the bands of those-who-may-not-enter-cities caught us on the slopes, and we--" the memory thinned out again, and I said despairingly, "It"s all confused! What"s the matter? Why am I up on Medical? Have I had an accident? Amnesia?"
"Not exactly. I"ll explain."
I got up and walked to the window, unsteadily because my feet wanted to walk slowly while I felt like bursting through some invisible net and striding there at one bound. Once I got to the window the room stayed put while I gulped down great breaths of warm sweetish air. I said, "I could use a drink."
"Good idea. Though I don"t usually recommend it." Forth reached into a drawer for a flat bottle; poured tea-colored liquid into a throwaway cup. After a minute he poured more for himself. "Here. And sit down, man. You make me nervous, hovering like that."
I didn"t sit down. I strode to the door and flung it open. Forth"s voice was low and unhurried.
"What"s the matter? You can go out, if you want to, but won"t you sit down and talk to me for a minute? Anyway, where do you want to go?"
The question made me uncomfortable. I took a couple of long breaths and came back into the room. Forth said, "Drink this," and I poured it down.
He refilled the cup unasked, and I swallowed that too and felt the hard lump in my middle begin to loosen up and dissolve.
Forth said, "Claustrophobia too. Typical," and scribbled on the card some more. I was getting tired of that performance. I turned on him to tell him so, then suddenly felt amused--or maybe it was the liquor working in me. He seemed such a funny little man, shutting himself up inside an office like this and talking about claustrophobia and watching me as if I were a big bug. I tossed the cup into a disposal.
"Isn"t it about time for a few of those explanations?"
"If you think you can take it. How do you feel now?"
"Fine." I sat down on the couch again, leaning back and stretching out my long legs comfortably. "What did you put in that drink?"
He chuckled. "Trade secret. Now; the easiest way to explain would be to let you watch a film we made yesterday."
"To watch--" I stopped. "It"s your time we"re wasting."
He punched a b.u.t.ton on the desk, spoke into a mouthpiece. "Surveillance?