Monkey On His Back Read online

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  +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Transcriber's note. | | | | This story was published in _Galaxy_ magazine, June 1960. | | Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the | | U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+

  By CHARLES V. DE VET

  monkey on his back

  Under the cloud of cast-off identities lay the shape of another man-- was it himself?

  Illustrated by DILLON

  He was walking endlessly down a long, glass-walled corridor. Brightsunlight slanted in through one wall, on the blue knapsack across hisshoulders. Who he was, and what he was doing here, was clouded. Thetruth lurked in some corner of his consciousness, but it was not reachedby surface awareness.

  The corridor opened at last into a large high-domed room, much like arailway station or an air terminal. He walked straight ahead.

  At the sight of him a man leaning negligently against a stone pillar, tohis right but within vision, straightened and barked an order to him,"Halt!" He lengthened his stride but gave no other sign.

  Two men hurried through a doorway of a small anteroom to his left,calling to him. He turned away and began to run.

  Shouts and the sound of charging feet came from behind him. He cut tothe right, running toward the escalator to the second floor. Anotherpair of men were hurrying down, two steps at a stride. With no break inpace he veered into an opening beside the escalator.

  At the first turn he saw that the aisle merely circled the stairway,coming out into the depot again on the other side. It was a trap. Heglanced quickly around him.

  At the rear of the space was a row of lockers for traveler use. Heslipped a coin into a pay slot, opened the zipper on his bag and pulledout a flat briefcase. It took him only a few seconds to push the caseinto the compartment, lock it and slide the key along the floor beneaththe locker.

  There was nothing to do after that--except wait.

  The men pursuing him came hurtling around the turn in the aisle. Hekicked his knapsack to one side, spreading his feet wide with aninstinctive motion.

  Until that instant he had intended to fight. Now he swiftly reassessedthe odds. There were five of them, he saw. He should be able toincapacitate two or three and break out. But the fact that they had beenexpecting him meant that others would very probably be waiting outside.His best course now was to sham ignorance. He relaxed.

  He offered no resistance as they reached him.

  They were not gentle men. A tall ruffian, copper-brown face damp withperspiration and body oil, grabbed him by the jacket and slammed himback against the lockers. As he shifted his weight to keep his footingsomeone drove a fist into his face. He started to raise his hands; and ahard flat object crashed against the side of his skull.

  The starch went out of his legs.

  "Do you make anything out of it?" the psychoanalyst Milton Bergstrom,asked.

  John Zarwell shook his head. "Did I talk while I was under?"

  "Oh, yes. You were supposed to. That way I follow pretty well whatyou're reenacting."

  "How does it tie in with what I told you before?"

  Bergstrom's neat-boned, fair-skinned face betrayed no emotion other thanan introspective stillness of his normally alert gaze. "I see noconnection," he decided, his words once again precise and meticulous."We don't have enough to go on. Do you feel able to try anothercomanalysis this afternoon yet?"

  "I don't see why not." Zarwell opened the collar of his shirt. The daywas hot, and the room had no air conditioning, still a rare luxury onSt. Martin's. The office window was open, but it let in no freshness,only the mildly rank odor that pervaded all the planet's habitable area.

  "Good." Bergstrom rose. "The serum is quite harmless, John." Hemaintained a professional diversionary chatter as he administered thedrug. "A scopolamine derivative that's been well tested."

  The floor beneath Zarwell's feet assumed abruptly the near transfluentconsistency of a damp sponge. It rose in a foot-high wave and rolledgently toward the far wall.

  Bergstrom continued talking, with practiced urbanity. "When psychiatrywas a less exact science," his voice went on, seeming to come from agreat distance, "a doctor had to spend weeks, sometimes months or yearsinterviewing a patient. If he was skilled enough, he could sort therelevancies from the vast amount of chaff. We are able now, with thehelp of the serum, to confine our discourses to matters cogent to thepatient's trouble."

  The floor continued its transmutation, and Zarwell sank deep intoviscous depths. "Lie back and relax. Don't ..."

  The words tumbled down from above. They faded, were gone.

  Zarwell found himself standing on a vast plain. There was no sky above,and no horizon in the distance. He was in a place without space ordimension. There was nothing here except himself--and the gun that heheld in his hand.

  A weapon beautiful in its efficient simplicity.

  He should know all about the instrument, its purpose and workings, buthe could not bring his thoughts into rational focus. His foreheadcreased with his mental effort.

  Abruptly the unreality about him shifted perspective. He wasapproaching--not walking, but merely shortening the space betweenthem--the man who held the gun. The man who was himself. The other"himself" drifted nearer also, as though drawn by a mutual attraction.

  The man with the gun raised his weapon and pressed the trigger.

  With the action the perspective shifted again. He was watching the faceof the man he shot jerk and twitch, expand and contract. The face wasunharmed, yet it was no longer the same. No longer his own features.

  The stranger face smiled approvingly at him.

  "Odd," Bergstrom said. He brought his hands up and joined the tips ofhis fingers against his chest. "But it's another piece in the jig-saw.In time it will fit into place." He paused. "It means no more to youthan the first, I suppose?"

  "No," Zarwell answered.

  He was not a talking man, Bergstrom reflected. It was more thanreticence, however. The man had a hard granite core, only partiallyconcealed by his present perplexity. He was a man who could handlehimself well in an emergency.

  Bergstrom shrugged, dismissing his strayed thoughts. "I expected asmuch. A quite normal first phase of treatment." He straightened a paperon his desk. "I think that will be enough for today. Twice in onesitting is about all we ever try. Otherwise some particular episodemight cause undue mental stress, and set up a block." He glanced down athis appointment pad. "Tomorrow at two, then?"

  Zarwell grunted acknowledgment and pushed himself to his feet,apparently unaware that his shirt clung damply to his body.

  The sun was still high when Zarwell left the analyst's office. The whitemarble of the city's buildings shimmered in the afternoon heat, squatand austere as giant tree trunks, pock-marked and gray-mottled withwindows. Zarwell was careful not to rest his hand on the flesh searingsurface of the stone.

  The evening meal hour was approaching when he reached the Flats, on theway to his apartment. The streets of the old section were near-deserted.The only sounds he heard as he passed were the occasional cry of a baby,chronically uncomfortable in the day's heat, and the lowing of importedcattle waiting in a nearby shed to be shipped to the country.

  All St. Martin's has a distinctive smell, as of an arid dried-out swamp,with a faint taint of fish. But in the Flats th
e odor changes. Here isthe smell of factories, warehouses, and trading marts; the smell ofstale cooking drifting from the homes of the laborers and lower classtechmen who live there.

  Zarwell passed a group of smaller children playing a desultory game oflic-lic for pieces of candy and cigarettes. Slowly he climbed the stairsof a stone flat. He prepared a supper for himself and ate it withouteither enjoyment or distaste. He lay down, fully clothed, on his bed.The visit to the analyst had done nothing to dispel his ennui.

  The next morning when Zarwell awoke he lay for a moment, unmoving. Thefeeling was there again, like a scene waiting only to be gazed atdirectly to be perceived. It was as though a great wisdom lay at theedge of understanding. If he rested quietly it would all come to him.Yet always, when his mind lost its sleep-induced lethargy, the momentof near understanding slipped away.

  This morning, however, the sense