Born Under Mars by John Brunner

Author:John Brunner [Brunner, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2011-08-29T00:36:20.918000+00:00

XII

And yet I hesitated. For all that Thoder was integrated into the net weaving around me, so that I'd become suspicious of him too--even afraid--unless he had been changed, forcibly, I couldn't imagine his nature altering completely. I'd sensed nothing worse, talking to him yesterday, than this elusiveness due to his not wanting me to see Lugath when he arrived. Otherwise he'd been the same as ever.

On the other hand I couldn't conceive any alternative to the assumption that he'd tampered with my memory, or arranged for it to be done, when I flaked out from the effects of the nerve-whipping combined with the shock of recognising Lugath.

Granted that: could I ascribe him any honorable motive for the action?

He'd said I was in possession of much more data than I consciously knew. Suppose he was aware of the significance of events, and feared that I might inadvertently let slip some clue which would alert another interested party--say, the Bear faction concerned--leading to another such night as I'd spent at the mercy of Housk and his companions, being interrogated under torture?

It was an incredibly slim chain of reasoning. And yet there was something un-Thoder-like about the speed with which the mental barriers had dissolved. Possibly the gap in my memory had been designed to last only a short time. There were several indications to this effect. For one thing, the gap had been left open, not masked by false memories; even if I hadn't recovered some random fragments of the missing experience and mistaken them for elements in a vivid dream, I'd soon enough have begun to worry when I noticed the date.

And for another, when the memory did come back, an immense number of other things came with it. Simply to say that when I found myself confronting Housk I was shocked into right action was inadequate. I'd performed--accurately and immediately--mental gymnastics such as I hadn't tried for years, and had never fully mastered even under Thoder's patient tuition as a boy.

As though Thoder had wanted to compensate me in some fashion for his intrusion on my inmost privacy.

In that case: was his purpose as straightforward as a desire to keep me from interfering while in pursuit of revenge? I'd made it clear that I wouldn't rest easy until I'd squared accounts with the screened interrogators. Knowing far more than I, he might have acted from a double motive: partly to protect me, partly to stop me meddling.

He ought to have been open instead of going this roundabout road, I thought resentfully, and at once saw I was being foolish. It was no good saying he "ought" to have been frank. I'd collapsed on his floor and it must have been several hours before my consciousness was again accessible; he must have had business with Lugath which would anyhow have prevented him from indulging in long complicated explanations for my benefit; and besides, we'd not met for many years--why should he automatically assume that as an ex-pupil I was to be trusted with important secrets?

Yet his connection with Lugath had a sinister aura.

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