Cupertino said. Neither of them spoke for a time, then; they both drank their coffee. Across from him his wife’s pale hand shook and her cup clinked against its saucer.
“Naturally,” Carol said matter of factly, “I went ahead with the divorce litigation. Under the circumstances—”
“Dr. Hagopian thought you might know why I remember killing you that night. He said you hinted at it in a letter.”
Her blue eyes glittered. “That night you had no false memory; you knew you had failed. Amboynton, the district attorney, gave you a choice between accepting mandatory psychiatric help or having formal charges filed of attempted first-degree murder; you took the former—naturally—and so you’ve been seeing Dr. Hagopian. The false memory—I can tell you exactly when that set in. You visited your employer, Six-planet Educational Enterprises; you saw their psychologist, a Dr. Edgar Green, attached to their personnel department. That was shortly before you left Ganymede and came here to Terra.” Rising she went to fill her cup; it was empty. “I presume Dr. Green saw to the implanting of the false memory of your having killed me.”
Cupertino said, “But why?”
“They knew you had told me of the plans for the uprising. You were supposed to commit suicide from remorse and grief, but instead you booked passage to Terra, as you had agreed with Amboynton. As a matter of fact you did attempt suicide during the trip… but you must remember this.”
“Go on and say it.” He had no memory of a suicide attempt.
“I’ll show you the clipping from the homeopape; naturally I kept it.” Carol left the kitchen; her voice came from the bedroom. “Out of misguided sentimentality. ‘Passenger on interplan ship seized as—’ ” Her voice broke off and there was silence.
Sipping his coffee Cupertino sat waiting, knowing that she would find no such newspaper clipping. Because there had been no such attempt.
Carol returned to the kitchen, a puzzled expression on her face. “I can’t locate it. But I know it was in my copy of War and Peace, in volume one; I was using it as a bookmark.” She looked embarrassed.
Cupertino said, “I’m not the only one who has a false memory. If that’s what it is.” He felt, for the first time in over three years, that he was at last making progress.
But the direction of that progress was obscured. At least so far. “I don’t understand,” Carol said. “Something’s wrong.”
While he waited in the kitchen, Carol, in the bedroom, dressed. At last she emerged, wearing a green sweater, skirt, heels; combing her hair she halted at the stove and pressed the buttons for toast and two soft-boiled eggs. It was now almost seven; the light in the street outside was no longer gray but a faint gold. And more traffic moved; he heard the reassuring sound of commercial vehicles and private commute wheels.
“How did you manage to snare this single-unit dwelling?” he asked. “Isn’t it as impossible in the Los Angeles area as in the Bay area to get anything but a conapt in a high-rise?”
“Through my employers.”
“Who’re your employers?” He felt at once cautious and disturbed; obviously they had influence. His wife had gone up in the world.
“Falling Star Associates.”
He had never heard of them; puzzled, he said, “Do they operate beyond Terra?” Surely if they were interplan—
“It’s a holding company. I’m a consultant to the chairman of the board; I do marketing research.” She added, “Your old employer, Six-planet Educational Enterprises, belongs to us; we own controlling stock. Not that it matters. It’s just a coincidence.”
She ate breakfast, offering him nothing; evidently it did not even occur to her to. Moodily he watched the familiar dainty movements of her cutlery. She was still ennobled by petite bourgeois gentility; that had not changed. In fact she was more refined, more feminine, than ever.
“I think,” Cupertino said, “that I
Fuyumi Ono
Tailley (MC 6)
Robert Graysmith
Rich Restucci
Chris Fox
James Sallis
John Harris
Robin Jones Gunn
Linda Lael Miller
Nancy Springer