"Very well, then. The court will adjourn for 15 minutes while data is
programmed and fed to the computer, after which the verdict will be
announced and the sentence read."
* * * * *
Mannion left the stand and felt his wife Virginia come up to him and
hold him tightly.
"Dan, Dan, why don't you say something? Dubrow's testimony is damning
if you don't speak up!"
Mannion frowned. "But I don't remember, Virginia! My mind is a blank
for the entire period of the mutiny! For all I know I did do as the
Commander says!"
"Impossible, Dan! You were always so loyal to the Patrol--"
"I still am," he said. "And if I committed this crime I deserve to be
punished for it."
"Do you know what the punishment is?"
"Mnemonic erasure," Mannion said.
"No! Do you know what mnemonic erasure _means_? They'll strip away all
your memories, everything but the basic pattern of your reflexes and
reactions. Everything that is Dan Mannion will be erased, discarded,
thrown away." Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. "I'll be
declared a widow, officially. And your body will be given a new name, a
different identity. You'll be re-educated as someone else."
Mannion nodded bleakly. "I know. What can I do? Dubrow's my Commander;
he _has_ to be telling the truth. I don't remember anything. Perhaps
I went temporarily out of my mind, did an insane thing, and now my
consciousness has blanked out that period. It doesn't matter. I killed
12 men by my actions, Ginny."
"No! No!"
"I'm afraid so," Mannion said. "And I'll take my punishment for it now."
He turned away, not wanting to see his wife's tearstreaked face. A
torrent of conflicting emotions raged within him despite the calm
exterior he maintained. All his life he had dreamed of the Patrol
and its glory; he had worked toward that one end. Four years at the
Academy, two more in apprentice-work, then finally the commission and
the assignment to Iapetus.
And what happened? A moment of insanity, perhaps--or downright
conspiracy with an android to overthrow the Project by violence? He
didn't know. He would never know. All he knew was he had done some mad
act and now he would pay for it. His marriage, his career, even his
identity itself, would be taken from him.
An orderly touched his arm. "The court's returning to order, Lieutenant
Mannion. Please resume your place."
"Sure. Sure, I'm going." He kissed his wife tenderly and started up the
row of steps to take his place in the prisoner's dock.
* * * * *
Commander Harkness was staring grimly at him. The verdict, when it
came, would be no surprise; from the nature of Mannion's lack of
defense, it would be a foregone certainty.
"Lieutenant Mannion, you're aware of the nature of the crime you're
charged with?"
"Yes, sir."
"The only witness against you has been your former Commander, Lee
Dubrow. You have not made any statements in your own defense."
"No, sir."
"In view of this situation, the court has no recourse but to find you
guilty of insubordination in the highest degree, conspiracy, malicious
attack upon an officer with intent to aid in mutiny."
Mannion bowed his head. "Yes, sir," he said in a half-audible tone.
"The punishment for these crimes in necessarily severe," the judge went
on. "Naturally, we're unable to put into effect what would normally
have been the penalty 300 years ago. The death penalty is obsolete.
However, I hereby pronounce a sentence amounting to execution upon the
personality, mind, and accumulated memories of the man formerly known
as Daniel Mannion."
"You mean mnemonic erasure, sir?"
"Obviously. This sentence automatically carries with it loss of all
privileges, pensions, and honors that go with your high rank in the
Space Patrol. Your name will be wiped from its roster. After the
erasure, you will never have existed, Lieutenant Mannion. Your body
will be restrained under a new name and will make a fresh start in
life. It will even be possible for your new personality to enter the
Space Patrol, if it so chooses. No prejudice against your body will be
entertained for your mind's previous acts."
In the background, Mannion heard his wife's faint sobbing. "I hear and
accept the sentence, sir," he said quietly.
"The act of erasure will be carried out immediately, in the Space
Patrol's mnemonic laboratories on the 14th level of this building." The
gavel rapped three times. "The case of Earth versus Daniel Mannion is
hereby considered closed."
"No!" Virginia suddenly shouted. All eyes in the courtroom swivelled to
focus on her as she rose from the audience to protest. "No, don't close
the case yet!"
"This is highly irregular," said Judge Harkness. "Do you have
additional testimony, Mrs. Mannion?"
"Not--testimony, your honor. But can't you see that Dan's obviously
insane? He's allowing himself to be sentenced without even a protest!
Can't he enter a plea of insanity?"
"The plea of insanity would not alter the judgment in any way, Mrs.
Mannion. Rest assured that your husband's--ah--disturbed mental state
has been taken into account in the decision. Whether he was insane or
criminally possessed at the time of the mutiny makes no difference; the
crime has been committed, obviously, and the guilty person is of no
further value to society. Mnemonic erasure is not merely a punishment,
Mrs. Mannion. It's the gateway to rehabilitation for a sick person."
"I--see. May I say goodbye to my husband before you--erase him?"
* * * * *
Going down in the lift tube from the courtroom on the 60th floor
of Patrol headquarters to the lab on Level Fourteen, Mannion felt
strangely numb inside.
Two Patrol members stood behind him, ready to go for blasters if he
made the slightest move toward escaping. But Mannion had no idea of
escaping.
He was on his way to be erased.
He wondered what erasure was like. Did it hurt? Did you feel the pain
as they stripped away layer after layer of your memory like peelings
from an onion? First 2367 would go, but the new year was only two
weeks old and he'd spent those two weeks in prison. Then 2366 would
vanish--but 2366 was partly gone, at least for the few hours of the
Mutiny. Next would go 2365, the year they first landed on Iapetus.
And so, ever backward, they would tear away more and more of the
accumulation of memories and experiences that was Dan Mannion. 2364,
2363.
2362. That was the year he met Virginia. They would take away his
courtship, his wedding, those wonderful early days of marriage--
The two years as a Patrol Apprentice would go. The four years at the
Academy.
Adolescence. Boyhood. Childhood.
Soon there would be nothing left of Dan Mannion but a few vague
memories of babyhood, and then even those would be gone. He would
emerge from the lab wiped blank, a fresh unmarked slate ready to be
given its new identity.
Suddenly, he found himself quivering.
_I'm not guilty! I didn't do it! I couldn't have done it!_
_Too late_, a voice said. He saw again the faces of Virginia, of
Commander Harkness, of stern-faced Dubrow giving the testimony that
damned him.
_Too late. Too late to defend yourself._
"Fourteen," the robobrain of the elevator announced. The door slid
back. Mannion felt light pressure behind each of his arms as his two
guards shoved him gently forward.
A frosted glass door loomed up ahead of him. The sign on the door read
_Mnemonics Laboratory_.
Cold sweat drenched his body. Now that he was but feet away from the
room where the erasure would take place, he wanted out desperately,
wanted some chance to prove that he hadn't conspired with the androids,
hadn't aided in the revolt, hadn't helped to murder 12 fellow Patrolmen
and wreck the Iapetus project.
"You go in here," someone said to him.
The door marked _Mnemonics Laboratory_ was swinging open to receive him.
There was no way out.
* * * * *
Four gray-smocked technicians waited inside for him. One of the guards
with him said, "This is Mannion. He was just sentenced upstairs."
"I know. The order came down the pneumotubes a minute ago. Total
erasure."
"That's right," the guard said. "He gets wiped clean."
"Will you lead him to the machines, please?"
Dan went forward and faced a complex angle of probes and dials, "Is
this the machine that does it?" he asked uneasily.
"That's right. It'll be over in a minute, Lieutenant Mannion. We
clamp the electrodes to your scalp and run preliminary tests with an
electoencephalograph--and then we use the Eraser."
"Will it be painful?"
"It'll be quick. There won't be anything more than a faint tickling
sensation, and then--"
"Then Dan Mannion ceases to exist." He stared appealingly at the
technician in charge and said, "Listen--does the sentence have to be
carried out at once?"
"The order says immediately. We have the machine all ready for you."
Dan felt perspiration trickling down his body. "Can you wait a few
minutes? There's something I'd like you to do for me?"
"What's that?"
"Probe my mind. I'm suffering from amnesia--a short-range blockage
of the critical era around the time the android mutiny took place.
Couldn't you--?"
"Impossible. Not without a court order, at any rate. And the trial's
over."
Dan scowled. "But my life depends on it! My identity is going to be
taken away. The least you could have done was look!"
"Come on, Mannion," one of the guards growled. "The time to make your
pitch is during the trial, not after the sentence has been pronounced."
Dan felt himself shoved forward.
The machine loomed up before him--gigantic, monstrous, a mindless
instrument of horror. Within minutes he was going to undergo mnemonic
erasure, to have his mind blanked, his identity removed--
_For a crime I didn't commit!_
Suddenly he felt sure of his innocence. Despite the evidence, despite
the testimony, he knew in his heart that he was innocent.
It was a frameup of some sort. It had to be.
He allowed himself to be led up to the machine. But abruptly, as they
were unhinging some apparatus to strap to his head, he spun away from
the guards who held him lightly, dove, grabbed at a blaster that
protruded from a black leather holster--
"Okay," he said. "Get against that wall, all of you. One move I don't
like and I'll destroy the whole lab."
* * * * *
His fingers were shaking with inner tension. All his life he had been
raised to obey authority, to accept the commands of his superior
officers--
And now he was rebelling. He was threatening the destruction of one of
Earth's most expensive pieces of equipment.
The threat worked. The four technicians and the two guards backed
against the wall.
"What do you want?" the head technician asked.
"I told you before. I want you to probe my mind, to look into that
period that's a blank for me. If you find that I'm guilty, I'll--I'll
submit to the erasure. If not, I'll demand a new trial. But I won't
allow myself to be wiped out without at least a look!"
"All right. We'll probe you," said the technician. "You'll have to be
under anesthetic, of course."
"How can I trust you? How do I know you won't put me through mnemonic
erasure the moment I submit to being anesthetized?"
The technician had no answer. "I'll tell you," Mannion said. "You're
all doctors, aren't you? All four?"
They nodded.
"All right, then. I'll rely on your oaths as medical men not to put me
through erasure until you've probed that mutiny fully. Well?"
"Okay, Mannion. We'll take a look. But if it's not as you say--"
"I'll take my chances," Mannion said. He felt cold and uncertain
inside. He didn't know what they'd find. He didn't even know whether
they'd keep their word and probe him before the erasure.
He put the gun down on a lab table. "Here," he said. "Here's my gun.
Now let's see how good your oath is."
The only trouble with that was he might never see how good it was.
* * * * *
"Just relax," the technician said. "The probe is entering your mind,
now. Just relax...."
Mannion sank downward into the soft, warm darkness that enfolded him.
He was moving back into his own past now, gently guided along by the
mind-probe--
_WHAM!_
It was like walking full-tilt into a mountainside. Some obstruction in
his mind, no doubt.
But the probe bored its way through, drilled through the hard barrier
of amnesia in his mind.
And suddenly he was back on Iapetus, in Project Headquarters.
He was saying, "Commander Dubrow, the androids running the
atmosphere-generators are lying down on the job. They don't seem to be
working."
Dubrow glared at him coldly. "Stick to your own job, Lieutenant
Mannion. Coleridge is supervising the androids out there."
"No, he isn't! Coleridge isn't there."
"He must be there, Lieutenant."
"Commander, I'm going out there to see what's wrong. Those androids
have been acting up strangely all day and I don't like it."
"I order you to stay here!" Dubrow snapped.
"But--"
Hesitantly Mannion took a few steps toward the airlock. The androids
outside were sauntering casually around like unemployed thieves. It
wasn't a natural way for androids to behave.
"Sir, I request special permission to go out there and investig--_sir_!"
Dubrow was throwing open the airlock--and the androids came rushing in!
_He's crazy_, Lieutenant Mannion thought. _I've got to take
charge--keep those androids from wrecking the Project--_
"Get away from there, sir! Close the lock!"
"Don't give me orders, Mannion!"
Dan shook his head and started to run toward his superior officer. But
suddenly Dubrow charged him.
The abrupt assault bowled him over. Dan ducked and tried to land a
punch but Dubrow had his blaster out. A blow crashed into Mannion's
forehead. He tried to clear away the cobwebs but Dubrow hit him again
and all went dim.
He had a vague memory of Dubrow's directing the androids in a
methodical destruction of the Project. Then it was all over and
the androids were back where they belonged. Dubrow was holding a
hypnomech in front of his eyes, spinning around and around, a dizzying
sleep-inducing confusing blare of many colors, around and around,
around and around....
And then he was asleep.
* * * * *
"We owe you a great apology, Lieutenant Mannion," the technician was
saying. "If you hadn't forced us to probe your mind we would have sent
an innocent man to mnemonic erasure. But now we have the record of what
actually happened--"
"Hang on to it," Mannion said. "I've got to get upstairs and find
Dubrow before he gets out of here."
Without waiting for a word of protest, Dan threw off the mind-probe
apparatus, jumped off the table, and raced out into the hall.
He caught the lift tube going up. In all likelihood Dubrow, Virginia,
and the judge would still be in the courtroom, working out some
settlement of the former Lieutenant Mannion's private property.
He was right.
"Mannion! What are you doing--"
Dan ignored the judge's outcry. "Hello, Dubrow. I just had some of my
amnesia removed. That was a pretty clever story you told, wasn't it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Mannion."
"The hell you don't! You don't know anything about the hypnomech you
used to block my mind and--"
Dan ducked suddenly as a spurt of energy from the proton-gun in
Dubrow's hand seared through the wall behind him. Dubrow was aiming the
gun, readying to fire again--
And Judge Harkness rose from the bench and hurled a heavy law-book at
him.
It struck Dubrow squarely on the side of the head; the bolt of
proton-force squirted toward the ceiling and Dan leaped forward.
He crashed into Dubrow and knocked the tall officer sprawling; the
proton-gun clattered to the floor. Dubrow squirmed and kicked but Dan's
fists thundered against his body.
"Hypnotize me, will you? And try to frame me for that mutiny? I'll--"
"All right, Mannion," a calm voice said from somewhere above him. "You
can get off him now. He's out cold."
* * * * *
Judge Harkness faced Dan and Virginia Mannion. "I don't understand why
you didn't speak up, son."
"I--I assumed I was wrong, sir. I've always been trained to respect the
word of an officer. If Commander Dubrow said I was guilty and I didn't
remember--well, sir, he had to be right!"
Harkness chuckled. "You know differently now. We've had a mind-probe
run on Dubrow. It seems he was bribed by a group of private contractors
to wreck the Patrol's project on Iapetus so they could get the job
instead. He figured he'd have you tried for the crime, leaving him
in the clear. So all he did was switch the action around and then
hypnotize you into forgetting it."
"What's going to happen to him now?" Mannion asked.
"What else? He's being erased now. Commander Dubrow no longer exists."
Mannion shuddered. He remembered vividly that complex pile of machinery
on the 14th Level.
"I guess I'm free, then," he said.
Harkness nodded. "I guess you are, young man. And next time don't be so
ready to believe your own guilt."
"No, sir! I mean--yes, sir! I mean--"
It didn't matter. Mannion smiled at Harkness and took his wife in his
arms. The case was closed and he was a free man and an officer in the
Space Patrol.
And he was still Dan Mannion.