"Dick - We Can Remember it For You Wholesale" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

are implanted. Something which would act to satisfy my
craving," he said. "That's been proved; that's probably why
you initially hired me. But you ought to be able to come up
with something elsesomething equal. I was the richest man
on Terra but I finally gave all my money to educational
foundations. Or I was a famous deep-space explorer. Any-
thing of that sort; wouldn't one of those do?"
Silence.
"Try it," he said desperately. "Get some of your top-notch
military psychiatrists; explore my mind. Find out what my
most expansive daydream is." He tried to think. "Women," he
said. "Thousands of them, like Don Juan had. An interplane-
tary playboya mistress in every city on Earth, Luna and
Mars. Only I gave that up, out of exhaustion. Please," he
begged. "Try it."
"You'd voluntarily surrender, then?" the voice inside his
head asked. "If we agreed to arrange such a solution? If it's
possible?"
After an interval of hesitation he said, "Yes." I'll take the
risk, he said to himself. That you don't simply kill me.
"You make the first move," the voice said presently. "Turn
yourself over to us. And we'll investigate that line of possibil-
ity. If we can't do it, however, if your authentic memories
begin to crop up again as they've done at this time, then"
There was silence and then the voice finished, "We'll have to
destroy you. As you must understand. Well, Quail, you still
want to try?"
"Yes," he said. Because the alternative was death now
and for certain. At least this way he had a chance, slim as it
was.
"You present yourself at our main barracks in New York,"
the voice of the Interplan cop resumed. "At 580 Fifth
Avenue, floor twelve. Once you've surrendered yourself
we'll have our psychiatrists begin on you; we'll have
personality-profile tests made. We'll attempt to determine your
absolute, ultimate fantasy wishand then we'll bring you
back to Rekal, Incorporated, here; get them in on it, fulfilling
that wish in vicarious surrogate retrospection. Andgood
luck. We do owe you something; you acted as a capable
instrument for us." The voice lacked malice; if anything, they
the organizationfelt sympathy toward him.
"Thanks," Quail said. And began searching for a robot cab.
"Mr. Quail," the stern-faced, elderly Interplan psychiatrist
said, "you possess a most interesting wish-fulfillment dream
fantasy. Probably nothing such as you consciously entertain
or suppose. This is commonly the way; I hope it won't upset
you too much to hear about it."
The senior ranking Interplan officer present said briskly,
"He better not be too much upset to hear about it, not if he
expects not to get shot."