All My Sins Remembered Read Free

operator. A prime. For the TBII. And you’re no more a psychiatrist than I am a Dr. Isaac Crowell. You re Sam, uh, Nimitz. Used to be a section leader when I was stationed on Springworld.”
    “That’s, right, Otto—you have quite a memory. I don’t think we met more than twice.”
    “Three times. Two cocktail parties and a bridge game. Your partner had a grand slam and I still haven’t figured out how she cheated.”
    He shrugged. “She was a prime, too.”
    “ ‘Was,’ yeah. You know she’s dead now.”
    “I don’t think I’m authorized to—”
    “Sure. You my briefing officer this time?”
    “That’s right.” Tibitz pulled a long envelope from an inside cape pocket. He broke the plastic seal and handed it to Otto. “Five-minute ink,” he said.
    Otto scanned the three pages quickly and then read slowly from beginning to end. He handed it back just as the printing faded.
    “Any questions?”
    “Well… okay, I’m this fat old professor, Crowell. Or will be when you push me back through the mnemonic sequence. Can I speak the language as well as he could?”
    “Probably not quite as well. There aren’t any learning tapes for Bruuchian; Crowell’s the only person who ever bothered to learn a dialect of the language.
    “You were under mutual hypnosis with him for five weeks, learning it. Throat sore?”
    Otto reached to touch his Adam’s apple and recoiled when he hit Crowell’s fourth chin. “God, this guy’s in lousy shape. Yeah, I feel a little hoarse.”
    “The language is mostly growls. I learned a stock phrase in it.” He made a noise like a tenor rhinoceros in pain.
    “What the hell does
that
mean?”
    “It’s in the dialect you learned, a standard greeting in the informal mode: ‘Clouds are not for your family./ May you die in the sun.’ Of course, it rhymes in Bruuchian. Everything rhymes in Bruuchian; every noun ends in the same syllable. A protracted belch.”
    “Wonderful. I’ll have laryngitis after a half hour of small talk”
    “No. You’ll remember once you get back into the Crowell persona. You’ve got lozenges in your baggage that make it easier on your throat.”
    “Good.” Otto kneaded one enormous thigh. “Look, I hope this job won’t call for any action. Must be carrying around my own weight in plastiflesh.”
    “Very nearly.”
    “That report said Crowell hadn’t been on the planet for eleven years—why couldn’t they just say he’d been on a diet?”
    “No, you might run into some recent acquaintance. Besides, part of the job requires that you look as harmless as possible.”
    “I don’t mind looking harmless… but in 1.2 gees I’m going to
be
harmless! I worked up a sweat walking down the corridor here—in less than one gee. How—”
    “We have confidence in you, Otto. You primes always come through in a pinch.”
    “…or die trying. Goddamn hypnoconditioning.”
    “Your own best interests.” Nimitz began filling a pipe. “Syzygy. Aardvark. Worship-devil. Gerund.”
    Otto slumped back in the chair; his next breath was a snore.
    “Otto, when I awaken you, you will be about ten per cent Otto McGavin and ninety per cent your artificial personality overlay, Dr. Isaac Crowell. You will remember your mission and all of your training as a prime operator—but your initial reaction to any normal situation will be consistent with Crowell’s personality and knowledge. Only in stress situations will your reactions be those of a prime operator.
    “Gerund. Devil-worship. Aardvark. Syzygy.”
    Crowell/McGavin awoke in mid-snore. He pulled himself out of the chair and winked at Nimitz. In Crowell’s gravelly voice: “Thank you so much, Dr. Sanchez. The therapy was most soothing.”
    “Think nothing of it, Dr. Crowell. That’s what the ship pays me for.”
    2.
     
    “This is a bloody outrage! Young man—do you know who I am?”
    The customs inspector tried to look bored and hostile at the same time. He put Crowell’s ID capsule back into the