Monkey On His Back
“Dreams?” Bergstrom’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I must have forgotten to explain. This work is so routine to me that sometimes I forget it’s all new to a patient. Actually what you experienced under the drug were not dreams. They were recollections of real episodes from your past.”

Zarwell’s expression became wary. He watched Bergstrom closely. After a minute, however, he seemed satisfied, and he let himself settle back against the cushion of his chair. “I remember nothing of what I saw,” he observed.

“That’s why you’re here, you know,” Bergstrom answered. “To help you remember.”

“But everything under the drug is so …”

“Haphazard? That’s true. The recall episodes are always purely random, with no chronological sequence. Our problem will be to reassemble them in proper order later. Or some particular scene may trigger a complete memory return.

“It is my considered opinion,” Bergstrom went on, “that your lost memory will turn out to be no ordinary amnesia. I believe we will find that your mind has been tampered with.”

“Nothing I’ve seen under the drug fits into the past I do remember.”

“That’s what makes me so certain,” Bergstrom said confidently. “You don’t remember what we have shown to be true. Conversely then, what you think you remember must be false. It must have been implanted there. But we can go into that later. For today I think we have done enough. This episode was quite prolonged.”

“I won’t have any time off again until next week end,” Zarwell reminded him.

“That’s right.” Bergstrom thought for a moment. “We shouldn’t let this hang too long. Could you come here after work tomorrow?”

“I suppose I could.”

“Fine,” Bergstrom said with satisfaction. “I’ll admit I’m considerably more than casually interested in your case by this time.”

A WORK truck picked Zarwell up the next morning and he rode with a tech crew to the edge of the reclam area. Beside the belt bringing ocean muck from the converter plant at the seashore his bulldozer was waiting.

He took his place behind the drive wheel and began working dirt down between windbreakers anchored in the rock. Along a makeshift road into the badlands trucks brought crushed lime and 
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