The Race for God by Brian Herbert Read Free Book Online Page B

screen, scenes resembling those in history books, with images that focused only briefly and sometimes not at all, then blurred and provided glimpses of still earlier times, in various societies. As the images spun into antiquity, they were like a film on uncontrolled rewind, skipping onto prior films, separate films. It shouldn’t have been possible.
    At times with the mnemonic equipment Gutan thought he might be close to observing the whole history of mankind—in a mind-boggling amalgam one life might become every life, focusing ultimately in the distant, nearly erased past to explain the reason for everything.
    Had Professor Pelter discovered what he had been looking for, the culmination of all his efforts? Did each inmate at death discover this priceless information, whatever it was? And if so, was that data transferable to living persons? It seemed obvious to Gutan that the government didn’t have all the answers, that dispatchings were conducted with Mnemo to learn more.
    Professor Pelter went out with a head full of secrets.
    Gutan didn’t know how many variables there were in machine settings, and this had to be factored in with the variables in human subjects. The possibilities had to be calculator-boggling. With just the right settings and just the right subject, maybe the memory trail, as it rocketed back, wouldn’t kill the subject.
    He suspected with this thought that the monitors couldn’t control the speed of memory recapture, that the subjects needed more time to adjust to each setting before going back, before traversing lives. They were being overwhelmed.
    Was one life every life?
    Gutan had to laugh at these thoughts. An opium-saturated ex-mortician thinking about philosophy, about the meaning of life? If not for a couple of turns of fate, he might still be working in his family’s funeral parlor, just as so many Gutans had done for more than two centuries.
    It seemed like only a short while ago that he had worked with his family, but it had been nearly three decades. What had happened to his life? When the family business slipped beneath the waves he felt a shock to his system, a shock to the chain of his bloodline, and in all the time since then he had not recovered.
    He felt guilt for something he’d never discussed with his family or with those few friends he’d had over the years, friends who inevitably came no closer to him than acquaintances. Barriers. He always kept them up. Barriers protected him from discovery.
    It was this terrible personal truth that kept him from wanting to see anyone in his family. He had a sister, two brothers, nephews and cousins somewhere, but would never see any of them again. Maybe they didn’t want to see him, anyway. Maybe they knew what went on in the shadows.
    The opium helped Gutan deal with this, and thus far he hadn’t experienced the usual sleepiness or other adverse side effects. It wasn’t ordinary somniferous opium, according to the mail-order literature that came with it. Gutan had noticed a need for ever-increasing doses, however, in order to achieve the desired state of euphoria.
    When Gutan was off duty he thought about being on duty, couldn’t wait to get back to work. Despite his shame, this work intrigued him, and he wanted to learn more about Mnemo than the iceberg tip he had seen so far.
    He harbored no doubts that this project was big, far greater than a traveling execution machine. He sensed glimmerings of that truth and of a greater one beyond, like the glimmerings of the smile he thought he saw at times on Fork’s sheet-metal face.
    McMurtrey hadn’t considered for an instant the possibility that he might freeze in front of a crowd. Never before had he spoken to large gatherings, but it occurred to him that a crowd might be easier to handle in one sense than an individual. With individuals he had this chronic, nagging tendency to be distracted by mannerisms. With a crowd, he assured himself, he wouldn’t focus on any individual. It