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<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/cover.jpg" width-obs="285" height-obs="500" alt=""/></div> <hr class="chap" /> <div class="titlepage"> <h1>A TRACE OF MEMORY</h1> KEITH LAUMER TOR A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. A TRACE OF MEMORY Copyright 1963 by Keith Laumer All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. A short version of this novel appeared serially in Amazing, July-August-September, 1962. Copyright 1962 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. A TOR Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, 8-10 West 36 Street, New York, N.Y. 10018 Cover art by Bob Layzell First TOR printing: November 1984 ISBN: O-812-54373-4 CAN. ED.: O-812-54374-2 Printed in the United States of America [Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] </div> <hr class="chap" /> "Let's get out of here fast," I said. "We've probably set off an alarm already." As if in answer, a low chime cut across our talk. Pearly light sprang up on a square panel. Foster and I stared at it. "What do you make of it?" he said. "I'm no expert on stone-age relics," I said. "But if that's not a radar screen, I'll eat it." I sat down in the single chair before the dusty control console, and watched a red blip creep across the screen. "That blip is either a mighty slow airplane—or it's at one hell of an altitude." I sat upright, eyes on the screen. "Look at this, Foster," I snapped. A pattern of dots flashed across the screen, faded, flashed again.... "I don't like that thing blinking at us," I said. "It makes me feel conspicuous." I looked at the big red button beside the screen. "Maybe if I pushed that...." Without waiting to think it over, I jabbed at it. "I'm not sure you should have done that," Foster said. "There is room for doubt," I said in a strained voice. "It looks like I've launched a bomb from the ship overhead." A TRACE OF MEMORY Look for these other TOR books by Keith Laumer: THE BREAKING EARTH THE GLORY GAME THE INFINITE CAGE KNIGHT OF DELUSIONS THE MONITORS THE HOUSE IN NOVEMBER AND THE OTHER SKY ONCE THERE WAS A GIANT PLANET RUN WORLDS OF THE IMPERIUM <hr class="chap" /> <h2>Contents</h2> <div class="center"> <table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> <tr><td align="left">PROLOGUE</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER I</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER II</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER III</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER IV</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER V</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VI</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VII</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VIII</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER IX</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER X</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XI</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XII</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIII</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIV</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XV</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVI</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVII</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVIII</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">EPILOGUE</td></tr> </table></div> <hr class="chap" /> <h1>A TRACE OF MEMORY</h1> <hr class="chap" /> <h2>PROLOGUE</h2> He awoke and lay for a moment looking up at a low ceiling, dimly visible in a faint red glow, feeling the hard mat under his back. He turned his head, saw a wall and a panel on which a red indicator light glared. He swung his legs over the side of the narrow couch and sat up. The room was small, grey-painted, unadorned. Pain throbbed in his forearm. He shook back the loose sleeve of the strange purple garment, saw a pattern of tiny punctures in the skin. He recognized the mark of a feeding Hunter.... Who would have dared? A dark shape on the floor caught his eye. He slid from the couch, knelt by the still body of a man in a purple tunic stained black with blood. Gently he rolled the body onto its back. Ammaerln! He seized the limp wrist. There was a faint pulse. He rose—and saw a second body and, near the door, two more. Quickly he went to each.... All three were dead, hideously slashed. Only Ammaerln still breathed, faintly. He went to the door, shouted into the darkness. The ranged shelves of a library gave back a brief echo. He turned back to the grey-walled room, noticed a recording monitor against a wall. He fitted the neurodes to the dying man's temples. But for this gesture of recording Ammaerln's life's memories, there was nothing he could do. He must get him to a therapist—and quickly. He crossed the library, found a great echoing hall beyond. This was not the Sapphire Palace beside the Shallow Sea. The lines were unmistakeable: he was aboard a ship, a far-voyager. Why? How? He stood uncertain. The silence was absolute. He crossed the Great Hall and entered the observation lounge. Here lay another dead man, by his uniform a member of the crew. He touched a knob and the great screens glowed blue. A giant crescent swam into focus, locked; soft blue against the black of space. Beyond it a smaller companion hung, gray-blotched, airless. What worlds were these? <hr class="tb" /> An hour later he had ranged the vast ship from end to end. In all, seven corpses, cruelly slashed, peopled the silent vessel. In the control sector the communicator lights glowed, but to his call there was no answer from the strange world below. He turned to the recording room. Ammaerln still breathed weakly. The memory recording had been completed; all that the dying man remembered of his long life was imprinted now in the silver cylinder. It remained only to color-code the trace. His eyes was caught by a small cylinder projecting from the aperture at the side of the high couch where he had awakened his own memory-trace! So he himself had undergone the Change. He took the color-banded cylinder, thrust it into a pocket—then whirled at a sound. A nest of Hunters, swarming globes of pale light, clustered at the door. Then they were on him. They pressed close, humming in their eagerness. Without the proper weapon he was helpless. He caught up the limp body of Ammaerln. With the Hunters trailing in a luminous stream he ran with his burden to the shuttle-boat bay. Three shuttles lay in their cradles. He groped to a switch, his head swimming with the sulphurous reek of the Hunters; light flooded the bay, driving them back. He entered the lifeboat, placed the dying man on a cushioned couch. It had been long since he had manned the controls of a ship, but he had not forgotten. <hr class="tb" /> Ammaerln was dead when the lifeboat reached the planetary surface. The vessel settled gently and the lock cycled. He looked out at a vista of ragged forest. This was no civilized world. Only the landing ring and the clearing around it showed the presence of man. There was a hollow in the earth by a square marker block at the eastern perimeter of the clearing. He hoisted the body of Ammaerln to his back and moved heavily down the access ladder. Working bare-handed, he deepened the hollow, placed the body in it, scraped earth over it. Then he rose and turned back toward the shuttle boat. Forty feet away, a dozen men, squat, bearded, wrapped in the shaggy hides of beasts, stood between him and the access ladder. The tallest among them shouted, raised a bronze sword threateningly. Behind these, others clustered at the ladder. Motionless he watched as one scrambled up, reached the top, disappeared into the boat. In a moment the savage reappeared at the opening and hurled down handfuls of small bright objects. Shouting, others clambered up to share the loot. The first man again vanished within the boat. Before the foremost of the others had gained the entry, the port closed, shutting off a terrified cry from within. Men dropped from the ladder as it swung up. The boat rose slowly, angling toward the west, dwindling. The savages shrank back, awed. The man watched until the tiny blue light was lost against the sky. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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