Summary: By Robert Silverberg Read by Michael Spence Discuss on our forums All stories by Robert Silverberg All stories read by Michael Spence Rated 13 and over for sexual innuendo Nominee for Hugo Award for Best Short Story (1970) Passengers By Robert Silverberg There are only fragments of me left now. Chunks of memory have broken free and drifted away like calved glaciers. It is always like that when a Passenger leaves us. We can never be sure of all the things our borrowed bodies did. We have only the lingering traces, the imprints. Like sand clinging to an ocean-tossed bottle. Like the throbbings of amputated legs. I rise. I collect myself. My hair is rumpled; I comb it. My face is creased from too little sleep. There is sourness in my mouth. Has my Passenger been eating dung with my mouth? They do that. They do anything. It is morning. A gray, uncertain morning. I stare at it awhile, and then, shuddering, I opaque the window and confront instead the gray, uncertain surface of the inner panel. My room looks untidy. Did I have a woman here? There are ashes in the trays. Searching for butts, I find several with lipstick stains. Yes, a woman was here. I touched the bedsheets. Still warm with shared warmth. Both pillows tousled. She has gone, though, and the Passenger is gone, and I am alone. How long did it last, this time? I pick up the phone and ring Central. “What is the date?” The computer’s bland feminine voice replies, “Friday, December fourth, nineteen eighty-seven.” “The time?” “Nine fifty-one, Eastern Standard Time.” “The weather forecast?” “Predicted temperature range for today thirty to thirty-eight. Current temperature, thirty-one. Wind from the north, sixteen miles an hour. Chances of precipitation slight.” “What do you recommend for a hangover?” “Food or medication?” “Anything you like,” I say. The computer mulls that one over for a while. Then it decides on both, and activates my kitchen. The spigot yields cold tomato juice. Eggs begin to fry. From the medicine slot comes a purplish liquid. The Central Computer is always so thoughtful. Do the Passengers ever ride it, I wonder? What thrills could that hold for them? Surely it must be more exciting to borrow the million minds of Central than to live awhile in the short-circuited soul of a corroding human being! December fourth, Central said. Friday. So the Passenger had me for three nights. I drink the purplish stuff and probe my memories in a gingerly way, as one might probe a festering sore. I remember Tuesday morning. A bad time at work. None of the charts will come out right. The section manager irritable; he has been taken by Passengers three times in five weeks, and his section is in disarray as a result, and his Christmas bonus is jeopardized. Even though it is customary not to penalize a person for lapses due to Passengers, according to the system, the section manager seems to feel he will be treated unfairly. So he treats us unfairly. We have a hard time. Revise the charts, fiddle with the program, check the fundamentals ten times over. Out they come: the detailed forecasts for price variations of public utility securities, February-April 1988. That afternoon we are to meet and discuss the charts and what they tell us. I do not remember Tuesday afternoon. That must have been when the Passenger took me. Perhaps at work; perhaps in the mahogany-paneled boardroom itself, during the conference. Pink concerned faces all about me; I cough, I lurch, I stumble from my seat. They shake their heads sadly. No one reaches for me. No one stops me. It is too dangerous to interfere with one who has a Passenger. The chances are great that a second Passenger lurks nearby in the discorporate state, looking for a mount. So I am avoided. I leave the building. After that, what? Sitting in my room on bleak Friday morning, I eat my scrambled eggs and try to reconstruct the three lost nights. Of course it is impossible. The conscious mind functions during the period of captivity[...]
