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doctors to isolate a memory, or a set of memories, and prevent the patient from acting on them. From even talking about them." "Why would they want to do that?" "It can negate a wish for vengeance, for example. Or prevent stalking. That sort of thing." "So who used it on her? Why would they do it?" "Obermaier has no idea. There's nothing in her medical record." "Which means it was an illegal procedure." "Yes." "Can they estimate when it happened?" "He's pretty sure it was within the last year." "So what you're telling me is that she had some sort of specific memory that was locked away. She couldn't even tell anybody what it was." "That sounds about right." "But the memory was still there." "Yes." "Why wouldn't they-whoever did it-just do a mind wipe?"
    "If we can find them, we'll ask. My guess would be that you can't hide a complete memory abstraction. I mean, the poor woman wouldn't even have been able to find her way home." "Couldn't this guy help her? Other than by removing her memory completely?" "He says he tried. But apparently lineal blocks tend to be permanent." "So he did the extraction because she was having a problem with the lineal block? Do I have that right?" "They did the extraction because she requested it." "Couldn't he have refused?" "He said he saw no recourse except to allow her to proceed." "Why?" "He said that, left to herself, she might have committed suicide." "You think it happened on Salud Afar?" "I don't think there's any doubt." "Are you suggesting maybe she ran into a real werewolf? Something like that?" "I think she found out something she wasn't supposed to know."
     
***
     
    Two days later, Alex had something he wanted me to watch. "This is from the Nightline Horror Convention," he said. "It took place a few days before Vicki left for Salud Afar. She was among the guests, and this is one of her panels." The hologram blinked on. Four people at a table. Vicki at one end. I could hear an audience behind me. A tall redheaded man sitting beside her held up his hand, and the crowd quieted. "My name's Sax Cherkowski. And I just want to say my latest novel is Fright Night . I'm the moderator of the panel, and I'd like to take a moment to introduce everyone. We'll be talking about how to set mood, which is to say, how to scare the reader." We fast-forwarded through most of the comments until it was Vicki's turn to speak. "It doesn't have to be dark," she said. She used a dazzling smile to demonstrate that all the mummies and vampires were in fun. "It doesn't have to be gloomy. All you need is a hint that you're setting the stage. The wind suddenly becomes audible. "It might be two o'clock in the afternoon in an office building with a thousand people moving around. But if you know what you're doing, you can still arrange things so that every time someone opens a door, your reader will jump."
    The panelists took turns responding to questions from the moderator and the audience. Vicki didn't really talk . She performed . She sparkled. The audience loved her. "Keep in mind," she told them, "that you're not telling a story. You're creating an experience. When those floorboards creak, your reader should hear it. When a log falls in the fireplace, your reader should jump. That means if you write anything that doesn't move the action forward, throw in an adjective you don't need, do anything that doesn't keep things going, you remind the reader that she's in a comfortable chair at home reading a book. When that happens, everything you've worked to accomplish goes away."
    Alex let it run for about twenty minutes. Vicki held the audience in her hand. She got laughs, collected applause, traded quips with the other guests, joked with people in their seats, and was the star of the show. Then he showed me a second panel in which she tried to explain why people love to be scared. She was, if anything, even better. "This next," said Alex, "is a teachers' luncheon. She was the guest speaker." A long table appeared. A