Este é um tiro no escuro, mas pode ser uma lembrança traiçoeira da novela "Boa noite, senhor James " também conhecido como " A Noite dos Puudly " por Clifford D. Simak . Você pode lê-lo no Arquivo da Internet .
Procurando por histórias sobre um andróide humano que acorda sem memória
Ele tem alguma memória, mas há pontos em branco. Por exemplo, ele "sabe" que seu nome é Henderson James. (Na verdade, ele é uma duplicata android do Sr. James.)
He became aware from non-remembering.
He came alive from nothing.
[. . .]
His name was Henderson James and he was a human being and he was sitting somewhere on a planet that was called the Earth. He was thirty-six years old and he was, in his way, famous, and comfortably well off. He lived in an old ancestral home on Summit Avenue, which was a respectable address even if it had lost some of its smartness in the last twenty years or so.
[. . .]
His name was Henderson James and if that were true, why was he here? Why should Henderson James be sitting on the slope of an embankment, listening to the wind in the trees and to a sobbing whistle and a barking dog? Something had gone wrong, some incident that, if he could but remember it, might answer all his questions.
There was a job to do.
mas com uma missão, matar seu duplo humano.
Na história de Simak, a duplicata do andróide foi criada com o propósito de matar, não o verdadeiro Sr. James, mas uma criatura alienígena perigosa chamada puudly :
The puudly had escaped and that was why he was here, hiding on the front lawn of some unsuspecting and sleeping citizen, equipped with a gun and a determination to use it, ready to match his wits and the quickness of brain and muscle against the most bloodthirsty, hate-filled thing yet found in the galaxy.
Any puudly was dangerous. It was not a thing to harbor. In fact, there was a law against harboring not only a puudly, but certain other alien beasties much less lethal than a puudly. There was good reason for such a law, reason which no one, much less himself, would even think to question.
And now the puudly was loose and somewhere in the city.
James grew cold at the thought of it, his brain forming images of the things that might come to pass if he did not hunt down the alien beast and put an end to it.
Depois de descartar o puudly , o duplicado do Android descobre que ele é um duplicado, e assim ele decide matar e substituir o verdadeiro Sr. James para que ele, o duplicado, possa viver :
He walked to a chair and sank into it, spent with the knowledge of how events had so been ordered that now finally he was safe, safe beyond all question.
Soon he would have to change into other clothes, hide the gun and the clothes that he was wearing. The staff would ask no questions, of course, but it was best to let nothing arouse suspicion in their minds.
Se ele falhar (como os outros), outro acorda e assume a mesma missão.
Não, há apenas um duplicado, e não há segunda chance, já que o puudly está prestes a brotar:
For the puudly would bud. It was long past its time for the reproductive act and there were bare hours left to find it before it loosed upon the Earth dozens of baby puudlies. They would not remain babies for long. A few hours after budding they would strike out on their own. To find one puudly, lost in the vastness of a sleeping city, seemed bad enough; to track down some dozens of them would be impossible.
So it was tonight or never.
O Target é um executivo corporativo.
Essa parte não corresponde. Na história de Simak, o alvo original é um monstro alienígena; o segundo alvo, o verdadeiro Sr. James, não é um executivo de poder, mas um cientista:
Henderson James. Thirty-six. Unmarried. Alien psychologist. An official of this zoo. And an offender against the law for having secured and harbored an alien being that was barred from Earth.
Leia por volta dos meados dos anos 60.
A história de Simak, publicada pela primeira vez em Galaxy Science Fiction , março de 1951 , foi reimpresso em várias antologias e coleções, incluindo Todas as armadilhas da Terra e outras Histórias (1962), A hora do infinito (1963), e A Noite do Puudly (1964).