see what that means?"

The man frowned. "I suppose no one can recognize me."

"That's right. And it's not only your face that changes. You may grow
taller, but never shorter. If your hair was gray, it may darken, but
not the reverse."

"Then I'm younger too?"

"In a sense, though it's actually not a rejuvenation process at all.
The extra tension that everyone carries with him has been removed, and
the body merely takes up the slack.

"Generally, the apparent age is made less. A person of middle age or
under seems to be three to fifteen years younger than before. You
appear to be about twenty-seven, but you may actually be nearer forty.
You see, we don't even know what age group to check.

"And it's the same with fingerprints. They've been altered by the
retrogression process. Not a great deal, but enough to make
identification impossible."

* * * * *

The nameless man stared around the room--at Val Borgenese, perhaps
fifty, calm and pleasant, more of a counselor than a policeman--out of
the window at the skyline, and its cleanly defined levels of air
traffic.

Where was his place in this?

"I guess it's no use," he said bleakly. "You'll never find out who I
am."

The counselor smiled. "I think we will. Directly, there's not much we
can do, but there are indirect methods. In the last two weeks we've
exposed you to all the organized knowledge that can be put on
tapes--physics, chemistry, biology, math, astrogation, the works.

"It's easy to remember what you once knew. It isn't learning; it's
actually relearning. One fact put in your mind triggers another into
existence. There's a limit, of course, but usually a person comes out
of re-education with slightly more formal knowledge than he had in his
prior existence." The counselor opened a folder on his desk. "We gave
you a number of tests. You didn't know the purpose, but I can tell you
the results."

He leafed slowly through the sheets. "You may have been an
entrepreneur of some sort. You have an excellent sense of power
ethics. Additionally, we've found that you're physically alert, and
your reactions are well coordinated. This indicates you may have been
an athlete or sportsman."

Val Borgenese laid down the tests. "In talking with you, I've learned
more. The remark you made about fingerprints suggests you may have
been a historian, specializing in the Twentieth Century. No one else
is likely to know that there was a