"That's a hard one," I said. "When I first saw you I would have said the late thirties, maybe. Now, frankly, you look closer to fifty." "I can show you proof," Foster said, "that I spent the better part of a year in a military hospital in France. I awakened in a ward, bandaged to the eyes, and with no memories whatever of my life before that day. According to the records made at the time, I appeared to be about thirty years of age." "Well," I said, "amnesia's not so unusual among war casualties, and you seem to have done pretty well since." Foster shook his head impatiently. "There's nothing difficult about acquiring material wealth in this society, though the effort kept me well occupied for a number of years--and diverted my thoughts from the question of my past life. The time came, however, when I had the leisure to pursue the matter. The clues I had were meagre enough; the notebook I've shown you was found near me, and I had a ring on my finger." Foster held out his hand. On the middle finger was a massive signet, engraved with the same design of concentric circles I had seen on the cover of the notebook. "I was badly burned; my clothing was charred. Oddly enough, the notebook was quite unharmed, though it was found among burned debris. It's made of very tough stuff." "What did you find out?" "In a word--nothing. No military unit claimed me. I spoke English, from which it was deduced that I was English or American----" "They couldn't tell which, from your accent?" "Apparently not; it appears I spoke a sort of hybrid dialect." "Maybe you're lucky. I'd be happy to forget my first thirty years." "I spent a considerable sum of money in my attempts to discover my past," Foster went on. "And several years of time. In the end I gave it up. And it wasn't until then that I found the first faint inkling." "So you did find something," I said. "Nothing I hadn't had all along. The notebook." "I'd have thought you would have read that before you did anything else," I said. "Don't tell me you put it in the bureau drawer and forgot it." "I read it, of course--what I could read of it. Only a relatively small section is in English. The rest is a cipher. And what I read seemed meaningless--quite unrelated to me. You've glanced through it; it's no more than a journal, irregularly kept, and so cryptic as to be little better than a code itself. And of course the dates; they range from the early eighteenth century through the early twentieth." "A sort of family record, maybe," I said. "Carried on generation after generation. Didn't it mention any names, or places?" "Look at it again, Legion," Foster said. "See if you notice anything odd--other than what we've already discussed." I thumbed through the book again. It was no more than an inch thick, but it was heavy--surprisingly heavy. There were a lot of pages--I shuffled through hundreds of closely written sheets, and yet the book was less than half used. I read bits here and there: