"Your childhood pattern fits into section j-2364-k7. Therefore the treatment will be relayed over into that pattern, with emphasis on friendship." If Kortha had been awake, he would have heard the click of tiny wheels, the metallic rustle of machinery, the flick of a needle of compressed air on a metal filament. The drapes helped deaden those sounds, and Kortha slept on. "Kortha, listen. When you came from Fraysia to be a student at the Academy. You remember that first day when you met--Guantra?" No, it had not been Guantra. It had been Hurlgut whom he'd met, there on the white walk. Or had it really been Guantra? Was his memory that bad? Guantra standing before him, smiling at him, putting a friendly hand on his big arm and saying, "You look like officer material. Come with me. I'd like to see you fence. You have the build for it." And it was Guantra, not Hurlgut, who stood with him, awed at the magic in the lightning parry and thrust of the sword in his hand. He had defeated Mayram the champion that afternoon as Guantra looked on. Beaten him with a glittering sword in his hand and a fire in his green eyes and dancing joy in his heart. He told Hurlgut--no, Guantra! about it afterward in his rooms; how his father had had him taught by Eric MacCormac the American, who was tri-planet champion in all three weapons: foil, sabre and epee. And Guantra listened, pleased. The voice went on, whispering softly, speaking to him, lifting from his memory the threads of recollection, removing the very fibre of his character, as a mason lifts old tile to lay the new. Bit after glittering bit of fact was slipped in to take the place of memory. Fact that was so plausible it became the truth. It was Guantra who had given him his first engineering chance, in letting him charge and electrolize the bastion of cliffworks surrounding radio-city Ruuzol. With cables and generators, he had made those mountain ridges of solid metals the sounding board for a spacevox system that was first in the solar system. Kortha had done a great job on that, thanks to Guantra. Later, there were other triumphs. Then-- "You fled to the desert to escape Ilse. She sought after you, trying to enmesh you in her charms. All the time you knew she was the chosen of Guantra. Guantra loves her. "Guantra is your friend. You would not steal the woman of a friend. "You gave her up. You ran from her, hoping to lose yourself in the desert, thinking Ilse would forget...." Kortha stirred restlessly, but relaxed. He listened, absorbed. "Ilse found you in your smithy. You wanted to find Guantra to get his advice, so you went to Yassa. Hurlgut sent men to kill you. You slew them instead, and fled again. Ilse came to tempt you, but you were saved by Guantra. He sent Ilse away, and brought you to safety." Kortha sighed softly.