One of those parts, one of those bones or struts of flesh sprayers, one of them, he now knew, was the Modifier. The Modifier was what he needed to change Ronald. Or to shut him off. If only the Master Chart hadn't been lost, so he would know what the Modifier looked like! He hoped the Modifier itself wasn't lost. He hated to think of Ronald locked in the Usher tomb of the File Room for 18 flat years. Long before that, he would have worn his fists away hammering at the hatch. Then he might start pounding with his head. Perhaps before the time was up he would have worn himself down to nothing whatsoever. Manet selected the ripple-finished gray-covered manual from the hodgepodge, and thought: eighteen years. Perhaps I should have begun here, he told himself. But I really don't have as much interest in that sort of thing as the earthier types. Simple companionship was all I wanted. And, he thought on, even an insipid personality like Ronald's would be bearable with certain compensations. Manet opened the book to the chapter headed: <i>The Making of a Girl</i>. <tb> Veronica crept up behind Manet and slithered her hands up his back and over his shoulders. She leaned forward and breathed a moist warmth into his ear, and worried the lobe with her even white teeth. "Daniel Boone," she sighed huskily, "only killed three Indians in his life." "I know." Manet folded his arms stoically and added: "Please don't talk." She sighed her instant agreement and moved her expressive hands over his chest and up to the hollows of his throat. "I need a shave," he observed. Her hands instantly caressed his face to prove that she liked a rather bristly, masculine countenance. Manet elbowed Veronica away in a gentlemanly fashion. She made her return. "Not now," he instructed her. "Whenever you say." He stood up and began pacing off the dimensions of the compartment. There was no doubt about it: he had been missing his regular exercise. "Now?" she asked. "I'll tell you." "If you were a jet pilot," Veronica said wistfully, "you would be romantic. You would grab love when you could. You would never know which moment would be last. You would make the most of each one." "I'm not a jet pilot," Manet said. "There are no jet pilots. There haven't been any for generations." "Don't be silly," Veronica said. "Who else would stop those vile North Koreans and Red China 'volunteers'?" "Veronica," he said carefully, "the Korean War is over. It was finished even before the last of the jet pilots." "Don't be silly," she snapped. "If it were over, I'd know about it, wouldn't I?" She would, except that somehow she had turned out even less bright, less equipped with Manet's own store of information, than Ronald. Whoever had built the Lifo kit must have had ancient ideas about what constituted appropriate "feminine" characteristics. "I suppose," he said heavily, "that you would like me to take you back to Earth and introduce you to Daniel Boone?" "Oh, yes."