“Of course, Ronny, Gramr Elsie remained at home after your great granthr was born. And after she was killed in an automobile crash all her trophies were put into a case at the Country Club.” “And after that you married Gramr Vivian, and became very wealthy, and you built this living dome here in Antarctica near the mines.” Ronnie smiled gravely. “That part I know very well.” Yes, that part Ronnie knew very well. But Ronnie had not known the austere efficient nurse, his second wife, who had cared for him after the accident. She had been a dutiful and thoughtful wife--a perfect mother to Elsie’s two sons and their own three daughters--but always there had been a feeling of reserve between them. Even in their most intimate moments she had seemed self-sufficient and respectful ... Only after her death in her sleep, when he was sixty and Vivian was fifty, had he learned that she had a rheumatic heart, and should have slackened her headlong pace years before. And from her memory tapes, sent to him by the memorium proctors six months after the burial, he learned how distorted and cramped had been her philosophy of life. She had hated and disliked all men--a silly, slightly sordid romance in her girlhood was her mental excuse for this attitude. Inwardly she shrank from any sign of affection, or any physical contact with him. Yet she desired marriage for the social status and monetary independence it afforded. Bitterly she had paid the price ... “Gramr Vivian was an unusual woman,” Norall told Ronnie, an ironical tone to his surprisingly strong old voice. “After she died I did not plan to remarry. I spent all my time in Antarctica building subterranean highways and developing mines...” “Until Gramr Eldris Arovvack,” Ronnie rolled the _Arovvack_ on his tongue, “came down to visit her son in one of your camps.” “I think you know all this better than I do, Ronnie,” Norall said, laughing. “Maybe I should tell the proctors to destroy my memory tapes after I am gone. You will not need them.” “Oh, no, Granthr! It is against the law. Only after a hundred years without a withdrawal from the files can a memorium tape be destroyed. I wish to keep in touch with you--it will be like talking with you again.” “I see the proctors are doing a good job of indoctrination in the schools, Ronnie.” Norall sighed. “When I was your age, back in nineteen-fifty, the universal recordings of all citizens’ memories was not even imagined. “That came in the seventies. The Communists developed the system of brain stripping and recordings to weed out subversives and disloyal party members. They adapted it from our own process of clearing a disordered brain, in our mental institutions, and giving the individual a fresh start with a blank memory. “By the Twenty-first Century all the major nations were keeping mental checks on their citizens, and eventually even the party leaders, much to their horror, were checked and removed from office.”