Freshmen, too, seemed to get stupider every year. Certainly, when _he'd_ been seventeen, he'd been different altogether. Studious, earnest, questioning ... Then he stopped himself and grinned. He'd probably seemed even worse to his own instructors. Where had he been? Slowly, he picked up the thread. There was a young blonde girl watching him eagerly from a front seat. What was her name? Forrester tried to recall it and couldn't. Well, this was only the first day of term. He'd get to know them all soon enough--well enough, anyhow, to dislike most of them. But the eager expression on the girl's face unnerved him a little. The rest of the class wasn't paying anything like such strict attention. As a matter of fact, Forrester suspected two young boys in the back of being in a trance. Well, he could stop that. But ... She was really quite attractive, Forrester told himself. Of course, she was nothing but a fresh, pretty, eager seventeen-year-old, with a figure that ... She was, Forrester reminded himself sternly, a student. And he was supposed to be an instructor. He cleared his throat. "Man went hog-wild with his new-found freedom from divine guidance," he said. "Woman did, too, as a matter of fact." Now what unholy devil had made him say that? It wasn't a part of the normal lecture for first day of the new term. It was--well, it was just a little risque for students. Some of their parents might complain, and ... But the girl in the front row was smiling appreciatively. _I wonder what she's doing in an Introductory course_, Forrester thought, leaping with no evidence at all to the conclusion that the girl's mind was much too fine and educated to be subjected to the general run of classes. _Private tutoring_ ... he began, and then cut himself off sharply, found his place in the lecture again and went on: "When the Gods decided to sit back and observe for a few thousand years, they allowed Man to go his merry way, just to teach him a lesson." The boys in the back of the room were definitely in a trance. Forrester sighed. "And the inevitable happened," he said. "From the eighth century B.C., Old Style, until the year 1971 A.D., Old Style, Man's lot went from bad to worse. Without the Gods to guide him he bred bigger and bigger wars and greater and greater empires--beginning with the conquests of the mad Alexander of Macedonia and culminating in the opposing Soviet and American Spheres of Influence during the last century." Spheres of Influence.... Forrester's gaze fell on the blonde girl again. She certainly had a well-developed figure. And she did seem so eager and attentive. He smiled at her tentatively. She smiled back. "Urg ..." he said aloud. The class didn't seem to notice. That, Forrester told himself sourly, was probably because they weren't listening.