"We've been trying to get it to grow back up," Sergeant said reasonably. "Think of this. Fountain of Youth. Immortality. Rejuvenation. This is it. Never mind how it works. Most minds can't stand being young and knowing they will have to go through the same damned thing all over again. We use synapse-shift to switch your upper conscious memories to your id and super-ego, leaving room for new memories. You remember only those things out of the past you _have_ to, to retain your identity." "Identity," I repeated. "I have no identity. My identity is a dream. I have two identities--one of them years beyond the other." Sergeant tilted his head and his eyes at me and slapped me across the face. "Don't go back on me now. We gave you the best we could. The Rejuvenation Service couldn't help it if you were too old for a _beta_. You shouldn't have waited until you were so old, so very old. We used the very oldest sets and mock-ups we had for _betas_, but you, you had to keep wandering onto _alpha_ territory, while they were striking sets, even. _Beta_ or not, we gave you good service. Don't slip now." I heard the voice and I heard another voice, and it said "What could you expect of a _beta_?" and they were only some of the voices I was hearing, and I wondered what you could expect from a _beta_, and I didn't know, or think that I would ever know. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Air of Castor Oil, by Jim Harmon