he leaned against the table. after a moment, he straightened out the note. a second reading didn't help. there it was, if he could make sense from it.

luise and himself, probably in that order. there was no proof, but it seemed likely that she had been retrogressed first, since she had been discovered first.

there was also dorn starret, the criminal from ceres who had hidden the gun in the shelter that he, luis, had been found in. and there was now a fourth person: the psychologist who specialized in depriving retrogression victims of what few memories they had left.

luis grimaced. here was information which, if the police would act on it properly ... but it was no use, they wouldn't. any solution which came out of this would have to arise out of his own efforts.

he folded the note carefully. it would be handy to have if luise came back and didn't know who he was.

meanwhile, the psychologist. luise hadn't said who he was, but it shouldn't be difficult to locate him. he went to the screen and dialed the directory. there were many psychologists in it, but no name that was familiar.

he pondered. the person who had retroed luise and himself—what would he do? first he would take them as far from familiar scenes as he could. that tied in with the facts. dorn starret came from ceres.

then what? he would want to make certain that his victims did not trace their former lives. and he would be inconspicuous in so doing.

again luis turned to the screen, but this time he dialed the news service. he found what he was looking for in the advertisements of an issue a month old. it was very neat:

do you remember everything—or is your mind hazy? perhaps my system can help you recall those little details you find it so annoying to forget. memory lab.

that was all. no name. but there was an address. hurriedly luis scanned every succeeding issue. the advertisement was still there.

he was coming closer, very close. the ad was clever; it would attract the attention of luise and himself and others like them, and almost no one else. there was no mention of fees, no claim that it was operated by a psychologist, nothing that the police would investigate.

night after night luise had sat alone; sooner or later, watching the screen, she had to see the ad. it was intriguing and she had answered it. normally, so would he have: but now he was forewarned.

part of the cleverness was this: that she went of her own volition. she would have suspected an outright offer of help—but this seemed harmless. she went to him as she would to anyone in business. a very clever setup.

but who was behind memory lab? luis thought he knew. a trained psychologist with a legitimate purpose would attach his name to the advertisement.

luis patted the retro gun in his pocket. dorn starret, criminal, and inventor of a fictitious memory system, was going to have a visitor. it wasn't necessary to go to ceres to see him.