"That's the funny thing about it, though—I didn't mind it a bit at the time. Very curious. I had an Outlander woman with me—Bruchner's daughter, as a matter of fact."

"Oh dear," Mrs. Webber sighed. "Poor Hal."

"Well, like I say, it wasn't exactly mild, but it was quite tolerable, somehow." He frowned just slightly, and shook his head at the puzzling incongruity. He recalled his three months of association with the uncivilized woman, somewhat wistfully contemplating strong, overpowering sentiments in a chaotic wilderness. "Anyway," he said at last, "I'm home again, and it's all over. I won't have to have anything to do with her now."

"Yes," Mrs. Webber murmured. "Odd that you should have survived though, isn't it? I thought a civilized man in the wilderness would die almost at once."

Webber gave the cultured equivalent of a mild snort. "Of course he could survive. Oh—" and he laughed softly in apology "—that's right. I forgot to tell you about that."

The eyes of his wife politely turned to him and he explained. "A couple of weeks after our son here apparently had been killed, I happened to run into an Authority physician. I mentioned it to him, just in passing. He told me that there was a factor in the CC Treatment that provided for such things.

"It seems that the Civilization Conditioning they give you is only designed to enable a man to survive in a city. In order for the conditioning to function, you have to have that civilized urban environment. Once the environment is removed, the conditioned complex has nothing to react against, and the man immediately becomes almost—but not quite—as savage as a typical Outlander.

"That way, a civilized man can always manage to live in the wilderness, given half a chance. Once he gets back into a city again, the proper, civilized environment is returned, the conditioning starts functioning immediately and presto!—the man is civilized again."

"Well now, that's nice," Mrs. Webber said placidly. "Wouldn't like to see my boy dead."

"Yes," her husband mused. "The physician told me that right after we decided Hal was dead. I was going to mention it to you, but it slipped my mind somehow."

"Well, you're just a tiny bit forgetful at times, dear." Mrs. Webber sighed softly and turned to her son. "Hal, dear, it's awfully nice to see you back again. 

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