He shrugged as he turned his eyes back to the woman and openly appreciated her. She blushed, and he was pleased. Finally he answered the man. “That depends on who I am. An amnesiac is supposed to have good reasons for not remembering.”

The man frowned. “You’ve never had a name. And you’re not an amnesiac—not exactly. We’ve stored your brain with plenty of information. And it will soon become properly integrated as you apply it. But what would you prefer as a label?”

He had never had a name. Somehow, he figured that he should have had one. He shrugged again. “If I’ve never had a name, it must not be very important.”

“Peculiar personality,” muttered Berti. “Not uninteresting.”

“That’s wonderful,” giggled Frances. “Now I can pick something that will make an adorable nickname. How about Roland? Then I can call you Rolly.”

He nodded and sat up while she giggled eagerly. He looked at his body. He seemed to know all about his body, yet he had never been conscious of it before, somehow. Translucent shorts and sandals fitted well to a tall, muscled form that he was proud to display to Frances. Did she like his body? That was the important thing.

His eyes shifted back and forth from the woman to the man. Finally he said quietly, “We’ve got to come to it. What do you want me to do?”

Berti’s sharply-ridged face puckered. “Rolly, you have a highly selective education, administered by us. But is it worth while? Science-progress is a maze, a labyrinth. And when you reach the end of the quest, the Minotaur always waits.”

Fran’s voice interrupted seriously, black eyes shining. “We’ve given you most of the necessary information, but have omitted details. This the end of the Era of World Brain. It must be the end. It’s a ten-acre expanse of electronic brain which is the unescapable dictator of Worldcity. Absolute mechanical dictator. And there are a thousand plastico-mechanical creations which act positronically under World Brain to carry out its functions.”

Berti looked sharply at him. “Roland! Doesn’t that seem terribly unjust to you. Monstrously inhuman?”

“If it’s mechanical, obviously it’s inhuman,” said Roland.

Berti said, “Human? Organic? What is life? Only chemistry and that’s all any machine is. No, by human I mean one’s emotional, thalamic reactions. Do you react negatively to a 

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