Chapter 4: Quest

"First we must see if others have news of you, or notions how best to proceed," Cirl decided. "I will convoke a circle."

"A circle?"

"Not a true viscous circle, for there is only one, and that exists only in the spirit life. But we do have a physical approximation. I will show you."

She set off on a high line, going out into space, and Rondl followed.

The surface of the planet fell away below. The network of mountains, valleys, plains, seas, and walls shifted in perspective, and the reflected beams of light spread farther apart, making communication less convenient. The atmosphere thinned, making travel easier; too great a velocity in thick air led to heating that at its extreme could begin to melt the body structure and cause discomfort. Bands had little use for air, other than as a medium for the support of vaporized metals in the condensation chamber. The resources of the planet were vital to certain stages of life, but awkward at other stages.

Space was exhilarating. Rondl was amazed that Bands could fly through it so readily, and again wondered why he should react that way. Bands had always flown through space, needing only the lines for energy and the ambient microscopic metallic dust particles or gas molecules for reaction mass.

Time passed, for interplanetary distances were great. This was a jaunt only out to near space, well within the orbit of the nearest moon, called Fair, but the thinning atmosphere kept progress slow. In deep space, Rondl realized, Bands could accelerate to half the velocity of light, provided they had good lines to ride.

Vision improved out here, too. Rondl could now see the more distant moons of Glow, Spare, and Dinge, though two were well around the planet. They reflected light like massed Bands, and were of pretty colors, though at this range he could not make out individual features of their surfaces. Moon Fair was bright and golden, a little like Cirl; Moon Glow was reddish, with a softer effulgence; Spare was a cold blue; Dinge, a drab brown.

There were planetoids too, particularly in sections of the orbits of the moons, helping define these orbits as rings. It was as though a given moon complete with its delineated orbit was a Band, monstrous but familiar, and Rondl liked that. There was a certain harmony to this form; the circle was obviously the fundamental shape of nature, manifesting in diverse ways. And of course there was the real ring of smaller particles, prettifying the planetary environment within the orbit of the nearest moon. That ring was less evident now, because they were too close to it; they could see right through its flat surface.

Rondl caught the correct angle on the light of Sun Dazzle and flashed a message to Cirl: "You are the color of Moon Fair."

He had sought to flatter her. He succeeded beyond expectation. She went into a continuous flash of gratification. Females, he recalled from his anonymous wellspring of odd information, liked to be foolishly praised. But he had better be careful, because if he flattered her any more than he had just done, she might fall off the line and spin out of control. He wondered again what kind of a male it had taken to cast her off. Rondl rather enjoyed this byplay, and he liked Cirl well.

But how could he afford to like her? He had no memory of his past associations. Suppose he were married to another Band? This species, he realized now, was monogamous; individuals associated intimately with only one partner at a time. Other species in the Galaxy were different, some having several sexes, or group matings, or --

But, frustratingly, the moment he realized he was gaining information that might be relevant to his past associations, the memory faded out.

Cirl slowed, and Rondl positioned himself to take advantage of the two suns again for regular intercommunication. "Now the summoning," she announced.

"It will take a while for them to arrive, but if we made a circle closer to the planet it would disrupt traffic, and that would be unsocial."

To be unsocial was unthinkable in Band culture. Cirl's comments were constantly evoking additional background knowledge from Rondl's mind. That was useful in itself, though more was needed.

Now Cirl broadcast a bright call: "CIRCLE-CIRCLE-CIRCLE-CIRCLE!" the words flashed out in a sphere that expanded at lightspeed as she rotated and revolved. Apparently this was a general summons to anyone receiving. She continued it for some time.

Then responses came -- "Joining!" "Joining!" -- flashes from different directions, some from such distance that no Bands were visible. Rondl wondered just how far a meaningful flash could be read, and realized as he thought of it that there really was no limit. A tightly focused flash traveled as far as light could go; only the interference of dust and gas in space abated it, making it gradually less intelligible. There had been some instances of messages received between two stellar systems, though there the problem was one of alignment rather than clarity, since -- but the memory faded. Still, he realized, communication was no problem at all inside a moon system; it was necessary only to intercept a number of Bands in the vicinity, and Cirl had evidently blanketed the region sufficiently to gain the desired responses.

"But what is to happen?" Rondl asked while they waited. He remained bothered by his seemingly wide background knowledge of things that was nevertheless rent by gaping gaps wherever his interest was most specific. Why should he know about alien Spheres and not about Band circles? But of course this was what they were trying to find out.

"A circle is best experienced," Cirl told him. "It can't really be explained."

In due course the other Bands arrived. They were orange and gray and violet and all other colors, male and female, young and old: a complete assortment. But all were the same diameter, and very nearly the same thickness. The magnetic and optic properties of ring and lens required this particular size, so that all Bands could interact effectively. They were standardized in this respect; age and sex made no difference. They flashed greetings to the group at large; it was evident that most of them had not met the others before, but all found each other agreeable.

What would happen, Rondl wondered, if Cirl's former male friend should appear? Presumably nothing; their relationship had been sundered.

When Cirl deemed their number sufficient, she organized the circle.

"Rondl, take your place downlight from me, on a suitable line," she directed, positioning herself flatface to Sun Eclat. "The others will fall in."

"But what will this accomplish?" he asked.

"You will discover." For once she was not being overly communicative.

So Rondl took his place, stabilizing himself as Cirl did, unrotating, so that his stationary lens received her full beam. She moved him out a certain distance, then had him hold position. It took a certain amount of coordination to align both beam and line, but they did it.

A gray Band fell in downlight from him, and others farther along, each taking pains to be the correct distance away. The communication was all one-way, with Cirl's flashes passing through a kind of tube formed in space by the growing sequence of stationary Bands. Some of them were unable to remain on a magnetic line and must have been in some discomfort, but they were governed by the necessary position in the formation and did not complain.

Now, under Cirl's direction, the line of Bands began to curve. As it curved, so did the magnetic line, which was distorted by the pull of the line of Bands. Rondl angled himself slightly, so that Cirl's focused beam angled to the side. The next Band moved over to continue intercepting the beam, and the following Bands moved over farther. The tube kept curving until at last it closed on Cirl, completing the circle. It resembled yet another Band: a living ring. Several magnetic lines intersected it, each bending through part of the arc, then breaking free to continue its natural route. The formation began spinning slowly, so that each Band had his turn taking in energy from a line, then hanging on between lines. As the circle spun faster, the interception of lines became more regular, so that all participants had a comfortably sufficient supply of energy.

Now, abruptly, the single-person stream of communication Rondl had been receiving from Cirl expanded in amount and intensity and quality and variety, becoming a group-communication circuit. Perhaps a hundred Bands were contributing their inputs -- but it was no cacophonous jumble, but rather a supremely unified whole of many components. A hundred individual threads, as it were, had been fused into a single massive cable.

And almost as he thought of that, fashioning a mental image of a multithreaded twined cable, his thought came back to him, modified by the input of all the other Bands. Suddenly the cable brightened, becoming amazingly lifelike, and each thread was a separate color, and the colors merged in the curving distance like flashes of light, making the whole wonderfully artistic.

But it was the extraordinarily enhanced meaning that almost overwhelmed Rondl. It was as though his thought was magnified a hundredfold in power, clarity, and depth. For his communicative flashes were assimilated and modified by those of each other Band in the circle. What was valid was multiply enhanced; what was suspect was reduced or eliminated. There was a constant flow, the result of many minor corrections. This was the true viscosity, the remarkable yet consistent motion of comprehension. It was a marvelous experience.

Now Cirl's thought circulated. "I convoked this circle for my friend Rondl, who cannot remember himself, and who suffers strange images like this one of some physical connection of threads. Where does he come from? What is his history? How should we proceed to return his history to him? He has odd flashes of information, yet is ignorant of much of what we take for granted.

Does anyone know of him, as he was before his amnesia?"

The massed thought concentrated on Rondl, who felt embarrassed by the cynosure. It was as if every level of his being was being scrutinized simultaneously, as if he were a cable that was being unraveled to its component threads. Many darts of query came at him, each tugging at a particular thread, suggesting identities that faded as the proposed match-ups failed. Very soon it was concluded: no one knew Rondl's nonamnesiac self.

Then came a rapid survey of his informational oddities and lapses. A hundred beam-thoughts pried at his situation. It was like being interrogated by computer.

Computer! For a moment the viscosity thickened and stalled. That was exactly the kind of oddity they were cataloging! What was a computer?

"It is a big electronic machine with millions of informational bits that can be coded for rapid access, many circuits that respond to certain directives -- "

Machine? The circle was having trouble with this concept also.

"A device that performs a task. A complex tool. Instead of -- " But Rondl found himself confused by their confusion. Suddenly it seemed preposterous that he should be describing a thing no other Band knew about.

Where could such information have come from? How could it be valid? What did he know about such an alien construction?

Alien construction. Alien. The circle oriented on this. Had Rondl associated with alien creatures? Had he come from the farthest-reaching lines, the ones that extended all the way to the Spheres of other sapient creatures?

They pierced him with investigatory needles. The massed experience of this randomly assembled group was considerable; some of them had traveled to other Spheres. They clarified that such travel was no casual matter; it required many years, the significant fraction of a lifetime, to reach even the nearest alien Sphere. Rondl was not physically old enough to have made such a trip. Soon the circle concluded that Rondl had indeed had some experience with aliens, but had not actually traveled beyond System Band. That meant that the only aliens he could have encountered were those of the local enclave, the hoppers of Sphere Bellatrix.

They explored this in greater detail. The alien colony maintained in System Band by the Bellatrixians interacted only minimally with the natives.

The aliens were huge greenish things with leg projections that propelled them in leaps across the surface of a moon or planet. They were largely nonmagnetic, unable to endure in off-planet space in their natural state. They had to wear special suits to contain the atmosphere they constantly bathed in, the gases passing in and out of bodily orifices. It was understood that the aliens would disband if this process of ventilation was ever interrupted, so devoted to it were they. The Bellatrixians could not traverse the lines alone.

Apparently their gross physical features were necessary to enable them to host auras non-magnetically. They functioned, in their fashion -- but what a horror it would be to be captive in such a host!

Under the wealth of this information and feeling, Rondl responded. He had had experience with Bellatrixians! They maintained a moderate Sphere about halfway between Sphere Mintaka and Sphere Sador, both of which were huge. They resembled a creature he termed grasshoppers, which hopped from blade to blade

--

He lost it. The circle tried to evoke his further memories, but could not. No Band knew of this species of Grasshopper; none of the animals of Planet Band propelled themselves quite like that. But at least this was progress. They resumed the exploration of the nature of Bellatrixians: There was a certain compensation to this gross, limited form. The aliens were physically dexterous. They could support heavy objects and transport nonmagnetic things, and fashion impressive artifacts. Some few Bands had traveled the tenuous interstellar lines to visit Sphere Bellatrix, or had had friends who had done so in past generations, and reported that the aliens had constructed marvelous structures on their planets, like artificial mountains, with many lights and all manner of vehicles hopping from one to the other.

Each Bellatrixian had a nest-hole in a structure that was shared with a mate or family; in this manner they kept their species going. Their machine structures were formidable -- in this limited context the circle was coming to understand the concept of machine -- and the aliens possessed matter-affecting devices they termed "weapons" that could cause their ships to disassemble like disbanding Bands, and planetoids to break apart as though smashed by meteorites. But these formidable creatures had not come to System Band to break apart planetoids but to "trade." They were eager to do this, for they could readily accomplish some things Bands could not, in exchange for some things the Bands could do more readily for them. As it turned out, this was a beneficial arrangement; the aliens removed some mountains that were inconveniently located, and hauled in some metallic planetoids that the Bands had not been able to handle. In return for these "services" the aliens accepted some of the skills of the Bands, such as the internal adjustment of magnetic circuits within semiconductors. The aliens had had to utilize clumsy metal threads sewn through other substances to fashion their crude magnetic circuits; apparently they were unable to reach in magnetically to modify the field properties of objects directly. Bands could do this easily, and could duplicate the magnetic attributes of given artifacts in much smaller compass without changing the shape or mass of the objects. The aliens had been at first amazed by this: how could a tiny block of metal be made to perform the complex switching operations of one of their gross devices -- when the Bands did not even touch or change the object physically? But they were quick to accept such transformed objects once they tested them.

At first the aliens had not even recognized the Band line generators and modifiers as constructs of sapience; they had thought of them as unique natural objects the Bands had happened to discover and adapt. But again they were quick learners. Now Bellatrix represented a good "market" for many magnetic artifacts of specified nature, and such artifacts were used in the alien space-traveling vessels and even for "export." That concept remained confusing; apparently "export" items were neither retained nor used, but sent to other Spheres in return for some intangible statement of status.

Rondl found he understood the concepts of trade, services, market, and exports without difficulty. But this time he withheld his thoughts, preferring not to confuse the circle further. He merely absorbed the massed thoughts of the others, finding this process highly useful to his mental adjustment.

It did not matter what the artifacts were used for. As long as the Bellatrixians were willing to accept such easy work in exchange for such imposing labors as moving mountains, the Bands were satisfied. In fact, a fair subsidiary vocabulary was developing, used by those Bands who specialized in alien negotiations. Such Bands could hardly be understood by others; they flashed glibly of "credit" and "deficits" and "investment," all things that seemed to relate to the mysterious alien system of "economics." They also flashed warning: it was their judgment that though the Bellatrixians were compatible despite their amazingly alien nature, they were typical of the species of the larger Galactic society. These species had concepts that were difficult to comprehend, even devastating. One that completely eluded the great majority of Bands was "war." It seemed to relate to the attempt by one species to degrade the welfare of another. Some few Bands had, by dint of deep study and prolonged concentration, managed to assimilate this concept. They had then disbanded. Thus other Bands had decided to leave that concept alone, and to remain generally clear of aliens.

"I know of these aliens," Rondl flashed. "Yet it seems to be part of a general, erratic background I have. I also know of Mintakans and Sadors, and perhaps others if some key concept were to invoke them from my secret memory.

But until such invocation comes -- "

The circle considered, and recommended in its viscous consensus that Rondl survey a wider range of Galactic species. Some one among them might have the associations suggested by his vocabulary. Then he could survey the particular Bands who had been in that region of space or who specialized in studies of that species. One of them might turn out to be himself, or at least an acquaintance of his former self. That would finally give him the information he was questing for: who was he?

At length the circle disbanded, breaking up into its component entities.

This was the way the spirit circle was supposed to be: a special, superior entity, losing fragments of itself to the physical Bands, recovering them when their separateness terminated. He understood that myth better now. But it remained a myth: the greatest viscous circle of them all, a deific entity created in the likeness of the most moving of living-Band formations. A really charming fantasy he almost wished he could believe in.

Now they had a course of action: survey the alien contacts and look for a Band who had departed the association of the specialists in particular alien relations. A tedious, unpromising chore, but necessary -- unless he preferred to travel out to the alien Spheres themselves, to see what matched his knowledge. If there were a Mattermission unit --

A what? He lost it. Somehow he had had the notion he could blithely jump to far places without the passage of time. Of course he could not do that! He could not go to any alien Sphere without consuming years, and he lacked the patience for that sort of thing. They would have to research in a library instead.

Except that the Bands had no libraries. This was yet another alien concept in his mind. A library was a place where references existed, open to all persons interested. Books, tapes, holo-recordings -- all alien devices.

There was nothing like that in this region of space.

Cirl, however, was not dismayed. "We shall go to the Education Nexus and question the instructors. They have much broader experience, and will be able to help us."

Of course. Young Bands, like the youth of all sapient species, needed to be trained. Animals inherited most of their vital patterns of behavior, but sapients had to be taught. Naturally the individuals with the greatest stores of information were the ones to do the teaching. Maybe these instructors had taught Rondl himself, and would remember him as a student. Maybe they had records --

"Records?" Cirl asked blankly as they flew back toward the planet. "What are they?"

Another anomalous concept! Aliens kept records; Bands did not. Material continuity was of little importance; what counted was the immaterial continuity of the Viscous Circle. Since all the Band information theoretically went to the group Soul eventually, no physical repository was needed. No wonder the Bands were not recognized as a Galactic Sphere. They simply did not organize themselves in conventional sapient fashion.

Yet as he considered this, Rondl was not at all sure that the other sapients of the Galaxy had the better system. They discriminated against the Bands because the Bands were different. Difference was not at all the same as inferiority.

Cirl was leading the way more slowly than she had on the way out, so that Rondl could use Dazzle as a beam source for communication and rotate for convenient converse. They traveled on roughly parallel lines and flashed back and forth. It was very pleasant, and Rondl found himself wondering whether it was possible to increase that pleasantness.

"I found another gap in my information," he said. "Perhaps an awkward one." "What is it?"

"I do not know how Bands develop romance."

She was flashless for a moment, and Rondl feared he had committed some impropriety. "Do you have a female in mind?" she finally inquired, guardedly.

Had there been any question? Rondl suddenly realized that there had been several quite attractive females in the recent circle. Cirl might think he wished to pursue one of those. "I have -- if it is permissible -- you in mind." Now he was afraid she would react negatively. Friendship was not the same as romance, and she had had a bad experience recently.

"I should hope so. I formed a circle for you."

This was a response he had not anticipated. "This is significant? I thought the circle was just for information."

"It is, true. But when one Band organizes for another, it presupposes liaison."

"But all the others were strangers. They couldn't know -- "

"The very nature of it was suggestive. We invoked the circle; they merely participated. It was our circle. We put the questions."

"Oh -- they were like witnesses to a ceremony."

"One does not convoke a circle for just anyone," she flashed primly.

"I thought maybe -- I feared you retained some attachment to the male Band you knew before me."

"That matter is becoming less serious. In retrospect I perceive flaws in him I did not fathom before. You take up my attention now."

So part of her interest in Rondl was as a diversion from that former liaison. He had an alien term for this: rebound. Yet that was not necessarily a bad thing. It merely accounted for a more rapid progress of interest than might otherwise occur.

"You are attractive to me," he said. "Perhaps I lack a proper basis for judgment, and I do not know how I myself am as a potential object of interest for the opposite sex -- "

"Complementary sex," she corrected him without breaking his pattern of communication. It was possible to receive a flash while sending one out; Bands did this all the time.

"But if you find me potentially worthwhile as a male, not merely as a riddle -- "

"The riddle is a pretext," she flashed. "A reason to associate while we ascertain whether we like each other." She could speak to the point with remarkable clarity; it was part of her love of communication. Perhaps that, as much as the amount of her flashing, had embarrassed her former associate.

Directness could become indelicate.

"But I do want to find out who I really am," Rondl persisted a trifle awkwardly.

"Of course. But you could indulge in that quest alone."

Indeed he could. He had agreed to collaborate with Cirl because he liked her appearance and company. It was somewhat startling to learn how much more cynically she viewed their association than he did, but she was correct. The quest was real -- but also a pretext for another kind of quest, which was perhaps as important. "Then you are amenable to my serious attention?"

Now she was diffident. "I did not say that."

"My apology," he flashed quickly, disappointed. "I must have misunderstood. You prefer to keep it businesslike?"

"Businesslike?"

Yet another alien concept. "Orderly, proper. Without emotional involvement."

"I did not say that either."

"Then I am confused. What sort of connection do you wish?"

"Oh, you really are ignorant about this, aren't you!" she flashed in cute exasperation. It was as close to a negative sentiment as she came.

"Yes. I am ignorant. Am I offending you? I don't know what to ask."

"I suppose I just expected you to know the conventions, even though you obviously don't. I'm not supposed to tell you how to do it."

Rondl began to catch on. A thing performed strictly by expressed agreement would lack that special element of mystery and romance that was the essence of male-female relations the Galaxy over. Cirl was amenable to his interest -- but did not care to say so too openly, lest the admission have a negative effect on that interest or its application.

Well, he could proceed on trial and error. Compliments -- that must be part of it; she had certainly reacted when he had praised her color. "I think your circle is marvelously round."

Cirl's magnetic explosion of mirth almost flung her off the line. "All Bands are perfectly round!" she flashed. "Males and females. That is no distinction."

"Your surface is beautifully sleek," he essayed.

This was no better. "Every Band has an oil-sleek surface, to enhance traveling through atmosphere without suffering friction and heat damage."

Actually this was true only in atmosphere; out in space the fibers were extended, as streamlining was not important. Either way, Cirl was not really distinct.

Why had he supposed physical descriptions were appropriate? They might have no relevance to Band romance!

But then, why had she been so flattered when he praised her color? Color did distinguish individuals...

"You have lovely color," he essayed.

"You used that before," she flashed coldly.

Another error! Compliments could not be repeated, it seemed. Too bad he had wasted his most potent one before.

"You have a delightfully informative mode of flashing," he offered.

She rewarded him with a brilliant splay of refracted light. "Now you are scoring," she admitted. "Don't tell anyone I told you, though."

"Never," he agreed conspiratorially. Since her prior male friend had condemned her too ready communication, she was of course sensitive in this area, positively and negatively.

By the time they reached the planetary surface, they were well established as a courting couple. But two things inhibited Rondl. First, it had occurred to him that he might, in the course of the life concealed by his temporary amnesia, already have a liaison with some other Band female; that could be extremely awkward when he recovered his memory.

Second, he had no idea how Bands made love -- and knew better than to ask Cirl for instruction.

They arrived at the education center. Here were many polished walls, some curving so that the flashes of the instructors reached many students simultaneously, while the student responses were reflected from all around the site to a single spot for the instructor's assimilation. The massive trunk lines split into many lesser lines, so that all students could sustain themselves comfortably in class. Rondl found that he liked this place, both for its academic association and for its physical layout. Was that a natural Band reaction, or a clue to the nature of his prior life?

Cirl found the instructor she knew. This was an old Band she called Proft, a weathered green-brown in hue, who no longer flew the lines between planets but still had excellent mental facility. Proft, she claimed, knew almost everything.

This seemed to be true. The old Band conversed with Rondl casually, then flashed: "You were educated at this planet; you have not been far from it."

"You remember me?" Rondl asked, excited.

"I recognize your accent. A Band's mode of flashing varies with the region he frequents during his formative stage. Your accent is pure local."

"But how do I know about strange things?"

"You must have done strange research. That would account for stray bits of information, without depth, and lacunae where you omitted your homework or skimped. Students are not what they used to be! I am sure your life has not been remarkable heretofore; there is no evident trauma. You have to have been one of hundreds of thousands who resided in this vicinity."

"Then why should I suffer amnesia?"

"Several possibilities. You could have had an accident, such as passing through a random magnetic flux of burnout intensity, or attack by a wild creature that frightened you away from your memories, such as a Kratch."

"Or a Trugd," Rondl agreed.

"Indeed. Such things occur routinely to careless individuals. It is of no special significance, since you retain your ability to function."

"But suppose -- " Rondl hesitated, but realized he had to express his concerns now or lose the opportunity. Proft had granted him an interview at Cirl's behest, and otherwise would surely be busy elsewhere. "Suppose I have commitments in that prior life?"

"Disbanding ends all commitments in this incarnation," Proft explained.

"You have evidently suffered partial disbanding. I doubt you have any commitments remaining now."

"But if I were married -- "

"Marriage is a voluntary association of male and female for the purpose of rebanding. It can be terminated at any time by either party. If you were married then, and no longer wish to be now, then it is finished."

"But what about dissolution procedure, property settlement, legal reversion of status, adjustment of records, disposition of and provision for offspring?"

"You do have unusual notions!" Proft flashed, amused. "Bands have no procedures, no reversions, no records, no dispositions, and do not even know the meaning of property."

"Who does?" Cirl put in quickly.

"Property is an alien concept. It is the allocation of a particular segment of the surface of a planetary body for the use of a particular individual."

"Why would anyone want that?" Cirl asked, perplexed.

"Land is valuable," Rondl said. "It can be used for many things. Some property, too, is portable. It can be a form of wealth."

"Wealth?"

Proft flashed amusement. "The true Band response. Wealth is a function of personal possession. Without a concept of possession, wealth does not exist."

"But I know about it!" Rondl protested. "If no Band knows -- "

"Research, again," Proft said. "Any good course in alien mores and management will acquaint students with such notions, and the more apt ones will actually comprehend them to some extent, as you seem to. The various Spherical aliens have many remarkable conventions, property among them. You must have been a specialist; you retained portions of this knowledge while losing your own identity."

"That is my mystery."

"I wonder -- do you by any chance grasp the alien concept of War?"

"Certainly. It is a matter of -- "

"No, no, do not define it! Someone would disband! I asked merely conjecturally. It is possible that you studied that concept, and mastered it, and suffered a near disbanding that damaged your memory without, ironically, eliminating the concept. Perhaps it was an intellectual crisis: that devastating concept could not cohabit with your personality, so one or the other had to go, and the concept prevailed. If so, you are unique among individuals. Others have not survived that concept."

Rondl was not entirely satisfied, but could not refute this explanation.

He did not see what was so mind-destroying about the concept of war. War occurred all over the Galaxy, and was a recognized manner of establishing empires. But he realized that it was not the motley collection of odd facts that set him apart so much as his unusual attitudes. He had not been repeating rote when he spoke of the problem of eliminating marriage; he had been expressing what he believed were genuine matters of concern. Yet of course Bands were not faced with any of these.

What kind of shock could have replaced his Band values with alien ones?

If mental revulsion had wiped out his memory, surely the first thing to go would be the offending concepts, not the innocent detail of normal existence.

He was now almost afraid to seek the answer.

Yet he inquired slightly further. "Do you have any idea what alien culture might have concepts such as the ones I have expressed?"

"Which specific culture you researched?" Proft considered. "There are many thousands of Spheres in the Galaxy, and most of their creatures have notions of property. I would not know where to begin."

"Perhaps my name is in the past course rolls."

"Course rolls," Proft repeated. "That would be a form of record, an alien concept you have already referred to. We have no records of anything; Bands don't need them. Why should we keep track?"

"To prevent students from falsifying their -- " But this didn't work.

There was nothing to falsify, and falsification itself was an alien concept.

Bands learned what they needed and what they wished, departing when satisfied.

So there were no records.

"We thank you, Proft," Cirl said. "I agree that Rondl must have suffered some magnetic derangement that wiped out some of his real experience while leaving some of his education intact. So his responses are mixed."

She led Rondl away. She was wrong, he was sure -- but he decided not to pursue the matter further. He had a foreboding that disaster could come of too ardent a quest for knowledge of his past life, and he liked this life with her too well to place it in jeopardy.