come too
civilized. The reactions of most men to given sets of circumstances have
become set in regular patterns and they cannot break that conditioning,
or if personal danger forces them to change those patterns, they are
afterward so adrift they cannot function at their highest potential.
Teach a man to kill, as in war, and then you have to recondition him
later.

"But during these same wars we also develop another type. He is the born
commando, the secret agent, the expendable man who lives on action.
There are not many of this kind, and they are potent weapons. In
peacetime that particular collection of emotions, nerve, and skills
becomes a menace to the very society he has fought to preserve during a
war. He is pressured by the peaceful environment into becoming a
criminal or a misfit.

"The men we send out from here to explore the past are not only given
the best training we can possibly supply for them, but they are all of
the type once heralded as the frontiersman. History is sentimental about
that type--when he is safely dead--but the present finds him difficult
to live with. Our time agents are misfits in the modern world because
their inherited abilities are born out of season now. They must be young
enough and possess a certain brand of intelligence to take the stiff
training and to adapt, and they must pass our tests. Do you understand?"

Ross nodded. "You want crooks because they are crooks----"

"No, not because they are crooks, but because they are misfits in their
time and place. Don't, I beg of you, Murdock, think that we are
operating a penal institution here. You would never have been recruited
if you hadn't tested out to suit us. But the man who may be labeled
murderer in his own period might rank as a hero in another, an extreme
example, but true. When we train a man he not only can survive in the
period to which he is sent, but he can also pass as a native born in
that era----"

"What about Hardy?"

The major gazed into space. "There is no operation which is foolproof.
We have never said that we don't run into trouble or that there is no
danger in this. We have to deal with both natives of different times,
and if we are lucky and hit a hot run, with the Reds. They suspect that
we are casting about, hunting their trail. They managed to plant Kurt
Vogel on us. He had an almost perfect cover and conditioning. Now you
have it straight, Murdock. You satisfy our tests, and you'll be given a
chan