until two days ago." She kissed
him again, hard and deliberately. It gave her enough time to jerk the
gun out of his pocket.

She slammed it against his ribs. "Stand back," she said, and meant
it.

* * * * *

Luis stared bewilderedly at her. She was desirable, more than he had
imagined and for a variety of reasons. Her emotions had been real, he
was sure of that, not feigned for the purpose of taking the gun away.
But she had changed again in a fraction of a second. Her face was
twisted with an effort at self-control.

"What's the matter?" he asked. He tried to make his voice gentle, but
it wouldn't come out that way. The retrogression process had sharpened
all his reactions--this one too.

"The name I finally arrived at was--Luise Obispo," she said.

He started. The same as his, except feminine! This was more than he'd
dared hope for. A clue--and this girl, who he suddenly realized,
without any cynicism about "love at first sight," because the tapes
hadn't included it, meant something to him.

"Maybe you're my wife," he said tentatively.

"Don't count on it," she said wearily. "It would have been better if
we were strangers--then it wouldn't matter what we did. Now there are
too many factors, and I can't choose."

"It has to be," he argued. "Look--the same name, and so close together
in time and place, and we were attracted instantly--"

"Go away," she said, and the gun didn't waver. It was not a threat
that he could ignore. He left.

She was wrong in making him leave, completely wrong. He couldn't say
how he knew, but he was certain. But he couldn't prove it, and she
wasn't likely to accept his unsubstantiated word.

He leaned weakly against the door. It was like that. Retrogression had
left him with an adult body and sharper receptiveness. And after that
followed an urge to live fully. He had a lot of knowledge, but it
didn't extend to this sphere of human behavior.

Inside he could hear her moving around faintly, an emotional
anticlimax. It wasn't just frustrated sex desire, though that played a
part. They had known each other previously--the instant attraction
they'd had for each other was proof, leaving aside the names. Lord,
he'd trade his unknown identity to have her. He should have taken
another name--any other name would have been all right.

It wasn't because she was the first woman he'd seen, or the woman he
had first re-seen. There had been nurses, some of t