s. He is quite
capable in that respect, my friend. Quite capable. That is because of
his great memory--at once his finest asset and his greatest curse."

He draped the towel around Stanton's head again and stepped back, his
face unsmiling. "Imagine having a near-perfect memory, Bart."

Stanton's jaw muscles tightened a little before he spoke. "I think I'd
like it," he said.

Yoritomo shrugged slightly. "Perhaps you would. But it would most
certainly not be the asset you think. Look at it very soberly, my
friend.

"The most difficult teaching job in the world is the attempt to teach an
organism something that that organism already knows. True? Yes. If a man
already knows the shape of the Earth, it will do you no good to teach
him. If he _knows_, for example, that the Earth is flat, but round like
a pancake, your contention that it is round like a ball will make no
impression upon his mind whatever. He _knows_, you see. He _knows_.

"Now. Imagine a race with a perfect memory--a memory that never fades. A
memory in which each bit of data is as bright and as fresh as the moment
it was imprinted, and as readily available as the data stored in a
robot's mind. It is, in effect, a robotic memory.

"If you put false data into the memory banks of a mathematical
computer--such as telling it that the square of two is five--you cannot
correct that error simply by telling it the true fact that the square of
two is four. No. First you must remove the erroneous data. Not so?"

"Agreed," Stanton said.

"Very good. Then let us look at the Nipe race, wherever it was spawned
in this universe. Let us look at the race a long time back--way back
when they first became _Nipe sapiens_. Back when they first developed a
true language. Each little Nipe child, as it is born or hatched or
budded--whatever it is they do--is taught as rapidly as possible all
the things it must know in order to survive. And once a little Nipelet
is taught a thing, it _knows_. That knowledge is there, and it is
permanent, and it can be brought instantly to the fore. And if it is
taught a falsehood, then it cannot be taught the truth. You see?"

Stanton thought about it. "Well, yes. But eventually there are going to
be cases where reality doesn't jibe with what he's been taught, aren't
there? And wouldn't cold reality force a change?"

"Ah. In some cases, yes. In most, no," said Yoritomo. "Look: Suppose one
of these primordial Nipes runs across a tiger--or wha