The situation is extremely--But pardon me. I had promised to be silent
except when answering questions."

"This is the part I fail to understand, Mr. Secundus. I gather that
you brought me here to treat Mr. Primus. Now, if I exist as a thought
in your mind, you necessarily know everything I know. Why don't you
treat him yourself?"

Secundus shook his head disapprovingly. "Oh, no, Dr. Raye, that is not
the case at all. It cannot be said that I _know_ everything that you
know; rather we should say that I _remember_ you. In other words, that
I maintain your existence by an act of memory. The two functions,
knowledge and memory, are not identical, although, of course, the
second cannot be considered to exist without the first. But before we
become entangled in our own terms, I should perhaps remind you that
when I employ the word 'memory' I am only making use of a convenient
approximation. Perhaps it would be helpful to say that my memory is
comparable to the structure-memory of a living organism, although
that, too, has certain semantic disadvantages. Were you about to make
a remark, Doctor?"

"It still seems to me," Herman said stubbornly, "that if you remember
me, structurally or otherwise, that includes everything I remember. If
you're going to tell me that you remember human knowledge, including
Freudian theory and practice, but are unable to manipulate it, that
seems to me to be contradicted by internal evidence in what you've
already said. For example, it's clear that in the field of
epistemology--the knowledge of knowledge, you might say--you have the
knowledge _and_ manipulate it."

"Ah," said Secundus, smiling shyly, "but, you see, that happens to be
my line. Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, being specializations, are
not. As I mentioned previously, persons of our order are theoretically
not capable of psychic deterioration. That is why we come to you, Dr.
Raye. We are unable to help ourselves; we ask your help. We place
ourselves unreservedly in your hands."

The question, "How was I chosen?" occurred to Herman, but he left it
unasked. He knew that the answer was much likelier to be, "At random,"
than, "Because we wanted the most brilliant and talented psychoanalyst
on the planet."

"I gather that I'm not the first person you've tried," he said.

"Oh, you saw Dr. Buddolphson departing? Yes, it is true that in our
ignorance of the subject we did not immediately turn to practitioners
of your psychologic