“It’s not fair, I tell you. The injection and the new dose should have taken me back to age twelve! Not thirty-five, but twelve! What’s the matter with the damn stuff?”

It never occurred to Derek to present a false face to Dr. Melniss Bettide. He acted the age he wanted to be in the presence of the man he hoped would make it possible.

A small, dark man, Dr. Bettide regarded Derek through thick-lensed glasses. Derek grew uncomfortable under the physician’s unblinking stare. At last Bettide pressed a button on his intercom.

“Steve, please bring in a double shot of health supplement four.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Hey! I don’t want vitamins! I want—”

Bettide silenced Derek with a bored wave. “And Steve, please also bring me a carton of the new samples of Temporin B.”

Now, that was different! A new type of Temporin? Of Time-Jizz? The possibilities were exciting.

Bettide examined Derek’s file. “You’ve been to group therapy regularly, I see.”

“They won’t give you a drug card if you don’t go. It’s worth sitting around with a bunch of whining marks for an hour a week, in order not to have to go to the Black Chemists for the stuff.”

“Hmmm, yes. But you’re still refusing individual treatment?”

“So what? It’s not mandatory. Why should I go and spill my guts to some shrink? There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Derek stopped abruptly, blinking as a flashback hit—a brief, sudden image of a trapezoid of light, then the sound of a slamming door…

He looked down and spoke again in a lower tone. “At least there’s nothing wrong with me that the right change of environment wouldn’t cure,” he muttered.

Dr. Bettide made an entry in Derek’s file, a sniff his only comment. Derek shrugged. So the man saw through his sophistries. At least Bettide never lectured like a lot of Liberals would. He suspected the doctor was a Libertarian.