Countless questions were battering my brain. I was a thousand years old? What had we done to threaten the Marshall? Was Dadaelee the other Builder, or was Nepht, the fourth one, just a fill-in? Why hadn’t I been working on it before, if what the Marshall said was true? He seemed to read my mind.

“You must by now know of the Forget, the procedure we use on every family of each Builder. It renders them unknowledgeable of past events, as far back as we want them to. Every ‘lifetime’ of yours, if you will, we used the Forget on you and the others. In fact, I’ve had this conversation about twelve times with you before. You just don’t remember it.”

Did that mean that my family was also ancient?

“The people you know as your family,” the Marshall said, reading my mind yet again, “are not. We give you a new family every lifetime. Surely you’ve noticed by now that you and your brothers look nothing alike?”

I had. Oh geez. But how did he, Fauxtes, Dadaelee and I still look so young?