I am at the bottom of life, he realized. And I can’t even climb my way up to mere physical existence. Me, a man who yesterday had an audience of thirty million. Someday, somehow, I will grope my way back to them. But not now. There are other things that come first. The bare bones of existence that every man is born with: I don’t even have that. But I will get it; a six is not an ordinary. No ordinary could have physically or psychologically survived what’s happened to me—especially the uncertainty—as I have.

A six, no matter what the external circumstances, will always prevail. Because that’s the way they genetically defined us.

He left his hotel room once more, walked downstairs and up to the desk. A middle-aged man with a thin mustache was reading a copy of Box magazine; he did not look up but said, “Yes, sir.”

Jason brought out his packet of government bills, laid a five-hundred-dollar note on the counter before the clerk. The clerk glanced at it, glanced again, this time with wide-opened eyes. Then he cautiously looked up into Jason’s face, questioningly.

“My ident cards were stolen,” Jason said. “That five-hundred-dollar bill is yours if you can get me to someone who can replace them. If you’re going to do it, do it right now; I’m not going to wait.” Wait to be picked up by a pol or a nat, he thought. Caught here in this rundown dingy hotel.

“Or caught on the sidewalk in front of the entrance,” the clerk said. “I’m a telepath of sorts. I know this hotel isn’t much, but we have no bugs. Once we had Martian sand fleas, but no more.” He picked up the five-hundred-dollar bill. “I’ll get you to someone who can help you,” he said. Studying Jason’s face intently, he paused, then said, “You think you’re world-famous. Well, we get all kinds.”

“Let’s go,” Jason said harshly. “Now.”