"I'm not a crackpot," Cartwright muttered hoarsely.

"You think you can adjust yourself to your new status?" Moore asked.

"Yes!"

"You have twenty-four hours. That's about how long it takes to convene a Challenge Convention and pick the first candidate. There should be a lot to choose from."

Cartwright's thin body jerked. "Why?"

"Verrick has offered a million dollars to the one who gets you. The offer stands... until you're dead."

Cartwright was vaguely aware that Wakeman had come into the lounge and was moving up to Moore. The two of them walked away.

A million gold dollars! There'd be plenty of takers. The best minds would gamble their lives for that, in a society that was a constant gamble, an unceasing lottery.

Wakeman came over to him, shaking his head. "What a distorted mind—bodies, bombs, assassins. We sent him off."

"What he said is true," Cartwright gasped. "I have no place here."

"His strategy is to make you think that."

"But it's true!"

Wakeman nodded reluctantly. "I know. That's why it's good strategy. We have a good plan, too, I think. You'll know about it later."

The battered, weary ore freighter left the regular com­mercial lanes as it moved towards the side of Mars. Jupiter was on the far side of the sun; the lanes were at a minimum density, split between the two planets. When out of the slowly-moving stream of transports the ship began to reach significant velocities. Its bulkheads rattled. Metallic dust rained down in the drumming corridors as it sped through a void of silence, darkness, emptiness.

In the gloomy hold the fifty men and women who made up the Preston Society sat in a nervous circle, waiting timidly for Konklin to begin.