Johnny Mayhem, a bodiless sentience. Mayhem--Johnny Marlow then--who had been chased from Earth a pariah and a criminal seven years ago, who had been mortally wounded on a wild planet deep within the Sagittarian Swarm, whose life had been saved--after a fashion--by the white magic of that planet. Mayhem, doomed now to possible immortality as a bodiless sentience, an _elan_, which could occupy and activate a corpse if it had been preserved properly ... an _elan_ doomed to wander eternally because it could not remain in one body for more than a month without body and _elan_ perishing. Mayhem, who had dedicated his strange, lonely life to the services of the Galactic League--now the Galactic Federation--because a normal life and normal social relations were not possible to him.... It did not seem possible, Mayhem thought now, that a mistake could be made. Then--a sudden change in plans? It had never happened before, but it was entirely possible. Something, Mayhem decided, had come up during transmigration. It was terribly important and the people at the Hub had had no opportunity to brief him on it. But--what? * * * * * His first shock came a moment later. He walked to a mirror on the wall and approved of the strong young body which would house his sentience and then scowled. A thought inside his head said: _So this is what it's like to have schizophrenia._ _What the hell was that?_ Mayhem thought. _I said, so this is what it's like to have schizophrenia. First the world's worst headache and then I start thinking like two different people._ _Aren't you dead?_ _Is that supposed to be a joke, alter ego? When do the men in the white suits come?_ _Good Lord, this was supposed to be a dead body!_ At that, the other sentience which shared the body with Mayhem snickered and lapsed into silence. Mayhem, for his part, was astounded. _Don't get ornery now_, Mayhem pleaded. _I'm Johnny Mayhem. Does that mean anything to you?_ _Oh, sure. It means I'm dead. You inhabit dead bodies, right?_ _Usually. Listen--where are we?_ Glory of the Galaxy--_bound from Earth to Mars on perihelion._ _And there's trouble?_ _How do you know there's trouble?_ _Otherwise they wouldn't have diverted me here._ _We've got the president aboard. We're going to hit the sun._ Then, grudgingly, Larry went into the details. When he finished he thought cynically: _Now all you have to do is go outside yelling have no fear, Mayhem is here and everything will be all right, I suppose._ Mayhem didn't answer. It would be many moments yet before he could adjust to this new, unexpected situation. But in a way, he thought, it would be a boon. If he were co-inhabiting the body of a living man who belonged on the _Glory of the Galaxy_, there was no need to reveal his identity as Johnny Mayhem to anyone but his host.... * * * * *