Jorak came on, cocky, confident, and Smith rocked for a moment on the balls of his feet. Once and once only he lashed out with his right arm, smeared Jorak's nose flat against his face. Jorak toppled backward and fell, writhing. Smith looked around him, panting. The other contestants ceased their struggles, and the instructor said: "Someone has used psi. I don't know who, but someone--" Jorak pointed weakly, said, "Earthsmith!" "Snap judgment," the instructor admitted. "Your word only. Still, you alone were bested, Jorak of Gyra--and, hah, that makes twice, doesn't it?" "Once with psi," said Jorak. "You sure?" "I ought to know what hit me! He held me rigid, I tell you, and then he struck me. What could I do? I ask you, what?" Smith knew that the instructor could read minds--with limitations. He knew the psi-power had been used, but he did not know who had used it. * * * * * Jorak wiped the blood from his face with the back of one hand. "Listen," he confided, "Earthsmith is a savage, really and truly, of the planet Earth. Terribly barbaric. Obviously, he'd have no compunctions against dirty fighting." "Well--" said the instructor. "There's only one thing wrong with all this," Smith told him. "Nobody on Earth uses psi-power." Jorak slapped his hand against the mat. "Then you admit that there are psi-powers on Earth?" "Yes," Smith said. "There are psi-powers on Earth." Things were happening to Smith. He felt vague stirrings inside of him, and he dampered them. "There. He admits it," Jorak said. "The men of Earth are not without their psi-powers, and Smith or Earthsmith--I still don't know the barbarian's name--used them on me." He shook his fist. "You just can't trust these barbarians." The instructor still did not seem sure of himself, but there were angry mutterings in the crowd, and the albino woman who had almost but not quite joined the fighters said, "Let me try a fall with him. Probably I would lose, but we of Nugat can perceive the psi-powers readily." Smith stormed away from her, felt hot anger rushing through him. "I wouldn't fight with a woman." Jorak taunted, "He's afraid she'll discover--" "Nothing! I'm afraid of nothing, Jorak. I just won't fight a woman." He was shouting now, and he couldn't help it. Again, there was the odd feeling that part of his mind at least stood away from all this, observing, shaking its head and telling him to curb his temper. A hand lay heavily on his shoulder, big gnarled, orange. "Kard of Shilon would like a fall with you, Earthsmith of Earth. Perhaps I am not as subtle as the woman from Nugat, but still I think I could tell." The instructor nodded, and Kard spun Smith around, kept him spinning with a short chopping blow to his jaw. Smith hardly felt it. But something told him deep inside his whirling brain to fall, fall, fall--and the faintest shadow of a smile flickered across Jorak's lips.