I had trouble enough raising credits for my fare, but more still getting last minute reservations on the crowded excursion liner to Mars. It took some string pulling on my manager's part to get me the tickets. Nobody who can raise the credits would dream of missing the Interplanetary Meet, and every spacer to Mars was packed. Suzi was surprised when I stepped up to her table in the spacer's lounge. At least, her eyebrows raised. The little minx was as pretty as a Venusian rose-orchid. She was sitting with Alger Wilde, a _makron_ from the word _glorm_. "Hi," I said, using a prehistoric formal salutation in hopes of pleasing her with my knowledge of olden times. "By Jove," Alger Wilde exclaimed. "If it isn't Jak Demsi." He added, smirking, "Pardon the expression. Jove was an ancient deity. I sometimes slip and use such terms." Did he think I was stupid? Hadn't I been reading up on all that stuff for months? I sat down casually in an empty acceleration chair. "Of course," I said. "An Egyptian God; also known as Jupiter by their neighbors, the Aztecs, and by the name of Zeus, by the Chinese." And that's the way it was all the way to Mars. I tried to hang on and stick it out with them, but I came in a bad third. I was fighting out of my class. In fact, just before we arrived on Mars, Suzi made it plain that she thought I might as well give up my attempts to become cultured. She said I just didn't assimilate the stuff, that it didn't come off on me. I could read whole libraries of the ancient classics and recall none of the significance of what I'd read. In short, I wasn't doing so good with Suzi. * * * * * Well, three days after getting the telegram, I met the other two gladiators from Terra in our dressing room at the arena. They weren't much happier about the meet than I was. It's one of the occupational hazards of our trade. If you get too good, you'll probably be chosen as Terra representative to the Interplanetary Meet and your chances of surviving are almost nil. Of course, the pay is high and your survivors get a big chunk of credits but it's a chilly prospect at best. The other two were pretty well armored and had chosen spears as weapons, but I left off all armor and took a short sword. I planned on moving fast and the less weight I carried the better. When the various preliminaries were over and the crowd shouting for the main event, we trotted out to the field, joined the gladiators from the other planets and paraded toward the stand at which the judges and diplomats were seated. There was a mob of these, each with his assistants and secretaries. You could bet that little that happened would miss them. After all, on this meet hung the destinies of planets.