"Gotta get more," I hiccupped. "'S'cuse me, please." Stumbling unsteadily, I weaved my way toward the bar. Halfway across to it, I swiveled and broke into a run. Instantly a shout of warning rose up behind me. Through the maze of tables I raced, overturning three of them with a crash as I passed. I gained the door. A heat-gun charge slammed into the wall, inches above my head. Feet pounded in pursuit. Then I was outside, leaping up the steps to the main level, sprinting down the back street. I ran until a stitch in my side drew me up. Behind me roared the night life of the city, but there was no sign of pursuit. I passed through the main gate without trouble and half an hour later was driving leisurely across the flat. <tb> Profaldo and Senar were behind me. What conditions would I meet in the next city, Caldray? My wildest dreams did not prepare me for the reception that was to be mine. Scarcely had I entered Caldray when I stopped short, staring at the scene ahead. The streets were jammed with citizenry. In blazing ato-bulbs high overhead was the single word TEPONDICON. Flags and pennants hung from every balcony. Even as I moved uncertainly forward, two stalwart men, clad in the ancient chain mail of Ganymede's earlier years, strode forward. Back somewhere in the tiers of rectangular buildings the amplified strains of an orchestra rose up. It was a recording, I knew, but it was Bokart's <i>Symphony Out of Space</i>, in all its pomp and glory. A deafening cheer rose up then. I was conducted to a low carriage, and with two scarlet-clad postilions on either side began my tour of the city. "Tepondicon! Tepondicon!" yelled the crowd. Well, it was confusing, and disconcerting, too. With all eyes focused upon me, my every movement would be watched. A wrong word, a misstep, and those cheers would change to death yells. And yet as the carriage bore me smoothly along the paved streets, the significance of it all became clear in my mind in every detail. These people were rats, scum of the System. What matter if their hopes were falsely raised to the heights? They were doomed anyway by the plague. And in four days more the Jupiter Stone would be mine. Up until now, my life had been one great series of failures. At the Martian School of Technology I had been expelled in my sophomore year for a mere matter of selling drugs to my fellow students. I had been cashiered from the Royal Space Force for what the upstart officers called insubordination. Gamblings, swindlings, I had tried them all with little luck. This would be my metamorphosis, my emergence from the cocoon of mediocrity into success. The procession drew up before the Power Division building. The Power Commissioner, a tall gangly man this time, waited to receive me at the top of the steps.