How is it that when you become a celebrity--no matter in what field--your opinions on every subject seem noteworthy to everybody else? I'd read a little about the Centaurians, seen an item or two on the viziscreen, but I didn't know anything about them worth mentioning. I was too busy with my own rapidly developing affairs to spend much time keeping up with Solar System news. "What about them?" I asked, noticing that my tongue was at last beginning to get a bit thick. I ordered another drink. The bartender started to protest, but then shrugged six of his shoulders and began mixing it. "Didn't you hear the latest?" the guy asked. "They're looking for room for colonization and the Solar System attracts them." It was shortly after this that the fog rolled in, and it didn't roll out again until the following morning when my manager gave me a dealcoholizer. * * * * * He was hopping mad. And when I say hopping mad I mean just that since Mari Nown, my manager, is a chicken-headed Mercurian _Bouncer_. A nationalized citizen of Terra, of course, but a Mercurian with all their characteristic excitability. When my head cleared, he was jumping up and down in front of me and waving a sheet of newspaper he'd torn off the recorder on the viziscreen. "Simmer down," I told him. "My head still aches, and besides, I can't understand what you're yelling about." I added nastily, "In fact, I can't understand how anything could happen that you'd yell about. All you do is sit around and let ten percent of everything I make roll into your pockets. You're probably the richest gladiator manager in the system and--" He stopped hopping long enough to fix me with a beady eye. Finally he became coherent. "And that's exactly what I want to remain!" he shrilled. "You stupid _makron_, what're you trying to do, get yourself killed?" He waved the news sheet again. I began to catch on to the fact that I must have done something the day before while under the influence of--ugh, I couldn't even think of the word without my stomach churning. "All right," I said. "What is it? I don't remember." He was prancing again. "You don't remember! I'll say you don't remember! If you did, you'd be hiding under the bed." That got to me. I raised up indignantly. "Hiding under the bed? Me? I don't have to hide from _anything_. I'm champ!" "That's pronounced _chump_," he whistled nastily. He tossed me the news sheet. The headline read: _Interplanetary Champ says issues between Solar System and Centaurus should be settled in the arena._ "Did I say that?" I said interestedly. "When?" He was almost hopping again. "To that cub reporter in the Gladiator Room, you stupid _makron_!" "Don't swear at me," I growled. "I didn't know he was a reporter. Besides, what're you so excited about? Maybe it'd be a good idea." "Look at that next head," he shrilled. It read: _Centaurians accept challenge of Jak Dempsi._