Fifteen heavyweights, draped in leopard skins, had preceded the dancers to set up the Blond Terror's tub on a polar bear rug in the center of the ring. A dozen luscious watercarriers had emptied their jars into the tub. Soap and towels, oils and perfumes, mirror and comb, were arranged on top of a lushly ornamented box that stood by one of the corner posts. The Blond Terror vaulted the ropes and stood in the ring, popping his muscles, waiting for his handmaidens to remove the five layers of elaborately decorated robes that were draped over his super-manly body. Boswellister cringed slightly (inwardly), speculating that the Blond Terror really was a muscled man. All that man--nearly seven feet tall, bronzed, developed, imperious, condescending to notice just slightly the adulations of the women in the packed arena. The Blond Terror stepped into the tub, carrying out his advertised boast of being the cleanest wrestler in the ring, a boast he was unable to prove with ring action through the exigencies of type-casting, for the Blond Terror was the villain. The Blond Terror muscled down into the tub. He was scrubbed, then rinsed. He stood out onto the white fur rug and sneeringly allowed his handmaidens to pat him dry and powder him down. They held up the large hand mirror and allowed him to view his handsomeness while his short-cropped, blond curls were carefully combed. "Now." Boswellister spoke the order into the lapel receiver. On the Ipplinger starship a communications tech slapped home a switch and the solido-vision circle settled over the Blond Terror's head, a halo of solid light for a complex Ipplinger signal-reaction device. "Hail Ippling!" Boswellister shouted. Boswellister strained forward, clutching the seat arms. It had to work! His equation must be right! The symbol had the proper cultural connotations. It was bound to capture the audience, put them in the right mood of awe-struck superstitious reverence, make the revelation of the great circle of the Ipplinger starship overhead a thing of wonderment and devotion-focus. The Blond Terror should now look upwards, guide the eyes of the audience, bring them to the recognition. After all, as a Boswellister ... and according to his great grandfather, and his poppa too.... But the Blond Terror gazed appreciatively into the mirror, smiling slyly at the audience. The crowd roared its applause for the trick lighting effect. You could depend on the Blond Terror. No matter how many times you'd seen his act, he always managed to come up with something new. Now, for the opening of the new Million Dollar Ventura Boulevard Open Air Sports Arena, the Blond Terror had done it again. Boswellister shouted. He pointed. He stared upwards, trying to draw the crowd with his vehemence. But he couldn't capture one gaze, no matter what he did. He poked the man seated next to him, but the surly fool snarled, "Shuddup! The Hatchet Man's goin' into his act!" * * * * *