"It all boils down to putting a man in a machine on Mars, pulling a lever, materializing him here five thousand years later." Jason smiled with only a trace of humor, "Any questions?" "About a thousand," said Temple. "I--" * * * * * Something buzzed on Jason's desk and Temple watched him pick up a microphone, say: "Co-ordinator speaking. What's up?" The voice which answered, clear enough to be in the room with them and without the faintest trace of mechanical or electrical transfer, spoke in a strange, liquid-syllabled language Temple had never heard. Jason responded in the same language, with an apparent ease which surprised Temple--until he remembered that his brother had always had a knack of picking up foreign languages. Maybe that was why he held the Co-ordinator's job--whatever it was he co-ordinated. There was fluency in the way Jason spoke, and alarm. The trouble-lines etched deeply on his face stood out sharply, his eyes, if possible, grew more intense. "Well," he said, putting the mike down and staring at Temple without seeing him, "I'm afraid that does it." "What's the trouble?" "Everything." "Anything I can do?" "Item. The Superboys have discovered that Earth has two contingents here--us and the Soviets. They're mad. Item. Something will be done about it. Item. Soviet Russia has made a suggestion, or that is, its people here. They will put forth a champion to match one of our own choosing in the toughest grind of all, something to do with responding to environmental challenge, which doesn't mean a hell of a lot unless you happen to know something about it. Shall I go on?" And, when Temple nodded avidly. "We automatically lose by default. One of the rules of that particular game is that the contestant must be a newcomer. It's the sort of game you have to know nothing about, and incidentally, it's also the sort of game a man can get killed at. Well, the Soviets have a whole contingent of newcomers to pick from. We don't have any. As the Superboys see it, that's our own tough luck. We lose by default." "It seems to me--" "How can anything 'seem to you?' You're new here.... I'm sorry Kit. What were you saying?" "No. Go ahead." "That's only the half of it. Right after Russia takes our place and we're scratched off the list, the games go into their final phase. That was the rumor all along, and it's just been confirmed. Interesting to see what they do with all the contestants _after_ the games are over, after there's no more Nowhere Journey." "We could go back where we came from." "Ten thousand years in the future?" "I'm not afraid." "Well, anyway, the Soviets put up a man, we can't match him. So it looks like the U. S. S. R. represents Earth officially. Not that it matters. We hardly have the chance of a very slushy snowball in a very hot hell. But still--" "Our contestant, this guy who meets the Russian's challenge, has to be a newcomer?"