as he spoke, and was sitting on the edge of
his chair now. The room was comfortably cool, but sweat beaded his
forehead, dripped from his chin.

Temple lit another cigarette, inhaling deeply. "You said the United
States--North America--was second. I thought this was a planet-wide
competition, planet against planet."

"Earth is the one exception I've been able to find. The Deneb planet
heads the list, then comes North America. After that, the planet of a
star I never heard of. In fourth place is the Soviet Union."

"I'll be damned," said Temple. "Well, okay. Mind if I store that away
for future reference? I've got another question. What kind of--uh,
games do we play?"

"You name it. Mental contests. Scientific problems to be worked out
with laboratories built to our specifications. Emotional problems with
scores of men driven neurotic or worse every year. Problems of
adaptability. Responses to environmental challenge. Stamina contests.
Tests of strength, of endurance. Tests to determine depths of emotion.
Tests to determine objectivity in what should be an objective
situation. But the way everything is organized it's almost like a
giant-sized, never ending Olympic Games, complete with some cockeyed
sports events too, by the way."

"With all the pageantry, too?"

"No. But that's another story."

"Anyway, what I saw _was_ a foot-race! And sorry, Jase, but I have
another question."

Jason shrugged, spread his hands wide.

"How come all this talk about rotation? It isn't possible, not with a
fifty century gap."

"I know. They just let us in on that little deal a couple of years
ago. Till then, we didn't know. We thought it was distance only. In
time, after all this was over, we could go home. That's what we
thought," Jason said bitterly. "Actually, it's twice five thousand
years. Five to come here, five to return. Ten thousand years separate
us from the Earth we know, and even if we could go home, that wouldn't
be going home at all--to Earth ten thousand years in the future.

"Oh, they had us hoodwinked. Afraid we might say no or something. They
never mentioned the length or duration of the trip. I don't understand
it, none of us do and we have some top scientists here. Something to
do with suspended animation, with contra-terrene matter, with
teleportation, something about latent extra-sensory powers in
everyone, about the ability to break down an object--or a creature or
a man--to its component atoms, to rev