oming. To others it was
a weird mystery.

Johnny Mayhem, bodiless sentience. Mayhem--Johnny Marlow then--who had
been chased from Earth, a pariah and a criminal, almost seven years ago,
who had been mortally wounded on a wild planet deep within the
Saggitarian Swarm, whose life had been saved--after a fashion--by the
white magic of the planet. Mayhem, doomed now to possible immortality as
a bodiless sentience, an _elan_, which could occupy and activate a fresh
corpse or one which had been frozen properly ... an _elan_ doomed to
wander eternally because it could not remain in one body for more than a
month without body and _elan_ perishing. Mayhem, who had dedicated his
strange, lonely life to the service of the Galactic League because a
normal life and normal social relations were not possible for him....

"Then you'll do it?" Kovandaswamy asked on Ophiuchus IX. "Even though
you realize we can give you no official help not only because the
Galactic League approves of your work unofficially but can't sanction it
officially, but because an outworlder can't set his foot outside this
building for long or off the spacefield without risking death...."

"By suicide?"

"Yes. I'm practically a prisoner in Galactic League Headquarters, as is
my staff. You see--"

"What about the body?"

Kovandaswamy looked at him nervously. "A native, Mayhem. A native won't
be molested, you see."

"That figures. What kind of native?"

"In top shape, sir. Healthy, young, in the prime of life you might say."

"Then what's bothering you?"

"Nothing. Nothing, sir."

"Your technicians are ready?"

"Yes, sir. And vowed to secrecy."

Mayhem found a tiny capsule in the pocket of his Sirian jumper, and
popped it in his mouth.

"What--what's that?" Kovandaswamy asked.

Mayhem swallowed. "Curare," he said.

"Curare! A poison!"

"Paralysis," said Mayhem quickly. "Muscular paralysis. You die because
you stop breathing. Painless ... and...."

"But--"

"Call your technicians ... new body ... ready...." Gasping, the Sirian
gentleman, hardly Johnny Mayhem now, fell to the floor.

Trembling, Kovandaswamy pressed a button on his desk. A few moments
later, two white-coated technicians entered the office.

"Project M," Kovandaswamy said.

Grimly the technicians went to work.

* * * * *

Mayhem awoke.

Ordinarily it was his _elan_ alone which journeyed between the worlds,
his _elan_ which was fed the in