how we can. Dr. Caulry left specific orders that you were not to be—"

"The doctor has no control over my personal life," Brion snapped at him. "I'm not infectious, or ill with anything more than extreme fatigue. I want to see that man. At once."

The Guard took a deep breath, and made a quick decision. "He is on the way up now,"   he said, and rung off.

"What did you do to me?" Brion asked as soon as Ihjel had entered and they were alone.   "You won't deny that you have put alien thoughts in my head?"

"No, I won't deny it. Because the whole point of my being here is to get those   'alien' thoughts across to you."

"Tell me how you did it," Brion insisted. "I must know."

"I'll tell you—but there are many things you should understand first, before you decide to leave Anvhar. You must not only hear them, you will have to believe them. The primary thing, the clue to the rest, is the true nature of your life here. How do you think the Twenties originated?"

Brion carefully took a double dose of the mild stimulant he was allowed before he   answered. "I don't think," he said, "I know. It's a matter of historical record. The founder of the games was Giroldi, the first contest was held in 378 A.B. The Twenties have been held every year [Pg 20]since then. They were strictly local affairs in the beginning, but were soon well established on a planet-wide scale."

[Pg 20]

"True enough," Ihjel said, "but you're describing what happened. I asked you how the Twenties originated. How could any single man take a barbarian planet, lightly inhabited by half-mad hunters and alcoholic farmers, and turn it into a smooth-running social machine built around the artificial structure of the Twenties? It just can't be done."

"But it was done!" Brion insisted. "You can't deny that. And there is nothing artificial about the Twenties. They are a logical way to live a life on a planet like this."

Ihjel had to laugh, a short ironic bark. "Very logical," he said, "but how often does logic have anything to do with the organization of social groups and governments? You're not thinking. Put yourself in founder Giroldi's place. Imagine that you have glimpsed the great idea of the Twenties and you want to convince others. So you 

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