forgotten Hanlon," Geddes said. "That's why I wanted to talk to you in private. Because we've been given a chance, by a miracle, to start over again from scratch, this time with knowledge enough not to make the old deadly mistakes. We're stable, and Hanlon isn't—that's why the Foundation chose us and rejected him. And we can't take the chance of having Hanlon cutting in here with his carping hedonism and his way with women, don't you see? We can't risk letting a wild strain like his into the new race. It isn't going to be easy, because we're conditioned against personal violence, but we've got to get rid of Hanlon."

They stared at him, digesting the idea.

"It doesn't have to be violent," Geddes argued. "He's under hypnol already. We've only to keep him that way."

Lowe shook his head. "I couldn't do it, Ged. I couldn't force myself to it."

Hovic was tougher. "It's the only way. Hanlon begged a handout from us and then stole our chronos to smuggle himself here. He'd never let us alone. He'd make such trouble that we'd have to kill him in the end. Why not now, when it's easier?"

"Then it's settled," Geddes said. "Two of us, the winners, stay here. The loser goes back to the ship and to Hanlon. Ready?"

They nodded. Geddes held out his closed fist, the tips of his twigs barely showing.

Lowe, his underlip bitten palely between even dentures, drew the first long straw. Hovic drew the other. Geddes opened his hand and stared down at the short twig on his palm. Somehow it had not seemed possible that he should lose; it was like death, a thing that happened only to others.

"Good enough," he said. "After all it was my idea, wasn't it?"

He moved away with the twig still clutched in his hand. By nightfall he had retraced his way to the river and the Terra IV.

He was sitting on the dew-wet turf with his back against the personnel ladder when he heard them coming. A cone of light fanned into the darkness from the open port above him, poking a yellow finger into the mists and shedding a diffuse glow that reached to the river below.

Hanlon lay on the grass beside him, shaved and bathed and dressed in clean shorts and singlet. He had eaten enormously after Geddes woke him from the hypnol, and under the tedium of their waiting he had dozed off, his chest 

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