t sudden death was about to jump you from nowhere? Have you ever
been scared of Ghosts--not the story-book kind, but the billions of
beings who were once so real and strong it's hard to believe they'll
just sleep harmlessly forever? Have you ever wondered about those things
you may call devils or Demons--spirits able to range through all time
and space, through the hot hearts of stars and the cold skeleton of
space between the galaxies? Have you ever thought that the whole
universe might be a crazy, mixed-up dream? If you have, you've had hints
of the Change War.

How I got recruited into the Change War, how it's conducted, what the
two sides are, why you don't consciously know about it, what I really
think about it--you'll learn in due course.

* * * * *

The place outside the cosmos where I and my pals do our nursing job I
simply call the Place. A lot of my nursing consists of amusing and
humanizing Soldiers fresh back from raids into time. In fact, my formal
title is Entertainer and I've got my silly side, as you'll find out.

My pals are two other gals and three guys from quite an assortment of
times and places. We're a pretty good team, and with Sid bossing, we run
a pretty good Recuperation Station, though we have our family troubles.
But most of our troubles come slamming into the Place with the beat-up
Soldiers, who've generally just been going through hell and want to
raise some of their own. As a matter of fact, it was three newly arrived
Soldiers who started this thing I'm going to tell you about, this thing
that showed me so much about myself and everything.

When it started, I had been on the Big Time for a thousand sleeps and
two thousand nightmares, and working in the Place for five hundred-one
thousand. This two-nightmares routine every time you lay down your dizzy
little head is rough, but you pretend to get used to it because being on
the Big Time is supposed to be worth it.

The Place is midway in size and atmosphere between a large nightclub
where the Entertainers sleep in and a small Zeppelin hangar decorated
for a party, though a Zeppelin is one thing we haven't had yet. You go
out of the Place, but not often if you have any sense and if you are an
Entertainer like me, into the cold light of a morning filled with
anything from the earlier dinosaurs to the later spacemen, who look
strangely similar except for size.

Solely on doctor's orders, I have been on cosm