thing, is bothering you."

"What's that to do with this response to environmental challenge
thing?"

"Well," said Jason, drinking a third scotch, "the Super Boys have
evolved T.A.T. to its ultimate. T.A.T.--that stands for Thematic
Apperception Test. But in E.C.R.--environmental challenge and
response, you don't see a picture and create a dramatic story around
it. Instead, you get thrust into the picture, the situation, and you
have to work out the solution--or suffer whatever consequences the
particular environmental challenge has in store for you."

"I think I get you. But it's all make believe, huh?"

"That's the hell of it," Jason told him. "No, it's not. It is and it
isn't. I don't know."

"You make it perfectly clear," Temple smiled. "The red-headed boy
combed his brown hair, wishing it weren't blond."

Jason shrugged. "I'm sorry. For reasons you already know, the E.C.R.
isn't very clear to me--or to anyone. You're not actually in the
situation in a physical sense, but it can affect you physically. You
_feel_ you're there, you actually live everything that happens to you,
getting injured if an injury occurs ... and dying if you get killed.
It's permanent, although you might actually be sleeping at the time.
So, whether it's real or not is a question for philosophy. From your
point of view, from the point of view of someone going through it,
it's real."

"So I become part of this--uh, game in about an hour."

"Right. You and whoever the Russians offer as your competition. No one
will blame you if you want to back out, Kit; from what you tell me,
you haven't even been adequately trained on Mars."

"If you draw on the entire background of your life for this E.C.R.,
then you don't need training. Shut up and stop worrying. I'm not
backing out of anything."

"I didn't think you would, not if you're still as much like your old
man as you used to be. Kit ... good luck."

* * * * *

The fact that the technicians working around him were Earthmen
permitted Temple to relax a little. Probably, it was planned that way,
for entering the huge white cube of a building and ascending to the
twelfth level on a moving ramp Temple had spotted many figures, not
all of them human. If he had been strapped to the table by unfamiliar
aliens, if the scent of alien flesh--or non-flesh--had been strong in
the room, if the fingers--or appendages--which greased his temples and
clamped an electrode t