is it, Treb?"

"Yes."

"You win again. And I--I lose everything."

"So?" Treb touched his pocket torch to a heap of shredded dry twigs.
"What have you lost? Your health, your life? And will not the woman
forget all else and love you?"

"Hah! She will laugh at me if I come near her. Defeated, and with a
paltry ten thousand to offer. Better that I died than this."

"Perhaps you do not--know this woman, Harl. If she is good, she will
come to you."

The growing firelight was on Neilson's bearded face. And beneath his
eyes something glistened and beaded. He laughed bitterly.

"She's not good, Treb, understand that. She's evil and money-hungry, and
ambitious. But she is beautiful and I love her. I'd sell my soul and my
body to possess her.

"That's why I volunteered. With the winners' grant I would have money.
Prestige. Honor. There would be a thousand new opportunities for a
career. And Jane could not refuse me then."

"It is wrong, Harl Neilson, to so worship a woman. Like alcohol or
Venerian fire pollen--it is unnatural."

"I know. I have tried to forget, to put her memory aside. But it is like
a disease. An incurable disease. I must have Jane."

Treb threw more wood on the little fire and checked over the lashings
about Neilson's body.

"I am going to look at my rabbit snares," he said, "and to spring the
other traps. We will eat and sleep, and in the morning try to shave and
look decent before going to the locks."

Neilson let his head sag between his shoulders, and said nothing. He was
leaning against a tree, his arms lashed behind him and to it.

"There is one more thing, Harl, that I wish to discuss. It is about the
Paul Hubble Foundation Award. Think about it."

Treb moved off into the darkness.

* * * * *

The sunlight from the overhead "suns" of the Satellite revealed a
greatly changed Treb. He was shaved, his hair combed and hacked off
above his ears, and he was stitching the last rough patch on his dark
green trouser leg.

Now he donned the trousers and went over to the bound Andilian. He cut
the ropes, his carbine ready.

"Get down to the lake," he ordered. "You'll find a razor, soap and an
old shirt to dry yourself with."

Harl Neilson was chunky and fair-haired, with a healthy looking
red-brown skin. His eyes were wide and darkly blue. Now the wide mouth
under his shapeless nose twisted into a faint grin.

"I'll try to get away," he warned. "Aren't you