And suddenly, it was over.
A needle spray of ice-cold water beat down upon him. He shuddered and reached for the water-taps, shutting them. Dripping, he climbed from the shower.
And floated up—quite weightless—toward the ceiling.
Frowning with his new and as yet unseen face, Johnny Mayhem propelled himself to the floor. He looked at his arms. He was naked—at least that much was right.
But obviously, since he was weightless, he was not on Deneb IV. During his transmigration he had been briefed for the trouble on Deneb IV. Then had a mistake been made somehow? It was always possible—but it had never happened before.
Too much precision and careful planning was involved.
Every world which had an Earthman population and a Galactic League—now, Galactic Federation—post, must have a body in cold storage, waiting for Johnny Mayhem if his services were required. No one knew when Mayhem’s services might be required. No one knew exactly under what circumstances the Galactic Federation Council, operating from the Hub of the Galaxy, might summon Mayhem. And only a very few people, including those at the Hub and the Galactic League Firstmen on civilized worlds and Observers on frontier planets, knew the precise mechanics of Mayhem’s coming.
Johnny Mayhem, a bodiless sentience. Mayhem—Johnny Marlow then—who had been chased from Earth a pariah and a criminal seven years ago, who had been mortally wounded on a wild planet deep within the Sagittarian Swarm, whose life had been saved—after a fashion—by the white magic of that planet. Mayhem, doomed now to possible immortality as a bodiless sentience, an elan, which could occupy and activate a corpse if it had been preserved properly … an elan doomed to wander eternally because it could not remain in one body for more than a month without body and elan perishing. Mayhem, who had dedicated his strange, lonely life to the services of the Galactic League—now the Galactic Federation—because a normal life and normal social relations were not possible to him….
It did not seem possible, Mayhem thought now, that a mistake could be made. Then—a sudden change in plans?