The planet had two unique elements. One was that it produced the galaxy’s most elusive and most desirable hallucinatory drug. The other was that it was a stock brokers’ paradise. The world was split into rich men’s holdings and every day, every hour, every minute these were being traded on a continuous stock market. Up and down went values and rights as men conspired to seize other’s properties, to push prices down and cost up. Their money game controlled everything else.

Earl Dumarest went there to find his next stake. Find the drug-gem or manipulate the market - two possibilities. But behind the scenes stood the advisors of the inhuman Cyclan determined to fix the odds against Dumarest.