Kevin walked with the crowd along the spotless corridor and stepped aboard the automatic lift, getting out at the floor above. He seated himself in one of the comfortable lounging chairs and shuddered slightly as it fitted itself to the contours of his body. His fingers clutched tightly the undistinguished box he carried and something within him resisted the comfort offered by the large chair in which he sat. People continued to file in and take places and the amphitheater was quickly filled. Soundlessly. The walls absorbed the sound and invisible filters removed the dust from the air. Occasionally people took small pills from the containers built into the sides of their chairs and popped them into their mouths. Kevin knew the pills tasted like popcorn, candy floss, and some even like hot dogs. But they were, of course, not the same as the real thing. Neither was the amphitheater. Once there had been great canvas tents put up in the open air, and wood shavings covering the ground within, and hard benches for seats. The area around the tents had been sprinkled with small stands that sold soda in bottles and candy floss colored pink that melted into sweet nothingness in one's mouth. And everywhere there was an exciting smell made up of many separate things. Animals, the food-stuffs on sale, sawdust, and the sweat of many human beings pressed tightly together on the bleachers. There were the shouts of barkers, colored lights, and men who sold little lizards that changed color as you watched them. Kevin knew all this for he had read it in the book which he had bought from the ancient shopkeeper in the run-down section of New New York, how many years ago? Kevin smiled slightly to himself as he recalled the puzzled expression on the shop-keeper's face when he purchased the book. The circus was beginning and Kevin interrupted his reverie to watch. On small elevated squares in the center of the great arena stood figures almost too horrible to look at. Some flailed many arms about aimlessly; some simply stood--vacantly--and their undersize extra limbs which should have been wings fluttered sadly. One or two figures crawled about on their small squares scratching their scaly skins and making whimpering noises. One seemed to be making efforts to rise from where it lay in an amorphous heap, but was prevented from doing so by a grotesque over-sized head which the creature seemed incapable of raising from the slab on which it sprawled.