Participation was a compulsive act. Less than an hour after Hendley left the swimming pool in the central park, once more clad in his visitor's white uniform, he found himself lingering beside a fence enclosing a series of tennis courts. A shower, a rest, another whiskey and soda had refreshed him. Walking had loosened bruised, stiff muscles, although he still limped, favoring his right knee. Except for the knee and a swollen lip, he felt almost normal. Ready for action, in fact. Tennis, however, seemed a little too strenuous, even such indifferent tennis as that being played here. The players lobbed the ball back and forth listlessly, hardly trying when a shot went out of reach. Odd. A number of the activities Hendley had watched were carried on with the same indifference: lawn games, a bowling match, boating. In the parks and on the streets many Freemen stood around with vacant expressions. Yet the water polo players had thrown themselves into their game with a vengeance Hendley could attest to. Some participants in a football game he'd paused to watch for a while had piled into each other with an audible crunching impact. Even a group of cyclists racing around a circular track had competed with real fervor. They weren't very good riders, for Hendley had witnessed two collisions on a far turn in the brief time he watched. But they were enthusiastic. Contact sports, he thought.... He walked on. The afternoon was waning, though the sun remained well above the horizon. How little the Freemen seemed to notice the sun! He never saw any of them staring up at the sky, while Hendley frequently paused to survey that awesome immensity. They brushed heedlessly past vivid flowers in bloom, trampled upon bushes, failed to turn their heads when a bird sang from a tree, while Hendley found these things fascinating. Perhaps in time you became used to them. They might come to seem ordinary. Even the vaulting sky might fail to make you feel small. He came to an area of carefully tended lawns broken here and there by patches of white sand, defined by rough stretches of taller grass and shrubbery. Small groups of players strolled in the distance, pulling carts or carrying bags containing slender sticks. Something tugged at Hendley's memory. He had seen such a place in a miniature display in the Sports Museum. In the underground cities there was not enough space for such a layout, but it made a pretty picture in the late afternoon in the spacious Freeman Camp.