Then proceeded to juggle the pair like giant dumbbells!

Up into the air they went in brief arcs. To be seized by those giant hands as they dropped. Grabbed and thrown aloft once more. Five times he performed this act of strength and coordination before he lowered them safely to the stage at last. The girl kissed him, the audience went wild. Harley Davidson, who was standing close by me, shouted aloud across the stage. But so wild was the audience that I was the only one who could hear him.

“You’ll pay for those chairs, Puissanto! I’ll take it out of your pay.”

Stagehands removed the chairs while the strongman bowed one last bow and left.

When the shouting died down the music changed to a lugubrious funeral march, accompanied by shrill screams and manic laughter. All the house lights dimmed and died while the frenzied screaming grew louder. A single blue spot came on and there in its glow was a handsome tuxedo-garbed man who bowed to the audience and said, in a voice filled with menace, “Welcome-welcome to Gar Goyle’s Interstellar Freak Show.”

He stepped aside and a four-armed, green-skinned man took his place and bowed low. He was wearing a tartan kilt and sporran. He took a small white skull-with tiny hornsfrom his sporran and tossed it into the air. Then another until the air was filled with flying skulls, juggled in complex patterns by his four hands. It was most impressive and greatly enjoyed. Particularly when he launched the skulls, one by one, into the audience. The audience fought to catch them then, after examining them, ate them. Because they were made of candy.

“Greetings dear friends, greetings. I am here this evening to bring you a gaggle of ghastliness, a hemorrhage of horror, a dribble of disgust. Gathered from all corners of the galaxy for your edification and repulsion are the freaks of nature heretofore concealed from the eyes of the public. The misborn misfits, the monstrous mutations that you may heard about, perhaps dreamed about. But if you dreamed, ladies and gentlemen, your dreams were nightmares. Terrorizing riders of the night—like Snailman!”

The curtains snapped open and a harsh, bright spotlight burned down on the creature on the stage. There were gasps and cries from the audience. With good reason. He was bent and twisted, half-emerged from a spiked shell, recoiling into it away from the clamor of the audience. Then he sought to escape, crawling slowly across the stage leaving a trail of slime behind him. He came towards me, eyes bulging wildly, and I recoiled. Not human, a pseudoflesh robot I kept telling myself. Yet I was relieved when he turned and crawled in the opposite direction. Whoever had designed this creature had a very warped mind.

Next the audience cheered the bird girl, with stunted wings for arms, a horny bill instead of a mouth. Enjoyed it when she fluttered a few feet into the air.

There were more like this. The audience loved it; which told me a lot about the inhabitants of Fetorr. I found that a little repulsion went a long way. Still, I hoped that it would never stop. For every minute that passed drew me one minute closer. to my stage debut. Could I appeal to this audience? It was too late to put a little blood and slime into my routines. It would have to be magic, pure and simple.

I was barely aware of the acts that followed as I fussed with my props and shuffled cards from hand to hand. Angelina came up, leading Gloriana on a golden chain, and cocked her head when she looked at me.

“How do you feel? Your color is awful.”

“First-night tremors. Do you realize this is the very first time we have performed the act in public? Despite all those pages of fake reviews.”

“Jim diGriz-this is not like you. You have faced down large guns, small generals, giant animals, grasping tax men. You have never hesitated. Stop sweating, pull yourself together, drink a bit of this.” She produced a flask of medicinal brandy. “And remember the motto of show business.”

“It will be alright on the night,” we intoned together and I took a good slug from the flask.

Then we were ready to go on, listening to the ringmaster’s masterly introduction of fake facts.

“… dived from a thousand-meter-high tower into a small bathtub of water-and survived! Handcuffed, chained and locked into a steel safe and dropped into the ocean, struggled for hours to escape-and escape he did!”

Had I been mad to write this kind of nonsense for the fake reviews? My sins were coming back to haunt me.

“… so without further ado I bring you that master of magic, the supremo of sorcery, the wizard of witchcraft-the Mighty Marvell!”

Act cool and you are cool, Jim, I kept telling myself. Cool, cool. I walked to center stage and bowed-and almost lost it. Because just in front of me, in the center of the front row, was my son Believer, clapping like crazy. But he was supposed to be light-years away.

I couldn’t speak. Luckily I did not have to. I turned and extended my arm, waved Angelina to make her entrance. Which she did most handsomely. Applause thundered. Either they loved porcuswine on golden chains-or they appreciated the fair Angelina as much as I did.

I could not say how the act went since I was possessed by a chill numbness as I performed. At least I didn’t drop anything. And they oohed at the right places and laughed when I expected them to. Angelina handed me the props at the right time, screamed when I put her into the box and cut her in half, collected the slips of paper for the mind-reading act. Floated mysteriously in midair. Then suddenly she was before me, leading Gloriana and I knew we were ready for the vanishing act that closed our performance.

“Look on and admire,” I called out. “Beauty and the beast. In the flesh and alive-for now. I beg you to be silent, because if anything goes wrong, one slip, one instant of inattention, and the results could be incredibly disastrous. There now, they enter the cage. Now the glorious Angelina will lock the ferocious porcuswine to the floor with heavy locks and chains. They are now in place. Are you ready? Yes you are. Now, the magic word, Monosodiumglutamate!”

The canopy dropped down, rose an instant later and they were gone. The audience roared with appreciation when they saw that the cage was empty. Woman and swine had vanished. The curtains closed and I stepped out for a few last bows. Bolivar threw a bouquet of flowers which I neatly fielded. With a small movement of my thumb I indicated backstage and he nodded.

He was in the dressing room before me, pecking the air next to his mother’s cheek so he wouldn’t smear her makeup. She made a neat curtsy when I presented her with the flowers.

“From Believer,” I said.

“And from James, Sybil and Sybill. I promised to call them as soon as the act was over. It was really great. And that’s a powerhouse porcuswine you have there.” Gloriana snuffled agreement and let her back be scratched.

“Is it permitted to ask what you are doing here?” I asked.

“Working in a bank, of course. As soon as we knew that you were coming to this planet, James had his search engine digging deeper and deeper, building a data bank on Fetorr like you wouldn’t believe. There are forty banks in this city alone.”

“I believe it. Where there’s crud there’s credits.”

“The bank here with the greatest reserves is the BankrottGeistesabwesed. Did you ever hear of it?”

“No. Should I? It is not a name that exactly trips off the tongue.”

“We did some digging, and it wasn’t easy, and eventually discovered that it belongs to an old friend of yours. One Imperetrix Von Kaiser-Czarski.”

“Not Chaise?”

“None other. The Widows and Orphans 15` Interstellar Bank, the one he told you about, is owned by him as well. For some reason, best known to him, this one is supposed to be secret. So I sent him a message, telling him that we were helping with your investigation. Told him that I could help him a lot more if I were a teller in the branch of the Widows and Orphans bank here, to sort of be on the spot if anything happened. I thought he might have a certain influence that might get me appointed here.”