Beyond the alley entrance, half a dozen people—

among them the little girl he’d seen in the Spike’s room last night, also the massive and mastectomized Dian—carried above their shoulders scarlet torches, a-hiss and a-drizzle with sparks. Windy, on a large contraption like a rodent’s exercise wheel, bells fixed on his wrists and ankles, rotated head down, head up, head down: A target was painted around his belly button, rings of ted, blue, and yellow extending far as circling nipples and knees. The guitar started. As though it were a signal, two men began unrolling an immense carpet across the ground—another mural: this one of some ancient fair with archaic costumes, barkers, and revelers.

Verbal disorientation, he thought, listening to the surreal catalogue of the lyrics: the melody was minor, this time rhythmic, more chant than song.

Who (Bron gazed about the spectators clapping to the intense, insistent rhythm) was the audience this time?

“Here!” the Spike whispered, picking up a pole leaning against the wall, thrust another into Bron’s gloves and, carrying hers high, ran out over the spread carnival, into the circle of torchbearers (who fell back for her) waving her pole over her head.

Bron ran out behind her, waving his.

From the corner of his eye, he saw that Windy had left the wheel and was turning slow cartwheels (his fingernails and toenails were iridescent and multihued) through the milling torchbearers.

The top of the Spike’s pole had erupted in blue sparks. He looked up: his own was a crackle of gold.

Then, beyond gold, he saw the trapeze arc down toward them. (Just how high was the ceiling here?) Two figures rode it. One was the woman, now in an ordinary cutaway street sack, who, when he’d last seen her, had worn mirrors on her toes. The other was younger, taller, with dark hair (they dropped within six feet of the glittering pole tops, then swung off and up); her features, from somewhere in Earth’s Oceana, were set in astonishment as she craned back, rising away in the dark.

... and came swinging back, trouser cuffs and hair whipping. The singing changed key and timbre.

First he thought the song was breaking into polyphony. But everyone was just going off on their own.

Above, the two women swung.

The music was complete cacophony.

The Spike raised her pole high and swirled it, with fluttering sleeves, in a wide circle (he raised his own, swung it; he was sweating inside his head-mask), then suddenly hurled it to the ground (his own pole clattered down a moment later). Immediately, the singers silenced.

Bron looked up, as did everyone else.

The swing’s arc dipped, backward and forward, slowing.

Someone to his left began a note. Someone to the right took up another, a third away. Others added to it; the chord grew, consonant and minor, like the waters of some alien ocean breaking about his ears. Suddenly it opened up into major—which made him catch his breath.

The swing came to an unsteady halt. The tall, young woman was clutching one of the ropes with both hands and staring down in amazement.

The chord died. Torches guttered on the ground, red, and blue, and gold, and red ...

The younger woman said: “Oh ... Oh, that was—Oh, thank you!”

The other woman on the swing said: “Thank you ...” She released her rope and, balancing there with crossed ankles, began to clap.

So did the rest of the company.

The Spike had taken off her mask and, with it tucked under one arm, bowed, white plumes doffing, among the other, raggedly-bowing performers. Bron finished his own embarrassed bow, took off his own mask. Skin, moist behind his ears and across the bridge of his nose, cooled.

“That was marvelous!” the young woman said, looking down among them. “Are you some sort of theatrical company?”

“A commune,” explained the other woman on the trapeze. “We’re working on a government endowment to do micro-theater for unique audiences. Oh, I hope you don’t mind—we used some drugs—cellusin?”

“Oh, of course not!” the young woman said, glancing back and then down again. “Really ... it was just—”

“So were you!” called up one of the men, picking up torches.

Everyone laughed.

Something tapped Bron’s ankle. He looked down. Three people were rolling up the mural. Bron stepped over it Barkers and revelers and amusement rides disappeared in the canvas bolt.

“... the song was written by our guitarist, Charo ...” (who’s guitar face flashed in Bron’s eyes as it went into its case; Charo grinned at the swingers.) “... props and murals are by Dian and Hatti, with help from our tumbler, Windy. This production was conceived, produced, and directed by our company manager, the Spike,”—who nodded, waved, and went to help Windy tear down the wheel—”... with special appearances from Tyre, Millicent, Bron, and Joey—all of whom were our audience too, at one time.”

“Oh ... !” the young woman said, and looked down at Bron and the others indicated.

Bron looked around, surprised, remembered to smile up at the swing.

“Thank you again for being our audience. We really appreciate a responsive one. That was our final performance on Triton. Shortly, our endowment will be taking us on. We’ve been on Triton eight weeks now, in which we’ve given over two hundred and twenty-five performances of ten works—three of them never performed before—to almost three hundred people—” Someone picked up the pole Bron had thrown down, took it away—“Thank you again.”

“Oh, thank youl” the tall young woman cried. “Thank you ... !” The swing began to rise into the dark, by creaks and starts, wound up on a rackety pulley. “Thank you all! I mean, I had no idea, when you just suggested that we sit down on this thing that, suddenly, we would ... Oh, it was just marvelous!”

Heads, hands, and knees, they jerked up into the shadow, away from the decimal clock, dim and distant on the dark.

The Spike, head-mask still under her arm, was talking to the woman who held the little girl now in her arms. All three were laughing loudly.

Still laughing, the Spike turned toward Bron.

He pulled off one of his gloves and tucked it under his arm with his own mask, just to do something. He was trying to think of something to say, and already the anger at not finding it was battling his initial pleasure.

“You did wonderfully! I always like to use as many new people in the performance as possible. In this kind of thing, their concentration and spontaneity lend something to it no amount of careful rehearsal can give. Oh, how marvelous!” suddenly taking his hand and looking at it (his nails, newly lacquered that morning when he’d decided on the dark attire, were, like Windy’s, multihued and iridescent): “I do love color on a man! I make Windy wear it whenever I can.” She looked down at his mask, at hers. “The only trouble with these things is that unless you break your neck, you can’t see anything more than five feet off the ground!”

“What’s this about your final performance?”

“That’s right. Next stop—” Her eyes rose to the ceiling dark—“Neriad, I believe. And after that—” She shrugged.

Bron felt it through their joined hands. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well—you were so busy finding out about me I didn’t get a chance.” A few syllables of laughter surfaced over her smile. “Besides, / was so busy trying to figure out how to get you here in time to go on, I wasn’t really thinking about anything else. Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes.”

“I’d hate to think what you’d have said if you hadn’t! You just sounded like you were agreeing to supervise your own execution—” at which point painted arms, with iridescent multihued nails, flapped around her shoulder. Long red hair fell forward over her satin tunic; a bass voice growled from under it: “Come on, honey, let’s go make this a night to remember!”