"How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Only eleven," he replied, "but it obviously affects some of us more rapidly than others."

I took another look at Four-Eyes.

"I'd better get Thaddeus," I said, and headed off to his trailer.

He was lying exactly as I had left him, sprawled on a small couch with his arms and legs dangling over the sides, and covered with a faded purple blanket. I woke him up and told him that he'd better get over to the dormitory tent right away.

I've seen him spend an hour crawling out of bed when he's got a hangover, and I've seen him stay asleep with Monk's lion roaring right outside the window—but mention that the carnival's got a problem and he's up and alert in ten seconds. Since he was already dressed, all he did was splash some cold water on his face and, without even bothering to put on a jacket, he ran across the snow-covered Midway to the aliens' tent without saying a word. I guess he must have thought Mr. Ahasuerus was leading a revolt or something like that, because he looked surprised to see the total lack of commotion when he arrived.

"What's up?" he asked me.

"Four-Eyes," I said. "He's very sick."

"Who the hell is that?"

"The Cyclops. You named him last night."

"Oh, yeah. Right." He walked over to Four-Eyes, then turned to Mr. Ahasuerus.

"Just how bad is he?" he demanded.

"I don't know," answered Mr. Ahasuerus.

"Why the hell not?" snapped Thaddeus. "You're the goddamned tour guide, aren't you?"

"I am not a doctor," said Mr. Ahasuerus. "And he needs one."

"Well, we don't happen to have any doctors who specialize in one-eyed men from Mars," said Thaddeus. He picked up Four-Eyes' hand in his own and took his pulse. "What's the normal rate for this guy?"

"I have no idea," replied the blue man.

"Is there anything about him that you do know?" asked Thaddeus contemptuously.

"I think the food has made him sick."

"I notice that it didn't make anyone else sick," said Thaddeus, "or do you all intend to start foaming at the mouth and collapsing?"

"We are all different," said Mr. Ahasuerus. "This is an alien environment. It affects us in different ways."

Thaddeus dropped Four-Eyes' hand and frowned. "Find out from him what he needs and we'll try to supply it."

"He needs freedom," hissed Albert the Alligator.

"You can't eat freedom," said Thaddeus coldly. He turned to Mr. Ahasuerus. "Find out what it is: potassium, iodine, whipped cream, whatever."

"What if he can't reply?" asked Mr. Ahasuerus.

"Then you'll have to figure out who's guiltier—you or me," said Thaddeus.

He turned and started to leave the tent. I shuffled after him and caught up with him at the doorway. "Thaddeus, I think he's dying," I said.

"Horseshit," said Thaddeus. "He's got a bellyache."

"But—"

"Look," he said, "if our food could kill him instantly, he'd be dead by now. If it kills him slowly, then he's committed suicide and there's nothing we can do to stop it. And if he was suicidal, he'd have tried to kill himself before now, so what he's got is a pain in the gut. It's probably like eating rich food: one meal is okay, three are okay, and twenty in a row will have you wishing you were dead. Find out what he needs and give it to him—and for Christ's sake, don't let him go back to eating Queenie's food once he's recovered."

"I hope you're right," I said.

"I am," he replied confidently. "And you tell that son of a bitch that I want him back to work tomorrow night at the latest."

It turned out that Four-Eyes needed enormous supplements of iron and sodium. Once Mr. Ahasuerus relayed that information to me I had Gloria buy a batch of each, and within a few hours he was showing a noticeable improvement.

Everything went along smoothly for two more days. Then we experienced the first blizzard of the season. The winds whipped across the landscape at fifty miles an hour, snow piled up everywhere, and we had to shut down just before twilight.

Sometime during the night one of the power lines was knocked down. The county repairmen had it fixed in a couple of hours, but by then Rainbow was pale blue again.

"What the hell did you let him come along for?" Thaddeus demanded of Mr. Ahasuerus after examining the Man of Many Colors. "If he's got any survival traits I sure as hell haven't seen them."

"He would have been all right under normal circumstances," said Mr. Ahasuerus softly.

Thaddeus glared at him. "It could have snowed a week ago," he said.

"But it didn't," replied Mr. Ahasuerus.

Thaddeus turned to me. "Go over to the girls' trailers and see if any of them have an electric blanket. If not, get a couple of hot-water bottles."

"Thank you," mumbled Rainbow.

"I don't need any thanks for protecting my investment," snapped Thaddeus. He looked around the tent. "Rainbow stays here. Everyone else works. We start at noon."

He walked out without another word.

I managed to borrow an electric blanket from Gloria, and when I returned I plugged it in and showed Rainbow how to use the controls. It was about ten thirty, and I decided to have some breakfast before the show began.

"I don't understand him," said Scratch, walking over and sitting next to me while I ate some of Queenie's scrambled eggs and bacon.

I fought the urge to edge away from him. During the past week I had made an effort to get to know most of the aliens, but Scratch scared me. Not the way Mr. Ahasuerus had at first, but in a deeper, more mystical way. He was probably a very decent person, and someone had told me that he was a mathematician and poet on his home world, but with his reddish color and the two huge horns growing out of his forehead he seemed diabolical in appearance. Thaddeus had dressed him in red satin, with a black cape, and he looked as if he belonged on the throne of Hell.

"You mean Thaddeus?" I asked, leaning back just a little.

"Yes," said Scratch. "You are a decent man, and you do not hate him, so doubtless he has certain admirable qualities."

I would have been hard-pressed to tell him what they were, so I simply stared at him and waited for him to speak again.

"Yet I find him a mass of contradictions," continued the satanic alien. "He treats our illnesses, yet he won't set us free. He lets his mate perform what in your society are acts of degradation, but he allows her to convince him that the Three-Breasted Woman should not have to undergo such an experience. He treats us like animals, yet yesterday he threatened a customer with physical violence for making a remark far less insulting than those he himself makes all the time. Why?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Life isn't as simple as I once thought it was. And, just for the record, Alma isn't his mate."

"But I understood him to say . . ."

"He doesn't always tell the truth," I said.

"Will he ever release us?" asked Scratch.

"I don't know," I told him truthfully.

"Sooner or later we will start dying," he said without emotion. "The food, the air, the temperature, the gravity, even the stress, will do us in. He will cause the death of twelve intelligent entities. Doesn't this trouble him?"

I didn't know how to answer him, so I didn't say anything.