He responded so fluidly and smoothly that, unless you checked out the results, it seemed he was moving much more slowly than he was—but the results were the same as always: four rapid-fire shots, right through the middle of the four cards.

The next trick was one I never liked to watch. The Dancer tied the girl onto a huge wheel, put a card in each of her hands, and started spinning the wheel until it was going so fast that she became little more than a blur. He turned his back on her, walked about forty feet away, pulled out a pair of knives, and displayed them to the audience. Then he spun around and hurled them toward her, releasing one no more than half a second ahead of the other. The audience gasped, and one woman let out a shriek, but each knife found its mark, pinning the cards to the spokes of the wheel. The Dancer tipped his hat and bowed deeply, looking slightly unhappy as he always did, and then prepared for his next trick. It involved shooting a cigarette out of the girl's mouth, and I decided that I didn't want to watch it, so I went over to the strip show.

Gloria was just being introduced as Butterfly Delight, and the customers—95 percent of them male—gave her a rousing hand. When it became apparent that she was going to do nothing but a striptease and would wind up pretty much the way the other girls started out the applause stopped, but Gloria was oblivious to the disappointed muttering. She bumped and she ground and she dipped and she teased as if she were following Ann Corio or Gypsy Rose Lee fifty years ago. I was afraid they would boo her off the stage—I was always afraid they would boo her off the stage—but this time was no different from any of the others. A few of them appreciated the work that had gone into her routine, and most of them settled down to wait for the next act. I hoped it wasn't Stogie: when you play as raw as we do, I wouldn't want to be the comic who had to keep the marks amused for ten minutes right after Gloria had tried to put a little class into the meat show.

I left the tent and walked up and down the Midway, checking out the games.

Diggs had fired a couple of his clumsier helpers and put two fast-talking young men in their places, and business was booming—as booming as business can get in Vermont in the fall, anyway. The Rigger himself was having trouble getting customers to shell out at one of the booths, and since I hadn't made an appearance on the Midway since we arrived, I decided to help him out. I caught his eye, and a moment later he started teasing and taunting me until I finally agreed to play the game. I won two hundred dollars in about five minutes, and managed to pass the money back to one of the shills as the marks all crowded around the booth, hot to play a game that even a retarded hunchback could win.

I heard Thaddeus' voice over the loudspeaker and I knew it was time to get back to the sideshow. When I arrived I learned that Snoopy—the Dog-Faced Boy—had collapsed while I was gone. He claimed it was due to stomach cramps, but Mr. Ahasuerus thought it was the cumulative effect of our gravity, which evidently was much stronger than any he had been used to.

We kept it from Thaddeus as long as we could, but finally I had to tell him that Snoopy wouldn't be able to work. I had been afraid that he would throw a tantrum right in front of the customers, but he simply shook his head disgustedly and went on with his spiel.

When the last show was over he walked back to the dormitory tent with me to have a look at Snoopy for himself. The Dog-Faced Boy was panting heavily and drooling all over himself, and there wasn't any question that he was in serious discomfort.

"Well?" said Thaddeus, turning to Mr. Ahasuerus.

"I can't be sure," said the Blue Man, "but I think it has been caused by your gravity."

"Then why didn't he get sick sooner?"

"For the same reason that you don't die during the first few seconds that you are submerged in water."

"Are you trying to tell me that he's dying?" demanded Thaddeus.

"No. But he needs rest. His body has been under tremendous stress."

"How much rest?"

"A day, a week, a month," said the Blue Man. "Who can say?"

"I can," replied Thaddeus. "He works tomorrow night."

"And if he can't?"

"Then he's going to find out what bodily stress is all about!" promised Thaddeus. He walked to the center of the tent, and emitted a loud shrill whistle.

"This has got to stop!" he announced when he had everyone's attention. "Unless you want to be locked up in cages between one show and the next, and fed nothing but dog food and water, Snoopy had damned well better be the last one to get sick." He turned his head slowly staring at each alien in turn. "I'm not kidding," he said at last. "If one more of you gets sick or pretends to get sick or tries to convince me that he's sick, everyone is going to suffer."

He stalked over to one of the tables we had set up and told me to bring him a cup of coffee.

"They really are sick, Thaddeus," I told him when I returned. "These are aliens. They weren't meant to live here."

"Nobody made them come," he said irritably.

"But you're making them stay," I pointed out.

"Don't you go putting the blame on me, you little dwarf!" he snapped. "I didn't fly halfway across the galaxy. They took their chances, and they lost."

"Then you're really going to lock them up if one of them gets sick?"

"I told them I would," he said. "Why should you doubt it?"

"It wouldn't be the first time you said something you didn't mean," I answered.

"Just how the hell many things can I back down on? These bastards get the idea that I can be pushed around and pretty soon they'll be putting you and me on exhibit on the moon."

I could see that talking to him wasn't going to do any good, so I fell silent for a while. Then Thaddeus sent me over to his trailer for a six-pack of beer, and when I returned he spent the next two hours nursing one beer after another, shooting an occasional contemptuous glance in the direction of Dapper Dan.

Finally he went off to his trailer, and after I found out that Mr. Ahasuerus had organized the healthy aliens into an around-the-clock nursing team, I broke down and followed him. I didn't relish sharing quarters with Thaddeus, even if he didn't have a woman in for the night, but I had been sleeping on canvas cots for almost two weeks and it wasn't doing my back any good. I've never been really comfortable ever since my spine started twisting, but I couldn't remember it ever hurting more than when I'd wake up after a night on one of the canvas cots.

"Well, look who's here," said Thaddeus when I walked into the trailer. "I kind of thought you wouldn't be showing up here again."

"Back problems," I said.

"To say nothing of stench problems," he said with a grimace. "My God, that Pumpkin stinks, doesn't she?"

"It's the rash," I said. "We don't have anything we can treat it with."

"If they're all this puny, I think Man is going to conquer the whole damned universe ten years after he develops something that'll get him from one star to the next," said Thaddeus. "I've never seen a sicklier bunch of creatures in my life."

"Take a batch of humans to one of their worlds, and you might," I said.

He shrugged. "Maybe you're right."

He was going to say something more, but just then there was a knock on the door.

"It's open!" shouted Thaddeus.