The circus was beginning and Kevin interrupted his reverie to watch.
On small elevated squares in the center of the great arena stood figures almost too horrible to look at. Some flailed many arms about aimlessly; some simply stood—vacantly—and their undersize extra limbs which should have been wings fluttered sadly. One or two figures crawled about on their small squares scratching their scaly skins and making whimpering noises. One seemed to be making efforts to rise from where it lay in an amorphous heap, but was prevented from doing so by a grotesque over-sized head which the creature seemed incapable of raising from the slab on which it sprawled.
Kevin's stomach tightened. Every year, he knew, specimens such as these, the products of the effects of radiation on the genes of their parents or, perhaps, grandparents during the war that ended nearly a hundred years ago, were placed on display in the circus on their small squares where rising electrical currents instead of bars imprisoned them. Even the freak shows in the twentieth century circus were different from this. At least then the freaks were still, well, people, and freely chose to exhibit their oddities for profit. In many cases it was the only way they could earn a living. But this was different. These senseless mutants were captured like animals after having been abandoned by their parents; and were being displayed with the same lack of humanity.
Kevin watched robots perform mindless feats of strength as the circus continued. He saw colored opaque rays support a slab of concrete and gasped with the rest of the audience as the heavy slab was suddenly disintegrated by a sudden rainbow fusion of all the rays.
He listened as the recorded commercials whispered their wiles to the captive audience.
Suddenly a panel slowly opened in the ceiling of the amphitheater and dramatically, silently, an immense golden sphere descended until it hung glistening at the end of its thin cable in the center of the great arena. The lights dimmed and a hush fell over the crowd. The sphere suddenly glowed brightly and, at this signal, all other lights in the amphitheater were turned off. Kevin stared as the sphere began to rotate on its axis. He heard the first reaction the audience had yet shown; the "ohs" and "ahs" that used to accompany fireworks displays in the old days. He looked into the sphere and could not believe what he saw. He was in the sphere and he—! Everyone would know, he thought in horror and fear! He tore his eyes from the sphere and looked, expecting anything, at the people near him whose faces were dimly visible in the light from the sphere. They all gazed spellbound at the hypnotically revolving globe. Kevin listened as a woman whispered to the man next to her without taking her eyes from the shining bubble.
"Can you see it, Jim?"
"Yeah," the man answered softly.
"I always dreamed of playing a love scene with Dirk Anders. He's the best actor in the Lifies. And there I am! Doing it—in the Golden Ball," the woman sighed.
"That's not what I see," the man said in a low voice, not taking his eyes from the turning globe. Kevin watched the man's mouth working. Saw him wipe the spittle from the corners of his mouth. He turned away from the naked look in the man's eager eyes.