Another man, lean and tall, casually remarked: "Saw a lot of them in the war. We burned a barnful of them, a sort of colony."

The portly man blinked, bit deep into his candied apple, and moved away from the war veteran. Leading his wife and three children, he meandered up beside Cussick.

"Horrible, isn't it?" he muttered. "All these monsters."

"Sort of," Cussick admitted.

"I don't know why I come to these things." The portly man indicated his wife and children, all of them stonily gobbling up their popcorn and spun-sugar candy. "They like to come. Women and kids go in for this stuff."

Cussick said: "Under Relativism we have to let them live."

"Sure," the portly man agreed, emphatically nodding. A bit of candied apple clung to his upper lip; he wiped it away with a freckled paw. "They got their rights, just like everybody else. Like you and me, mister... they got their lives, too."

Standing by the railing of the exhibit, the lean war veteran spoke up. "That don't apply to freaks. That's just people."

The portly men flushed. Waving his candied apple earnestly, he answered: "Mister, maybe they think we're freaks. Who says who's a freak?"

Disgusted, the veteran said: "I can tell a freak." He eyed Cussick and the portly man with distaste. "What are you," he demanded, "a freak-lover?"

The portly man sputtered and started over; but his wife seized his arm and dragged him away, into the crowd, to the next exhibits. Still protesting, he disappeared from sight. Cussick was left facing the war veteran.

"Damn fool," the veteran said. "It's contrary to common sense. You can see they're freaks. My God, that's why they're here!"

"He's right, though," Cussick pointed out. "The law gives anybody the right to live as he pleases. Relativism says—"

"Then the hell with Relativism. Did we fight a war, did we beat those Jews and atheists and Reds, so people could be any damn kind of freak they want? Believe any kind of egghead trash?"