the bull
charged. Moe's head twisted in a blur of violence. Teeth clamped on the
shaft behind the point. Too surprised to let go, the lancer followed his
weapon from the saddle. He released his hold when Moe walked on him.

Like some fantastic dog stealing a fresh bone, the bull trotted around
the ring, tail high and pike in mouth. The crowd laughed. Wild-eyed men
carried out the trampled lancer.

A third, and extremely reluctant, lancer reined his horse through the
gate. A pike in the mouth of a ton of beef utterly unnerved the man. He
stood in the saddle and jumped over the barrier where a rain of rotten
eggs from the booing fans spattered him thoroughly.

* * * * *

An uninjured bull pawed alone in the sand when the trumpet recording
announced the end of the lancers' period. The crowd noises softened to a
buzz of speculation, questions, and comment, as the realization that
weird events had been witnessed slowly penetrated that collective mind.
The bull had not touched a horse, no pike had jabbed the bull, and five
men had been killed or injured.

"Great Government!" a clear voice swore, "That ain't no bull, it's a
monster!" This opinion came from a sticker in Illard's team. Fergus
attempted to persuade the man to help, since both of Fergus's stickers
were dead. Part of the crowd agreed with the sticker's thought, for
people began moving furtively to the exits with cautious glances at the
animal in the ring. They, of course, could not know that the bull had
been trained, with rubber-tipped pikes and dummies, in every phase of
the bullfight; that he knew the first, and only, law of staying alive in
the ring, "Charge the man and not the cloth."

The clouds that had obscured the sky all day formed darker masses tinted
with pink to the east, and the black dot of a turkey buzzard wheeled
soaring in the gloom. Carrying, in either hand, a barbed stick sparkling
with plastic streamers, Fergus walked into the ring. His assistants
cautiously flanked him with capes.

[Illustration]

Moe dropped the pike and charged in the approved manner of a bull.
Fergus raised the sticks high and brought them down on the humped back,
although the back was not there. The sticks dropped in the sand.

As the killer leaped aside in the completion of a reflex action, a horn
penetrated the seat of his trunks. The Fergus Fanclub screamed while
their hero dangled in ignominy from the horn. Moe ignored the flapp