Fiben quashed a sense of panic. They had him cornered. There has to be another way out, he thought furiously.

And then he realized where it would be. The performer’s door, above and behind the padded dance mound! The beaded portal through which Sylvie had made her entrance. A quick scramble and he’d be up and past her — and gone!

He ran across the dance floor and leaped onto the mound, landing upon one of the carpeted ledges.

The crowd roared again! Fiben froze in his crouch. The glaring spotlights had followed him.

He blinked up at Sylvie. The dancer licked her lips and rocked her pelvis at him.

Fiben felt simultaneously repelled and powerfully drawn. He wanted to clamber up and grab her. He wanted to find some dark niche in a tree branch, somewhere, and hide.

Down below the fight was still going strong, but had stopped spreading. With only paper bottles and wicker furniture to use, the combatants seemed to have settled down to an amiable tumult of mutual mayhem, the original cause quite forgotten.

But on the edges of the dance floor stood four chims in bright zipsuits, watching him as they fingered objects in their pockets. There still looked to be only one way. Fiben clambered up onto another carpeted, “rocky” cleft. Again, the crowd cheered in intensifying excitement. The noise, smells, confusion… Fiben blinked at the sea of fervent faces, all staring up at him in expectation. What was happening?

A flash of motion caught Fiben’s attention. From the balcony over the bar, someone was waving at him. It was a small chim dressed in a dark, hooded cloak, standing out in this frenzied crowd, more than anything else, by a facial expression that was calm, icy sharp.

Fiben suddenly recognized the little pimp, the one who had accosted him briefly by the door to the Ape’s Grape. The chim’s voice didn’t carry over the cacophony, but somehow Fiben picked out the mouthed words.

“Hey, dummy, look up!”

The boyish face grimaced. The panderer pointed overhead.

Fiben glanced upward… just in time to see a sparkling mesh start to fall from the rafters overhead! He leaped aside purely on instinct, fetching hard against another “rock” as the fringe of the falling net grazed his left foot. Electric agony stroked his leg.

“Baboon shit! What in Goodall’s name’…?” He cursed soundly. It took a moment for him to realize that part of the roaring in his ears was more applause. This turned into shouted cheers as he rolled over holding his leg, and thereby happened to escape yet another snare. A dozen loops of sticky mesh flopped out of a simulated rock to tauten over the area he had just occupied.

Fiben kept as still as possible while he rubbed his foot and glared about angrily, suspiciously. Twice he had almost been noosed like some dumb animal. To the crowd it might all be great fun, but he personally had no desire to be trussed up on some bizarre, lunatic obstacle course.

Below on the dance floor he saw bright zipsuits, left, right, and center. The Gubru on the balcony seemed interested, but showed no sign of intervening.

Fiben sighed. His predicament was still the same. The only direction he could go was up.

Looking carefully, he scrambled over another padded ridge. The snares appeared to be intended to be humiliating and incapacitating — and painful — but not deadly. Except in his case, of course. If he were caught, his unwanted enemies would be on him in a trice.

He stepped up onto the next “boulder,” cautiously. Fiben felt a tickling falseness under his right foot and pulled back just as a trap door popped open. The crowd gasped as he teetered on the edge of the revealed pit. Fiben’s arms windmilled as he fought for balance. From an uncertain crouch he leaped, and barely caught a grip on the next higher terrace.

His feet hung over nothingness. Fiben’s breath came in heavy gasps. Desperately he wished humans hadn’t edited some of his ancestors’ “unnecessary” instinctive climbing skills just to make room for trivialities such as speech and reason.

He grunted and slowly scrambled up out of the pit. The audience clamored for more.

As he panted on the edge of the next level, trying to see in all directions at once, Fiben slowly became aware that a public address system was muttering over the noise of the crowd, repeating over and over again, in clipped, mechanical tones.

… more enlightened approach to Uplift… appropriate to the background of the client race… offering opportunity to all… unbiased by warped human standards…

Up in its box, the invader chirped into a small microphone. Its machine-translated words boomed out over the music and the excited jabber of the crowd. Fiben doubted one in ten of the chims below were even aware of the E.T.’s monologue in the state they were in. But that probably didn’t matter.

They were being conditioned!

No wonder he had never heard of Sylvie’s dance-mound striptease before, nor this crazy obstacle course. It was an innovation of the invaders!

But what was its purpose?

They couldn’t have managed all this without help, Fiben thought angrily. Sure enough, the two well-dressed chims sitting near the invader whispered to each other and scribbled on clipboards. They were obviously recording the crowd’s reactions for their new master.

Fiben scanned the balcony and noted that the little pimp in the cowled robe stood not far outside the Gubru’s ring of robot guards. He spared a whole second to memorize the chim’s boyish features. Traitor!

Sylvie was only a few terraces above him now. The dancer twitched her pink bottom at him, grinning as sweat beaded on his face. Human males had their own “instant” visual triggers: rounded female breasts and pelvises and smooth fern skin. None of them could compare with the electric shiver a little color in the right place could send through a male chim.

Fiben shook his head vigorously. “Out. Not in. You want out!”

Concentrating on keeping his balance, favoring his tender left ankle, he scrambled edgewise until he was around the pit, then crawled forward on his hands and knees.

Sylvie leaned over him, two levels up. Her scent carried even over the pungent aromas of the hall, making Fiben’s nostrils flare.

He shook his head suddenly. There was another sharp odor, a cloying stink that seemed to be quite local.

With the little finger of his left hand he probed the terrace he had been about to climb upon. Four inches in he encountered a burning stickiness. He cried out and pulled back hard, leaving behind a small patch of skin.

Alas for instinct! His seared finger automatically popped into his mouth. Fiben almost gagged on the nastiness.

This was a fine fix. If he tried to move up or forward the sticky stuff would get him. If he retreated he would more than likely wind up in the pit!

This maze of traps did explain one thing that he had puzzled about, earlier. No wonder the chens below hadn’t gone nuts and simply charged the hill the moment Sylvie showed pink! They knew only the cocky or foolhardy would dare attempt the climb. The others were content to observe and fantasize. Sylvie’s dance was only the first half of the show.

And if some lucky bastard made it? Well, then, everybody would have the added treat of watching that, too!

The idea repelled Fiben. Private sharings were natural, of course. But this public lewdness was disgusting!

At the same time, he noted that he had already made it most of the way. He felt an old quickening in his blood. Sylvie swayed down a little toward him, and he imagined he could already touch her. The musicians increased their tempo, and strobes began flickering again, approaching like lightning. Artificial thunder echoed. Fiben felt a few stinging droplets, like the beginnings of a rainstorm.

Sylvie danced under the spots, inciting the crowd. He licked his lips and felt himself drawn.