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he was no longer in the middle of a tight group. They were spread out over the meadow in a long, wavering, yelling line.
    H e felt a little confused. Without losing a beat in the shriek-rhythm, he made an effort to get closer to a man and woman on his right.
    The yells stopped abruptly. The noise-music stopped abruptly. He stared straight ahead where everybody else was staring. He saw it, a brown, furry animal about the size of a sheep. It had thrown one startled, frightened look at them. Then it had begun running madly away across the meadow.
    “Let’s get it!” the shriek leader’s voice sounded from what seemed all about them.
    The shriek started again, a continuous, unceasing shriek, and Mr. Mead joined in. He was running across the meadow after the furry brown animal, screaming his head off, dimly and proudly conscious of fellow human beings doing the same on both sides of him.
    Let’s get it
, his mind howled.
Let’s get it, let’s get it!
    Almost caught up with, the animal dodged back through the line of people. Mr. Mead flung himself at it and made a grab. He got a handful of fur and fell painfully to his knees as the animal galloped away.
    He was on his feet without abating a single note of the shriek and after it in a moment. Everyone else had turned around and was running with him.
    Let’s get it! Let’s get it! Let’s get it!
    Back and forth across the meadow, the animal ran and they pursued. It dodged and twisted and jerked itself free from converging groups.
    Mr. Mead ran with them, ran in the very forefront. Shrieking.
    No matter how the furry brown animal turned, they turned, too. They kept getting closer and closer to it.
    Finally, the entire mob trapped it in a great, uneven circle and closed in. Mr. Mead was the first one to reach it. He knocked it down with a single blow. A girl leaped onto it and began tearing at it with her fingernails. Just before everyone piled on, Mr. Mead managed to grab a furry brown leg. He gave it a tremendous wrench and it came off in his hand. He was distantly surprised by the loose wires and gear mechanisms that trailed out of the torn-off leg.
    “We got it!” he mumbled, staring at the leg.
We got it
, his mind danced madly.
We got it, we got it!
    He was suddenly very tired, almost faint. He dragged himself away from the crowd and sat down heavily on the grass. He continued to stare at the loose wires that came out of the leg.
    Someone came up to him, breathing hard. “Well,” puffed Mr. Storku. “Did you have a nice shriek?”
    Mr. Mead held up the furry brown leg. “We got it,” he said bewilderedly.
    T he yellow-haired young man laughed. “You need a good shower and a good sedative. Come on.” He helped Mr. Mead to his feet and, holding on to his arm, walked him across the meadow to a dilated yellow square under the grandstand. All around them, the other participants in the shriek chattered gaily to each other as they cleansed themselves and readjusted their metabolism.
    After his turn inside one of the many booths which filled the interior of the grandstand, Mr. Mead felt more like himself—which was not to say he felt better.
    Something had come out of him in those last few moments as he tore at the mechanical quarry, something he wished infinitely had stayed at the dank bottom of his soul. He’d rather never have known it existed.
    He felt vaguely, dismally, like a man who, flipping the pages of a textbook of aberrations, comes upon a particularly ugly case history which parallels his life history in every respect and understands—in a single, horrified flash—exactly what all those seemingly innocent quirks of his personality mean.
    He tried to remind himself that he was still Oliver T. Mead, a good husband and father, a respected business executive, a substantial pillar of the community and the local church—but it was no help. Now, and for the rest of his life, he was also… this other thing.
    He had to get into some clothes. Fast.
    Mr. Storku