"UTOPIA? NEVER!"

"But I assure you ..." his guide replied.

"There's always a fly in the ointment," the visitor continued. "Injustice is part of human nature. A society can't do without it."

"These are special conditions."

"That is the first injustice. Other planets don't have gobblers."

"But they do!"

"It's not the same thing. You've seen the gobbler-fleece from Morpheus IX. It's no better than wool. Only here in New Katanga...."

"Utopia," his guide corrected.

"Only here is their fleece as tough as iron—"

"And soft to the touch as watered silk." His guide sighed deeply; truly, there was nothing like gobbler-fleece.

"Your planet's prosperity is possible, however, only at the expense of Federation worlds that can't raise gobblers."

"True," his guide agreed wanly.

"If New Katanga would reveal to the Federation the secret of the gobbler-fleece—the special process you have developed here, I assure you...."

"On your right," his guide pointed out, "you will observe our new Civic Auditorium, renowned throughout the galaxy for the classic beauty of its proportions...."

"I assure you that I would not be so apt to suspect the motive of your utopian pretensions."

"Each panel of the glass wall is in the ratio 2:3. The sculpture in the center of the fountain was executed at enormous expense by Berndt Thorwald, the Terran—who was since naturalized. It is an allegory of Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom."

"—!" the visitor grunted.

"Perhaps it is necessary, as you suggest, for a utopia to be isolated to a certain degree. We do enjoy advantages here that are wanting on—what did you say your home-world is called?"

"Aridity VI."

"Just so. Yet, our chief advantage is not our monopoly of gobbler-fleece but the perfection of our social institutions. Here there is no crime, no war, no politics, no hunger, and little disease. Our Utopians are not greedy, envious, wrathful, lazy, or bedeviled with lusts...."

"Come again! Every night, there's a line outside my bedroom door, five deep. Not that I object, but in the Land of the Pure it seems a strange thing."

His guide tried to conceal his smile. "It is because you are a visitor. A certain romantic charm attaches to your peculiar position. An aura. On the whole, our citizens are more moderate in their appetites. Puritanism, too, is a short-coming. You have been enjoying your stay, I take it?"

"Oh yes!"

"The food?"

"Excellent. I must have gained thirty pounds."

His guide nodded appreciatively at the visitor's girth. "You will find, as you grow accustomed to plenty, that even moderation has its pleasures. But I will not make sermons. Have you enjoyed the weather?"

"Just the right amount of zip. Your engineers are geniuses."

"Our schools and hospitals, our roads and public buildings?"

"In all those things, you are the paragon of the galaxy. And the private homes that I have seen are models of restrained munificence."

"They were selected at random."

"Of course, I knew long before my visit that your artists and scientists...."

"Virtually the whole population," his guide put in.

"—are without peer."

"And yet you deny us the title of Utopia?"

"Utopia? Never!" the visitor said adamantly. "There's always a worm in the rose. I just have not found it yet, but it's there. Injustice is a part of human nature."

"What a shame! I had hoped that you would accept full citizenship."

"Full cit—" the visitor gasped, letting his 280 pounds settle slowly onto a teakwood park bench.

"Yes. But since...."

"Show me the papers."

"But as a representative of the Federation?"

"I renounce Federation citizenship. What do I sign?"

"Here. And here. And here. Good." He tucked the papers into a small leather carrying case.

"It seems to me that, with so permissive an immigration policy, New Katanga will soon be overrun."

"On the contrary, exclusivity would be unjust and, in the long run, unprofitable. A society always can use fresh blood. Besides, we have a stable population rate, all things considered."

"Well, I feel like celebrating."

"Why don't we take in the matinee performance at the Auditorium then. Admission, like everything else in Utopia, is free. The performances are quite hair-raising, something on the order of the Roman Circus, I'm told."

The new citizen raised an eye-brow. "In Utopia?"

"It's a healthy outlet for our small aggressions."

They walked up the marble staircase to the Grand Circle.

"Would you wait for me a few minutes in my box? I have some things to attend to."

The visitor entered the box through a great door, heavily crusted with gold. His seat afforded him an excellent view of the arena. All the Utopians in the tiers above and across from his box stopped chattering and turned, as one man, to gaze at him. The new citizen recognized several women of recent acquaintance and waved to them. They waved back. One kissed her sheer gobbler-fleece scarf and threw it toward him. It billowed in the warm air of the auditorium and sank gracefully to the floor of the arena. There was restrained applause.

The lights dimmed. The entrance-gates at the far end of the arena opened with a clank. The gobblers bounded out with that curious, lithe motion so strange in creatures of their bulk. They circled the arena and came to a stop underneath the new citizen's box, where, lips pressed back from their terrible fangs, they mewled softly.

With an almost imperceptible click, the box was disengaged from its moorings and swung free over the arena. Then with slow, pendular motions it descended to the floor.

The audience cheered wildly as the gobblers leaped, like great-maned antelopes, over the railing of the box and tore the new citizen of Utopia into shreds. Even as they gulped down the huge chunks of fatty tissue, the spectator could see their fleece change from a tone of drab nickel to a sheen something between the glint of polished steel and the shimmer of watered silk.

THE END