CHAPTER VIINTERIOR: Froman’s Mercurian Theatre. Night.
The System’s greatest theatre was a blaze of vari-colored brilliance. Doom World was having its première, after several sneak previews from which the cast had been rigorously excluded. Neal Baker was there, resplendent and aloof in a box. Von Zorn was there, his toothbrush mustache carefully waxed.
Blaze Argyle and Kathleen and Quade were there, and on Kathleen’s lap was Caruso, bright-eyed and interested. Apparently the singing frog had not been a robot; he had been a genuine mutation born to one of the monsters. So he had escaped the general h*******t in the Plutonian set, and Kathleen had discovered him the next day wandering forlornly about the cavern.
Somebody made a speech. Somebody else sang, and Caruso vigorously joined in t
