It was a cultured, soft female voice--and it came from so close to him
that he glanced in surprise at his wife. But she was looking at him.
She had heard the voice too.
It continued: "You are about to witness the most spectacular form
of entertainment ever conceived by the mind of man. Twelve years of
concentrated work went into producing what you are about to see--and
no one but you will experience it. Each of you will be _taking part_;
each of you will, as the series of scenes we have assembled unfolds,
be caught up in the reality of ULTRARAMA--the _realer_-than-reality
Ultra-reality of ULTRARAMA. Shall we begin?"
The lights in the theater dimmed--and the vast screen came to life.
It was incredible.
And they were in Africa.
The huge plains of South Africa opened out before them. Hendriks
turned his head, looking around in astonishment. The audience seemed
to have disappeared. He was alone--alone in a world of yellowing grass
and strange thick trees, a flat world where death could strike at any
moment.
In the distance he saw four grotesque shapes--giraffes, moving along
in their ungainly but yet tremendously rapid way, their long necks
projecting stiffly from their bodies. He repressed a chuckle.
And then a low growl made him jump. He backed against a rough-barked
tree and felt sweat cascade down his body as a tawny shape sprang from
behind a twisted shrub, pounced on one of the giraffes, smashed the
fragile neck with a fierce swipe of a paw.
The lioness. Sudden death springing from nowhere, a bright streak that
brought violence. Hendriks looked around uneasily. The giraffes had
fled; the lioness was dragging her kill into the underbrush. The warm
smell of death was in the air--that, and the buzzing of green-eyed
flies an inch long. Perched on a scrawny, almost leafless tree were
hooded ugly shapes.