Free Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top by Ekaterina Sedia

displayed. Distinguished academics waited to discuss and argue the merits of each piece. She walked past the covered Theatre of Erotica where the performers danced their lavish spectacles. Jinkers smiled at the queue of youngsters waiting outside. Only those who were eighteen could enter. Nobody had ever beaten the retinal scan. From the Theatre of Nature she heard the sounds of Earth’s animals. To the punters they were legendary beasts, seen only once in a lifetime. She listened for a moment to the roars and to the gasps of the audience. The big cats were in the theatre today.
    There was so much to see here in the Circosphere, a wealth of imagination geared to every taste and desire. The best performers of Earth and her colonies were here. It was a palace of merging cultures and lavish wealth.
    In the distance, a flash of colour caught Jinker’s eye. She saw a jewelled tower rising high towards the electronic sky. It was the Theatre of History. Babylon had come to the Circosphere again. She remembered visiting Babylon twenty years ago, when she had first come to the Circosphere. How she’d marvelled at the sight. She had to see this again. Jinkers walked quickly to the theatre. She pushed through the punters standing at the ornate gates. The golden mosaic lions and the mushussu dragons looked down upon her.
    She breathed in the aroma of the replicated Babylon: aged spice and dry sand. The costumed circus people acted out the roles of ancient Babylonians. Here were a group of Ishtar’s handmaidens laughing with the punters. Here were the stern faced soldiers, their eyes barely flickering as Jinkers nodded to them.
    Jinkers entered the lapis lazuli palace of Nebuchadnezzar. She remembered the sense of awe that had struck her, the majesty of the spectacle had overwhelmed her twenty years ago. There was nothing like this on her colony home world, where all resources were geared towards survival. But here on the Circosphere there was magic. Jinkers had felt part of it. The history of Earth belonged to her and to every other human.
    But now, as Jinkers walked through the palace, she didn’t feel the same. She watched the punters stare in wonder at the spectacle of their collective past. She wanted to share their experience, to recapture the emotion she’d felt all those years ago. But all she could see was a facsimile of reality. When she looked at the throne, she didn’t marvel at the luxury of wealth, instead she saw the cost of the gold plating and remembered the builders’ overpriced estimates.
    She listened to David interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s famous dreams, the dreams written into the Old Testament and passed through thousands of years of history. She saw the punters listening intently to David’s words. They believed. But Jinkers only saw an actor nervously playing his first major role.
    She saw through the illusion of history. Her administrator’s eye had spoiled the magic and the fantasy.
    The Theatre of History team had worked hard. She made a mental note to send them a memo acknowledging their efforts. Then Jinkers left Babylon and walked slowly back to her office.
    Her office was located at the heart of the Circosphere. The Theatres of Entertainment ran in all directions from this core. Jinkers was responsible for this massive space station, ensuring that the punters had the most marvellous time of their lives—so that the real business of the Circosphere could be achieved.
    A myriad messages awaited her. It was surprising how many messages could be accumulated in a few short hours away from her office. She ran them through the A.I. programme to select for importance.
    “Every day the circus balances on the tightrope,” that’s what Barnabus Mcfee, her predecessor, used to say. But lately, Jinkers had been unsure of her footing. She felt as if her next steps could see the edifice of the circus crashing to the ground.
    The computer finished analysing the messages, prioritising a message from Brent