Synopsis: "We have a society of coneheads—everyone has to wear an appropriately colored cone in public—living in cone-shaped houses in a gigantic cone that to them is the World. Food and other necessities appear as if by magic. All needs are supplied, supposedly by the Immortals who created the World and live beyond it. Orthodoxy is rigidly reinforced. Questioning the nature of the World, and especially speculating on what might lie beyond, are forbidden, and punishment for expressing wrong thoughts is swift and painful. Jellin believes that there is a natural explanation for everything, that everyone should be allowed to think whatever they wish, and that the cone, far from being all of the World, is more in the nature of a prison. Fortunately for him, the Master Oligarch is of the same opinion. They make an exciting escape together, barely getting away from the anti-heresy enforcers and floating in a balloon to the top of the cone. There they leave their World, only to discover that what's outside is not at all what they expected."—Janice Clark