Space gladiators, p.24
Space Gladiators, page 24
The gawkers screamed and howled for blood but I had other ideas. Already exhausted, I doubted my ability to penetrate his thick hide, though he lay helpless. More important to me than his destruction were the death of another and the love of a third.
Urut floated around and around on tractors, frantically twisting his body to redirect his dangling arms and their pressors. I shot forward and spoke for the first time.
“Urut. Cooperate with me and live to fight another day.”
In a high, squeaking voice he warily asked, “What is it you want?”
“I want out of this cage and you can help. What they do to me outside and where I go should be of no concern to anyone but me—and no one will suspect your help in what will follow.”
“What do I do?”
“I am going to use both pressors and tractors to propel myself through the cage. Only if I go very quickly will my chest band remain sufficiently cool for me to survive. I am going to place myself within range of your tractors and with their help, and the quickness of your legs, I can crash through. Will you do this Urut?”
“But you will die if we are not quick enough. Why should you place yourself within my control when you have already won?”
“Urut, my friend, you and I have no quarrel. We have never had. We fight only to survive—now let us help each other live. I want freedom and revenge. You want your life. Why should we not bargain?”
The crowd began the death chant.
“Blood—blood! Kill the hulk! Kill the hulk—”
I could tell from their frenzy that soon something must be done or their passion would be on all of us. Urut could also sense it. The idea of mutual help was not yet fully integrated in his mind but he nodded.
“May your mud-nest be pleasing!”
I swung to the other side of the arena to begin my plan.
From hundreds of previous fights I knew every inch of the arena bedrock and I used the knowledge to advantage. I flung wrist pressors at each point behind me and ankle tractors ahead of me, accelerating swiftly in line with Urut. The crowd hushed and Urut patiently moved his hulk into position for the throw.
I swung past his body swiftly. More swiftly still he lashed onto me with both tractors webbed together. I felt the fringe of their beams pass my arms, then my head and thick neck absorbed the pull and I was flung up to and against the magnetic shield surrounding us.
My chest band glowed and part of my body tried to wrench itself backward—but still onward and through I passed. I flew over the heads of those in the first tiers, then plowed into the next ranks.
Heads popped; chest, arm and leg bones snapped. 1 arose amidst the gore of dead and dying gawkers. Their hush changed to screams. Pandemonium reigned.
A small number in the crowd rushed to the exits but the majority stood shouting, “Champion! Champion! Champion!”
Over and over again their acknowledgement echoed—like the beating of surf on the rocky shores—until my very bones vibrated with the chant. Never before had one escaped the magnetic arena and the crowd was wild with enthusiasm.
I should have trusted to my judgment of their emotion. My next move was utterly foolish. I swung out to reach for Trevic Stronger, hoping to crush his thin neck between my pressors. Above and below and all around me flew his weblon-encased protectors.
High over me were the platforms of heavy rays, while on each side were the smaller hand weapons—but I had agility, speed and coordination far beyond those of any group of Stronger guards. I had one tactic which would catch them by surprise. My muscles were trained to use beams but my mind was trained to use muscles. With those I bowled over the first group, tumbling weapon and guard onto the tiers below.
Brood World Barbarian
III
Fighting one-G animals in an open environment and with full knowledge of their beams and rays, I was more than a match for them all. But no matter how I hacked and hewed, how cleverly I spilled their heavy weapons, 1 still could not reach Stronger. I can see him yet in my memory, sitting back, watching with faint amusement as I tossed his guards here and there like feathers— only to find more guards taking their places.
The gawkers shrieked with pleasure over this new form of entertainment and I turned and ran, dashing up beyond the seat rims, finding space between the roof and two structural pressor beams to squeeze my bulky body through.
Outside the arena I fell several hundred feet before my rays caught bedrock below and I could twist myself across the pylons and roadways of this ungodly civilization to search for the city’s end and silent peace.
Behind me, perhaps a mile away, the guards boiled out from the arena area and I swept down low below their sight level. Another mile and another and another—when would the city end?
Then little by little trees, parks and farms replaced city blocks, until only farm land and tall mountains lay ahead. That first night I slept in peace among the wild foothills of this strange world, free for the first time since being taken from my brood world. In my dreams lived the face of Strenger—but also in my dreams was the sad, melancholy face of Patricia and my body longed for both in their proper place.
The morning sun no longer seemed so hot and sultry. The air seemed fresher and the planet, even with its strange flora and fauna, appeared friendly. I speared a small carnivore with a tractor beam, drank fresh water and ate the raw meat, then washed and rested while I thought.
Were I to go back to the city my large bulk would easily identify me as the Champion. My muscles would be impossible to hide in this civilization.
Farmers I knew about because of my helter-skelter education-1 knew, for example, that some Sabre planet genius had called farmers stewards of the state. Could I trust the farmer not to turn me in for one of Strenger’s high rewards? I thought not.
Though I searched my brain for other informative tidbits on this society, I concluded that only the mountains and hills would hide me.
I removed my tractors and pressors, fastening them to my chest band by means of twisted fibers, then unhesitatingly I strode off toward the snow-capped mountains ahead.
Day followed day and night followed night. I easily speared game with tractor or pressor while I followed the animal trails from elevation to elevation. My body stayed in trim and my hate gradually oozed outward as my path came closer to the appearance of rocky plateaus similar to my brood world—all, that is, except the tiny, reserved corner of my emotions which repeated my need over and over.
Kill Strenger.
The rock path wound upward and I trod closer to the snowy peaks, my body now covered with animal skins for warmth. Slowly the rock turned to snow, then snow to mixed snow and ice, glazing white while I moved onward and upward, never hurrying, never slowing.
Miles of ice were crossed and only once did I have to pull myself from a deep crevice by means of a tractor beam. Finally the downslope snow line was reached on the mountain’s other side. I stepped with relief into familiar rocky plateaus, fully expecting a similar leisurely pace downward. Then it happened.
It was Strenger again. I was caught. His men dropped the cage neatly over my body and turned the field on high. He came from behind the rocks with his bold smile and just looked, hands folded against his chest.
“The gawkers now love you, barbarian, and we can still make a truce. Come, I invite you to bury your hatred. You are one of the greatest of our world’s champions—over all time—and it saddens me, your waste. By popular demand I can now release you from gladiator status to become a free citizen. But how can I permit a hate-driven barbarian to roam free among us?”
I showed my feeling by emitting a low growl. I clenched my fists, imagining his thick neck in my hands.
Trevic beckoned his retainers to lower the cage. He found a convenient rock upon which to sit while he pleaded his case again with me.
“Know this, barbarian. Your use of tractor and pressor beams can be traced wherever you go on the Sabre planets. Even so, you have no further need for them, no matter what your decision.”
He motioned with his finger and my cage began to tighten until my chest band squeezed me from all directions. Weblon-encased tools drove through my shield and skillfully cut my beams from my chest band, after which the cage was restored in size.
“Your chest band is made of the world’s strongest metal. It cannot be removed without special scientific tools. Wherever you wear it, you are subject to immediate seizure and capture. Do you still wish these marks of the gladiator?”
My tongue finally loosed.
I spoke in an angry voice, “You tore me from my brood-world without my permission, mad king, and I shall one day kill you!”
Unable to reason with me further, he beckoned his men forward. My cage was lifted by weblon devices and I continued my trans-mountain flight as his captive.
IV
They towed me farther into the mountains, disregarding any inconvenience inertia might make to my caged body. My chest band glowed again and again as my body bounced off the cage’s sides.
Perhaps fifty miles inward, we followed another rocky path down to the valley of our destination. Below us, laid out in neat geometrical array, were the energy cages of thousands of humans.
Walking like tiny bugs between each cage were the weblon-protected guards who passed out either food or water or else the whip—whichever seemed most appropriate for the moment.
A scrap of random information forced its way into my conscious mind—forced, I suppose, by the association of the antlike men far below. Only a century ago someone named G. Harcel had said, “Men are tiny bugs once they have seen their souls.”
Could any information be more useless at a time like this?
High on one side were the mine tailings, glistening red from the evening sun. Immediately behind those tailings stood the factory, puffing out streamers of noxious gases which, I eventually learned, represented part of the physical and chemical wastes resulting from separating weblon metal from the ores found deep in the planet’s crust.
My cage was tugged next to a larger one. The aurora along the side, signifying an opening in my cage, burned brightly and I hurried across into the larger. Trevic Strenger paid his last respects then.
“Enjoy your new lessons, barbarian. When you have learned more, find a way to contact me. Perhaps we may yet be friends.”
He walked away and I flung myself furiously at my magnetic shield.
My routine was simple. Each day, every day, I was chained to a row of ten other prisoners who walked two miles along the valley floor and three miles downward on sloping shafts to our work area. Here alternating tractor-pressor beams were given to us, each a model considered too large for a single human to support.
Two of us would hold the mining tool, aiming it at the green streak of weblon metal running throughout the enormous, partly natural and partly man-made caverns. The alternating tractor-pressor forces acted swiftly on the cavern walls, grinding all but the impervious weblon metal to thin mono-molecular layers.
Follow-up crews sucked up the dust-mixed metal and transported it back to the surface, where further chemical and physical processes separated the pure weblon metal from the mono-molecular dust layers. Large ships transported the purified weblon to other industrial locations for treatment into forms and shapes for use wherever beam neutrality was required.
It was obvious from the beginning that I was different from the others. Most were political prisoners with only puny muscles. Most were gregarious creatures, friendly with one another, some counting days until their release while others were hopelessly resigned to making the best of a lifetime under lock and chain.
Though I was as sociable as anyone on my brood world, here I snarled and spat until, like one with a great scabrous disease, I was avoided by all.
Enemies were easy to make. The chip on my shoulder was as big as a sturdy oak, balanced precariously and waiting patiently for anyone to tip its trunk toward the ground.
It took only one or two short tussles for my strength, agility and training to show.
We were fed in line and normally the distance between my chained figure and others in my line was the maximum length of chain between us. One day a particularly fast, aggressive person bumped against my broad body in his eagerness to get nourishment. I swung around snarling, grabbed his neck between my giant paws and began to squeeze the life from him.
Only the whips of the guards and the combined pulls of other prisoners dragged me from his body while life still throbbed in him.
Another day my reflexes were sufficiently quick to grab the whip from a guard as he swung its tip toward me. I turned the whip around and nearly lacerated the guard to death before others could stop me.
That was the day all of them, prisoners and guards alike, combined positive efforts against me. That I was not only asocial but beyond the restraints of any ordinary prison had now become obvious.
In the first attempt at my life one of the heavy tractor-pressor beam generators was tipped on me from a height of about fifteen feet. Fortunately my gladiator-honed senses caught the movement and I easily side-stepped and safely evaded what seemed to me was the generator’s slow fall. I didn’t catch on then.
The next time a small, wiry prisoner pushed his body against mine in such a way that I tumbled backward into the yawning black chasm below us. I twisted and caught the edge of the chasm’s rim and quickly drew myself upward.
Already the guards had moved my attacker beyond reach, passing him quickly to the surface to become part of a different and unreachable work crew. It was then I began to suspect.
One day the guards left our work crew. All became quiet and I looked up from my work to see every eye staring at me. Some had grasped rocks and stones while others grabbed the neck chains lying nearby. Slowly the group closed in on me, eyes glazed and muscles taut.
I moved swiftly to my gladiator’s stance and waited quietly. Every sense on the alert, I could place every one of the nine-around me. How little they knew of my training. None had access to gladiator power-beams and I was now faced with a purely two-dimensional problem.
The rocks came first and I easily dodged them. Then, in quick resolve, all nine swooped in toward me. I rushed through the circle, grabbing the nearest one holding the chain. Lifting him from the ground I flailed the group, though the chain was still held by two others. Those poor misguided point-seven-G fools had no concept of a gladiator’s training and strength.
I flailed until it seemed that none survived. But two had climbed above me during the melee to redirect the mining beam at my body.
I am quick and well coordinated but even I could not move as fast as their fingers on the machine’s switch.
Quite probably the alternating tractor-pressor beam had never been used on human flesh around these prisoners before. They certainly had no knowledge of the effect of the beams when used this way. I stood my ground and let the waves of current ripple through my body, neither resisting nor helping the flow of alternate tugs and pulls, and my gladiator-trained body as well as my water-based tissue withstood the strains well. Every piece of metal I wore—including my hated chest band and the newly attached neck band—disintegrated into mono-molecular powder as fine as any created in the weblon mines. I was truly free of their hated instruments of capture now.
I leaped to the machine’s top and from there crushed my attackers’ heads like eggshells. Now only I, the mining machine and the solitude of the caverns remained in this branch of the tunnel, I wondered how long I had before the guards returned?
Behind me lay certain capture. Directly ahead of me lay granitic rock, but to my side lay the deep, perhaps more dangerous chasm. What choice did I have?
I picked up the mining tool and chain, using the latter to tie the tool to my back. Then slowly, using trained fingers and toes, I picked my way down the steep crevice’s side, using the slightest of indentations along the wall to support my own two hundred pounds and the additional two hundred on my back.
Down I crawled. Down until my fingers and toes were sore beyond description—down until I reached the first ledge. Here I rested, conserving my strength for the next lap downward. Again and yet again I traveled downward, resting from ledge to ledge, sometimes finding one only when it seemed that my last reserves of strength had been reached. Would I never reach the bottom?
• • •
I dropped pebbles down the long, dark, silent tube, hearing only the sibilance of air sweeping around its path—never hearing splash or bounce of its final strike. It was then I paused to consider.
It was highly doubtful that I could go up again and going farther down seemed useless. Now was the time to unlimber my mining instrument.
Then I pointed the alternating tractor-pressor inward against the chasm’s wall and powdered my way forward. The first layer powdered at my feet and swept outward into the chasm below. Soon I was scrabbling with hands and knees to force the dust backward behind me. Fortunately the mono-molecular layers filled less space than their more complex forms and air from the chasm swept in behind me as the stone ahead powdered to the floor.
Mile after mile I bored ahead. When tired, I rested. Then I bored again for miles. Days passed. Even my gladiator’s physique suffered from lack of nourishment. My body became sluggish, my mind tormented by memories of the sneering laughter and red-spurting throat of Trevic Stronger and by the graceful body and full lips of his daughter. The latter vision filled my mind to overflowing until my muscles responded.
I pressed on, even forgetting which was was up and which down and distrusting my fatigued senses for knowledge of either direction.
Dust filled my mouth, my eyes, my ears and, it seemed, even my mind, until I could go no farther. With one last effort at survival I shoved my poundage and my machine against the wall, lurched forward. Under sudden acceleration both .the machine and my body fell outward and down as the thin wall between my tunnel and the opening broke through.
