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The Cyclone's handlers had hacked away the torn tangle of
organs under the caution flag, repaired the neck artery during
the second pit stop and retired glumly to their corner to watch
their man walk into the meat grinder again.
The Dervish was sitting erect while his crew did more work
to the facial wound. One eyeball was split open and useless.
Blood had temporarily blinded him during the second round,
rendering him unable to fully exploit the terrible wound he'd
inflicted on his opponent. Brenda had expressed concern during
the lull that the Dervish might not employ his famous spin now
that his depth perception had been destroyed. But the Dervish
was not about to disappoint his fans, one eye or not.
A red light went on over the Cyclone's corner. It made the
crowd murmur excitedly.
"Why do they call it a corner?" I asked.
"Huh?"
"It's a round ring. It doesn't have any corners."
She shrugged. "It's traditional, I guess." Then she smiled
maliciously. "You can research it before you write this up for
Walter."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Why the hell not? 'Sports, Then and Now.' It's a
natural."
She was right, of course, but that didn't make it any
harder to swallow. I wasn't particularly enjoying this role
reversal. She was supposed to be the ignorant one.
"What about that red light? What's it mean?"
"Each of the fighters gets ten liters of blood for
transfusions. See that gauge on the scoreboard? The Cyclone
just used his last liter. Dervish has seven liters left."
"So it's just about over."
"He'll never last another round."
And he didn't.
The last round was an artless affair. No more fancy spins,
no flying leaps. The crowd shouted a little at first, then
settled down to watch the kill. People began drifting out of
the arena to get refreshments before the main bout of the
evening. The Dervish moved constantly away as the dazed Cyclone
lumbered after him, striking out from time to time, opening
more wounds. Bleeding his opponent to death. Soon the Cyclone
could only stand there, dumb and inert with loss of blood. A
few people in the crowd were booing. The Dervish slashed the
Cyclone's throat. Arterial blood spurted into the air, and the
Cyclone crashed to the mat. The Dervish bent over his fallen
foe, worked briefly, and then held the head high. There was
sporadic applause and the handlers moved in, hustling the
Dervish down to the locker rooms and hauling away both pieces
of the Cyclone. The zamboni appeared and began mopping up the
blood.
"You want some popcorn?" Brenda asked me.
"Just something to drink," I told her. She joined the
throngs moving toward the refreshment center.
I turned back toward the ring, savoring a feeling that had
been all too rare of late: the urge to write. I raised my left
hand and snapped my fingers. I snapped them again before I
remembered the damn handwriter was not working. It hadn't been
working for five days, since Brenda's visit to Texas. The
problem seemed to be in the readout skin. I could type on the
keyboard on the heel of my hand, but nothing appeared on the
readout. The data was going into the memory and could later be
downloaded, but I can't work that way. I have to see the words
as they're being formed.
Necessity is the mother of invention. I slipped through
the program book Brenda had left on her chair, found a blank
page. Then I rummaged through my purse and found a blue pen I
kept for hand corrections to hard copy.
#
(File Hildy*next avail.*)(code Bloodsport)
(headline to come)
#
There may be no evidence of it, but you can bet cave men
had sporting events. We still have them today, and if we ever
reach the stars, we'll have sports out there, too.
Sports are rooted in violence. They usually contain the
threat of injury. Or at least they did until about a hundred
and fifty years ago.
Sports today, of course, are totally nonviolent.
The modern sports fan would be shocked at the violence of
sports as it existed on Earth. Take for example one of the
least violent sports, one we still practice today, the simple
foot race. Runners rarely completed a career without numerous
injuries to knees, ankles, muscles, or spine. Sometimes these
injuries could be repaired, and sometimes they couldn't. Every
time a runner competed, he faced the possibility of injury that
would plague him for the rest of his life.
In the days of the Romans, athletes fought each other with
swords and other deadly weapons--not always voluntarily.
Crippling injury or death was certain, in every match.
Even in later, more "enlightened" days, many sports were
little more than organized mayhem. Teams of athletes crashed
into each other with amazing disregard for the imperfect skills
of contemporary healers. People strapped themselves into ground
vehicles or flying machines and raced at speeds that would turn
them into jelly in the event of a sudden stop. Crash helmets,
fist pads, shoulder, groin, knee, rib, and nose protectors
tried to temper the carnage but by their mere presence were
testimony to the violent potential in all these games.
Did I hear someone protesting out there? Did someone say
our modern sports are much more violent than those of the past?
What a ridiculous idea.
Modern athletes typically compete in the nude. No
protection is needed or wanted. In most sports, bodily damage
is expected, sometimes even desired, as in slash boxing. A
modern athlete just after a competition would surely be a
shocking sight to a citizen of any Earth society. But modern
sports produce no cripples.
It would be nice to think this universal non-violence was
the result of some great moral revolution. It just ain't so. It
is a purely technological revolution. There is no injury today
that can't be fixed.
The fact is, "violence" is a word that no longer means
what it used to. Which is the more violent: a limb being torn
off and quickly re-attached with no ill effects, or a crushed
spinal disc that causes its owner pain every second of his life
and cannot be repaired?
I know which injury I'd prefer.
That kind of violence is no longer something to fear,
because
(discuss Olympic games, influence of local gravity in
venues)
(mention Deathmatches)
(Tie to old medicine article?)(ask Brenda)
#
I hastily scribbled the last few lines, because I saw
Brenda returning with the popcorn.
"What're you doing?" she asked, resuming her seat. I
handed her the page. She scanned it quickly.
"Seems a little dry," was her only comment.
"You'll hype it up some," I told her. "This is your
field." I reached over and took a kernel of popcorn from her,
then took a big bite out of it. She had bought the large bag: a
dozen fist-sized puffs, white and crunchy, dripping with
butter. It tasted great, washed down with the big bottle of
beer she handed me.
While I was writing there had been an exhibition from some
children's slash-boxing school. The children were filing out
now, most of them cross-hatched with slashes of red ink from
the training knives they used. Medical costs for children were
high enough without letting them practice with real knives.
The ringmaster appeared and began hyping the main event of
the evening, a Deathmatch between the champion Manhattan Mugger
and a challenger known as One Mean Bitch.
Brenda leaned toward me and spoke out of the side of her
mouth.
"Put your money on the Bitch," she said.
"If she's gonna win, what the hell are we doing here?"
"Ask Walter. This was his idea."
The purpose of our visit to the fights was to interview
the Manhattan Mugger--also known as Andrew MacDonald--with an
eye toward hiring him as our Earth-born consultant on the
bicentennial series. MacDonald was well over two hundred years
old. The trouble was, he had elected to fight to the death. If
he lost, his next interview would be with St. Peter. But Walter
had assured us there was no way his man was going to lose.
"I was talking to a friend out at the concessions," Brenda
went on. "There's no question the Mugger is the better fighter.
This is his tenth Deathmatch in the last two years. What this
guy was saying is, ten is too much for anybody. He said the
Mugger was dogging it in the last match. He won't get away with
that against the Bitch. He says the Mugger doesn't want to win
anymore. He just wants to die."
The contestants had entered the ring, were strutting
around, showing off, as holo pictures of their past bouts
appeared high in the air and the announcer continued to make it
sound as if this would be the fight of the century.
"Did you bet on her?"
"I put down fifty, for a kill in the second."
I thought that over, then beckoned to a tout. He handed me
a card, which I marked and thumbed. He stuck the card in the
totaliser on his belt, then handed me the marker. I pocketed
it.
"How much did you invest?"
"Ten. To win." I didn't tell her it was on the Mugger.
The contestants were in their "corners," being oiled down,
as the announcer continued his spiel. They were magnificent
specimens, competing in the highest body-mass class, matched to
within a kilogram. The lights flashed on their glistening
browned skins as they shadow-boxed and danced, skittish as race
horses, bursting with energy.
"This bout is being conducted under the sporting by-laws
of King City," the announcer said, "which provide for voluntary
Deathmatches for one or both parties. The Manhattan Mugger has
elected to risk death tonight. He has been advised and
counseled, as required by law, and should he die tonight, it
will be deemed a suicide. The Bitch has agreed to deliver the
coup de grace, should she find herself in a position to do so,
and understands she will not be held responsible in any way."
"Don't worry about it!" the Mugger shouted, glaring at his
opponent. It got a laugh, and the announcer looked grateful for
the interruption in the boring paragraphs the law required him
to read.
He brought them out to the middle of the ring and read
them the rule--which was simply to stop fighting when they
heard the bell. Other than that, there were no rules. He had
them shake hands, and told them to come out fighting.
#
"The first stinking round. I can't believe it."
Brenda was still complaining, half an hour after the
finish of the match. It had not been a contest that would go
down in history.
We were waiting in the reception area outside the entrance
to the locker rooms. MacDonald's manager had told us we could
go in to see him as soon as the pit crew had him patched up.
Considering the small amount of damage he had suffered, I
didn't expect that to be too much longer.
I heard a commotion and turned to see the Cyclone emerging
into a small group of dedicated fans, mostly children. He got
out a pen and began signing autographs. He was dressed in black
shirt and pants, and had a bulky brace around his neck, which
seemed a small enough inconvenience for a man whose head had
been rolling around the ring an hour earlier. He'd wear it
until the new muscles had been conditioned enough to support
his head. I figured that wouldn't be long; the brain of a man
in his profession couldn't weigh all that much.
The door opened again and MacDonald's manager beckoned to
us.
We followed him down a dim corridor lined with numbered
doors. One of them was open and I could hear moaning coming
from it. I glanced in as we passed. There was a bloody mess on
a high table, with half a dozen pit crew clustered around.
"You don't mean to tell me . . . "
"What?" Brenda said, and glanced into the room. "Oh. Yeah,
she fights without nerve deadening."
"I thought--"
"Most fighters turn their pain center way down, just
enough so they know when they've been hit. But a few feel that
trying to avoid real pain makes them quicker on their feet."
"It sure would make me quicker."
"Yeah, well, obviously it wasn't enough tonight."
I was glad I'd had only the one piece of popcorn.
The Manhattan Mugger was sitting in a diagnostic chair,
wearing a robe and smoking a cheroot. His left leg was propped
up and being worked on by one of his trainers. He smiled when
he saw us, and held out his hand.
"Andy MacDonald," he said. "Pardon me for not getting up."
We both shook his hand, and he waved us into seats. He
offered us drinks, which a member of his entourage brought us.
Then Brenda launched into a breathless recap of the match,
full of glowing praise for his martial skills. You'd never have
known she just lost fifty on him. I sat back and waited, fully
expecting we'd spend the next hour talking about the finer
points of slash boxing. He was smiling faintly as Brenda went
on and on, and I figured I had to say something, if only to be
polite.
"I'm not a sports fan," I said, not wishing to be too
polite, "but it seemed to me your technique was different from
the others I saw tonight."
He took a long drag on his cheroot, then examined the
glowing tip as he slowly exhaled purple smoke. He transferred
his gaze to me, and some of the heat seemed to go with it.
There was a deepness to his eyes I hadn't noticed at first. You
see that sometimes, in the very old. These days, of course, it
is usually the only way you can tell someone is old. MacDonald
certainly had no other signs of age. His body looked to be in
its mid-twenties, but he'd had little choice in its features,
given his profession. Slash boxers inhabit fairly standardized
bodies, in nine different formulas or weight classes, as a way
of minimizing any advantage gained by sheer body mass. His face
seemed a bit older, but that could have been just the eyes. It
wasn't old enough for age to have impressed a great deal of
character on it. Neither was it one of those generic
"attractive" faces about half the population seem to prefer. I
got the feeling this was pretty much the way he might have
looked in his youth, which-I remembered, with a little
shock--had been spent on Earth.
The Earth-born are not precisely rare. The CC told me
there were around ten thousand of them still alive. But they
look like anyone else, usually, and tend not to announce
themselves. There were some who made a big thing about their
age--the perennial talk-show guests, storytellers, professional
nostalgics--but by and large the Earth-born were a closeted
minority. I had never wondered why before.
"Walter said you'd talk me into joining this project of
his," MacDonald said, finally, ignoring my own comment. "I told
him he was wrong. Not that I intend to be stubborn about it; if
you can give me a good reason why I should spend a year with
you two, I'd like to hear it."
"If you know Walter," I countered, "you'll know he's
possibly the least perceptive man in Luna, where other people
are concerned. He thinks I'm enthusiastic about this project.
He's wrong. As far as I know, Walter is the only one interested
in this project. It's just a job to me."
"I'm interested," Brenda piped up. MacDonald shifted his
gaze to her, but didn't feel the need to leave it there long. I
had the feeling he had learned all he needed to know about her
in that brief look.
"My style," he said, "is a combination of ancient fighting
techniques that never got transplanted to Luna. Some
well-meaning but foolish people passed a law a long time ago
banning the teaching of these oriental disciplines. That was
back when the conventional wisdom was we ought to live together
in peace, not ever fight each other again, certainly not ever
kill each other. Which is a nice idea, I guess.
"It even worked, partially. The murder rate is way, way
down from what it was in any human society on Earth."
He took another long drag on his smoke. His attendants
finished their work on his leg, packed up, and left us alone. I
began to wonder if that was all he had to say, when he finally
spoke again.
"Opinions shift. You live as long as I have, you'll see
that over and over."
"I'm not as old as you, but I've seen it."
"How old are you?" he asked.
"One hundred. Three days ago." I saw Brenda look at me,
open her mouth to say something, then close it again. Probably
I'd get chewed out for not telling her so she could throw a
centennial birthday party for me.
MacDonald looked at me with even more interest than
before, narrowing those disturbing eyes.
"Feel any different?"
"You mean because I'm a hundred years old? Why should I?"
"Why, indeed. It's a milestone, certainly, but it doesn't
really mean anything. Right?"
"Right."
"Anyway, to get back to the question . . . there were
always those who felt that, with natural evolutionary processes
no longer working, we should make some attempt to foster a
certain amount of aggressiveness. Without sanctioning real
killing, we could at least learn how to fight. So boxing was
re-introduced, and that eventually led to the blood sports you
see today."
"This is just the sort of perspective Walter wants," I
pointed out.
"Yes. I didn't say I didn't have the perspective you need.
I'm just curious as to why I should use it for you."
"I've been thinking that one over, too," I said. "Just as
an exercise, you understand. And you know, I can't think of
anything that's likely to convince a man in the middle of a
protracted suicide to put it off for a year and join us in
writing a series of useless stories."
"I used to be a reporter, you know."
"No, I didn't."
"Is that what you think I'm doing? Committing suicide?"
Brenda looked at him earnestly. I could almost feel her
concern.
"If you get killed in the ring, that's what they'll call
it," she said.
He got up and went to a small bar at the side of the room.
Without asking what we wanted, he poured three glasses of a
pale green liqueur and brought them back to us. Brenda sniffed
it, tasted, then took a longer drink.
"You can't imagine the sense of defeatism after the
Invasion," he said. It was apparently impossible to keep him on
any subject, so I relaxed to the inevitable. As a reporter you
learn to let the subject talk.
"To call it a war is a perversion of the word. We fought,
I suppose, in the sense that ants fight when the hill is kicked
over. I suppose ants can fight valiantly in such a situation,
but it hardly matters to the man who kicked the hill. He barely
notices what he has done. He may not even have had any actual
malice toward ants; it might have been an accident, or a
side-effect of another project, like plowing a field. We were
plowed under in a single day.
"Those of us here in Luna were in a state of shock. In a
way, that state of shock lasted many decades. In a way . . .
it's still with us today."
He took another drag on his cheroot.
"I'm one of those who was alarmed at the nonviolence
movement. It's great, as an ideal, but I feel it leaves us in a
dead end, and vulnerable."
"You mean evolution?" Brenda asked.
"Yes. We shape ourselves genetically now, but are we
really wise enough to know what to select for? For a billion
years the selection was done naturally. I wonder if it's wise
to junk a system that worked for so long."
"Depends on what you mean by 'worked,'" I said.
"Are you a nihilist?"
I shrugged.
"All right. Worked, in the sense that life forms got more
complex. Biology seemed to be working toward something. We know
it wasn't us-the Invaders proved there are things out there a
lot smarter than we are. But the Invaders were gas giant
beings, they must have evolved on a planet like Jupiter. We're
hardly even related. It's commonly accepted that the Invaders
came to Earth to save the dolphins and whales from our
pollution. I don't know of any proof of that, but what the
hell. Suppose it's true. That means the aquatic mammals have
brains organized more like the Invaders than like us. The
Invaders don't see us as truly intelligent, any more than other
engineering species, like bees, or corals, or birds. True or
not, the Invaders don't really have to concern us anymore. Our
paths don't cross; we have no interests in common. We're free
to pursue our own destiny . . . but if we don't evolve, we
don't have a destiny."
He looked from one of us to the other and back again. This
seemed pretty important to him. Personally, I'd never given
much thought to the matter.
"There's something else," he went on. "We know there are
aliens out there. We know space travel is possible. The next
time we meet aliens they could be even worse than the Invaders.
They might want to exterminate us, rather than just evict us. I
think we ought to keep some fighting skills alive in case we
meet some disagreeable critters we can fight."
Brenda sat up, wide-eyed.
"You're a Heinleiner," she said.
It was MacDonald's turn to shrug.
"I don't attend services, but I agree with a lot of what
they say. But we were talking about martial arts."
Is that what we were talking about? I'd lost track.
"Those arts were lost for almost a century. I spent ten
years studying thousands of films from the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries, and I pieced them back together. I
spent another twenty years teaching myself until I felt I was
adept. Then I became a slash boxer. So far, I'm undefeated. I
expect to remain that way until someone else duplicates my
techniques."
"That would be a good subject for an article," Brenda
suggested. "Fighting, then and now. People used to have all
kinds of weapons, right? Projectile weapons, I mean. Ordinary
citizens could own them."
"There was one country in the twentieth century that made
their possession almost mandatory. It was a civil right, the
right to own firearms. One of the weirder civil rights in human
history, I always thought. But I'd have owned one, if I'd lived
there. In an armed society, the unarmed man must be a pretty
nervous fellow."
"It's not that I don't find all this perfectly
fascinating," I said, standing and stretching my arms and legs
to get the circulation going again. "I don't, but that's beside
the point. We've been here about half an hour, and already
Brenda has suggested plenty of topics you could be helpful
with. Hell, you could write them yourself, if you remember how.
So how about it? Are you interested, or should we start looking
for someone else?"
He leaned his elbows on his knees and looked at me.
Before long I began to wonder when the theremin music
would begin. A look like that belonged in a horror holo. Eyes
like that should be set in a face that begins to sprout hair
and fangs, or twist like putty into some Nameless Evil Thing. I
mentioned before how deep his eyes seemed. They had been
reflecting pools compared to this.
I don't wish to be superstitious. I don't wish to
attribute powers to MacDonald simply because he had attained a
venerable age. But, looking at those eyes, one could not help
but think of all the things they had seen, and wonder at the
wisdom that might have been attained. I was one hundred years
old, which is nothing to sneer at in the longevity department,
or hadn't been until recent human history, but I felt like a
child being judged by his grandfather, or maybe by God himself.
I didn't like it.
I tried my best to return the gaze--and there was nothing
hostile in it, no challenge being issued to me. If a staring
match was in progress, I was the only one competing. But before
long I had to turn away. I studied the walls, the floor, I
looked at Brenda and smiled at her--which startled her, I
think. Anything to avoid those eyes.
"No," he said, at last. "I don't think I'll join this
project, after all. I'm sorry to have wasted your time."
"No problem," I said, and got up and started for the door.
"What do you mean, 'after all,'" Brenda asked. I turned,
wondering if I could get away with grabbing her arm and
dragging her away.
"I mean, I was considering it, despite everything. Some
aspects of it were beginning to look like fun."
"Then what changed your mind?"
"Come on, Brenda," I said. "I'm sure he has his own
reasons, and they're none of our business." I took her arm, and
tugged at it.
"Stop it," she said, annoyed. "Stop treating me like a
child." She glared at me until I let her go. I suppose it would
have been unkind to point out that she was a child.
"I'd really like to know," she told MacDonald.
He looked at her, not unkindly, then looked away, seeming
embarrassed. I simply report the fact; I have no idea why he
might have been embarrassed.
"I only work with survivors," he said, quietly. Before
either of us had a chance to reply he was on his feet. He
limped slightly as he went to the door and held it open for us.
I got up and jammed my hat on my head. I was almost out
the door when I heard Brenda.
"I don't understand," she was saying. "What makes you
think I'm not a survivor?"
"I didn't say you weren't," he said.
I turned on him.
"Brenda," I said, slowly. "Correct me if I'm wrong. Did I
just hear myself accused of not being a survivor by a man who
risks his life in a game?"
She didn't say anything. I think she realized that,
whatever was going on here, it was between him and me. I wished
I knew what it was, and why it had made me so angry.
"Risks can be calculated," he said. "I'm still alive. I
plan to stay that way."
Nothing good lasts forever. Brenda piped up again.
"What is it about Hildy that makes you--"
"That's none of my business," he interrupted, still
looking at me. "I see something in Hildy. If I were to join you
two, I'd have to make it my business."
"What you see, pal, is a man who takes care of his own
business, and doesn't let some gal with a knife do it for him."
Somehow that didn't come out like I'd intended. He smiled
faintly. I turned and stomped out the door, not waiting to see
if Brenda followed.
#
I lifted my head from the bar. Everything was too bright,
too noisy. I seemed to be on a carousel, but what was that
bottle doing in my hand?
I kept tightly focused on the bottle and things slowly
stopped spinning. There was a puddle of whiskey under the
bottle, and under my arm, and the side of my face was wet. I'd
been lying in the puddle.
"If you throw up on my bar," the man said, "I'll beat you
bloody."
Swinging my gaze toward him was a major project. It was
the bartender, and I told him I wasn't going to throw up, then
I almost choked and staggered toward the swinging doors and
made a mess in the middle of Congress Street.
When I was done I sat down there in the road. Traffic was
no problem. There were a few horses and wagons tied up behind
me, but nothing moved on the dark streets of New Austin. Behind
me were the sounds of revelry, piano music, the occasional
gunshot as the tourists sampled life in the old west.
Somebody was holding a drink before my face. I followed
the arm up to bare shoulders, a long neck, a pretty face
surrounded by curly black hair. Her lipstick was black in the
dim light. She wore a corset, garters, stockings, high heels. I
took the drink and made it vanish. I patted the ground beside
me and she sat, folding her arms on her knees.
"I'll remember your name in a minute," I said.
"Dora."
"Adorable Dora. I want to rip off your clothes and throw
you into bed and make passionate love to your virginal body."
"We already did that. Sorry about the virginal part."
"I want you to have my babies."
She kissed my forehead.
"Marry me, and make me the happiest man in the moon."
"We did that, too, sweetheart. It's a shame you don't
remember it." She held her hand out to me and I saw a gold
wedding ring with a little diamond chip. I squinted at her face
again. There was some kind of filmy aura around it . . .
"That's a bridal veil!" I shouted. She was looking dreamy,
smiling up at the stars.
"We had to sober the parson up, then go bang on the
jeweler's door and send somebody around to find Silas to open
the general store for my gown, but we got it done. The service
was right there in the Alamo, Cissy was my maid of honor and
old Doc stood up for you. All the girls cried."
I must have looked dubious, because she laughed and patted
me on the back.
"The tourists loved it," she said. "It's not every night
we get as colorful as that." She twisted the ring off her
finger and handed it to me. "But I'm too much of a lady to hold
you to vows you made while not in your right mind." She peered
closer at me. "Are you back in your right mind?"
I was back enough to remember that any marriage performed
by the "parson" in "Texas" was not legally binding in King
City. But to get an idea of how far gone I'd been, I'd really
been worried for a moment there.
"A whore with a heart of gold," I said.
"We all have our parts to play. I've never seen the 'town
drunk' done better. Most people omit the vomit."
"I strive for authenticity. Did I do anything
disgraceful?"
"You mean aside from marrying me? I don't mean to be
unkind, but your fourth consummation of our marriage was pretty
disgraceful. I won't spread it around; the first three were
rather special."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the tongue work was some of the best I've--"
"No, I mean . . . "
"I know what you mean. I know there's a word for it.
Inability, immobility . . . a limp cock."
"Impotence."
"That's it. My grandmother told me about it, but I never
expected to see it."
"Stick with me, honey, and I'll show you even more
wonders."
"You were pretty drunk."
"You've finally said something boring."
She shrugged. "I can't swap repartee with a cynic like you
forever."
"Is that what I am? A Cynic?":
She shrugged again, but I thought I saw some concern in
her expression. It was hard to tell, with just moonlight and
swimming eyeballs.
She helped me to my feet, brushed me off, kissed me. I
promised to call on her when I was in town. I don't think she
believed me. I had her point me toward the edge of town, and
started home.
#
Morning was smearing up the sky like pale pink lipstick.
I'd been hearing the rippling of the river for some time.
My efforts at reconstructing the day had brought back some
broad outlines. I recalled taking the tube from the Arena to
Texas, and I knew I'd spent some time working on the cabin. In
there somewhere I saw myself throwing finished lumber into a
ravine. I remembered seriously thinking of burning the cabin to
the ground. The next thing I knew I was sitting at the bar in
the Alamo Saloon, tossing down one drink after another. Then
the clouds rolled in and the memory transcription ended. I had
a hazy picture of the Parson swaying slightly as he pronounced
us man and wife. What a curious phrase. I supposed it was
historically accurate.
I heard a sound, and looked up from the rocky path.
A pronghorn antelope was standing not ten feet in front of
me. He held his head high, alert and proud, but not frightened
of me. His chest was snowy white and his eyes were moist and
brown and wise. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever
seen.
On his worst day he was ten times better than I had ever
been. I sat down on the path and cried for a while. When I
looked up, he was gone.
I felt calm for the first time in many years. I found the
cliff face, located the climbing rope, and hoisted myself to
the top. The sun was still below the horizon but there was a
lot of yellow in the sky now. My hands toyed with the rope. How
did it go . . . the rabbit goes in the hole, the dog chases the
rabbit around the tree, two, three, four . . .
After several tries, I got it right. I slipped it around
my neck and looked down the cliff. Your acceleration is low in
Luna, but your body mass is constant. You need a big drop, six
times what would do on Earth. I tried to do the calculations in
my head but kept losing track.
To be on the safe side, I picked up a large rock and held
it tightly to my chest. Then I jumped. You get plenty of time
for regrets, but I had none. I remember looking up and seeing
Andrew MacDonald looking down at me.
Then came the jerk.
=*= =*= =*= =*=
$$
"If you're going to build a barn for brontosaurs," I told
Brenda, "You'd better make the ceiling at least twenty meters
high."
"And why is that, Mr. Bones?"
Where she'd learned about minstrel shows I had no idea,
but she'd been using the term for a while now, whenever I got
into lecture mode--which, considering the state of her
ignorance, was most of the time. I wasn't going to let it annoy
me.
She was looking up at the ceiling, which was twenty-five
meters above us. Myself, I wasn't looking up all that much
lately. For several days I'd had a persistent and painful
stabbing pain in my neck whenever I turned my head in a certain
position. I kept meaning to visit the medico and get it fixed,
but it would spontaneously remit for a few hours and I'd forget
to make an appointment. Then it would creep up and stab me when
I least expected it.
"Brontosaurs are not real bright. When they get alarmed
they raise their heads and rear up on their hind legs to take a
look around. If the ceiling is too low they smash their teeny
heads against it and stun themselves."
"You've spent time around dinosaurs?"
"I grew up on a dinosaur ranch." I took her elbow and
steered her out of the way of a manure loader. We watched as it
scooped up a pile of watermelon-sized pellets.
"What a stench."
I said nothing. The smell had both good and bad
associations for me. It took me back to my childhood, where one
of my jobs had been operating the manure loader.
Behind us, the massive doors to the swamp began rumbling
open, letting in a blast of air even hotter and more humid than
that inside the barn. In a moment a long neck poked inside the
door, ending in an almost negligible, goofy-looking head. The
neck kept coming in for a very long time before the massive
body made its entrance. By then another head and neck had
appeared.
"Let's get back here out of the way," I suggested to
Brenda. "They won't step on you if they see you, but they tend
to forget where you are not long after they look away from
you."
"Where are they going?"
I pointed toward the open gate across from us. The sign on
it said "Mating Pen Number One."
"Mating season's just about over. Wait till Callie gets
them penned up, then we can take a look. It's pretty
interesting."
One of the brontosaurs made a mournful honk and moved
along a little faster. In one-sixth gee, even a thunder lizard
could be sprightly. I doubt they set any speed records back on
Old Earth. In fact, I wondered how they stood up at all, out of
the water.
The reason for the burst of speed was soon apparent.
Callie entered the barn, mounted on a tyrannosaur. The big
predator responded instantly to every touch of the reins,
hurrying to block an attempted retreat by the male, rearing up
and baring its teeth when it looked as if the female might make
a stand. The big herbivores waddled quickly into the mating
pen. The doors closed automatically behind them.
The thing the ancient paleontologists had never got right
about dinosaurs was their color. You'd think the examples of so
many modern reptiles might have given them a hint. But if you
look at old artists' conceptions of dinosaurs, the predominant
colors were mud-brown and khaki-green. The real item was much
different.
There are several strains of b-saur but the type Callie
prefers are called Cal Tech Yellowbellies, after the lab that
first produced them. In addition to the canary undersides, they
range from that old reliable mud-brown on their backs to a dark
green, emerald green, and kelly green on their sides and necks.
They have streaks of iridescent violet trailing back from their
eyes, and white patches under their throats.
Tyrannosaurs, of course, are predominately red. They have
huge, dangling wattles under their necks, like iguanas, which
can be puffed up to make an outrageous booming mating call. The
wattles are usually deep blue, though purple and even black are
not unknown.
You can't ride a t-saur like a horse; the back is too
steep. There are different methods, but Callie preferred a sort
of narrow platform she could either sit or stand on, depending
on what she was doing. It strapped around the beast's
shoulders. Considering the amount of lizard still rising above
that point, she spent most of her time on her feet, barely able
to peer over the head.
"It looks unstable," Brenda said. "What if she falls off?"
"You don't want to do that," I told her. "They're likely
to snap at you if you come in view suddenly. But don't worry;
this one is muzzled."
An assistant leaped up to join Callie in the saddle. He
took the reins from her and she jumped to the ground. As the
t-saur was being ridden out the barn door she glanced at us,
did a doubletake, and waved at me. I waved back, and she
gestured for us to come over. Not waiting, she started toward
the breeding pen.
I was about to join her when something poked through the
metal railing behind us. Brenda jumped, then relaxed. It was a
brontosaur pup looking for a treat. Looking into the dim pen
behind us, I could see several dozen of the elephant-sized
young ones, most of them snugged into the mud, a few others
gathered around the feeding trough.
I turned out my pockets to show the brute I didn't have
anything on me. I used to carry chunks of sugar-cane, which
they love.
Brenda didn't have any pockets to turn out, for the simple
reason that she wasn't wearing any pants. Her outfit for the
day was knee-length soft leather boots, and a little black
bolero top. This was intended to let me know that she had
acquired something new: primary and secondary sexual
characteristics. I was fairly sure she hoped I'd suggest we put
them to use one of these days soon. I'd first caught on that
she had a crush on me when she learned that Hildy Johnson was
not my born name, but one I had selected myself after a famous
fictional reporter from a play called The Front Page. Soon she
was "Brenda Starr."
I must say she looked more reasonable now. Neuters had
always made me nervous. She had not gone overboard with the
breasts. The pubic hair was natural, not some of the wilder
styles that come and go.
But I was in no mood to try it out. Let her find a child
of her own age.
#
We joined Callie at the breeding pen, climbed up to the
top of the ten-meter gate and stood with her, looking over the
top rail at the nervously milling behemoths.
"Brenda," I said, "I'd like you to meet Calamari Cabrini.
She owns this place. Callie, meet Brenda, my . . . uh,
assistant."
The women reached across me to shake hands, Brenda almost
losing her balance on the slippery steel bars. All three of us
were dripping wet. Not only was it hot and humid in the barn,
but ceiling sprinklers drenched the place every ten minutes
because it was good for the skins of the livestock. Callie was
the only one who looked comfortable, because she wore no
clothes. I should have remembered and worn less myself; even
Brenda was doing better than me.
Nudity was not a sometime thing for Callie. I'd known her
all my life, and in that time had never seen her wear so much
as a pinky ring. There was no big philosophy behind her
life-long naturism. Callie went bare simply because she liked
it, and hated picking out clothes in the morning.
She was looking good, I thought, considering that, except
for Walter, she took less notice of her body's needs than
anyone I knew. She never did any preventive maintenance, never
altered anything about her appearance. When something broke
down she had it fixed or replaced. Her medico bills were
probably among the smallest in Luna. She swore she had once
used a heart for one hundred and twenty years.
"When it finally gave out," she had told me, "the medico
said the valves could have come out of a forty-year-old."
If you met her on the street, you would know immediately
that she was Earth-born. During her childhood, humans had been
separable into many "races," based on skin color, facial
features, and type of hair. Post-Invasion eugenics had largely
succeeded in blending these so that racial types were now very
rare. Callie had been one of the white, or Caucasian race,
which dominated much of human history since the days of
colonization and industrialization. Caucasian was a pretty
slippery term. Callie's imperious nose would have looked right
at home on an old Roman coin. One of Herr Hitler's "Aryans"
would have sneered at her. The important racial concept then
was "white," which meant not-black, not-brown.
Which was a laugh, because Callie's skin was burned a
deep, reddish-brown from head to toe, and looked as leathery as
some of her reptiles. It was startling to touch it and find it
actually quite soft and supple.
She was tall--not like Brenda, but certainly tall for her
age--and willowy, with an unkept mane of black hair streaked
with white. Her most startling feature was her pale blue eyes,
a gift from her Nordic father.
She released Brenda's hand and gave me a playful shove.
"Mario, you never come see me anymore," she chided.
"The name is Hildy now," I said. "It has been for thirty
years."
"You prove my point. I guess that means you're still
working for that bird-cage liner."
I shrugged, and noticed Brenda's uncomprehending
expression.
"Newspads used to be printed out on paper, then they'd
sell the paper," I explained. "When people were through reading
it, they'd use it on the bottoms of their birdcages. Callie
never abandons a clich, no matter how dated."
"And why should I? The clich business has suffered a
radical decline since the Invasion. What we need are new and
better clichs, but nobody seems to be writing them. Present
company excepted, of course."
"From Callie, that's almost a compliment," I told Brenda.
"And nobody would line a birdcage with the Nipple, Callie. The
stories would put the birds right off their food."
She considered it. "I don't think so, Mario. If we had
electronic birds, your newspad would be the perfect liner.
"Could be. I do find it useful for wrapping my electronic
fish."
Most of this had gone right over Brenda's head, of course.
But she had never been one to let a little ignorance bother
her.
"To catch the shit?" she said.
We both looked at her.
"At the bottom of the birdcage," she explained.
"I think I like her," Callie said.
"Of course you do. She's an empty vessel, waiting to be
filled with your tall tales of the old days."
"That's one reason. You've been using her as your own
personal birdcage liner. She needs my help."
"She doesn't seem to mind."
"But I do," Brenda said, unexpectedly. Callie and I looked
at her again.
"I know I don't know much about ancient history." She saw
Callie's expression, and squirmed. "Sorry. But how much do you
expect me to know about things that happened hundreds of years
ago? Or care?"
"It's okay," Callie said. "I may not have used the word
'ancient'--I still think of the Roman Empire when that word
comes up--but I can see it must seem ancient to you. I said the
same thing to my parents when they talked about things that
happened before I was born. The difference is, when I was young
the old eventually had the good manners to die. A new
generation took over. Your generation faces a different
situation. Hildy seems very old to you, but I'm more than twice
his age, and I don't have any plans to die. Maybe that's not
fair to your generation, but it's a fact."
"The gospel according to Calamari," I said.
"Shut up, Mario. Brenda, it's never going to be your
world. Your generation will never take over from us. It's not
organs under the caution flag, repaired the neck artery during
the second pit stop and retired glumly to their corner to watch
their man walk into the meat grinder again.
The Dervish was sitting erect while his crew did more work
to the facial wound. One eyeball was split open and useless.
Blood had temporarily blinded him during the second round,
rendering him unable to fully exploit the terrible wound he'd
inflicted on his opponent. Brenda had expressed concern during
the lull that the Dervish might not employ his famous spin now
that his depth perception had been destroyed. But the Dervish
was not about to disappoint his fans, one eye or not.
A red light went on over the Cyclone's corner. It made the
crowd murmur excitedly.
"Why do they call it a corner?" I asked.
"Huh?"
"It's a round ring. It doesn't have any corners."
She shrugged. "It's traditional, I guess." Then she smiled
maliciously. "You can research it before you write this up for
Walter."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Why the hell not? 'Sports, Then and Now.' It's a
natural."
She was right, of course, but that didn't make it any
harder to swallow. I wasn't particularly enjoying this role
reversal. She was supposed to be the ignorant one.
"What about that red light? What's it mean?"
"Each of the fighters gets ten liters of blood for
transfusions. See that gauge on the scoreboard? The Cyclone
just used his last liter. Dervish has seven liters left."
"So it's just about over."
"He'll never last another round."
And he didn't.
The last round was an artless affair. No more fancy spins,
no flying leaps. The crowd shouted a little at first, then
settled down to watch the kill. People began drifting out of
the arena to get refreshments before the main bout of the
evening. The Dervish moved constantly away as the dazed Cyclone
lumbered after him, striking out from time to time, opening
more wounds. Bleeding his opponent to death. Soon the Cyclone
could only stand there, dumb and inert with loss of blood. A
few people in the crowd were booing. The Dervish slashed the
Cyclone's throat. Arterial blood spurted into the air, and the
Cyclone crashed to the mat. The Dervish bent over his fallen
foe, worked briefly, and then held the head high. There was
sporadic applause and the handlers moved in, hustling the
Dervish down to the locker rooms and hauling away both pieces
of the Cyclone. The zamboni appeared and began mopping up the
blood.
"You want some popcorn?" Brenda asked me.
"Just something to drink," I told her. She joined the
throngs moving toward the refreshment center.
I turned back toward the ring, savoring a feeling that had
been all too rare of late: the urge to write. I raised my left
hand and snapped my fingers. I snapped them again before I
remembered the damn handwriter was not working. It hadn't been
working for five days, since Brenda's visit to Texas. The
problem seemed to be in the readout skin. I could type on the
keyboard on the heel of my hand, but nothing appeared on the
readout. The data was going into the memory and could later be
downloaded, but I can't work that way. I have to see the words
as they're being formed.
Necessity is the mother of invention. I slipped through
the program book Brenda had left on her chair, found a blank
page. Then I rummaged through my purse and found a blue pen I
kept for hand corrections to hard copy.
#
(File Hildy*next avail.*)(code Bloodsport)
(headline to come)
#
There may be no evidence of it, but you can bet cave men
had sporting events. We still have them today, and if we ever
reach the stars, we'll have sports out there, too.
Sports are rooted in violence. They usually contain the
threat of injury. Or at least they did until about a hundred
and fifty years ago.
Sports today, of course, are totally nonviolent.
The modern sports fan would be shocked at the violence of
sports as it existed on Earth. Take for example one of the
least violent sports, one we still practice today, the simple
foot race. Runners rarely completed a career without numerous
injuries to knees, ankles, muscles, or spine. Sometimes these
injuries could be repaired, and sometimes they couldn't. Every
time a runner competed, he faced the possibility of injury that
would plague him for the rest of his life.
In the days of the Romans, athletes fought each other with
swords and other deadly weapons--not always voluntarily.
Crippling injury or death was certain, in every match.
Even in later, more "enlightened" days, many sports were
little more than organized mayhem. Teams of athletes crashed
into each other with amazing disregard for the imperfect skills
of contemporary healers. People strapped themselves into ground
vehicles or flying machines and raced at speeds that would turn
them into jelly in the event of a sudden stop. Crash helmets,
fist pads, shoulder, groin, knee, rib, and nose protectors
tried to temper the carnage but by their mere presence were
testimony to the violent potential in all these games.
Did I hear someone protesting out there? Did someone say
our modern sports are much more violent than those of the past?
What a ridiculous idea.
Modern athletes typically compete in the nude. No
protection is needed or wanted. In most sports, bodily damage
is expected, sometimes even desired, as in slash boxing. A
modern athlete just after a competition would surely be a
shocking sight to a citizen of any Earth society. But modern
sports produce no cripples.
It would be nice to think this universal non-violence was
the result of some great moral revolution. It just ain't so. It
is a purely technological revolution. There is no injury today
that can't be fixed.
The fact is, "violence" is a word that no longer means
what it used to. Which is the more violent: a limb being torn
off and quickly re-attached with no ill effects, or a crushed
spinal disc that causes its owner pain every second of his life
and cannot be repaired?
I know which injury I'd prefer.
That kind of violence is no longer something to fear,
because
(discuss Olympic games, influence of local gravity in
venues)
(mention Deathmatches)
(Tie to old medicine article?)(ask Brenda)
#
I hastily scribbled the last few lines, because I saw
Brenda returning with the popcorn.
"What're you doing?" she asked, resuming her seat. I
handed her the page. She scanned it quickly.
"Seems a little dry," was her only comment.
"You'll hype it up some," I told her. "This is your
field." I reached over and took a kernel of popcorn from her,
then took a big bite out of it. She had bought the large bag: a
dozen fist-sized puffs, white and crunchy, dripping with
butter. It tasted great, washed down with the big bottle of
beer she handed me.
While I was writing there had been an exhibition from some
children's slash-boxing school. The children were filing out
now, most of them cross-hatched with slashes of red ink from
the training knives they used. Medical costs for children were
high enough without letting them practice with real knives.
The ringmaster appeared and began hyping the main event of
the evening, a Deathmatch between the champion Manhattan Mugger
and a challenger known as One Mean Bitch.
Brenda leaned toward me and spoke out of the side of her
mouth.
"Put your money on the Bitch," she said.
"If she's gonna win, what the hell are we doing here?"
"Ask Walter. This was his idea."
The purpose of our visit to the fights was to interview
the Manhattan Mugger--also known as Andrew MacDonald--with an
eye toward hiring him as our Earth-born consultant on the
bicentennial series. MacDonald was well over two hundred years
old. The trouble was, he had elected to fight to the death. If
he lost, his next interview would be with St. Peter. But Walter
had assured us there was no way his man was going to lose.
"I was talking to a friend out at the concessions," Brenda
went on. "There's no question the Mugger is the better fighter.
This is his tenth Deathmatch in the last two years. What this
guy was saying is, ten is too much for anybody. He said the
Mugger was dogging it in the last match. He won't get away with
that against the Bitch. He says the Mugger doesn't want to win
anymore. He just wants to die."
The contestants had entered the ring, were strutting
around, showing off, as holo pictures of their past bouts
appeared high in the air and the announcer continued to make it
sound as if this would be the fight of the century.
"Did you bet on her?"
"I put down fifty, for a kill in the second."
I thought that over, then beckoned to a tout. He handed me
a card, which I marked and thumbed. He stuck the card in the
totaliser on his belt, then handed me the marker. I pocketed
it.
"How much did you invest?"
"Ten. To win." I didn't tell her it was on the Mugger.
The contestants were in their "corners," being oiled down,
as the announcer continued his spiel. They were magnificent
specimens, competing in the highest body-mass class, matched to
within a kilogram. The lights flashed on their glistening
browned skins as they shadow-boxed and danced, skittish as race
horses, bursting with energy.
"This bout is being conducted under the sporting by-laws
of King City," the announcer said, "which provide for voluntary
Deathmatches for one or both parties. The Manhattan Mugger has
elected to risk death tonight. He has been advised and
counseled, as required by law, and should he die tonight, it
will be deemed a suicide. The Bitch has agreed to deliver the
coup de grace, should she find herself in a position to do so,
and understands she will not be held responsible in any way."
"Don't worry about it!" the Mugger shouted, glaring at his
opponent. It got a laugh, and the announcer looked grateful for
the interruption in the boring paragraphs the law required him
to read.
He brought them out to the middle of the ring and read
them the rule--which was simply to stop fighting when they
heard the bell. Other than that, there were no rules. He had
them shake hands, and told them to come out fighting.
#
"The first stinking round. I can't believe it."
Brenda was still complaining, half an hour after the
finish of the match. It had not been a contest that would go
down in history.
We were waiting in the reception area outside the entrance
to the locker rooms. MacDonald's manager had told us we could
go in to see him as soon as the pit crew had him patched up.
Considering the small amount of damage he had suffered, I
didn't expect that to be too much longer.
I heard a commotion and turned to see the Cyclone emerging
into a small group of dedicated fans, mostly children. He got
out a pen and began signing autographs. He was dressed in black
shirt and pants, and had a bulky brace around his neck, which
seemed a small enough inconvenience for a man whose head had
been rolling around the ring an hour earlier. He'd wear it
until the new muscles had been conditioned enough to support
his head. I figured that wouldn't be long; the brain of a man
in his profession couldn't weigh all that much.
The door opened again and MacDonald's manager beckoned to
us.
We followed him down a dim corridor lined with numbered
doors. One of them was open and I could hear moaning coming
from it. I glanced in as we passed. There was a bloody mess on
a high table, with half a dozen pit crew clustered around.
"You don't mean to tell me . . . "
"What?" Brenda said, and glanced into the room. "Oh. Yeah,
she fights without nerve deadening."
"I thought--"
"Most fighters turn their pain center way down, just
enough so they know when they've been hit. But a few feel that
trying to avoid real pain makes them quicker on their feet."
"It sure would make me quicker."
"Yeah, well, obviously it wasn't enough tonight."
I was glad I'd had only the one piece of popcorn.
The Manhattan Mugger was sitting in a diagnostic chair,
wearing a robe and smoking a cheroot. His left leg was propped
up and being worked on by one of his trainers. He smiled when
he saw us, and held out his hand.
"Andy MacDonald," he said. "Pardon me for not getting up."
We both shook his hand, and he waved us into seats. He
offered us drinks, which a member of his entourage brought us.
Then Brenda launched into a breathless recap of the match,
full of glowing praise for his martial skills. You'd never have
known she just lost fifty on him. I sat back and waited, fully
expecting we'd spend the next hour talking about the finer
points of slash boxing. He was smiling faintly as Brenda went
on and on, and I figured I had to say something, if only to be
polite.
"I'm not a sports fan," I said, not wishing to be too
polite, "but it seemed to me your technique was different from
the others I saw tonight."
He took a long drag on his cheroot, then examined the
glowing tip as he slowly exhaled purple smoke. He transferred
his gaze to me, and some of the heat seemed to go with it.
There was a deepness to his eyes I hadn't noticed at first. You
see that sometimes, in the very old. These days, of course, it
is usually the only way you can tell someone is old. MacDonald
certainly had no other signs of age. His body looked to be in
its mid-twenties, but he'd had little choice in its features,
given his profession. Slash boxers inhabit fairly standardized
bodies, in nine different formulas or weight classes, as a way
of minimizing any advantage gained by sheer body mass. His face
seemed a bit older, but that could have been just the eyes. It
wasn't old enough for age to have impressed a great deal of
character on it. Neither was it one of those generic
"attractive" faces about half the population seem to prefer. I
got the feeling this was pretty much the way he might have
looked in his youth, which-I remembered, with a little
shock--had been spent on Earth.
The Earth-born are not precisely rare. The CC told me
there were around ten thousand of them still alive. But they
look like anyone else, usually, and tend not to announce
themselves. There were some who made a big thing about their
age--the perennial talk-show guests, storytellers, professional
nostalgics--but by and large the Earth-born were a closeted
minority. I had never wondered why before.
"Walter said you'd talk me into joining this project of
his," MacDonald said, finally, ignoring my own comment. "I told
him he was wrong. Not that I intend to be stubborn about it; if
you can give me a good reason why I should spend a year with
you two, I'd like to hear it."
"If you know Walter," I countered, "you'll know he's
possibly the least perceptive man in Luna, where other people
are concerned. He thinks I'm enthusiastic about this project.
He's wrong. As far as I know, Walter is the only one interested
in this project. It's just a job to me."
"I'm interested," Brenda piped up. MacDonald shifted his
gaze to her, but didn't feel the need to leave it there long. I
had the feeling he had learned all he needed to know about her
in that brief look.
"My style," he said, "is a combination of ancient fighting
techniques that never got transplanted to Luna. Some
well-meaning but foolish people passed a law a long time ago
banning the teaching of these oriental disciplines. That was
back when the conventional wisdom was we ought to live together
in peace, not ever fight each other again, certainly not ever
kill each other. Which is a nice idea, I guess.
"It even worked, partially. The murder rate is way, way
down from what it was in any human society on Earth."
He took another long drag on his smoke. His attendants
finished their work on his leg, packed up, and left us alone. I
began to wonder if that was all he had to say, when he finally
spoke again.
"Opinions shift. You live as long as I have, you'll see
that over and over."
"I'm not as old as you, but I've seen it."
"How old are you?" he asked.
"One hundred. Three days ago." I saw Brenda look at me,
open her mouth to say something, then close it again. Probably
I'd get chewed out for not telling her so she could throw a
centennial birthday party for me.
MacDonald looked at me with even more interest than
before, narrowing those disturbing eyes.
"Feel any different?"
"You mean because I'm a hundred years old? Why should I?"
"Why, indeed. It's a milestone, certainly, but it doesn't
really mean anything. Right?"
"Right."
"Anyway, to get back to the question . . . there were
always those who felt that, with natural evolutionary processes
no longer working, we should make some attempt to foster a
certain amount of aggressiveness. Without sanctioning real
killing, we could at least learn how to fight. So boxing was
re-introduced, and that eventually led to the blood sports you
see today."
"This is just the sort of perspective Walter wants," I
pointed out.
"Yes. I didn't say I didn't have the perspective you need.
I'm just curious as to why I should use it for you."
"I've been thinking that one over, too," I said. "Just as
an exercise, you understand. And you know, I can't think of
anything that's likely to convince a man in the middle of a
protracted suicide to put it off for a year and join us in
writing a series of useless stories."
"I used to be a reporter, you know."
"No, I didn't."
"Is that what you think I'm doing? Committing suicide?"
Brenda looked at him earnestly. I could almost feel her
concern.
"If you get killed in the ring, that's what they'll call
it," she said.
He got up and went to a small bar at the side of the room.
Without asking what we wanted, he poured three glasses of a
pale green liqueur and brought them back to us. Brenda sniffed
it, tasted, then took a longer drink.
"You can't imagine the sense of defeatism after the
Invasion," he said. It was apparently impossible to keep him on
any subject, so I relaxed to the inevitable. As a reporter you
learn to let the subject talk.
"To call it a war is a perversion of the word. We fought,
I suppose, in the sense that ants fight when the hill is kicked
over. I suppose ants can fight valiantly in such a situation,
but it hardly matters to the man who kicked the hill. He barely
notices what he has done. He may not even have had any actual
malice toward ants; it might have been an accident, or a
side-effect of another project, like plowing a field. We were
plowed under in a single day.
"Those of us here in Luna were in a state of shock. In a
way, that state of shock lasted many decades. In a way . . .
it's still with us today."
He took another drag on his cheroot.
"I'm one of those who was alarmed at the nonviolence
movement. It's great, as an ideal, but I feel it leaves us in a
dead end, and vulnerable."
"You mean evolution?" Brenda asked.
"Yes. We shape ourselves genetically now, but are we
really wise enough to know what to select for? For a billion
years the selection was done naturally. I wonder if it's wise
to junk a system that worked for so long."
"Depends on what you mean by 'worked,'" I said.
"Are you a nihilist?"
I shrugged.
"All right. Worked, in the sense that life forms got more
complex. Biology seemed to be working toward something. We know
it wasn't us-the Invaders proved there are things out there a
lot smarter than we are. But the Invaders were gas giant
beings, they must have evolved on a planet like Jupiter. We're
hardly even related. It's commonly accepted that the Invaders
came to Earth to save the dolphins and whales from our
pollution. I don't know of any proof of that, but what the
hell. Suppose it's true. That means the aquatic mammals have
brains organized more like the Invaders than like us. The
Invaders don't see us as truly intelligent, any more than other
engineering species, like bees, or corals, or birds. True or
not, the Invaders don't really have to concern us anymore. Our
paths don't cross; we have no interests in common. We're free
to pursue our own destiny . . . but if we don't evolve, we
don't have a destiny."
He looked from one of us to the other and back again. This
seemed pretty important to him. Personally, I'd never given
much thought to the matter.
"There's something else," he went on. "We know there are
aliens out there. We know space travel is possible. The next
time we meet aliens they could be even worse than the Invaders.
They might want to exterminate us, rather than just evict us. I
think we ought to keep some fighting skills alive in case we
meet some disagreeable critters we can fight."
Brenda sat up, wide-eyed.
"You're a Heinleiner," she said.
It was MacDonald's turn to shrug.
"I don't attend services, but I agree with a lot of what
they say. But we were talking about martial arts."
Is that what we were talking about? I'd lost track.
"Those arts were lost for almost a century. I spent ten
years studying thousands of films from the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries, and I pieced them back together. I
spent another twenty years teaching myself until I felt I was
adept. Then I became a slash boxer. So far, I'm undefeated. I
expect to remain that way until someone else duplicates my
techniques."
"That would be a good subject for an article," Brenda
suggested. "Fighting, then and now. People used to have all
kinds of weapons, right? Projectile weapons, I mean. Ordinary
citizens could own them."
"There was one country in the twentieth century that made
their possession almost mandatory. It was a civil right, the
right to own firearms. One of the weirder civil rights in human
history, I always thought. But I'd have owned one, if I'd lived
there. In an armed society, the unarmed man must be a pretty
nervous fellow."
"It's not that I don't find all this perfectly
fascinating," I said, standing and stretching my arms and legs
to get the circulation going again. "I don't, but that's beside
the point. We've been here about half an hour, and already
Brenda has suggested plenty of topics you could be helpful
with. Hell, you could write them yourself, if you remember how.
So how about it? Are you interested, or should we start looking
for someone else?"
He leaned his elbows on his knees and looked at me.
Before long I began to wonder when the theremin music
would begin. A look like that belonged in a horror holo. Eyes
like that should be set in a face that begins to sprout hair
and fangs, or twist like putty into some Nameless Evil Thing. I
mentioned before how deep his eyes seemed. They had been
reflecting pools compared to this.
I don't wish to be superstitious. I don't wish to
attribute powers to MacDonald simply because he had attained a
venerable age. But, looking at those eyes, one could not help
but think of all the things they had seen, and wonder at the
wisdom that might have been attained. I was one hundred years
old, which is nothing to sneer at in the longevity department,
or hadn't been until recent human history, but I felt like a
child being judged by his grandfather, or maybe by God himself.
I didn't like it.
I tried my best to return the gaze--and there was nothing
hostile in it, no challenge being issued to me. If a staring
match was in progress, I was the only one competing. But before
long I had to turn away. I studied the walls, the floor, I
looked at Brenda and smiled at her--which startled her, I
think. Anything to avoid those eyes.
"No," he said, at last. "I don't think I'll join this
project, after all. I'm sorry to have wasted your time."
"No problem," I said, and got up and started for the door.
"What do you mean, 'after all,'" Brenda asked. I turned,
wondering if I could get away with grabbing her arm and
dragging her away.
"I mean, I was considering it, despite everything. Some
aspects of it were beginning to look like fun."
"Then what changed your mind?"
"Come on, Brenda," I said. "I'm sure he has his own
reasons, and they're none of our business." I took her arm, and
tugged at it.
"Stop it," she said, annoyed. "Stop treating me like a
child." She glared at me until I let her go. I suppose it would
have been unkind to point out that she was a child.
"I'd really like to know," she told MacDonald.
He looked at her, not unkindly, then looked away, seeming
embarrassed. I simply report the fact; I have no idea why he
might have been embarrassed.
"I only work with survivors," he said, quietly. Before
either of us had a chance to reply he was on his feet. He
limped slightly as he went to the door and held it open for us.
I got up and jammed my hat on my head. I was almost out
the door when I heard Brenda.
"I don't understand," she was saying. "What makes you
think I'm not a survivor?"
"I didn't say you weren't," he said.
I turned on him.
"Brenda," I said, slowly. "Correct me if I'm wrong. Did I
just hear myself accused of not being a survivor by a man who
risks his life in a game?"
She didn't say anything. I think she realized that,
whatever was going on here, it was between him and me. I wished
I knew what it was, and why it had made me so angry.
"Risks can be calculated," he said. "I'm still alive. I
plan to stay that way."
Nothing good lasts forever. Brenda piped up again.
"What is it about Hildy that makes you--"
"That's none of my business," he interrupted, still
looking at me. "I see something in Hildy. If I were to join you
two, I'd have to make it my business."
"What you see, pal, is a man who takes care of his own
business, and doesn't let some gal with a knife do it for him."
Somehow that didn't come out like I'd intended. He smiled
faintly. I turned and stomped out the door, not waiting to see
if Brenda followed.
#
I lifted my head from the bar. Everything was too bright,
too noisy. I seemed to be on a carousel, but what was that
bottle doing in my hand?
I kept tightly focused on the bottle and things slowly
stopped spinning. There was a puddle of whiskey under the
bottle, and under my arm, and the side of my face was wet. I'd
been lying in the puddle.
"If you throw up on my bar," the man said, "I'll beat you
bloody."
Swinging my gaze toward him was a major project. It was
the bartender, and I told him I wasn't going to throw up, then
I almost choked and staggered toward the swinging doors and
made a mess in the middle of Congress Street.
When I was done I sat down there in the road. Traffic was
no problem. There were a few horses and wagons tied up behind
me, but nothing moved on the dark streets of New Austin. Behind
me were the sounds of revelry, piano music, the occasional
gunshot as the tourists sampled life in the old west.
Somebody was holding a drink before my face. I followed
the arm up to bare shoulders, a long neck, a pretty face
surrounded by curly black hair. Her lipstick was black in the
dim light. She wore a corset, garters, stockings, high heels. I
took the drink and made it vanish. I patted the ground beside
me and she sat, folding her arms on her knees.
"I'll remember your name in a minute," I said.
"Dora."
"Adorable Dora. I want to rip off your clothes and throw
you into bed and make passionate love to your virginal body."
"We already did that. Sorry about the virginal part."
"I want you to have my babies."
She kissed my forehead.
"Marry me, and make me the happiest man in the moon."
"We did that, too, sweetheart. It's a shame you don't
remember it." She held her hand out to me and I saw a gold
wedding ring with a little diamond chip. I squinted at her face
again. There was some kind of filmy aura around it . . .
"That's a bridal veil!" I shouted. She was looking dreamy,
smiling up at the stars.
"We had to sober the parson up, then go bang on the
jeweler's door and send somebody around to find Silas to open
the general store for my gown, but we got it done. The service
was right there in the Alamo, Cissy was my maid of honor and
old Doc stood up for you. All the girls cried."
I must have looked dubious, because she laughed and patted
me on the back.
"The tourists loved it," she said. "It's not every night
we get as colorful as that." She twisted the ring off her
finger and handed it to me. "But I'm too much of a lady to hold
you to vows you made while not in your right mind." She peered
closer at me. "Are you back in your right mind?"
I was back enough to remember that any marriage performed
by the "parson" in "Texas" was not legally binding in King
City. But to get an idea of how far gone I'd been, I'd really
been worried for a moment there.
"A whore with a heart of gold," I said.
"We all have our parts to play. I've never seen the 'town
drunk' done better. Most people omit the vomit."
"I strive for authenticity. Did I do anything
disgraceful?"
"You mean aside from marrying me? I don't mean to be
unkind, but your fourth consummation of our marriage was pretty
disgraceful. I won't spread it around; the first three were
rather special."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the tongue work was some of the best I've--"
"No, I mean . . . "
"I know what you mean. I know there's a word for it.
Inability, immobility . . . a limp cock."
"Impotence."
"That's it. My grandmother told me about it, but I never
expected to see it."
"Stick with me, honey, and I'll show you even more
wonders."
"You were pretty drunk."
"You've finally said something boring."
She shrugged. "I can't swap repartee with a cynic like you
forever."
"Is that what I am? A Cynic?":
She shrugged again, but I thought I saw some concern in
her expression. It was hard to tell, with just moonlight and
swimming eyeballs.
She helped me to my feet, brushed me off, kissed me. I
promised to call on her when I was in town. I don't think she
believed me. I had her point me toward the edge of town, and
started home.
#
Morning was smearing up the sky like pale pink lipstick.
I'd been hearing the rippling of the river for some time.
My efforts at reconstructing the day had brought back some
broad outlines. I recalled taking the tube from the Arena to
Texas, and I knew I'd spent some time working on the cabin. In
there somewhere I saw myself throwing finished lumber into a
ravine. I remembered seriously thinking of burning the cabin to
the ground. The next thing I knew I was sitting at the bar in
the Alamo Saloon, tossing down one drink after another. Then
the clouds rolled in and the memory transcription ended. I had
a hazy picture of the Parson swaying slightly as he pronounced
us man and wife. What a curious phrase. I supposed it was
historically accurate.
I heard a sound, and looked up from the rocky path.
A pronghorn antelope was standing not ten feet in front of
me. He held his head high, alert and proud, but not frightened
of me. His chest was snowy white and his eyes were moist and
brown and wise. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever
seen.
On his worst day he was ten times better than I had ever
been. I sat down on the path and cried for a while. When I
looked up, he was gone.
I felt calm for the first time in many years. I found the
cliff face, located the climbing rope, and hoisted myself to
the top. The sun was still below the horizon but there was a
lot of yellow in the sky now. My hands toyed with the rope. How
did it go . . . the rabbit goes in the hole, the dog chases the
rabbit around the tree, two, three, four . . .
After several tries, I got it right. I slipped it around
my neck and looked down the cliff. Your acceleration is low in
Luna, but your body mass is constant. You need a big drop, six
times what would do on Earth. I tried to do the calculations in
my head but kept losing track.
To be on the safe side, I picked up a large rock and held
it tightly to my chest. Then I jumped. You get plenty of time
for regrets, but I had none. I remember looking up and seeing
Andrew MacDonald looking down at me.
Then came the jerk.
=*= =*= =*= =*=
$$
"If you're going to build a barn for brontosaurs," I told
Brenda, "You'd better make the ceiling at least twenty meters
high."
"And why is that, Mr. Bones?"
Where she'd learned about minstrel shows I had no idea,
but she'd been using the term for a while now, whenever I got
into lecture mode--which, considering the state of her
ignorance, was most of the time. I wasn't going to let it annoy
me.
She was looking up at the ceiling, which was twenty-five
meters above us. Myself, I wasn't looking up all that much
lately. For several days I'd had a persistent and painful
stabbing pain in my neck whenever I turned my head in a certain
position. I kept meaning to visit the medico and get it fixed,
but it would spontaneously remit for a few hours and I'd forget
to make an appointment. Then it would creep up and stab me when
I least expected it.
"Brontosaurs are not real bright. When they get alarmed
they raise their heads and rear up on their hind legs to take a
look around. If the ceiling is too low they smash their teeny
heads against it and stun themselves."
"You've spent time around dinosaurs?"
"I grew up on a dinosaur ranch." I took her elbow and
steered her out of the way of a manure loader. We watched as it
scooped up a pile of watermelon-sized pellets.
"What a stench."
I said nothing. The smell had both good and bad
associations for me. It took me back to my childhood, where one
of my jobs had been operating the manure loader.
Behind us, the massive doors to the swamp began rumbling
open, letting in a blast of air even hotter and more humid than
that inside the barn. In a moment a long neck poked inside the
door, ending in an almost negligible, goofy-looking head. The
neck kept coming in for a very long time before the massive
body made its entrance. By then another head and neck had
appeared.
"Let's get back here out of the way," I suggested to
Brenda. "They won't step on you if they see you, but they tend
to forget where you are not long after they look away from
you."
"Where are they going?"
I pointed toward the open gate across from us. The sign on
it said "Mating Pen Number One."
"Mating season's just about over. Wait till Callie gets
them penned up, then we can take a look. It's pretty
interesting."
One of the brontosaurs made a mournful honk and moved
along a little faster. In one-sixth gee, even a thunder lizard
could be sprightly. I doubt they set any speed records back on
Old Earth. In fact, I wondered how they stood up at all, out of
the water.
The reason for the burst of speed was soon apparent.
Callie entered the barn, mounted on a tyrannosaur. The big
predator responded instantly to every touch of the reins,
hurrying to block an attempted retreat by the male, rearing up
and baring its teeth when it looked as if the female might make
a stand. The big herbivores waddled quickly into the mating
pen. The doors closed automatically behind them.
The thing the ancient paleontologists had never got right
about dinosaurs was their color. You'd think the examples of so
many modern reptiles might have given them a hint. But if you
look at old artists' conceptions of dinosaurs, the predominant
colors were mud-brown and khaki-green. The real item was much
different.
There are several strains of b-saur but the type Callie
prefers are called Cal Tech Yellowbellies, after the lab that
first produced them. In addition to the canary undersides, they
range from that old reliable mud-brown on their backs to a dark
green, emerald green, and kelly green on their sides and necks.
They have streaks of iridescent violet trailing back from their
eyes, and white patches under their throats.
Tyrannosaurs, of course, are predominately red. They have
huge, dangling wattles under their necks, like iguanas, which
can be puffed up to make an outrageous booming mating call. The
wattles are usually deep blue, though purple and even black are
not unknown.
You can't ride a t-saur like a horse; the back is too
steep. There are different methods, but Callie preferred a sort
of narrow platform she could either sit or stand on, depending
on what she was doing. It strapped around the beast's
shoulders. Considering the amount of lizard still rising above
that point, she spent most of her time on her feet, barely able
to peer over the head.
"It looks unstable," Brenda said. "What if she falls off?"
"You don't want to do that," I told her. "They're likely
to snap at you if you come in view suddenly. But don't worry;
this one is muzzled."
An assistant leaped up to join Callie in the saddle. He
took the reins from her and she jumped to the ground. As the
t-saur was being ridden out the barn door she glanced at us,
did a doubletake, and waved at me. I waved back, and she
gestured for us to come over. Not waiting, she started toward
the breeding pen.
I was about to join her when something poked through the
metal railing behind us. Brenda jumped, then relaxed. It was a
brontosaur pup looking for a treat. Looking into the dim pen
behind us, I could see several dozen of the elephant-sized
young ones, most of them snugged into the mud, a few others
gathered around the feeding trough.
I turned out my pockets to show the brute I didn't have
anything on me. I used to carry chunks of sugar-cane, which
they love.
Brenda didn't have any pockets to turn out, for the simple
reason that she wasn't wearing any pants. Her outfit for the
day was knee-length soft leather boots, and a little black
bolero top. This was intended to let me know that she had
acquired something new: primary and secondary sexual
characteristics. I was fairly sure she hoped I'd suggest we put
them to use one of these days soon. I'd first caught on that
she had a crush on me when she learned that Hildy Johnson was
not my born name, but one I had selected myself after a famous
fictional reporter from a play called The Front Page. Soon she
was "Brenda Starr."
I must say she looked more reasonable now. Neuters had
always made me nervous. She had not gone overboard with the
breasts. The pubic hair was natural, not some of the wilder
styles that come and go.
But I was in no mood to try it out. Let her find a child
of her own age.
#
We joined Callie at the breeding pen, climbed up to the
top of the ten-meter gate and stood with her, looking over the
top rail at the nervously milling behemoths.
"Brenda," I said, "I'd like you to meet Calamari Cabrini.
She owns this place. Callie, meet Brenda, my . . . uh,
assistant."
The women reached across me to shake hands, Brenda almost
losing her balance on the slippery steel bars. All three of us
were dripping wet. Not only was it hot and humid in the barn,
but ceiling sprinklers drenched the place every ten minutes
because it was good for the skins of the livestock. Callie was
the only one who looked comfortable, because she wore no
clothes. I should have remembered and worn less myself; even
Brenda was doing better than me.
Nudity was not a sometime thing for Callie. I'd known her
all my life, and in that time had never seen her wear so much
as a pinky ring. There was no big philosophy behind her
life-long naturism. Callie went bare simply because she liked
it, and hated picking out clothes in the morning.
She was looking good, I thought, considering that, except
for Walter, she took less notice of her body's needs than
anyone I knew. She never did any preventive maintenance, never
altered anything about her appearance. When something broke
down she had it fixed or replaced. Her medico bills were
probably among the smallest in Luna. She swore she had once
used a heart for one hundred and twenty years.
"When it finally gave out," she had told me, "the medico
said the valves could have come out of a forty-year-old."
If you met her on the street, you would know immediately
that she was Earth-born. During her childhood, humans had been
separable into many "races," based on skin color, facial
features, and type of hair. Post-Invasion eugenics had largely
succeeded in blending these so that racial types were now very
rare. Callie had been one of the white, or Caucasian race,
which dominated much of human history since the days of
colonization and industrialization. Caucasian was a pretty
slippery term. Callie's imperious nose would have looked right
at home on an old Roman coin. One of Herr Hitler's "Aryans"
would have sneered at her. The important racial concept then
was "white," which meant not-black, not-brown.
Which was a laugh, because Callie's skin was burned a
deep, reddish-brown from head to toe, and looked as leathery as
some of her reptiles. It was startling to touch it and find it
actually quite soft and supple.
She was tall--not like Brenda, but certainly tall for her
age--and willowy, with an unkept mane of black hair streaked
with white. Her most startling feature was her pale blue eyes,
a gift from her Nordic father.
She released Brenda's hand and gave me a playful shove.
"Mario, you never come see me anymore," she chided.
"The name is Hildy now," I said. "It has been for thirty
years."
"You prove my point. I guess that means you're still
working for that bird-cage liner."
I shrugged, and noticed Brenda's uncomprehending
expression.
"Newspads used to be printed out on paper, then they'd
sell the paper," I explained. "When people were through reading
it, they'd use it on the bottoms of their birdcages. Callie
never abandons a clich, no matter how dated."
"And why should I? The clich business has suffered a
radical decline since the Invasion. What we need are new and
better clichs, but nobody seems to be writing them. Present
company excepted, of course."
"From Callie, that's almost a compliment," I told Brenda.
"And nobody would line a birdcage with the Nipple, Callie. The
stories would put the birds right off their food."
She considered it. "I don't think so, Mario. If we had
electronic birds, your newspad would be the perfect liner.
"Could be. I do find it useful for wrapping my electronic
fish."
Most of this had gone right over Brenda's head, of course.
But she had never been one to let a little ignorance bother
her.
"To catch the shit?" she said.
We both looked at her.
"At the bottom of the birdcage," she explained.
"I think I like her," Callie said.
"Of course you do. She's an empty vessel, waiting to be
filled with your tall tales of the old days."
"That's one reason. You've been using her as your own
personal birdcage liner. She needs my help."
"She doesn't seem to mind."
"But I do," Brenda said, unexpectedly. Callie and I looked
at her again.
"I know I don't know much about ancient history." She saw
Callie's expression, and squirmed. "Sorry. But how much do you
expect me to know about things that happened hundreds of years
ago? Or care?"
"It's okay," Callie said. "I may not have used the word
'ancient'--I still think of the Roman Empire when that word
comes up--but I can see it must seem ancient to you. I said the
same thing to my parents when they talked about things that
happened before I was born. The difference is, when I was young
the old eventually had the good manners to die. A new
generation took over. Your generation faces a different
situation. Hildy seems very old to you, but I'm more than twice
his age, and I don't have any plans to die. Maybe that's not
fair to your generation, but it's a fact."
"The gospel according to Calamari," I said.
"Shut up, Mario. Brenda, it's never going to be your
world. Your generation will never take over from us. It's not