Short Fiction, Mack Reynolds [best book reader txt] 📗

was the sigh of relief that went up over the stands audible.

But through the smoke, of a sudden, charged the six legged Centaurian and my eyes almost bugged out of their sockets. He was seemingly not further injured.

I dodged quickly to one side, stumbling over the gat I’d thrown away, thinking the fight over, and it uselessly empty. It was only the stumbling that saved me. I rolled to the side and it was past me and spinning about for another attack.

The Centaurian growled in a thunderous voice, “And now the fight begins, Terran makron.” Its bulk evidently was no indication of a lack of intelligence. It had already not only learned to speak Amer-English, but could swear in our language.

I had one more major weapon in my deadly arsenal. I whipped the blunderbuss-nosed, pistol-like device from my belt and trained it. Even though shielded with my especially designed ear plugs, the subsonic sounds flowed over me, enveloped me, terrified me. What it was doing to the enemy I could only guess.

Shaking my head in an attempt to clear it of the desperate, soul shaking fears brought on by the subsonic vibrator, I stared in the direction of the Centaurian.

He seemed to be watching me, questioningly. And suddenly I understood that he was waiting for the weapon to work! He wanted to see what it was going to do.

It wasn’t doing anything!

A quarter of a mile away, on the other side of the amphitheatre, and supposedly out of range, spectators were fainting in droves, literally thousands of them screaming or keeling over. But a few yards before me he stood unimpressed.

I swore and threw the thing down, ripped off the rest of the belts and equipment they’d foisted upon me and reached for my sword.

It dashed forward, extending a tentacle from its body that formerly I’d been unaware of. I swung desperately and the sword clanged against the limb. I darted backward, noticing a large dent in the cutting edge.

Like a flash one of the lobster claws snapped out at me, nipping a cut in my left side, just below the ribs. Had it been another six inches over, I would have been cut in half.

I dashed to one side and it rushed past, stirring up a breeze as it went. How such a large creature could get up momentum so rapidly was a mystery to me.

I grated out one of Suzi’s slogans to give myself courage. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And then it came to me that the trouble was that if they’re big enough perhaps they don’t get around to falling at all.

It was about and after me again.

I stood in its path, sword in hand, waiting. A massive groan went up from the stands.

Just before it reached me, I darted forward, crouched low, and dashed under its belly. Here, if anywhere, was the soft spot. As I ran, I thrust desperately upward with all my strength, then I was suddenly completely under and beyond it.

I spun around and stood there panting and staring at the end of my broken pointed sword.

It turned too, as though looking to find my trampled body, and surprised that I’d survived. It was about thirty feet away, and seemingly resting.

Suddenly from its mouth gushed forth a stream of flame, reaching out for me.

It was only by the merest chance that my grenade-made crater was immediately behind me. I tripped again and fell backward, and the sheet of flame passed over me.

A sigh went up from the stands.

Suddenly, over the ridge it came tearing. Hoping, evidently, to catch me before I recovered from my fall.

It had miscalculated and passed a good six feet to my right. I sprung to my feet and dashed over in time to deal its tail a smashing blow⁠—and to accumulate another dent in my blade.

At this pace, my strength was rapidly giving out, and his seemed as great as ever⁠—but I was still quicker in that my size and build enabled me to turn, spin, dodge, more effectively.

He tried twice more to get me with his flaming breath, and both times I was able to avoid it by inches. Or nearly so, at least. I kept my life, though hair and clothes were singed.

I had worked my way, involuntarily toward the press boxes, and took time to shoot up a desperate glance in Suzi’s direction. Her face had lost its coldness now; her lips were parted in fear.

Almost, I was able to smile. Suzi knew the signs⁠—as did all the rest of the reporters⁠—she’d seen too many meets not to know when a gladiator was using his last iota of strength and was on the verge of collapse. She knew⁠—possibly even better than I⁠—how long I could keep up this pace. And then⁠—

Seeing her, recalled her way of finding a slogan, a quotation of the ancients, for almost every situation that arose.

And in the recalling one came to me!

Meet fire with fire.

The Centaurian was emerging from the crater where its most recent charge had taken it. I ran with what speed I could muster to the Judges’ stand and grasped one of the sacred Venusian torches that flanked the Judges’ bench. I turned then and sped toward the enemy in hopes of getting him as he climbed over the crater edge.

He saw me coming and tried ineffectively to scorch me with his flaming breath, but he was either growing weak, or had utilized all the fuel his body produced for the effort. The flame leaped out a mere six or eight feet.

Holding the torch in hand, I dashed straight at him. As I had hoped, one of the lobster claws darted at me. I leaped nimbly to one side, bounced up upon the claw and scampered up it toward the four glaring eyes. I thrust the torch out and into them, hearing as though from a great distance, the cheer of victory that went up from the stands.

Then sliding, falling, tumbling, I was on