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

the ground again and hurrying as fast as possible from what I expected to be the painful, blinded throes of the thing.

I turned and stared. It stood there, watching me. Showing no signs of distress.

It rumbled, finally, angrily, “You can’t fool me all of the time, Terran. Soon you will tire, then I will get you⁠—”

Suzi’s books came back to me again. What was it I was trying to remember? I stood there panting, realizing the ridiculousness of standing exhausted in the middle of the arena and remembering odds and ends that Suzi had told me about the ancients.

And then, just as the Centaurian headed for me again, it clicked.

A silence had settled down over the crowd. Arena wise, through years of watching gladiatorial events, they knew my knees were sagging, my reflexes slowed, my muscles screaming protest.

I stood there, sword in hand, directly in its path⁠—waiting. It had said, “You can’t fool me all of the time, Terran.”

And that’s what had clicked.

You can fool some of the people some of the time.⁠ ⁠…

Praying that I had strength enough left for this, I waited until it was nearly upon me, its lobster claws out-thrust, its six heavy feet pounding. Then I jumped, to one side, back again. I bounded high to the knee joint of the second limb on the left, as the Centaurian skidded to a halt. A second scrambling leap and I was on its back. Half on my feet, half on my hands, I scampered forward toward its head, even as several tentacles made their way gropingly toward me.

No, I wasn’t looking for a soft spot for my now dull sword. I knew there wouldn’t be any.

The tentacles were reaching, almost touching me, but I ignored them. I found the tiny door right behind its massive head. I was right! I found the lock and sprung it.

The door swung open and inside the tiny, leaded shielded compartment the little creature occupying it looked up at me fearfully.

I grasped it by the scruff of the neck and hoisted it out of its seat. The “Centaurian Gladiator” had stopped completely now.

I dropped to the ground and tossed the thing before me. It was about the size of, and looked considerably like a small Terran pig. It was pink, fat, and, as Suzi said later, cute. Right now I didn’t appreciate its cuteness.

“Please,” it squealed, “don’t touch me. I can’t bear being hurt!”

I kicked it where its hams would have been had it really been a pig. It squealed again and started out, hampered in its speed by its fat, running across the arena with me after it, giving it kert with the toe of my boot.

It dashed for the helicopter and I gave it one last kick as it scampered for the craft’s door so that it flew the last four feet. In the background I could hear the crowd roaring like thunder.

In seconds, the helicopter had taken off and returned to the spaceship above. It was swallowed up and the Centaurian ship blasted off and away. Evidently, it wasn’t waiting to see what the Solar System fleet would do when the farce was made known.

I turned, and for a moment stared at the robot the Centaurian had occupied. Then my injuries and fatigue caught up with me. The fog rolled in and I slumped to the arena sands.

I explained later in the hospital room to the diplomats, the I.V.S. reporters, and the others. And I made the explanation as short as possible.

In the first place, how could a thing that big and awkward have handled the helicopter so gracefully? How could any organic creature survive the explosion of an atomic grenade? How could it breath fire? How could it stand a burning torch being thrust into its eyes?

But it was the quotation that had brought it all home to me. I suddenly realized I was being fooled⁠—and another of Suzi’s quotations came to mind. This is a horse of another color. Then it clicked in its entirety.

The Trojan Horse, I had thought, something is inside. It’s a robot, a mechanical fighting machine, like the tanks of old.

Suddenly the diplomats and the reporters were gone and Suzi was there, the star dust in her eyes again.

Before she could speak, I told her, humbly, “You were right, Suzi, I am a phony. I’m no champ. I was scared to death out there, when I found that all the super-weapons they’d made for me were⁠—”

“But, darling, you won!” She knelt beside the bed, but I turned my head away.

“Won,” I said bitterly. “Sure, by a fluke again. I won against a little half pint that could have been defeated by a child.” I snorted in self-deprecation. “I wonder what the crowd out there is thinking. I enter the arena with enough weapons to depopulate a small planet, and it takes me half an hour to find out it’s all a hoax.”

She remained kneeling there, but it was another voice that said, “The crowd doesn’t see it that way, Jak.” It was Alger Wilde, who had entered with my manager.

“Of course not,” Suzi insisted. “You didn’t know what you were against, but you were in there all the time, taking on something worse than any gladiator in the System.⁠—You proved yourself, Jak.”

Alger went to the window and opened it. “Listen to this,” he said grudgingly. From the distance I could hear the arena crowd singing “The Solar System Forever.”

Even Mari Nown was happy. It seemed as though the judges unanimously voted to make me Interplanetary Champ for the rest of my life. The situation was obvious. Terra couldn’t afford to let anything happen to me now. As soon as I died, the next Interplanetary Meet would result in a new champ and a new change in the balance of power. Terra wouldn’t allow me to fight⁠—not even in exhibitions.

Mari Nown’s chicken head beamed as he bounced back and forth on his heels. “You’re going to live to a ripe old age,”