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

across the arena and from the fast action of the past few moments. I drew all my strength together and lunged desperately forward. My sword pierced his throat. He fell, writhing, taking my blade with him.

I stood up wearily to confront the fifth one. My arm was bleeding freely and I had no weapon nor time to get one.

He came shouting, raging with bloodlust and desire for revenge. His arm flew back for the javelin cast when a Plutonian Gadaboot shot out from a nearby melee and struck him from the rear. The Dwoorf collapsed, bleeding his life away in moments. The Gadaboot straightened up, shrilling its death whistle, preparatory to darting at me, but a Mercurian Bouncer, wounded and fluttering, came down from above and made a last desperate stroke. They died together.

I shook my head to clear it, and reached down to disengage my sword from the neck of the fallen Dwoorf I’d killed last. I looked about. There were no others near me.

For a moment there was a breathing spell. In the past ten minutes, two thirds of the contestants had either died or had been carried off the field incapacitated. Those of us that remained were wounded but still in the fight. As I stood there staggering, panting, aching, it occurred to me that never before had a Terran lasted so long in an Interplanetary Meet.

As though by common consent, we all gravitated toward the center of the arena. This was it. In the next few moments the contest would be over.

And so would I.

As I stumbled forward, a wounded Martian staggered to his feet and made a halfhearted stab at me. I bypassed him. He was too far gone to fight. Shortly, the judges’ assistants would get to him and take him from the field; possibly he’d have a chance to survive. I had no desire to finish him off. In fact, I envied him.

We were quiet momentarily; and so was the crowd. A hush hung over the whole arena. I noted in seconds that among the survivors were two of the four limbed Martians, half a dozen Bouncers, the gigantic Slaber from Jupiter, one of the Calypso Dwoorfs almost helpless now that his fellows were all gone, three or four Gadaboots, and a Venusian spiderman.

I wondered vaguely if my namesake, that gladiator of the fabulous days of the legendary United States, the original Jak Demsi, had ever found himself in a spot like this. I suppose that he had, possibly worse. Suzi, who gave me the name, saying that it would be good for publicity, claimed he was one of the greatest of all. I shook my head again, trying to clear it, my loss of blood making me faint.

And then it broke. The dust swirled high as we rushed together. I felt a crushing blow, tried to deal one back, was struck again by the ponderous gladiator from Jupiter and was thrown heavily to the ground.

I tried to push myself to my knees, my already bloody sword still in hand, still at the ready. I was in the center of the crush. This was the end. Suzi flashed before my mind.

Well, there was a tremendous controversy afterward and I was brought before the judges and the diplomats more like a prisoner than the victor of the Interplanetary Meet. I was laden down with bandages and weak from loss of blood but they didn’t look in the least-sympathetic, not even the judge and diplomats from Terra.

They got right to the point.

The Martian judge, as senior, since the meet was taking place on his planet, acted as spokesman. He was excited and indignant and would wave three or four of his arms at a time to emphasize his point. I thought vaguely of one of the olden time windmills I’d seen pictured in one of Suzi’s books.

“Gladiator Jak Demsi,” he rapped, “Our tendency is to rule your conduct in the affray so unbecoming that not only will the prize not be awarded you, as last standing contestant on the field, but we are considering.⁠ ⁠…”

I wasn’t having any. After coming through that scrap, I wasn’t ever figuring on taking a back seat again. I interrupted him, growling, “I’m willing to stand behind anything I did in the arena on the grounds that it was compatible with Terran custom and therefore allowable on the part of a Terran gladiator.”

The Venusian judge sneered, without bothering to say anything; the Plutonian tittered his disbelief; the Terran judge blinked at me, shocked by my words.

I was getting mad. “In the press box, you’ll find two reporters from Terra. Bring them here. They are both students of Terran history and ancient custom and will support what I say.”

Suzi and Alger Wilde were located and brought before us after a brief debate between the judges. By their appearance, it was obvious that the press box boys had similar ideas to those of the judges. Suzi showed signs of concern about my wounds but she also half indicated that I was a leper. There was no half about it as far as Alger Wilde was concerned.

“You might have died like a man, Demsi,” he said sharply, “instead of bringing disgrace to Terra.”

The Martian judge said coldly, “This gladiator claims that his astounding actions in the arena were excusable on the grounds that everything he did is in accord with Terran customs and, consequently, permissible by the rules of the Interplanetary Meet.”

Suzi’s eyes widened. Alger Wilde began to protest.

I didn’t give them a chance to deny anything. “Just what are the complaints?” I asked the judge.

“As though they weren’t obvious,” he snorted, beginning to wave his arms again. “First, your trick of throwing the emerald, the Princess was so kind to honor you with, into the midst of the others and thus diverting the strife from yourself. This was an act of⁠—”

“Strategy,” I interrupted him. “The custom is to be found in Terran history. An old maxim of the Sioux Indians was ‘Divide and