Short Fiction · Not in the Rules (2/2)

I’d gotten halfway across the arena and could hear the thousands in the arena seats booing me like thunder, before it came back to me what I’d read. It was a trick some gladiator from Rome or Greece had pulled once. I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, they were still coming, but now they were strung out in a line. The fastest runner of them all was only a short distance behind me, the slowest, quite a ways back. The other three were in between at varying distances.

This next is going to sound like it took some time but actually it was all over in split seconds.

I stopped, whirled, and said tightly to the one pressing me, “Who’s calling who a makron now?” At the same time my sword parried his and ripped into his unprotected belly. He died, his eyes wide with surprise and pain.

I hardly had time to disengage my sword before the second Dwoorf was upon me. I dropped to one knee and slashed upward cutting completely through his right arm. The arm fell to the ground, his hand still clutching the three pronged javelin with which he’d expected to spit me. He screamed in agony and stumbled away hopelessly trying to staunch the flow of blood with his left hand.

The third came running up, both hands high over his head, ready to bring down his battle ax. I kicked him savagely with a spiked shoe, cracking a knee and bringing him to the ground. I could have finished him then and there but didn’t have the time. The fourth, yelling like a maniac, slashed into me, his blade ripping my right arm from elbow to shoulder. He brought up his sword for another stroke.

I was short winded from the long run 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 Conquer.’ That’s what I did. I got my opponents to fighting among themselves so that I could defeat them easier.”

“The Romans, not the Sioux Indians,” Alger muttered.

“Then you mean that this was actually a maxim of Terra?” the judge said in surprise. I could see the other judges and diplomats, including those from earth, were as shocked as the Martian.

“Well, yes,” Suzi told him. “Of course, they usually didn’t use quite the method that Jak did.⁠ ⁠…”

The judge snorted again. “Be that as it may, I don’t see how Demsi can justify his fleeing before the Calypso gladiators like a common coward. Meet rules are that each gladiator must fight any who oppose him.”

Suzi shot a worried look at me.

“Right in accord with Terran history and custom,” I said decisively. “For one thing, it was always a basic rule with a Terran general to choose the battlefield where the fight was to be joined. It was considered a major advantage. Another maxim was, ‘Git there fustest, with the mostest.’ I merely ran to the ground that best suited me, and then, when the Calypso Dwoorfs were no longer the mostest, I fought them one at a time.”

The judge raised his eyes questioningly at Alger and was rewarded with a gruding nod.

The Martian shook his head as though in disbelief but went on. “Those two matters you have explained, surprisingly, but acceptably. But to this last charge there can be no possible honorable background in Terran custom. I refer to the fact that in the final conflict you fell as though dead and remained on the ground until the other contestants had all but eliminated each other. When only the badly wounded Slaber and the half dead Venusian gladiator remained, you got up again and, reentering the fight, finished off these opponents.”

The judge threw up his four hand in horror. “Certainly, you can’t claim justification for that! Not on any grounds, not by and.⁠ ⁠…”

I stood up as straight and defiantly as my heavy bandages would allow. “Listen,” I growled. “It’s one of the oldest traditions of Terra. It’s called playing possum.”

For a full minute silence fell on the whole group. Then I could hear one diplomat whisper questioningly to another. “Playing possum? What does that mean?”

And then with one of the most outstanding bits of pure statesmanship the system has even seen, Suzi took up the cue and spoke in collaboration.

“He’s quite right. Playing possum is in full accord with Terran custom. Why,” she added innocently, “earth always acts in that manner. She pretends she’s weak, helpless, someone to be ignored; and, then, suddenly, and without warning, she shows her full strength.”

The various judges and diplomats shot glances at each other from the sides of their eyes, especially those from Venus, Saturn, and Pluto.

The Terran judge was no makron. When somebody yelled glorm he knew enough to grab the gaboot and run with it. He looked at Suzi and I severely. “Say no more, either of you. You are not here to reveal Terran secrets.”

The other diplomats eyed each other again, nervously.

The Martian judge, more genial now, said, “Undoubtedly, a mistake has been made due to our lack of knowledge of Terran customs and practices. The emerald shall be awarded the Terran gladiator, Jak Demsi, as soon as it is found. It is undoubtedly still in the arena in the possession of some slain contestant.”

I took it from my belt. “As a matter of fact, I have it here. I picked it up while playing possum under that heap of corpses. It’s an old custom handed down from a Terran city named Brooklyn. ‘When you see something that ain’t nailed down, latch onto it.’ ”

Alger Wilde left the room hurriedly, followed hand in hand by Suzi and I. It was time for the diplomats to begin their wrangling, the wrangling that would settle the fate of worlds. As we passed through the door, I could see the anticipation on the faces of the diplomats from Terra.

From what I heard later, they must have given the other diplomats kert. If you’ll pardon my language.