Short Fiction · The Cosmic Bluff (1/3) (1/2)

The Cosmic Bluff

To everyone in the Solar System I was a big shot, understand? Everyone but two⁠—the two that counted most. One of the two was Suzi, and the other was me. The difference was that Suzi made no bones about telling me I was a fake; in my own mind the knowledge was there but more or less subconscious.

On this particular occasion Suzi was standing in the center of the half acre living room of my new penthouse on top the two hundred story Spacenter Building in Neuve Los Angeles. She had her hands on her hips and was glaring around at the furniture, the pictures, the statuary.

She said bitingly, “Jak, you’re a phony.”

“A what?” I complained. “Listen, Suzi, don’t start calling me those prehistoric names again.”

“A phony,” she said, “a humbug, a four flusher, a quack, a faker.⁠ ⁠…”

She’d finally got to a word I knew. “Hey,” I protested, “what’s this all about?”

She indicated the portraits of me hanging on the wall. She pointed out the statuettes. She picked up a magazine and showed me the ad on the back page⁠—me, endorsing a boomerang. I’d got a thousand credits for that.

She went over to the bookcase and pulled out a copy of How I Became Champ and the first volume of Gladiator Technique. Both by me. That is, ghost written for me; but my name was on the cover. She indicated two or three other books I was cashing in on.

“You’re a phony, Jak,” she repeated. “You used to be a nice quiet fellow, actually more shy and retiring than was good for you. Now your head is swollen beyond bearing.”

I was getting a little hot about this. For the past few months I’d been acquiring the habit of having people look up to me, admiring me, asking for my autograph, that sort of thing.

“Look here,” I said. “Just because you’ve known me for years and just because for most of that time I’ve been chasing you, doesn’t mean that the Gladiator Champion of the Solar System is a nobody.” I finished with what I thought would be the clincher. “Let me tell you, there isn’t one girl in a billion who wouldn’t be glad to be in your shoes⁠—engaged to Jak Dempsi.”

It was the clincher all right. She took her hands from her hips and folded them over her breasts and glared. “Oh yes there is,” she told me. “There’s exactly one girl who isn’t interested in being engaged to you Gladiator Jak Dempsi. Me,” she snapped.

I glared back at her. “Are you crazy?” I asked. “We’re going to be married the day after tomorrow.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she snapped again. “I became engaged to a nice, quiet, thoughtful, second-rate gladiator. A mistake happened and he wound up Solar System Champion⁠—and a stuffed shirt. The engagement is off.”

“Second-rate gladiator.⁠ ⁠…” I blurted indignantly, but she was already on her way, stamping across the Venusian Chameleon rug to the door.

I was so surprised I stood there, letting her go. It took me a full minute to understand that Suzi had just run out on me. Me! The victor at the Interplanetary Meet. The sole survivor of the scores of gladiators who fought it out once every ten years to see which planet of the System would dominate interplanetary affairs.

I went over to the bookcase and wrenched out one of the many books on prehistoric times that Suzi was always insisting I read. That’s Suzi’s bug, if you didn’t know. Prehistoric times, customs, history, language, legends⁠—all of a period that most people don’t even know ever existed, and don’t care.

The book was Glossary of Ancient Terminology. I thumbed through it and finally found my words.

“Stuffed shirt!” I yelped indignantly. “A stuffed shirt! Me?”

Ten minutes later I was in the Gladiator Room of the Spacenter Building and already had three or four slugs of woji under my belt.

“A stuffed shirt, yet. Me! Solar System Champ.” I grunted sarcastically and made with a curt flip of my hand to the bartender. He was a Venusian spiderman, who of course, make the best barkeeps in the System.

“Another woji,” I ordered.

A guy drifted down to me from the other end of the bar. “Hanging one on, Champ?” he asked. “You must be out of training.”

I looked him up and down. I’d never seen him before. However, in my position you have to be nice to the fans.

I said, “Woji doesn’t bother me. I train on it.” Suzi’s words were still burning. I added, out of the side of my mouth, “If you really got it, you got it, and if you haven’t you haven’t and all the training in the world won’t give it to you.”

I flexed my muscles. “Woji isn’t going to hurt a man like me.”

He blinked in admiration. “Guess you’re right at that, Champ,” he said. “It’s the second-raters that have to be watching everything they eat, everything they drink, everything they do.”

“Right,” I told him, condescendingly.

He climbed up on the stool next to me.

“Have a woji?” I asked him. I was glad to have his company; at least it’d keep my mind off Suzi.

“No thanks,” he said, shuddering. “But I wouldn’t mind a bloor.”

So I ordered him a bloor and another double woji for me.

My new friend said hesitantly, “Champ, what’d ’ya think of these visitors, explorers, or whatever you want to call them, from Centaurus?”

How is it that when you become a celebrity⁠—no matter in what field⁠—your opinions on every subject seem noteworthy to everybody else? I’d read a little about the Centaurians, seen an item or two on the viziscreen, but I didn’t know anything about them worth mentioning. I was too busy with my own rapidly developing affairs to spend much time keeping up with Solar System news.

“What about them?” I asked, noticing that my tongue was at last beginning to get a bit thick. I ordered another drink. The bartender started to protest, but then shrugged six of his shoulders and began mixing it.

“Didn’t you hear the latest?” the guy asked. “They’re looking for room for colonization and the Solar System attracts them.”

It was shortly after this that the fog rolled in, and it didn’t roll out again until the following morning when my manager gave me a dealcoholizer.

He was hopping mad. And when I say hopping mad I mean just that since Mari Nown, my manager, is a chicken-headed Mercurian Bouncer. A nationalized citizen of Terra, of course, but a Mercurian with all their characteristic excitability.

When my head cleared, he was jumping up and down in front of me and waving a sheet of newspaper he’d torn off the recorder on the viziscreen.

“Simmer down,” I told him. “My head still aches, and besides, I can’t understand what you’re yelling about.” I added nastily, “In fact, I can’t understand how anything could happen that you’d yell about. All you do is sit around and let ten percent of everything I make roll into your pockets. You’re probably the richest gladiator manager in the system and⁠—”

He stopped hopping long enough to fix me with a beady eye. Finally he became coherent. “And that’s exactly what I want to remain!” he shrilled. “You stupid makron, what’re you trying to do, get yourself killed?” He waved the news sheet again.

I began to catch on to the fact that I must have done something the day before while under the influence of⁠—ugh, I couldn’t even think of the word without my stomach churning.

“All right,” I said. “What is it? I don’t remember.”

He was prancing again. “You don’t remember! I’ll say you don’t remember! If you did, you’d be hiding under the bed.”

That got to me. I raised up indignantly. “Hiding under the bed? Me? I don’t have to hide from anything. I’m champ!”

“That’s pronounced chump,” he whistled nastily. He tossed me the news sheet.

The headline read: Interplanetary Champ says issues between Solar System and Centaurus should be settled in the arena.

“Did I say that?” I said interestedly. “When?”

He was almost hopping again. “To that cub reporter in the Gladiator Room, you stupid makron!”

“Don’t swear at me,” I growled. “I didn’t know he was a reporter. Besides, what’re you so excited about? Maybe it’d be a good idea.”

“Look at that next head,” he shrilled.

It read: Centaurians accept challenge of Jak Dempsi.

“Hey,” I said, “that ought to be quite a fight. Who do you think we’ll have representing the Solar System? A Slaber from Jupiter would be a good bet. He⁠—”

There he went again. He screamed, “Of course! Of course, a Slaber would be best, but you’re the champion! A stupid idiot⁠—but champion!”

I gaped at that, then let my eyes go down to the news account. He was right. As champion, I was scheduled to meet the Centaurian gladiator. On the outcome would depend the fate of the System.

“Well,” I said slowly. “Guess it makes sense at that. I am the best gladiator in the System.”

He closed his little bird eyes in anguish.

I added, “As a matter of fact, I could use the exercise. I haven’t had a meet in months.” I eyed him accusingly. “What kind of a manager are you? Here I am, Solar System Champ and you haven’t got me a fight since I won the Interplanetary Meet. The biggest drawing card in⁠—”

He’d got to the point where he was so mad he wasn’t hopping any more. Just breathing real deep.

He said, “The reason you haven’t had any meets since you became champ is because I’d rather have a live champ making a good living endorsing Callipso Snak-goat Cheese⁠—and me getting ten percent⁠—than I would have a dead champ.”

“What’d’ya mean?” I scoffed. “Nobody gets killed in an exhibition match.” I flexed my muscles. “Besides, I can take care of myself up against any earth-side gladiator after⁠—”

He glowered at me. “Anybody who killed the champ, by accident or otherwise, in an exhibition match, would have a nice reputation for himself. You might go into the arena with the idea of not killing your opponent, but would he?”

I shrugged uncomfortably. “I can take care of myself⁠—”

“Look,” he shrilled, “let’s go back over a little recent arena history. Less than a year ago you were a second-rater fighting at the state fairs. You went to Mars to watch the Interplanetary Meet which is held once every decade to decide interplanetary affairs. The ship carrying Terra’s gladiators was lost in space and you were tossed in as an emergency replacement.”

“Sure,” I said. “The first time a Terran ever won an Interplanetary Meet.”

He whistled disgustedly, “The first time a Terran ever lasted more than five minutes.”

“Well?” I said proudly.

He pointed a few fingers at me. “By a fluke! By using a lot of ideas you got from that quotation spouting girl friend of yours, you won by a fluke! Among other things, you played possum, as you called it, under a heap of corpses until all the others were either killed or wounded and then got up and finished them off. The fans throughout the system are still screaming about that.”

“Well, I’m still champ,” I said truculently. “I licked them once, and.⁠ ⁠…”

“Aw, shut up,” he shrilled. He whirled about and started for the door. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I shrugged and rang for my breakfast. The twinge of conscience I felt inside, I manfully suppressed. I suppose that I really knew he was right, but I’d been getting a good deal of ego-boo the past months and it was hard⁠—almost impossible, in fact⁠—not to listen to it.

By noon the dealcoholizer had completed its work and I felt more or less normal. I suppose I should have been worrying about the bout with the Centaurian, but I wasn’t. Not particularly. I was worrying about Suzi.

Suzi worked for a chain of publications as a female sports reporter covering the gladiator meets from the woman’s angle. What she wanted to do was write books about primitive culture, and for years that had been the barrier between us. She couldn’t stand the fact that I wasn’t particularly interested in the ancients and spent half the time we had together in trying to fill me with the lore she thought the big interest in life. She’d even given me my professional name, explaining that the original Jak Dempsi was one of the outstanding gladiators in ancient times.

At any rate, I knew where she usually had her lunch and made my way there, hoping to be able to patch things up. She’d promised to marry me, after I’d won the championship for Earth, and if there was anything I could do about it, I was going to see her hold to the engagement.

The Interplanetary Viziscreen Service, the I.V.S., occupies a building in Neuve Los Angeles nearly as large as Spacenter. Almost all of the I.V.S. people eat in the Auto Café, and it was there I made my way.

Soft music was playing as I entered and looked over the three acre expanse of tables. Of course, I didn’t have to check them all⁠—Suzi always sat in the sport section with perhaps a few hundred others.

The soft pleasant dining music cut off abruptly and the autorch started blaring out an earsplitting tune that brought back enough of my headache to make me grimace.

Several thousand heads came up and looked toward the entrance where I stood. A movement started somewhere or other and before you knew it, everybody in the place was standing on his feet and slapping his hands like crazy.

Everybody but two.

I could spot them now. Suzi and Alger Wilde were sitting at a table in the sport section. I made my way toward them.

Alger Wilde, I might as well explain here, is a makron from the word glorm, if you’ll pardon my language. He’s been trying, in his smirking way, to get in with Suzi for almost as many years as I have, and until I won the championship was doing at least as well as I. His strong point was the fact that he was even further around the corner in regard to the ancients than was Suzi. They could sit and talk for hours about the primitive comic books and other cultural matters that the average person had no interest in whatsoever.

I still didn’t know what all the clapping was about, and I still didn’t like the raucous music, but I ignored it all and made my way toward their table, rehearsing to myself what I was going to say to Suzi.

When I got nearer, the two of them, self-consciously, also came to their feet and both made with feeble applause to the extent of clapping their hands together once or twice.

I said, “What goes on here?”

We all sat down⁠—with me congratulating myself that Suzi didn’t object⁠—and Suzi, her eyes shining, gushed, “Oh Jak, isn’t it wonderful?”

I said, “I guess so. What?” I looked around the room in irritation. “What’s all the noise about? I can hardly hear ourselves talk.”

Alger Wilde said stiffly, “It’s the new anthem, ‘The Solar System Forever.’ Very patriotic. It was just completed by a staff of more than three hundred of the System’s outstanding musicians. I understand that it’s being played on every viziscreen on nine planets and twenty satellites. On order of the governments of all Solar System League members, the musicians rushed it through.”

“It sounds like it,” I growled. At least everybody had sat down again and were eating their lunch.

The stars were still in Suzi’s eyes. She said softly, “It’s dedicated to you, Jak.”

“Huh?”

Alger Wilde bit out, “Why’d you think everybody was clapping? You’re the hero of the System.” He added, barely audibly, “They know not what they do.”

It was beginning to dawn on me. My mind had been so full of Suzi that I’d almost forgotten about the Centaurian fight.

Suzi cast her eyes down to the table and said softly, “I’m sorry about yesterday, Jak. When I heard about your heroic challenge I realized how wrong I was.”

I scowled and said, “I didn’t exactly challenge them, just suggested that the whole thing ought to be settled in the arena. Maybe a Slaber or a Saturnian gladiator, or⁠—”

Alger said, satisfaction oozing, “But you’re the Champ, Jak.”

And Suzi gushed, “So you’ll certainly have the honor. Oh, Jak, our engagement will have to be postponed until after the fight.”