Short Fiction · The Cosmic Bluff (3/3)

I grabbed up the heavy submachine gat⁠—as Suzi tells me they called them in the old days⁠—and threw it to my shoulder. The projectiles it threw were only half an inch in diameter but each of them packed a charge of atomic explosive.

I trained it and held the trigger down. The two hundred round drum was exhausted in less than a half minute, and the sound of the projectiles exploding against the shell of my foe was ear shocking in intensity. Once again, a cloud of smoke and dust enveloped the Centaurian. And only after the last cartridge had been expended and the submachine gat now useless, 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 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,” he shrilled happily, “and the most dangerous thing you’ll ever do is sign endorsements for Venusian Salt Water Taffy.” He added, more happily still, “And I’ll get ten percent of everything you make.”

“Everything but Suzi,” I told him, sticking out an arm to encircle her.

Alger Wilde frowned. “You know, Jak,” he grunted, “I think you’re right about that music. ‘The Solar System Forever’ is a raucous thing.”

It was welling, ever louder, through the window.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said as soon as I took my lips from Suzi’s. “I’m beginning to like it.”