Grand Central Arena

by Ryk E. Spoor

  The creature snarled-spat and rasped at him. ‘‘Not the first thing, no. For we are not uncivilized monsters such as you. The first thing I would do would be to properly bid farewell to our fallen people, and either bury them or with ceremony reduce them to ash, that they not be defiled either by your . . . witch-doctors who may call themselves scientists, or by the mindless beasts of this world. Then I would call the reinforcements.’’ It looked at him with defiant arrogance. ‘‘Consider that to your advantage. You would have some time to flee and fortify before we came to take your world. Perhaps you might even retain the interior.’’ It hissed contemptuously. ‘‘But you have nothing to threaten me with. Death a soldier will face a thousand times, and you have already killed all of my men. You have no one to hold hostage.’’

  Carl came over to him. ‘‘Um . . . DuQuesne . . . ’’

  ‘‘Don’t worry, I haven’t become a monster. Not too much, anyway, I hope.’’

  ‘‘Look, he may be right. That ship . . . I don’t think it’s large enough for any long-range travel even in the insane conditions of the Arena. He’s got to have a larger ship nearby, probably with a lot more people on board. If he’s telling the truth . . . ’’

  ‘‘Which I think he is, in this case. Yeah, it’d give us a good chance to get back and lock down. But then we’re losing in two ways. First, we’re conceding the surface of our Sphere to these jokers, which just doesn’t sit well with me, and second, we’re losing the only source of power, food, and other resources we have to stretch out our time here. We can’t afford to lose here.’’

  ‘‘You’ve already lost, DuQuesne creature.’’ Maizas said. ‘‘If we do not report in . . . a short time, our main vessel will either send more to investigate, or may come in closer to inspect directly—and how well will your freakish speed and strength fare, I ask, against weapons meant for combat between the stars?’’

  ‘‘All the more reason for me to get you to talk now.’’

  ‘‘What are you going to do? Torture him?’’ Carl looked apprehensive.

  ‘‘In a way. Not by breaking his legs or burning him or anything. I don’t think he’d break easy that way, if he would at all. He’s a tough customer, Maizas is, and he wouldn’t be leading scout expeditions if he didn’t have some of what it takes.’’ He was surveying the other bodies, found the catch, peeled the armor off of the one he’d killed through that double-heel impact. ‘‘So . . . yeah, take a look at that.’’

  Carl looked where he was pointing. ‘‘Yeah, he’s got one hell of a nasty mouth.’’

  ‘‘More than that. Look at those teeth. Look at the musculature, and the . . . well, bone or something behind it. You’re an engineer, think about the structure there, how does it work? And way down there, you see?’’

  Carl studied the dead Molothos’s mouth more carefully. At a faint sound behind them, DuQuesne said ‘‘Don’t even think about it, Maizas. If you so much as twitch again, I’m coming over there and tying your legs in knots. Which, since they aren’t meant to bend much, won’t be much fun for you, but will keep you from going anywhere. Oh, and by the way, I’m jamming any short-range transmissions, so if you think you can do anything by remote, you’ve got another think or two coming.’’ The alien let out a frustrated hiss.

  ‘‘Man, I see what you mean,’’ Carl Edlund said finally. ‘‘It’s like a garbage disposal—grabs, holds, and feeds straight into a grinder. Looks like it might be organic diamond-plated or something, but nasty. But . . . so what?’’

  ‘‘You’d think that would be a hell of a weapon in hand to hand, wouldn’t you? But instead of taking a bite at me, the one pulled away, sealed right up. Seems to me, a creature with a one-way mouth has to be damn careful about what it eats, because it can’t spit something out once it realizes it’s made a mistake. So reflexively they don’t bite anything they don’t really want to, and especially not anything that might be poisonous or sickening. Like unknown alien creatures.’’

  Maizas buzz-snorted. ‘‘A reasonable show of deduction for a monster, but what point your waste of time?’’

  ‘‘Oh, just this little point,’’ DuQuesne said, heaving the body up and moving it a little closer to Maizas. ‘‘You’ve got yourself some real civilized rituals and tastes. Maybe even a religion of purity, something along those lines. I figure I have one thing I can threaten you with.’’

  Maizas’s limbs shrank into themselves slightly, as he started to realize that DuQuesne really did have some kind of a plan. ‘‘What . . . what do you mean?’’

  ‘‘I mean that I can make sure you never want to call back in again. Because if you don’t start answering my questions double-quick, Maizas . . . ’’ He reached down and tore one leg from the dead trooper. ‘‘I am going to stick this in your mouth. Since you can’t spit stuff out, anything you can bite into you have to grind up and swallow once it goes in, or you choke or starve to death.’’ He saw a shudder run through the alien’s frame as he finished, and the cold grin came back. ‘‘If you don’t talk—or if you lie—I will be feeding your troopers to you, one bit at a time. You’ll be the defiler—and I’m betting that’s even worse than leaving the bodies for us aliens to cut up.’’ His grin widened as he saw horror in Maizas’s contracting stance, like a dying spider. ‘‘Isn’t that right, Maizas?’’

  A moment passed, and he saw from the pale expression on Carl’s face that the horror was not just on one side. Then the Molothos spoke, this time in a low voice filled with loathing, but tinged with fear and without any of the prior arrogance. ‘‘Ask your questions, you void-spawned demon. Ask them. You . . . you have found your key in abomination.’’ It shuddered again. ‘‘Ask, and I . . . I will answer.’’

  ‘‘Better,’’ he said, knowing that the cold, unmoved tone was translated as well as his words, and also knowing how it must be affecting his friend, but knowing that he could no longer concern himself with that. ‘‘And remember that I will know when you are lying. Make no mistake about that. I can smell it. And if I hear a single lie, why, you get to take a few bites. And if you’re still lying, I’ll feed you this guy’s brain. Or whatever part of him I think you find most sacred, private, or disgusting.’’ He sat down on the dead trooper’s carapace. ‘‘Let’s start with your ship . . . ’’

  Chapter 35

  It had not taken long to ascertain the overall situation. There was indeed a much larger vessel, the carrier or mothership—Maizas’ word translated as ‘‘Twinscabbard,’’ implying two scout landers within the vessel. That ship currently hovered just outside the gravitational influence of the Sphere; DuQuesne had verified that Maizas really meant what that implied, which had allowed the Molothos a small measure of amusement at their ignorance.

  ‘‘Hard to get details,’’ DuQuesne said during a short pause in the interrogation, speaking softly to Carl at some distance from the prisoner; he’d have preferred to use direct radio communication, datalink to datalink, but figured it was much more important to continue to jam any frequencies Maizas might be able to transmit on. ‘‘But I get the impression of a pretty big ship, probably about the size of a destroyer, as long as Holy Grail but a lot more massive and built for exploration with a real big side order of combat. How’re you doing?’’

  The last question covered a pretty wide area of ground—considering that he’d given Carl an assignment to do, the controls expert could simply report on that. But it also left open the possibility of other responses. Which Carl gave.

  ‘‘Wishing I had your genes, actually. And some of your training, though not your life,’’ Carl said with a grin. ‘‘Sure, it was a shock, and you’re one hardass bastard, but then I never thought you couldn’t be. But you don’t seem all that different to me. Well, no; I get a lot more of a ‘do not get in this guy’s way’ vibe, but it’s not in the vein of you being a psychopath or anything; just along the lines of there being no way to actually stop you, so don’t be stupid, if that makes sense.’’

  ‘‘And I
’m also bloody transparent as glass, then?’’

  Carl shrugged. ‘‘Marc, once any of us knew the truth, anyone who watched could see you were like that guy in that poem . . . yeah, the Ancient Mariner. You had your past hanging around your neck like an invisible lead albatross. One that scared you to death. Why, I’m not sure; you obviously weren’t one of the causes of the problem. I guess you were just scared that you could have been . . . which I suppose isn’t completely crazy.’’ He shook his head disbelievingly. ‘‘I’m a damn good martial artist—saying this with no modesty at all—but watching you I realized I’m not only not in your league, I’m just barely aware of the rules. I’d take bets that there’s never been anyone anywhere in Earth system that could outfight you—leaving out your bioenhancement, too.’’

  ‘‘You’d lose that bet,’’ DuQuesne said quietly, remembering one of the partial successes—a warrior with the innocence of a child, who, when he’d learned the truth, had refused to come with DuQuesne and the others, instead staying behind to fight for the simulated world that was all he knew. ‘‘Sorry, Mr. DuQuesne, but these are my friends,’’ he’d said, looking up at DuQuesne through impossibly spiky red-black hair. ‘‘I know . . . they’re not real to the bad men who are coming, but . . . they’re real to me, and no one’s going to take them away without a fight.’’

  And they did not, DuQuesne thought with a painful smile. They sent in automated assault vehicles, and he broke them. They sent in augmented troops, and he—and his friends, virtual though they were—sent them running.

  And then they sent in gas, and he fell finally, slowed, beaten, and still conscious when they shut it down and his family disappeared in blankness.

  ‘‘No, you’d lose that bet,’’ he repeated. ‘‘But if you said ‘outside of Hyperion,’ you might be right.’’

  Carl had seen the shift of expressions, but decided not to push, apparently. ‘‘Anyway, I’ve done some careful poking around in his ship, like you asked. It’s really . . . well, alien, not to sound silly about it, but the laws of physics are the same for all of us, even if this Arena likes to play tricks with them. So I’ve scoped out the basic operation of the thing. It’s something like a VTOL jet, basically, heating air through a one-way intake to push the thing around—a sort of air rocket, I guess. Jibe with what he’s been saying?’’

  ‘‘Pretty much. He hasn’t tried many lies at all—one or two minor ones, and he immediately straightened out as soon as I twitched.’’

  Carl looked at him curiously. ‘‘Can you really smell if someone’s lying?’’

  He chuckled, observing Maizas was just about finished with the drinkglobe he’d requested (and that DuQuesne had verified didn’t contain anything like poison or something else allowing the Molothos to make an unscheduled exit). ‘‘Sort of. Most creatures have chemical shifts associated with trying to evade something, with doing something dangerous. I can usually pick up on some of that—with people, too, of course—and he’s also got some body language I can read. He’s good at controlling it, but if you look real close at his legs, the claws dig in a little more when he tries to lie; it’s part of that contract-inward defensive posture.’’ He saw the last of the drinkglobe disappear. ‘‘Right. Here’s what I want you to do . . . ’’ he gave Carl some quick instructions, then turned to Maizas and spoke up. ‘‘Enough R&R. More questions and answers.’’

  Maizas was still nervous at his proximity, but made no attempt to evade answering the questions, even volunteering additional interesting information on occasion. This just confirmed DuQuesne’s suspicions; Maizas wanted to stall, and live through the stalling. No problem, my little alien friend. Because you’re giving me exactly what I need.

  One of the most important pieces of information he extracted from the Molothos was the fact that their ship had, in fact, travelled to their Sphere the long way—through the weird atmospheric environment (which DuQuesne’s treacherous false upbringing insisted on trying to label as ‘‘ether’’) of the Arena—and the journey had taken the better part of a year. This was not unusual; while there were apparently something called ‘‘Sky Gates’’ which could allow instantaneous transportation from one Sphere to another (DuQuesne guessed these to be exterior Arena versions of the Inner Gateway), these only existed for inhabited, fully active Spheres, and linked only to a small set number of destinations. Thus any Spheres which were uninhabited, or to which you did not know a route, had to be reached the long way around. The Molothos routinely expanded their reach this way, finding livable Spheres, settling on their outer surface, then building new vessels and continuing onward. Radio was unreliable at ‘‘Sphere’’ distances (roughly one hundred thousand kilometers) but sometimes one could get a message through to a nearby Sphere.

  The important point here, he thought, is that we have to keep that Twinscabbard from ever reporting back—physically or via radio—that they’ve found us. They’ve got one Sphere near us, somewhere—can’t quite make out the directions from what Maizas says, he’s no navigator anyway—and so they might be able to report back fast. And if that Sphere’s actually active, they could get a big fleet here within a year.

  The problem, of course, was exactly how to prevent a ship with several hundred xenomisosic alien troops on board from first exterminating them all, and then heading home for more reinforcements.

  A buzz-chime sounded faintly from inside the ship. Maizas’s legs relaxed slightly. ‘‘Now, alien monster, where were we? Yes. You wished to speak of our power sources. The most common are superconductor storage coil batteries—which is, in fact, the general method used throughout the Arena.’’ The alien was speaking in a calm, measured, perhaps slightly too emphatically cooperative way. Yep. That was a signal you were waiting for.

  Carl suddenly bounded out of the landing craft. ‘‘DuQuesne! We’ve got company!’’

  Far distant in the sky, a bright dot had appeared. DuQuesne pulled out his electronic binoculars and focused on the dot.

  Waveringly outlined against turbulent sky, he could see only a general shape, a broad flying wing with hints of lines and other external features, a suggestion of baroque and impractical designs for ordinary space vessels. The range showed that what he looked at was huge, at least three hundred meters wide.

  The shrieking cough translated as triumphant laughter. ‘‘Trapped, trapped now, little beasts!’’ Maizas crowed.’’I kept you here and talking, easy for destruction or capture! Not so clever, not so smart as you thought you were! And now comes Blessing of Fire to take your Sphere!’’

  ‘‘Not sending down the other scout lander with troops?’’

  ‘‘Pzkt!’’ The sound was one of contempt. ‘‘Standard doctrine. If one scout lander crew incapacitated, maybe second fares no better. First the main vessel descends to within detailed examination range and a decision is made as to approach.’’ It looked at him arrogantly.

  ‘‘Excellent.’’ DuQuesne’s grin was so savagely triumphant that Maizas involuntarily shrank away. ‘‘Exactly what I wanted to hear.’’

  ‘‘Wh . . . what?’’

  ‘‘You think I’m stupid? Think we didn’t know you were stalling? I needed you to stall, Maizas. I needed you to feel that your best chance was to tell us anything we wanted to know, keep us interested, so that we wouldn’t run off and hide before your reinforcements got here.

  And your reaction told me that—in all likelihood—your main ship would be doing the backup, which was what I was hoping would happen.’’

  The alien stared from DuQuesne to Carl in shock. ‘‘Insane, you are! Nearly were you overcome by my troops before; even now, a fully prepared lander would deal with you! You have no defenses against shells and beams that can rend ships of war, and no weapon that could harm so mighty a vessel as Blessing!’’

  ‘‘Wrong,’’ DuQuesne said. He pointed behind the alien. ‘‘I have one.’’

  Maizas whirled and stared uncomprehending for a moment; then the buzz-shriek showed he understoo
d all too well. ‘‘No! You . . . you cannot! You know nothing of our technology, the systems will not recognize your commands, it is impossible—’’

  ‘‘All I need,’’ DuQuesne said, yanking tighter the bonds on Maizas’s body, ‘‘is power and control. I am a power engineer, and Carl Edlund is a master of controls. And you—you pathetic sap! You’ve told us everything we absolutely needed to know while you were busy stalling!’’

  ‘‘DuQuesne, that ship will be in good detailed scan range in about nine minutes,’’ Carl warned him.

  ‘‘With what we’ve figured, that’s enough; and we don’t know what their telemetry might say, so we had to wait until now. Be glad it has to come through atmosphere, or we’d have about nine seconds.’’ DuQuesne vaulted inside the ship, with its oddly triangular corridors, and started ripping out the control runs Carl had pinpointed earlier. I need to arrange a controlled short across the main drive . . . here . . . here . . . linked in with Carl’s designs . . .

  Maizas was now struggling desperately against his bonds; the alien commander was now no longer nearly so certain of the outcome as he had been a moment before. ‘‘Struggle all you like, Maizas; you’re going nowhere. That’s ring-carbon composite, a hundred times stronger than any steel ever made. I couldn’t break a length of the stuff that was a tenth that thick.’’

  ‘‘I’ve rigged what amounts to a couple joysticks, Marc, but . . . it’s gonna be very, very dicey. We’re having to shunt control though our stuff, which wasn’t meant to handle the power, and cut out all of their controls. I’ve put in all the redundancy I can but . . . this thing’s going to have almost no margin for error.’’

  ‘‘Just give me the best you’ve got,’’ DuQuesne said, using one of the Molothos sidearms to blow holes in the control panels at critical points. ‘‘I’ve set up the simple cross connect to the engines. This only has to hold together for one really short flight, Carl; all I care about is that the remote will hold the signal for long enough.’’