Stellaraire fell, and Roan heard the animal noises again.
Roan’s body hurt with hers, but he held himself rigid, hidden in shadows. This wasn’t a time for gestures. Whatever he did now had to count. He stepped softly back, whirled, ran across the tent where the old being hicupped into his beer, out into the dark. There were tent stakes stacked there, somewhere. They were pointed at one end and knobbed at the other, and heavy. He groped, stumbling among tent ropes, feeling over damp ground, lumpy refuse, hitting things in the dark. His hand fell on a bundle, and he ripped the twine away, caught up a yard-long, wrist-thick bar of dense plastic.
He ran around the tent to the side that opened on the alley, lifted the heavy flap, stepped into the smell of snakes and Ythcan dope-smoke.
A small clown in colored rags was just in front of him. Beyond, Ithc stood, tall, lean, slope-shouldered, long-necked. He was holding his bandaged hand close to his side, and the other with the nerve gun was held awkwardly out.
That was the first danger. Against the gun Roan would have no chance at all. There was no question of fair play; it was simply necessary to save Stellaraire from what was happening to her, in any way possible. And he would have to do everything right, because he wouldn’t have another chance.
He gripped the club carefully, stepped quickly past the ragged clown, set himself, and brought the club down on Ithc’s gun-hand.
He had decided on the hand instead of the obvious target, the head, because he wasn’t sure were Ithc’s brains were; hitting him on the head might not bother him much.
It was surprising how slowly the gun fell. Ithc was still standing, holding his hand out—but now the hand was oozing fluid, and the gun was bouncing off the dusty rug and falling onto a pile of dirty clothing, and Ithc was bringing his hand in and starting to turn. Roan brought the club up again—how heavy it seemed—and aimed a second blow at the back of Ithc’s neck. But Ithc was turning and ducked aside. The blow struck him on the shoulder and the club glanced off and jarred from Roan’s hands, and then he was facing the tall, pale-green, mad-eyed Ythcan, seeing the dirty yellow of the gill fringes as the flapped, smelling the penetrating chemical odor of Ithc’s blood.
“Owww—owww,” Ithc moaned, and brought a foot up in a vicious kick, but Roan leaned aside, caught the longtoed member and threw all his strength into twisting it back and around, driving with his feet to topple Ithc. They fell together, Roan on top. Ithc’s sinewy body buckled under him, and his knobbed knees battered against Roan’s chest. But he held on, twisting the foot, feeling the cartilage crackle and break, remembering Dad, and the sounds Stellaraire had made, and he twisted harder, harder. . . .
Ithc roared a vibrating double rear, fighting now to escape, but Roan reached after him, caught the other foot, tore at it, twisting, tearing, while the now helpless creature fought to crawl away. Then Roan was on Ithc’s back, his arm locked around the other’s throat, crushing until Ithc collapsed, fell on his face, his legs twitching.
Roan got to his feet. He was only dimly aware of the faces watching, of Stellaraire still moving on the floor beyond her fallen tormentor, of the stink of alien blood and burning dope. He looked around for the club, saw it tangled among unwashed garments on an unkempt heap of bedding by the sagging canvas wall. He caught it up, turned back to Ithc.
The alien lay half on his side, his broken feet grotesquely twisted, his gills gaping convulsively. A deep, reedy vibration of agony came from him. Roan brought the club up, and paused, not hesitating, but picking the best spot—the spot most likely to kill.
The yellow eyes opened. “Hurry—urry,” Ithc said.
Roan brought the club down with all his strength, noting with satisfaction that the Ythcan’s limbs all jumped at once.
He hit him twice more, just to be sure Ithc would never bother him again. The last blow was like pounding a side of meat hanging in a kitchen. He tossed the club aside, picked up a dirty blanket and wiped the spattered yellowish blood from his face and hands. He looked around at the circus people who watched. Two of the small clowns were edging forward, looking Ithc over, a little saliva visible at the corners of their beak-like mouths.
“Nobody helped Stellaraire,” he said. “Nobody helped me. Anybody on Ithc’s side can fight me, if they want to.” He glanced toward the club, flexing his hands. He was breathing hard, but he felt good, very good, and he was almost hoping the other Ythcan would step forward, because it had been a wonderful feeling, killing Ithc. He felt as though he could beat anybody, or all of them together.
But no one moved toward him. The one with the dope-stick ground the smoke out on a horny palm, tucked it in a pocket of its black polyon blouse.
“It’s your fight. Gom Bulj won’t like it; Ithc was a valuable piece of livestock. But who’ll tell him?
He may not even notice. Who cares?”
“We’ll take care of the remains,” the small clowns said, clustering around the body.
The others were leaving, wandering off now because the fun was over. Roan went to Stellaraire and lifted her in his arms. He was surprised at how light she was, how fragile for all her sumptuous curving flesh; and how sharp was his need to take care of her.
She smiled up at him. “He . . . must have gone . . . crazy.”
“He won’t bother you any more, Stellaraire.”
Out in the cold night, the blaze of stars, the rise and fall of the mob-noise, Stellaraire’s arm went around his neck. Her face was against his.
“Take me . . . to my tent . . .” she breathed against his throat, and he turned and walked along the shadowy way, aware only of the perfume and the poetry and the wonder of the girl.
TO BE CONTINUED
EARTHBLOOD
PART TWO
Among the weird freaks in the Zoo that spanned the starlanes, he was strangest. He was that legendary creature, a Man!
What Has Gone Before . . .
A million parsecs from legendary Terra, at the Thieves’ Market on Tambool, a pirated pure blood human embryo comes by a mysterious series of events into the hands of the half breeds Raff and Bella Cornay. They settle in a ghetto on the far side of Tambool, where Roan Cornay is born. He grows up among the gracyl, a leathery, winged group of outcasts whose knowledge is entirely instinctive, and who are the servants and victims of the Veed, the saurian ruling class of Tambool. The Yill slave T’hoy hoy tells Roan the legends of ancient Terra, of her heroes and her empires, and of the fabled war with the terrible Niss, which destroyed the power of both forces, and left the empire in shambles, so that the various worlds sank into lawlessness and ignorance. Terra itself is said to have been cut off from the universe for five thousand years, surrounded by a Niss blockade.
At the age of sixteen, Roan sneaks m to watch a traveling Extravaganzoo, using a cable for a tightrope. He is kidnapped by the circus creature Ithc, who kills Raff, and whom Roan wounds in the hand. Gom Bulj, owner of the Extravaganzoo, wants Roan because of his skill in tightrope walking, and also because as a human he will make a good freak.
Roan meets and falls in love with the beautiful exotic dancer, Stellaraire, who helps him find a place in the hierarchy of the circus and introduces him to Iron Robert, the strongest being in the universe. The hatred between Ithc and Roan comes to a head when Ithc takes Stellaraire off after a show, and Roan finds him torturing her with a nerve gun, to the amusement of a group of minor circus people. Roan kills Ithc and rescues Stellaraire, but is shaken by the utter lack of loyalty or decency he meets with everywhere.
XII
In the gray light of Chlora’s dawn, Roan worked with the others, dismantling the tents, folding the vast canvasses, coiling the miles of rope, stacking and bundling stakes, striking sets and packing props and costumes. The wagons puffed and smoked, and hauled everything back up the ramps into the ship, and then they lowered their scraping blades and pushed all the garbage back into the circus grounds where it belonged, with the stripped yellow bones of Ithc at the bottom.
Later
in Stellaraire’s room, she poured Roan a glass of wine and sat on his lap.
“I never knew how much I loved you, until you fought Ithc for me,” she said.
“Nobody’s said anything about him,” Roan said. “Aren’t they going to investigate his death.”
“Why should anyone bother? He wasn’t much use with a ruined hand, anyway.”
“But what about his friends?”
“You’re talking like a Terry,” Stellaraire said, and sipped her wine appreciatively. Roan tasted it, too. It was a blossom-pink Doree from Aphela and it tasted like laughter.
Algol II was a wonderful pale green gold-edged mountain that filled half the immense view-screen in the dusty old room that had once been the grand observation salon.
“I’ve got an idea,” Roan said, standing with his arms around Stellaraire’s slim waist. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, about there being a lot of mutant Terrans here, and about the climate being like Terra. Why don’t we stay here? When the show pulls up, we’ll disappear. Gom Bulj wouldn’t go to the expense of coming back after us.”
“Why?” the girl asked, raising her violet-pencilled eyebrows. “What would we do on Algol II?”
“We wouldn’t stay. Just until we made enough credit to leave. I have to get back ho—back to Tambool. Ma’s still back there, all alone now.”
“But the ’zoo is my home! I’ve never been any other place since I was ten years old. It’s safe here, and we can be together.”
“And besides,” Roan went on, “Ma will know all about where I came from; maybe who my blood father and mother are. I have to find out. Then I’m going to Terra.”
“Roan, Terra’s just a mythical place! You can’t—”
“Yes, I can,” he said. “Terra’s a real place. I know it is. I can feel inside that it’s real. And it’s not like other worlds. On Terra everything is the way things should be. Not all this hate, and not caring, and dirt and dying for nothing. I’ve never been there, but I know it as though I’d spent all my life there. It’s where I be long.”
Stellaraire took his hand, leaned against him. “Ah, sweetie, for your sake I hope it’s really there—somewhere. And if it is,” she added, “I know someday you’ll find it.”
The ’zoo went well on Algol II.
Roan was sure-footed and nimble on the high wire in the light gravity, only three-fourths ship-normal, and Stellaraire’s dance was an immense success with the mutant Terrans, who were odd-looking dwarves with bushy muttonchop whiskers and bowed legs and immense bellies and no visible difference between the sexes; but they appreciated the erotic qualities of her performance so well that a number of the locals occupying ringside boxes began solemnly coupling with their mates before she had even finished.
Afterwards, Roan found Stellaraire by the arena barrier, watching Iron Robert in his preliminary warm-up bout.
“I’ve planned a route for us,” he said softly. “As soon as—”
“Shhh . . .” she said, and put a hand on his arm, her eyes on the spot-lit ring where the stone giant was strangling a great armored creature with insane, bulging eyes. It was already quite dead. He was mauling it for the amusement of the crowd which had no way of knowing the beast had died minutes before.
“Listen,” Roan insisted. “I have clothes and food in a bundle. Are you ready to go?”
She turned to look up at him. “You really mean it? Now? Just like that, just walk off?”
“What other way is there? This is as good a time as any.”
“Roan, it’s crazy! But if you’re going, I’m going with you. But listen. Wait until after Iron Robert’s act. We can slip away while the tops are going down. Somebody might notice if we tried it now—and whatever we do, we don’t want to get caught. Gom Bulj has some pretty drastic ideas about what to do with deserters.”
“All right. As soon as the fight’s over and the noise-makers come on, we’ll mingle with the marks and go out gate nineteen. There’s a patch of big plants growing over on that side, and we can duck in there and work our way to the town.”
There was scattered applause as Iron Robert tossed his victim aside and raised his huge, square hands in his victory sign. He came over to where Roan and Stellaraire stood, accepted a towel tossed to him by Mag or his twin brother. He wiped pale pink blood from his face and hands, then took a scraper from his belt pouch and began to clean himself, frowning as he worked. He was very neat and meticulous and it made a tooth-cracking noise.
“How you like fight, Terry?” he asked suddenly, scraping his arm with long strokes.
“I didn’t really see it,” Roan answered. “When I got here it was already over.”
Iron Robert chuckled, a sound like a boulder rolling downhill. “Fans like see plenty action,” he said. “Iron Robert kill too quick, have to ham up act little, give everybody money’s worth.” He finished his toilet and put the scraper away.
“Next fight different maybe,” he said. “Parlagon easy. Tear up whole parlagon with bare hands. Chinazell next. Never see chinazell before. Chinazell pretty tough, some say. What is chinazell? Who care? Tear him up, too.”
“I guess you can beat just about anything they put in against you,” Roan commented, looking around to see if Gom Bulj was in sight. It wouldn’t do to have him watching when they made their try.
“So far, Terry,” the giant said. He looked at Roan with an unreadable expression in his green-glass eyes. “Iron Robert meet all comers. Some day being too tough to kill.” He waved a hand at the stands. “That what all come, hope for. Some day they see. Maybe today. Maybe next year. Maybe hundred years. Meantime, meet all comers, fight to win. Iron Robert born to fight. Fight until die.”
A horn blew long, nerve-shredding blasts. Crews were hauling sections of heavy fencing into the cleared arena. The PA system boomed out a description of the coming battle. Iron Robert took a gallon-sized swig from a bottle, tossed it aside, stalked out into the center of the ring under the glare of the lights. Jumbo appeared, hauling a vast, iron-barred cage. Its sides trembled as something inside slammed against the bars. The crowd fell suddenly silent. An immensely tall, thin being dressed in green silks that flapped about its long shins pulled a rope and the end of the cage fell aside.
A triangular, scaled head poked out, swaying inquiringly on its serpentine neck. Then the chinazell bounded from the cage and shook the ground when it landed. It was an incredibly monstrous creature, a primitive-world dinosaur type with bony plates along its high-arched spine. But the fearsome thing about it was the gleam of intelligence in the small, glistening eyes. It paused a moment, surveying the sea of faces behind the barriers, and gauging Iron Robert, half its size, who stood watching it and ganging it back.
Roan heard Stellaraire’s quick intake of breath. “No wonder the betting was so high,” she said. “Gom Bulj said a syndicate was importing something special from Algol II, just for the fight. It’s a high-G planet, and that monster’s used to weighing twice as much as he does now. Look at him! I don’t think I want to watch this.”
“You’re not really worried, are you?” Roan asked. “I mean, it’s fixed, isn’t it?”
Stellaraire whirled on Roan. “I’ve known Iron Robert ever since I was a little girl,” she said. “I’ve seen him go up against the awfullest fighters and the cruellest killers on a hundred worlds, and he’s always won. He wins with his strength and his courage. Nothing else. Nobody helps him—any more than they helped me—or you!” She looked back toward the arena, where the chinazell had seen Iron Robert now. It gathered its legs under it, watching him standing with his back to his opponent, his arms raised to the crowd in the ancient salute of the gladiator.
“I’m affaid, Roan,” Stellaraire said. “He’s never fought anything like this before!”
The chinazell moved suddenly; it rose up on its hind legs and charged like a huge, ungainly bird straight toward Iron Robert’s exposed back. Stellaraire’s fingers dug deep into Roan’s arm.
“Why doe
sn’t he turn!”
At the last possible moment, Iron Robert pivoted with a speed that seemed unbelievable in anything so massive, leaned aside from the chinazell’s charge and struck out with a club-like arm. The blow resounded against the beast’s armored hide like a cannonball striking masonry; it staggered, broke stride, sent up a spray of dust as it caught itself, wheeled and pounced. The vicious triangular head whipped down with open jaws that clashed against Iron Robert’s stony hide and dragged him from his feet.
His arms encircled the scaled neck, hugging the monster close. In sudden alarm, it braced its feet and backed, and Iron Robert held on, twisting the broad head sideways, his fingers locked in the corners of the clamped mouth. The heavy reptilian tail slammed the ground in a roil of dust. Sparks flew where the bright talons of the creature’s short arms raked Iron Robert’s invulnerable chest and shoulders. Then it opened it jaws, whipped its neck, flung Iron Robert aside. He rolled in the dust, and before he could come to his feet, the chinazell sprang to him, brought an immense hind foot down in an earth-shaking kick.
Roan coughed as dust floated across from the scene of the battle.
“I can’t see!” Stellaraire wailed. “What’s happening?”
Iron Robert was on his feet again, grappling a hind leg nearly as big as himself. The chinazell, its weight down on its stunted forelimbs, sidled awkwardly, trying to shake its attacker loose. Its head came around and down, striking at Iron Robert. He hunched his head closer to his shoulders and reached up for a higher grip.
“The thing’s too big for him,” Stellaraire gasped. “He can’t reach a vulnerable spot!”
With a surge, the chinazell raised the trapped leg clear of the ground and dashed it down. Iron Robert slammed against the concrete-hard clay—but he kept his grip.
“He’s hurt!” Stellaraire choked. “It’s all he can do to hold on—and that isn’t doing him any good. But if he lets go, it will kick him again!”
Collected Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 38