The mouse made an unsteady circuit of the arena.
Two more spotlights came on, shining directly onto the naked bodies of the two Morrowvian dancers. Their makeup accentuated their feline appearance, striped body paint making them look like humanoid tigresses. Spiky, artificial whiskers decorated their cheeks and vicious fangs protruded from their mouths.
They did not make the mistake of dropping to all fours but they moved with catlike grace, in time to the wailing music. They stalked the mouse from opposite directions and whoever was at the remote controls of the robot managed to convey a quite convincing impression of animal panic, even to a thin, high, terrified squeaking. Every now and again one of the girls would catch it, but do no more than stoop gracefully to bat the robot off its feet with a swipe of a pawlike hand. Each time it recovered and made another dash, and then the other girl would deal with it as her companion had done.
Finally the audience was tiring of the cat and mouse game. There were shouts of, “Finish it! Finish it!”
The taller of the two girls pounced. She dropped to her knees and brought her mouth, with those vicious fangs, down to the neck of the giant mouse. There was a final, ear-piercing squeak. There must have been bladders full of some red fluid under the robot’s synthetic skin; a jet of what looked like blood spurted out over the cat woman’s face, dripped on to the sand. She made her exit then, still on all fours, the carcass hanging from her mouth. Either the robot was very light or those false teeth were very securely anchored.
Her companion trailed after her, also on her hands and knees, caterwauling jealously.
The applause could have been more enthusiastic but, even so, the audience wasn’t sitting on its collective hands.
“Quite good,” admitted Brasidus. Then, “You have been to Morrowvia, John and Maggie. Do the people there really hunt like that?”
“They are fond of hunting,” Maggie told him. “But they hunt much larger animals than mice, and they use spears and bows and arrows. And their teeth, after all the engineered genetic alterations, are like yours and mine. And they don’t have whiskers. And their skins aren’t striped, although their hair, on the head and elsewhere, often is . . . .”
“Please leave me some illusions,” laughed Brasidus.
But Grimes was not listening to them.
He was looking across the arena to where a tangle of audio and video recording equipment had been set up. In the middle of this, like a malignant female spider in her web, was a woman.
Even over a distance Grimes recognized her, and thereafter, while the lights were still on, tried to keep his face turned away from her. Eating one of the hot, spiced sausages that Brasidus had bought from a passing attendant helped.
Chapter 7
“Citizens!” The voice of the master of ceremonies blared from the public address system. “Citizens! Now it is my great pleasure to announce the two boxing kangaroos from New Alice . . .” There was an outburst of applause; obviously this was a very popular act. Grimes could not catch the names of the performers. It would be too much of a coincidence, he thought, if they should turn out to be Shirl and Darleen. Those ladies had been in show business on New Venusberg but as quarry in the so-called kangaroo hunt. He knew that they could fight—first as gladiators in the Colosseum and then helping to beat off a Shaara attack—but their weapons had been boomerangs, not their fists. “And now may I call for volunteers? You know the rules. No weapons, bare fists only. Should any one of you succeed in knocking down one of the ladies she will be yours for the night. Stand up, those who wish to take part in the prize fight of the century! The usherettes will escort you to the changing room.”
All around the arena men were getting to their feet. There was no shortage of volunteers.
“What about you, John?” asked Maggie. “Wouldn’t you like to add a New Alician to your list of conquests?”
“No,” Grimes said. “No.” (He had no need to tell her that he and those two New Alicians, Shirl and Darleen, had been rather more than just good friends.)
“I am tempted,” said Brasidus.
“It would not be wise,” said Jason.
The last of the volunteers—there had been two dozen of them—had been led to the changing room. The house lights dimmed. There was taped music, an old Australian folk song that Grimes recognized. Tie me kangaroo down, sport, tie me kangaroo down . . . Some, more than a few, of the audience, knew the words and started to sing. Grimes joined them.
“Please don’t,” said Maggie, wincing exaggeratedly.
Then the song was over and the music that replaced it was old, old. There was the eerie whispering of the didgerydoo, the xylophonic clicking of singing sticks. Out of the tunnel and onto the sand bounded the two New Alicians, their hands held like paws in front of their small breasts. Save for the absence of long, muscular tails they could well have been large, albino kangaroos. As they hopped around the ring the lights over the arena itself brightened and some, but not all, of the illusion evaporated. But it was still obvious that the remote ancestry of these girls had not been human. There were the heavy rumps, the very well-developed thighs, the lower legs inclined to be skinny, something odd about the jointure of the knees. They were horse-faced, but pleasantly so, handsome rather than pretty, not quite beautiful. They were . . . .
Surely not! thought Grimes. This would be altogether too much of a coincidence. First Maggie (but his and her presence on this world together was perhaps not so coincidental), then Fenella Pruin, and now Shirl and Darleen. But he knew, all too well, that real life abounds in coincidences that a fiction writer would never dare to introduce.
The music fell silent. There was a roll of drums, a blaring trumpet. There was the voice of the announcer as the first pair of volunteers, in bright scarlet boxer shorts, came trotting out through the tunnel.
“Citizens! Killer Kronos and Battling Bellepheron, to uphold the honor of New Sparta!”
The men, both of them heavily muscled louts, raised their fists above their heads and turned slowly to favor each and every member of the audience with simian grins.
A bell sounded:
The men advanced upon their female adversaries, clenched fists ready to deliver incapacitating blows. Shirl and Darleen stood their ground. Kronos launched what should have been a devastating swipe, that would have been one such had it connected. But Shirl little more than shrugged and the fist missed her left ear by considerably more than the thickness of a coat of paint. And then she was on him, her own fists pummeling his chest and belly. He roared with rage and tried to throw his thick arms about her, to crush her into submission. She danced back and he embraced nothingness. What happened next was almost too fast for the eye to follow. She jumped straight up and drove both feet into his midsection. It was almost as though she were balanced on a stout, muscular but invisible tail. She and Kronos hit the sand simultaneously, she in a crouching posture, he flat on his back. He stirred feebly, made an attempt to get up and then slumped.
Meanwhile Darleen was disposing of her own adversary by more orthodox means, using fists only. It was a classical knock-out.
So it went on. Some bouts were ludicrously short, others gave better value for the customers’ money. Some challengers limped out of the arena under their own steam, others had to be carried off.
Brasidus was highly amused. “These wenches,” he said, “would make a better showing in a fight than the Lady Ellena’s Amazon Guards. But I suppose that unarmed combat is all that they’re good at.”
“Not so,” said Grimes. “Their real specialty is throwing weapons. With them they’re lethal.”
“You seem to know a lot about the people of New Alice,” Maggie said. “Have you ever been there?”
“No,” he told her. “I . . . I met some of them once, on another planet.” (Perhaps someday he would tell her of his misadventures on New Venusberg. Had it not been for the inhibiting influence of Eldoradan investors in the more dubious entertainments available on the pleasure planet t
he galactic media would have given him and Fenella Pruin more than their fair share of notoriety. As it was, hardly anybody knew what had happened and the part that Grimes had played.)
“Javelins?” asked Brasidus, his mind still on weaponry.
“Not quite. For throwing spears they use something called a woomera, a throwing stick, which they use like a sling. It gives the spears extra range. But their most spectacular weapon is the boomerang . . . .”
“And what is that, John?”
Before Grimes could reply the voice of the announcer boomed over the auditorium.
“And now, citizens, the two wonder women from New Alice, the splendiferous Shirl and the delicious Darleen, will entertain you with an exhibition of the art of boomerang throwing. The boomerang is a weapon developed on their native world in Stone Age days, millennia before there were such things as computers and yet employing and utilizing the most subtle principles of modem aerodynamics . . . .”
“The boomerang was developed on Earth, long before New Alice was ever dreamed of,” whispered Grimes indignantly.
All the lights came on and the auditorium was now as brightly illumined as the arena itself. Shirl and Darleen stood in the center of the ring, their naked bodies gleaming in the harsh glare. Despite their participation in twelve boxing bouts their skins were unmarked. Slowly they scanned the audience. At one time Grimes thought they were looking straight at him but they gave no sign of recognition. But, of course, they would not be expecting to see him here. After the show he would go around to the stage door, or whatever it was called, to give the girls a big surprise.
Two of the pseudo Amazons came onto the arena, each carrying a small bundle of wooden boomerangs. There were big ones, and some not so big, and little ones. They were decorated with bands of bright paint—white and blue and scarlet.
The attendants bowed to Shirl and Darleen and then strode away. There was the obligatory roll of drums. Shirl picked up a half-dozen of the little boomerangs from the sand. She handed the first one to Darleen, who threw it from her. Then the second one, then the third, then the fourth, and the fifth and the sixth. It was a dazzling display of juggling with never less than five of the things in the air at the same time, each one terminating its short, circular flight in Darleen’s right hand just after the launching of another, resting there only briefly before being relaunched itself. And then the flight pattern was changed and it was Shirl who was catching, one by one, all six of the boomerangs, catching and throwing time after time again. Another half-dozen of the boomerangs came into play and Shirl and Darleen widened the distance between themselves, a boomerang-juggling duo.
Finally each of the things was thrown so that they came to rest in the center of the arena, forming a pile that could not have been neater had it been stacked by hand.
There was the big boomerang flung by Shirl (or was it Darleen? Grimes still had trouble distinguishing one from the other) that made several orbits of the main overhead light, like a misshapen planet about its primary, before returning to its thrower’s hand. There were the medium-sized ones that were sent whirling over the heads of the audience, too high for any rash person to try to catch one at the risk of losing a finger or two. Most of these were directed to the vicinity of where Fenella Putin was sitting amidst her recording apparatus.
At last the girls decided that they had given her enough of a show and turned to face that part of the auditorium where the Archon’s party was sitting. They scanned the faces of the audience and then they were looking directly at Grimes. They held a whispered consultation, then looked at him again. So they had recognized him. So he would not be able to surprise them in their dressing room when the show was over. It was rather a pity. He shrugged.
Shirl (or was it Darleen?) picked up one of the medium-sized boomerangs. She looked at Grimes. He looked at her. He raised a hand in a gesture of greeting. Both girls ignored it. Shirl assumed the thrower’s stance. Her right arm was a blur of motion—and then the boomerang was coming straight at Grimes, the rapidity of its rotation about its short axis making it almost invisible. He tried to duck but he was jammed in between Maggie and Jason and unable to move.
There was a sudden rattle of automatic pistol fire; Paulus had pulled his vicious little Minetti from a side pocket. The boomerang disintegrated in mid-flight, its shredded splinters falling harmlessly onto the people in the front row. There were shouts and screams. There were two of the pseudo-Amazon usherettes making their hasty way to the scene of the disturbance—and they were not so pseudo after all; each was holding a pistol, a stungun but a weapon nonetheless and lethal when set to full intensity. Jason had his pistol out now and he and the other bodyguard were both standing, pointing their Minettis at the approaching Amazons.
“Put them down, you fools!” roared Brasidus.
Grimes hoped that they would have enough sense to realize that he meant the guns, not the chuckers-out.
The stunguns buzzed. They had been set at very low intensity, not even causing temporary paralysis but inducing a dazed grogginess. The two Amazons were joined by four more strapping, uniformed wenches and the Archon’s party was dragged ignominiously to the manager’s office.
Ironic applause accompanied their forced departure from the auditorium.
Chapter 8
Aristotle was a fat man, bald, piggy-eyed, clad in a white robe similar to those worn by the professional classes, soiled down the front by dropped cigar ash and liquor spillage. He was smoking a cigar now, speaking around it as he addressed the prisoners who stood before his wide, littered desk, supported by the Amazon usherettes.
“You . . .” he snarled. “You . . . Offworlders by the look of you . . . At an entertainment such as mine some riotous behavior is tolerated, but not riotous behavior with . . . firearms.” With a pudgy hand he poked disdainfully at the two automatic pistols that had been placed on his desk. “I suppose you’ll try to tell me—and the police, when they get here, and the magistrate when you come up for trial—that you didn’t know that on this world civilians are not allowed to carry such weapons, by order of the Archon. You know now.”
“But this . . .” Jason waved feebly toward Brasidus. “But this is the . . .”
The Archon raised a warning hand, glared at his bodyguard.
“And this is what, or who?” demanded the showman disdainfully. “Some petty tradesman enjoying a night on the tiles with his offplanet friends, at their expense, no doubt. Showing them the sights, as long as they’re doing the paying. And, talking of the foreigners, which of them started the gunplay?”
“This one,” said the Amazon supporting Paulus, giving him a friendly cuff as she spoke.
“So it was you,” growled Aristotle. “And now, sir, would you mind satisfying my curiosity before the police come to collect you? What possessed you to pull a gun in a public place and, even worse, to interrupt a highly skilled act by two of my performers?”
“That . . . That boomerang thing . . . It was coming straight at the Commodore. I did my best to protect him.”
“The Commodore? You mean the gentleman with the jug-handle ears? I do have a distinguished clientele, don’t I? I know of only one visiting Commodore on New Sparta at this time, and he is a guest of the Archon. He’d be too much of a stuffed shirt to sample the pleasures of the Street of the Haetaeri.”
“Little you know,” said a familiar female voice.
Aristotle shifted his attention from the prisoners to somebody who had just come into the office. “Oh, Miss Pruin . . .” he said coldly. “I do not think that you were invited to sit in on this interview.”
“I invited myself,” said Fenella. “After all, news is news.”
Grimes managed to turn his head to look at her. She had changed very little, if not at all. Her face with rather too much nose and too little chin, with teeth slightly protuberant, the visage of an insatiably curious animal but perversely attractive nonetheless. She grinned at him.
“Do you know these people?” he dem
anded.
“Not all of them, Aristotle. But the gentleman with the jug-handle ears is Captain Grimes, although I believe that he did, briefly, hold the rank of Company Commodore with the Eldorado Corporation. That was when he commanded a pirate squadron . . . .”
“Privateers,” Grimes corrected her tiredly. “Not pirates.”
She ignored this. “And the lady is Commander Maggie Lazenby, one of the scientific officers of the Federation Survey Service. Both she and Captain—sorry, Commodore—Grimes were on this planet many years ago and were involved in the troubles that led to the downfall of the old regime.”
“Oh. That Grimes,” said Aristotle. His manner seemed to be softening slightly. “But I still am entitled to an explanation as to why his friend ruined the Shirl and Darleen act.”
“The boomerang,” insisted Paulus, “was coming straight at the Commodore. It could have taken his head off.”
“It would not,” said two familiar female voices speaking in chorus. Shirl and Darleen, light robes thrown around their bodies, had come into the office which, although considerably larger than a telephone booth, was getting quite crowded. “It would not.”
“It would not,” Aristotle agreed. “Surely you know what that part of the act signified?”
“The boomerang,” explained Shirl (or was it Darleen?), “would have stopped and turned just short of you, returning to my hand. It was a signal to you that you were to follow it—after the show, of course. I thought that everybody knew.”
“It was announced,” said Aristotle. “Just as it was announced that any boxer who succeeded in knocking down Shirl or Darleen would be entitled to her favors.”
“It was not announced,” said Grimes.
“It was not announced,” said Jason and Paulus, speaking together.
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