“You’ve let this one get filthy again,” the reptilian jailor bellowed. “Clean it off, put its limbs back on, and deliver it to the pits.”
The pits? Zeke wondered. Normally he was taken to the labs; he always worked in the labs. Something was different, which was interesting, so he endured being washed off with a fire hose with a minimum of swearing. The Lumar was also a slave of the Margoth, just like Zeke, but he held the lofty position of slave overseer, which allowed him to carry out a number of depravities on the other slaves. In Zeke’s case, the Lumar took great pleasure in taking off his mechanical arms and legs, which forced him to lay in his own filth for days on end.
After a torrent of water that left him coughing and gagging, Cho-to flipped Zeke over and hosed off his other side, then he attached Zeke’s limbs. Resisting the urge to brain the Lumar from behind—Zeke had tried it once before and had found the results unsatisfactory—he followed the Humanoid down the passageway and through a series of tunnels he had never travelled before. Normally, when the Margoth needed him, it was in the labs with the HecSha, where his training as a physician was used to supervise a minor piece of research that was deemed too odious for the Margoth or HecSha researchers to do themselves.
“Where are we going?” Zeke finally asked as they turned into the third tunnel.
When the Lumar kept walking and didn’t answer, Zeke grabbed one of the Humanoid’s lower arms. With a bellow, Cho-to swung around and punched Zeke in the stomach. Zeke dropped to a knee, trying to catch his breath.
“Stupid Human,” Cho-to said. “You make me lose count of steps.”
“Where—” Zeke gasped. “Where are we going?”
“To pits. Boss needs money. Bet on you.”
“Bet on me to do what?” Zeke asked as the Lumar grabbed him with two arms and lifted him to his feet.
“To live.” Cho-to started walking. “No more talk. Come.”
Zeke knew from previous dealings with the Lumar that he wouldn’t talk any more—he needed all of his limited intelligence to remember the directions to where they were going. And since Zeke had distracted him, the Lumar’s brain was probably already about to seize.
Still, Zeke didn’t like the answer. ‘Pits’ might involve mining for gems to make the Master money, but he had the suspicion it involved fighting. However, if the Boss had bet on him winning, at least he had a shot at coming out of it alive. He hoped.
He didn’t have long to think about it. Cho-to must have seen something familiar, for his pace increased, and Zeke had to go at a forced march to keep up with his longer strides. Within another couple minutes, they arrived at a door guarded by two other Lumars, each holding 10-foot-long spears. The blades on the spears shone; Zeke made a mental note to not piss them off. After the forced march, he was out of breath anyway, and he spent the next few minutes doubled over.
At some unseen signal, one of the new Lumar said, “It time,” and opened the door.
“Go,” said the other, pointing through the doorway.
“I’m supposed to go in there?” Zeke asked, stalling for time as he tried to get a look at what lay beyond the open door. It was brightly lit, and the floor looked like it was sand. A two-foot-high lip at the doorway held the sand back from the passageway.
Cho-to kicked him from behind, hurtling him forward, and one of the other Lumar grabbed him and threw him bodily through the doorway. The other Lumar threw his spear, and it stuck into the sand next to him, no more than two inches from his arm.
“Stupid fucks!” Zeke yelled as he turned back toward the Lumar, but they’d already shut the door. He could barely tell where the seam was.
So it was the fighting pits, then. Zeke pulled the spear from the sand, too pissed off to be scared, and took a moment to survey his surroundings. The arena was a circle 100 feet across, with ferrocrete walls about 10 feet high. Above that, reflective glass went another 30 feet higher, before coming together in a dome. Although he couldn’t see through the glass, he fully expected the spectators on the other side weren’t similarly handicapped. Having attended this type of ‘entertainment’ before, he also suspected there were micro-Tri-V cameras spaced about the pit to give maximum-definition views of the blood splatters and killing shots.
He moved around the arena slowly, testing his footing. The sand seemed uniformly deep and soft; running through it would have been a cardiovascular nightmare, even if he were in great shape. After many years as a slave, he knew he was anything but.
A soft noise behind him caused Zeke to turn. It was another door shutting; two giant creatures had already entered the arena and were spreading out to flank him. Realizing they’d been seen, both turned toward him, roaring a challenge. And then they smiled.
Zeke gasped before dropping into a defensive position and backing away from them—he was face with two enormous sabre-tooth tigers. At least 10 feet long, not counting their tails, and five feet high at the shoulder, the beasts were massive, larger than he thought the real animals had been. And, as terrifying as their two-foot-long fangs were, what scared Zeke even more was the intelligence evident in their eyes. The two big predators exchanged a look and began stalking him again.
Some asshole turned a speaker on inside the arena, and Zeke could hear the announcer’s voice, translated for him into English! “Here it is, Good Beings! The final contest of the evening is a battle from the ancient past on a planet called “Earth.” A stupid name for a planet that is mostly water, this planet is new to galactic membership and not even a full member of the Union yet. In its ancient past, the race called “Humans” battled these giant predators with nothing more than spears, like our hero is carrying tonight.”
Zeke had been happier without the distraction of the announcer, and he had to tune out the voice to focus on the beasts tracking him. One would move suddenly, trying to draw his attention, while the other looked for an opportunity to get to him. For his part, Zeke had to watch both of the giant cats, while he tried to get an indication of which would be the one to attack first. He couldn’t see anything different between the two that indicated whether they were different sexes; in fact, he didn’t see anything different about them at all. They were as close to identical as they could be.
Zeke was screwed, and he knew it.
He saw a flash to the right as the giant predator pounced. Zeke spun to face the threat, grounding the butt of the spear so he could impale the beast on it.
It was a ruse, though; the cat landed just short of the spear, without any forward momentum.
Without thinking, Zeke dove to the side. The claw that would have disemboweled him only grazed his leg, and Zeke added the force of the blow to his roll, using the added momentum to regain his feet. He spun and almost caught the second cat on the spear, but it sprang away from him. “Well done,” the cat said.
“Indeed,” the first cat added. “It’s always more fun when we get to play with our food first.”
Zeke backed away from the beasts as they spread back out to flank him, trying to keep them in sight, but something kept bumping his left leg. He risked a glance down—the pseudo-flesh of his right leg had been shredded, and pieces of it were hanging off. The cats’ claws were razor sharp! He reached down and pulled the pieces off, exposing the artificial mechanism.
“A mechanical leg,” the first cat noted. “Too bad; that’s less of you to eat once we kill you.”
“How much of you is edible?” the second asked.
“None of your damned business,” Zeke said with a grunt as he pulled off the last piece and threw it at the second cat. The beast turned away reflexively, opening up a larger gap on that side, and Zeke edged toward the first cat, making the gap even larger. Seeing the gap opening, the giant predator bounded forward, giving up its stalking pace in order to get back in position.
As the big cat’s muscles bunch in preparation for the leap, Zeke sprinted toward the cat, rapidly closing the distance while the cat was in the air.
Once committed to the jum
p, the predator couldn’t change its direction in the air, although it flailed about greatly, trying to spin around. It touched down lightly and gathered itself to jump, but Zeke was within reach, and he jabbed the spear into the cat’s side. The cat roared in pain as it sprang back away, blue blood streaking its side and coloring the white sand. Zeke spun around, but the first cat was still out of range as it ran forward; Zeke’s sudden movement had caught it off guard.
Seeing Zeke turn, the cat sprang off to the side, out of reach. “I’ll kill you for that,” the saber-tooth said as it landed gracefully in the sand, tuned to face him, and started walking toward him.
Zeke didn’t reply; he was too busy conserving his strength. The sprint through the soft sand had taken a lot out of him, and his chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. He risked a glance toward the other cat; it was licking its wound—the battle was one-on-one for the moment.
Maybe he had a chance after all.
The first cat continued approaching him slowly, and Zeke continued to back away. With a bump, he reached the wall; he would have to make his stand here. The big cat continued to pace toward him, until it was just outside the reach of his spear. Zeke jabbed at the beast and the cat tried to swat the spear away. Zeke pulled it back away from the blow and jabbed again.
It almost looked like a friend’s cat he had once seen, playing with string, but the odds were a lot higher. If the cat was going to fight him that way, he didn’t have a chance at all—Zeke would have to do something else, or the cat would eventually swat the spear away and pounce on him once it was no longer a threat.
He feinted to the left and then dove to the right, pretending like he had tripped. The cat moved initially toward the feint, but when it saw Zeke going down, and the spear no longer pointed at him, it pounced back toward the Human. Zeke hit the sand and snapped the spearhead back around with the butt of the spear on the sand.
The cat came down on the spear, and the spear punched through its chest. The cat screamed as the spearhead burst through its back, spraying blue across the sand and Zeke. Mortally wounded, the beast took a half step toward Zeke and took a swipe at him. Zeke saw the strike coming, but had no defense for it; all he could do was hold up his left arm to block the blow.
The cat’s claws raked across Zeke’s arm and across his back, catapulting him across the sand. A number of warning and caution messages from the systems in his arm raced across his vision as he flew through the air to hit 15 feet away; the last message he saw was a red warning that said simply, “Left Arm Inop.” He tried to get up, his back burning from the slashes across it, but the arm was dead and dangled from his side.
Zeke rose from the sand and looked back to see a pattern of red joining the blue on the sand. As much as his back hurt, he was surprised there wasn’t more.
He felt movement from behind him to his left and started to turn, but the other cat bit into his left arm and shook its head, throwing Zeke through the air again as his arm tore off. He tried to break his fall with his right arm, and a number of caution lights illuminated on it as the servos and motors absorbed the impact, bending but not breaking in the sand.
He pushed himself back to his knees and turned to see the cat racing toward him, its mouth open. He dropped back to the sand with only his right arm held up. Unable to stop, the cat continued across him, biting down on his arm and shredding the flesh on his other leg. The cat dragged Zeke for another 10 yards, the sand further abrading the skin of his back.
The cat finally stopped and began shaking Zeke by the arm again. Zeke could feel the arm start to separate from his body so he grabbed onto the cat’s tongue, set the brake on his hand to hold it in place, and initiated the overload on the arm’s power source before he was once again thrown through the air.
Zeke couldn’t break his fall, this time—he went face-first into the sand. All he could do was turn his head and absorb the impact on his cheek, and the sand ripped the skin off his face.
Unable to rise, Zeke bicycled his legs to spin around and see his opponent. The cat was shaking its head and spitting, but it was unable to get the hand to detach from its tongue. It took a big breath and rose up to try and spit it out, and the battery in the arm detonated. A small power cell, it wasn’t big enough to blow the animal’s head off, but it was enough to drive splinters of metal up through the roof of its mouth and into its brain.
It took one step toward Zeke and then fell over, dead.
2
Zeke woke up to blinding light, lying on his stomach on a hard, flat, cold surface. He blinked his eyes and squinted. The light shone off a number of shiny metal surfaces, but he had no idea what they might be. At least there wasn’t any sand so he wasn’t in the arena; he had survived. He vaguely remembered the fight and had flashes of a spear though one of the cats and the other one falling, but couldn’t remember anything after that.
Something fuzzy passed in front of his vision. He blinked several times and squinted. It looked like a giant badger. “—the hell am I?” Zeke asked. Talking made his face hurt, and he remembered going face-first into the sand. At least he hadn’t broken his neck.
“You are in the arena’s infirmary,” the Cochkala said. “You survived your battle with the giant beasts, and your owner paid for me to fix you up, which I have done. Your back will be sore for a while, but it has been repaired. There was some organ damage, but nothing that couldn’t be undone.”
Zeke tried to get up but couldn’t move. “What…about arms?” Zeke gasped.
“They’re both gone,” the Cochkala replied. “The one they brought in with you was broken and couldn’t be fixed. I understand the other one detonated, killing one of your opponents.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Zeke remembered flying through the air several times. That’s also why his face hurt. “Want arms.”
“As I understand it, new arms are coming. The Limbets insisted.”
“The what?”
“The Limbets,” the Cochkala repeated, then there was a sharp pain in his side and everything went black.
3
Zeke came back to consciousness. More alert this time, he assessed his situation before opening his eyes. He was now lying on his back, and it didn’t hurt, so either he’d been given some pretty good painkillers, or the doctor had truly patched him up. Both of the “Arm Inop” lights were out—had they put new arms on him? He tentatively made a fist with his right hand and felt it respond. They had given him new arms. Things were looking up.
“He is awake,” a voice said. It sounded like the doctor’s voice.
He opened his eyes—they were not as light-sensitive this time—and looked around. The Cochkala was back along with two midgets. Well, not midgets exactly, as they didn’t appear to be Human. Although generally Humanoid in shape, they were only about three feet tall, and their heads were larger than normal. They looked like the stereotypical “Man from Mars” he had seen in several science fiction movies before he came off planet and found that life came in all shapes and sizes beside Humanoid.
“When will he be ready to travel?” one of the Martians asked.
The Cochkala sniffed. “I told you he would be ready now, and he is. Why did you hire me if you doubt my work?”
“We do not doubt your work,” the same Martian said. He turned to Zeke and said, “Come along, Human.”
Zeke pushed himself to a sitting position. “Where are we going?”
“I bought your contract,” the Martian said. “You’re coming with us.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
The Martian pulled a box from his pocket and pushed a button. Waves of pain seared through Zeke, emanating from his neck. He twitched, losing control of his muscles, and fell to the floor, spasming. After a subjective eternity of agony, the pain ceased, and Zeke curled into a ball as his nerves recovered. Adding insult to injury, he had wet himself in the process.
“I forgot to mention,” the Cochkala said. “In addition to healing your wounds, I also put a nerve col
lar on you. If you don’t do what you’re told, Zirt can make things very painful for you.”
“Sadistic fuck,” Zeke muttered, and was subject to another few seconds of pain, although less than before. It seemed worse the second time, even so.
When the torture ended, Zeke reached up to his neck and found a thin collar. Although he didn’t have time to search it thoroughly, it seemed continuous—he couldn’t feel a seam in it. At least it was on the exterior, where he could get at it, and not embedded in his neck. And if his luck was really good, it didn’t have explosives in it.
“For the record,” Zeke said, looking at the Martian, “I meant the doctor.”
“Oh,” Zirt said. “You should endeavor to be more specific.” He looked at the other Martian and then turned back to Zeke. “Come along.”
The two Martians turned and left the room, and Zeke reluctantly followed them.
4
“This will be your new home,” Zirt said as they walked into the large room.
The trip to Zirt’s planet had gone smoothly, with only a few more punishment sessions necessary when Zeke forgot himself and answered a question sarcastically. Apparently sarcasm was lost on the Limbets—the two creatures were actually from the Limbet race and not Martians—and every time he used sarcasm on them, Zirt shocked the shit out of him, sometimes literally. Sarcasm was contraindicated.
Zeke had learned more about his captors. The second Limbet’s name was Triz, although he (she?) never spoke. Zirt said that Triz was his symbiote, but wouldn’t explain the nature of the relationship. The second time Zeke asked, he had been shocked severely, and he had decided it was best to leave that question unanswered. Whatever the relationship was, they seemed to have a method of communication that was inaudible to Zeke.
He’d also learned a little more about his collar. It wouldn’t come off without some sort of equipment that Zirt said he didn’t have (so don’t bother asking). He also found out there was a minimum range on the collar. If he came within about four feet of the control box, it automatically activated—grabbing the box from Zirt wasn’t going to be possible. He’d have to figure something else out.
The Good, the Bad, and the Merc: Even More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 8) Page 34