To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga)

by William Rotsler

  "Stop!" Sergeant White's voice was angry. "Blessed be the saints in Heaven, Mason, but don't you ever recognize a feint?"

  Blake looked wearily at the slim Kapuki, who now was resting, leaning on the blunt tip of her practice sword, grinning at him. "All right, Sergeant, I'll try, just for you."

  Blake put up his shield again and stood in the stance he had been practicing. There was a sudden movement behind him and a blinding blow to his head, and he pitched forward to crumple in the sand of the practice arena. He twisted around, spitting sand, blinded by the ceiling lights and his own blurred vision. Sergeant White stood over him.

  "Don't get loose-mouthed with me, Mason. I don't care how much of a novelty you are!" He kicked Blake painfully in the thigh. "Get up! Take your position! Kapuki, you slam the sass out of this dumb toad!" When Blake did not get up fast enough, White added, "Starting right now!"

  Kapuki's sword kicked up sand as she brought it up in a swift movement, grabbing it with two hands and bringing it down with all the force she had on Blake's unprotected back. He yelled in pain and struck back at her with a wild blow.

  Kapuki easily evaded it and jumped in to stab at him again, giving him a bruise on the already painful side. Blake angrily came up on one knee and knocked her sword aside with his shield, stabbing back at her with his own blunted weapon.

  "That's it!" Sergeant White said happily. "That's it!"

  Blake made several rather wild strikes at the slender oriental girl as he rose. She parried one and he missed getting a blow across the face only by a millimeter or two.

  On his feet now, Blake pressed the attack, using shield, sword, and fast footwork to drive Kapuki back several steps. She got in one more blow to his hip, a glancing hit that opened her up for a brutal thrust to her midsection. She gasped, gagged, and fell back, sucking noisily for air, and Blake moved in fast. He hit her shield so hard she lost it, and he battered her with his until she fell, still gasping. He raised his sword for the kill, then suddenly stopped.

  He looked around. Several of the others had stopped their practice to watch. Sergeant White was smiling, leaning with folded arms against a much-patched robot practice gladiator.

  Blake glared at the instructor. "You made me do this." Blake flung the sword away, followed by the shield in the other direction. "I won't kill her, not even in practice." Blake felt himself trembling with anger and almost in tears from his frustration.

  Sergeant White kept on smiling. "But for a second there..." he said softly. He shoved himself away from the robot and sauntered toward Blake, nodding his head and looking from side to side with a smile. "You'll go out there, all right," he said casually. "You'll kill or you will be killed. But you won't go out there and throw your life away. I won't kill you, but you might wish I had."

  He stopped, facing Blake, who was still quivering with anger. Without warning, the sergeant's hard fist came out and hit Blake on the side of the head, sending him once again into the sand. The arena lurched, and the sounds of the others still practicing at the far end were sharp and clear, but somehow slow. He looked up at White and saw him looming in a distorted way. The gladiator trainer snorted in disgust and walked away.

  Narmada and Bennett helped Blake to his feet and over to a bench. Blake sat there a moment with his head in his hands, then raised it. He looked for and found Kapuki nearby, rubbing at a large bruise. "Kapuki, I'm sorry, I didn't mean–"

  "You better mean!" she said. "The only way you are going to survive out there is if you are good. If you and I meet, with real weapons, I'll kill you – but not because of this. Just because I want to live!"

  Startled by her angry words, Blake stared at her. The slim young oriental girl looked at him with hard eyes. "Soft, stupid fool! If they were all like you back then, no wonder we are in such a mess!" She turned and walked away toward the medical robot.

  Blake looked at Bennett, then Narmada. "I just wanted to apologize for hitting her like that."

  Narmada looked disgusted. "Apologize? Are you going to forgive her or do you want her to forgive you? She's right. No wonder we're in such a goddamn mess now!"

  Neva moved closer and peered at Blake through the slits in her padded practice helmet. "You all right?"

  Blake nodded and watched the others move away and resume practice.

  Neva watched them go and then said softly, "They're right. Going out there and fighting is playing their game, I'll admit. But going out and just giving up, letting yourself be slaughtered, is playing their game, too, on a different level. If you give up, especially you, then it proves men are sheep, it proves that those in power do know what is right for us."

  Blake didn't speak for a long time. His side hurt and he knew there would be a terrible bruise. Then he said, "Why especially me?"

  "Because you're a symbol. I know you don't think of yourself that way, but you are. All of you are. All of you who came here the way you did – anachronisms in the flesh. You are that romantic past, that time of freedom and love!"

  "What have you been reading about my time? Freedom, yes. But it was hardly a utopia. We, too, had overpopulation, food problems, sociological turmoil–"

  "But it was different. Then there was religious freedom, not religious chaos. There was sexual freedom and–" She stopped talking, as if she had gone too far. "You're a symbol of that, Blake Mason, whether you want to be or not." Neva looked around, then stood up. "Go fix your cuts. We'll ... we'll talk of this later."

  Blake watched her go back to pick up her sword and shield. She seemed lost in the heavy padded breastplate and helmet, a child playing at some deadly game. Blake shivered in a sudden uncontrollable spasm.

  Why did I come to the future? One foolish moment and I threw my life away. Rio is lost to me, perhaps forever, perhaps even dead. The two or three or even four hundred years of life he supposedly had coming to him now were fool's gold, meaningless – even dangerous.

  The world was full of beautiful women, he thought. Why did I have to pick Rio? Her picture came into his mind, surprisingly not the beautifully gowned Rio he had seen at Voss's dining table, but Rio as he had first seen her at the top of the stairs at Casa Emperador more than a century before. He recalled clearly that shock of recognition that had gripped him then. She's the one, he had told himself then. She's the one, he told himself now.

  I have to save Rio, he thought.

  He looked at his sword, partially covered by the sand where he had thrown it. Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. He got up and walked over to it. His side was stiffening up, and he grunted when he bent down to pick it up. But maybe they can live by the sword for a while.

  He looked at the others, hacking and thrusting, and heard the clang and thud of their blows. He limped over, picked up his shield and fitted it to his left arm, feeling the solid grip in his hand. He hefted the sword and started toward Kars, who everyone said was the best of the class.

  Kars was fighting with Rob, and Rob was losing. "May I cut in?" Blake said.

  Rob looked at him in amazement, then stepped back. Kars looked from Rob to Blake, then shrugged and began the attack.

  * * *

  Blake lay on his bunk. His bruises had faded and he had not gotten any new ones in over a week. Kars was nursing the first bruise he had received from anyone but Sergeant White, and that made Blake smile.

  Tomorrow they were getting real swords.

  Blake closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Where are you, Rio? He shifted on the bunk, feeling the newfound muscles flex. He ached a little all the time, but Neva said that was standard.

  Tomorrow they were getting real weapons.

  Chapter 20

  Blake walked into the cell room wearily, followed by Kapuki. They had both just spent four hours in the sensory recorder chairs, running an orientation tape on handling the big twenty-foot, human-controlled killer machines, and they were both exhausted. The different Arenas around the country had different attractions, and the Caligula Arena was thinking of importing
some of the Magnabots from the Alamo Arena in Houston. Knowing there was a man inside one of the flame-throwing, metal-clawed monsters was proving to be more exciting than just watching animated piles of metal and computer parts fight it out.

  "We gotta keep up with the times," Sergeant White had said.

  Blake asked Kapuki to share some of his hoarded watered wine, and she agreed.

  Neva suddenly appeared at the door of his cell, and Blake offered her a thick ceramic mug filled with the sweet wine. She took it, leaned against the wall of his cell, and started to say something. But she stopped and took a gulp of the wine.

  "Go on," Kapuki said, smiling at Neva's hesitation.

  Neva took a deep breath and looked out the cell door. "How would you like to get out of here?" she asked softly.

  "I'm going out. Up a few levels and out onto the sand."

  "No, I mean out out."

  Blake looked at her, her hair dark and damp. "Out out?" She nodded. He smiled thinly. "I'd say 'Whom do I kill?' but I guess we know the answer. Each other!"

  Neva bit her lip, then started talking in a fast, low voice. "Blake, remember our talk about you being a symbol? Well, the committee agrees with me."

  "What committee?"

  "The committee for this area of..." She hesitated, then said it quickly. "The committee of the New Day." Blake raised his eyebrows in a questioning gesture. "The People for a New Day. It's a ... revolutionary group. I ... I was one of the committee before I turned down that minister. I've communicated with them about you. They agree you could be a unifying force and–"

  "Wait a minute! I'm no revolutionary. In my day I was considered practically a reactionary!"

  "One century's reactionary is another century's radical," Kapuki said quietly.

  "You're a symbol. Not much of one, I admit, but you're all we have." Neva leaned close to him, her bare breasts brushing his arm, distracting him. "We're going to overthrow these sanctimonious bastards, Blake! We're going to break their hold on the people! And you are the only one who can help!"

  Blake couldn't resist a smile. "The only man in the universe who can help, huh? The only one? 'Only you can stop the invasion of the blue crabs from outer space, Captain Laser!' Only you can stop the dread nine-meter stainless-steel worms, Blake Mason, only you!' "

  Neva and Kapuki looked blankly at him.

  Mason shook his head. "Never mind me," he said. "Go on, tell me how I'm the only one that can save the world from God."

  "Not from God," Neva said. "From religion. Our rulers have perverted religion! The religions are corporations, not faiths. These people don't preach the word of God – any god – they quibble over it! They are not religious, they are irreligious! Calling yourself a Guardian of the Throne of God doesn't make you one!"

  "Wait a minute," Blake interrupted. "How do I fit in? I'm just a glorified interior decorator more than a hundred years out of his time. I'm no symbol, and I'm certainly not a craggy-jawed hero with rippling muscles."

  Kapuki reached up and caressed his chest. "Better than you were a short time ago," she said.

  "Hey, those guys use lasers and microwaves and have big armored aircars and things that go zap in the night! I'm only one man."

  Neva whispered, "There are more revolutionaries than you think! It's a whole underground! Sure, some of them are on the lunatic fringe, some are floaters just having a dream, some are blast-poppers and Eroticenes. But most are serious, dedicated people who are going to do it! With you as an example, maybe they can unify different factions and get things rolling!"

  "Maybe even the Catholics," Kapuki suggested.

  "What do you mean, maybe the Catholics? That's a church, too, isn't it? Or did they sell the franchise?"

  Neva looked quickly into the room outside the cell. "The Catholics are outlaws, just as they were two thousand years ago. Ragnar is one, and ... one or two others. The pope is in exile somewhere, probably in Italy or in New America – um, the South America of your time, I think. Yes."

  "The Hebrews have fractionalized and gone underground as well," Kapuki muttered. "The old religions were driven out of business by these new ones. The old ways didn't work – or so the people thought. They were sick of the excesses, and some of the new cults seemed to promise them peace and quiet. Once the new ones got to be a majority here in America, they outlawed the Catholics and some of the Eastern religions. Later on, these were outlawed in Europe, too, and elsewhere. The pope has been in hiding for years. He was ... What was his name, Neva?"

  "I'm not certain. There were about five popes in two years. They kept killing them off, assassinating them."

  "Assassinating them?" Blake was startled. Somehow the idea was shocking, even more shocking than the reports he had heard of the hundred million dead in India during the First Famine.

  Neva nodded. "I think the last I heard, it was Clement XV."

  Kapuki disagreed. "No, they blew up his bunker in the Vatican, remember? No, the pope must be Urban IX, unless they got him, too. But I think they would have announced that his death came while resisting lawful arrest, if they had: they love that sort of thing. No, I think it is still Urban."

  "It doesn't matter," Blake said. "Our problem will be in getting me out of here."

  Kapuki patted his leg and said, "It's very difficult to get out, unless you get bought out. Of course, people have managed to become so popular as gladiators that they were moved into training cadres, but that doesn't happen often. Sylvia Component was unique. Flynn was made director of–"

  "Component? What kind of name is that?" Blake asked.

  Kapuki looked blank. "Just a name. Oh, is it – I mean, was it – a name from your time?"

  "No, it's just ... not like a name."

  Neva spoke up. "What does Taylor or Weaver mean? Wheelwright? Turner? Smith, Tinker, Hunter? Bell, Blood, Sheppard, Glass, Short, or Sawyer? Names are built, or appropriated, to fit the user. We now have Elecktron, Urbotower, Foundation, Acolyte, Angelman, Host, Faithman, Minion, Component, Zapfax, Kingdom, Airburst ... urn, and Skylord. Did you have those names in your time?"

  Blake shook his head. "I understand. I have so much to learn." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You know, in my time I guess I was considered rather sophisticated. But here ... He looked at their odd expressions and asked, "What's wrong?"

  "That word," Neva said. "Sophisticated. What does it mean? 'A follower of Sappho'?"

  "No," Blake smiled. "Sophisticated means ... worldly ... um, experienced."

  "Oh, I remember that word," Kapuki said. She closed, her eyes and recited. " 'Sophisticated: deprived of original simplicity, made artificial, or, more narrowly, highly complicated, refined' . ."

  "Huh?" Neva said. "That doesn't sound too good." She looked at Blake with an expression of mild disgust. "That's what you were?"

  Blake shrugged. "Maybe I was. It seems far away now, much farther than just the years. Another age, another world." He snorted. "They would have called what I've got 'culture shock' back in my time."

  "They call it 'death sentence' here," Kapuki said.

  They were silent for a time, then Blake asked the oriental girl, "Would you really kill me if we were sent into the Arena together?"

  Without hesitation Kapuki answered. "Yes. I would not like to, but I would if I could." She smiled. "One time I could have succeeded, but now I do not know. You have a natural aptitude for combat."

  "The reluctant warrior..." Neva said. "As long as you still have that reluctance, you will be defeated by the more determined, the more desperate, the ones more eager to survive."

  "I can't help it," Blake said. "I'm still not ready to – to kill." He looked at the ceiling of the cell. "Maybe it still seems like a game to me, I don't know. I can't quite believe it is for real."

  "Better get over that. Lieutenant Cady is coming tomorrow, for an inspection," Neva said.

  "Hooray!" Blake groaned.

  Chapter 21

  They stood at attention in the practice are
na, each in the uniform of his specialty. Blake stood with the seen-tors and was directly opposite Neva in the ranks of the retiarii, who were mostly females. Kapuki was somewhere farther back in the ranks behind Blake, almost bidden by her full practice padded armor.

  Lieutenant Cady was approaching, down the line, followed by Sergeant White and another sergeant whom Blake did not know. The inspection seemed perfunctory, and Blake was starting to relax when the arrogant officer stopped in front of him.

  "Ah, the famous time traveler!" His words were an insult, but Blake kept his face expressionless. "The infamous time traveler, in fact. And how are you getting on, Prisoner Blake?"

  "Fine, sir."

  White was looking at him steadily from behind Cady's shoulder.

  "Fine, sir? Indeed. You like it here, then?"

  "No, sir."

  The officer's face slid into a wicked grin. "Oh? Sergeant White, this notorious criminal does not like it here. Have you been treating him badly?"

  "No, sir. Standard training procedures."

  "You see, Mason? But perhaps you think you should be treated in some special way, just because you come to us from the decadent, godless past?"

  Blake had been staring about five meters beyond Cady's head. Now he focused on his eyes. "No, sir."

  Cady's face hardened, and he spoke sharply to Sergeant White. "See that Prisoner Mason receives some special treatment, Sergeant. But I want him to go into the Arena as soon as possible."

  "We have another week on the training cycle, sir. Then there is the special training for the novelty acts."

  "Never mind that!" Cady's tongue slid out and wet his lips. "Give this prisoner an early call, as early as can be arranged; and notify my office. I don't want to miss his first and last appearance in the Arena."

  "Yes, sir."

  Cady and the noncoms moved down the line, and Blake let out a long breath.

  Special treatment. Early call...

  Back in the cell room after the inspection, White crooked a finger at Blake and walked toward the cell where Blake had seen the man and woman getting the electric shock. He stiffened but didn't move. He had seen the two of them since, two automatons, half mad, half comatose, going through their training in a blundering fashion, a near-living warning to the others.