It was Mu Chua. ‘I heard a noise,’ she said. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Yes. Yes, it’s fine.’ He glanced at the girl, who sat there on the bed, looking away from him, then turned back to face Mu Chua. ‘It was nothing. Really. Nothing at all.’
Mu Chua met his eyes and held them just a moment longer than was natural, making him wonder what she was thinking as she looked at him; re-awakening, for the briefest moment, his fears of being taped and betrayed. But then she smiled – a warm, candid smile that held no subterfuge. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Then dress and come through. I’ve prepared a breakfast for you.’
Her smile warmed him, cleared away the shadows in his head. ‘Thank you, Mother Chua. You run a good house. A very good house.’
The Pit was a riot of noise and activity, its tiered benches packed to over-flowing. On all sides men yelled and waved their arms frantically, placing bets, dark, faceless figures in the dim red light, while down below, in the intense white light of the combat circle, the two men crouched on their haunches, in the wa shih stance, facing each other silently.
Axel Haavikko, sitting on the front bench between Fest and Ebert, narrowed his eyes, studying the two combatants. They seemed an ill-matched pair; one Hung Mao, the other Han; one a giant, the other so compact and yet so perfectly formed he looked as though he had been made in a GenSyn vat. But there was a stillness, an undisguised sense of authority about the smaller man that impressed at once. He seemed immovable, as if grown about a central point of calm.
‘The Han’s name is Hwa. I’m told he’s champion here,’ said Fest, leaning forward and speaking into his ear. ‘Seventeen bouts, he’s had. Two more and it’ll be a record.’
Axel turned and yelled back at Fest. ‘And the other?’
Fest shrugged and indicated the small Han next to him. He leaned forward again, raising his voice. ‘My friend here says that no one knows much about him. He’s a local boy, name of Karr, but he hasn’t fought before. He’s something of a mystery. But worth a bet, maybe. You’ll get good odds.’
Axel turned to look at the other combatant. Crouched, Karr was taller than most men. Seven ch’i, perhaps. Maybe more. Standing, he had been close to twice the size of Hwa; broad at the shoulder and heavily muscled, his oiled skin shining slickly in the brilliant whiteness. Such men were usually slow. They depended on sheer strength to win through. Yet Axel remembered how the crowd had gone quiet when the giant entered the arena and realized that Karr was something unusual, even by their standards.
For a moment he studied the tattoos on Karr’s chest and arms. On each arm a pair of dragons – one green, one red, their long bodies thick and muscular – coiled about each other sinuously. Their heads were turned inward, face to face, wide, sharp-toothed mouths snarling, huge, golden eyes flashing. On his chest a great bird spread its wings, its powerful, regal head thrown back defiantly, its cruel beak open in a cry of triumph, a terror-stricken horse held fast in each of its steel-like talons.
Axel looked away, feeling suddenly quite awkward. His silks, his braided hair, his necklaces of silver and jade. Such refinements were an impertinence down here. There was no place for such subtleties. Here everything was bared.
It was warm in the Pit and unbearably stuffy, yet he shivered, thinking of what was to come.
‘Look at him!’ yelled Ebert, leaning close to join their conversation. ‘Meat! That’s what he is! A huge sack of meat! It’s a foregone conclusion, Haavikko! I’d not waste a single yuan on him! It’ll be over in seconds!’
‘You think so?’
Ebert nodded exaggeratedly. ‘See our man here.’ He indicated Hwa. ‘I’m told he’s a perfectionist. An artist. He practises eight hours a day, sometimes doing nothing but repeating one single movement.’ Ebert laughed and his blue eyes gleamed red in the dull light. ‘Such training pays off. They say he’s so fast you daren’t even blink while he’s fighting!’
Axel shrugged. Maybe it was so. Certainly there was something different, something obsessive about the man that was quite chilling. His eyes, for instance, never moved. They stared ahead, as if in trance, boring into his opponent’s face, unblinking, merciless in their focus. Whereas the other…
Even as he looked he saw Karr turn his head and look directly at him.
It was a fierce, insolent gaze, almost primitive in its intensity, and yet not wholly unintelligent. There was something about the man. Something he had seen at once. Perhaps it was the casual, almost arrogant way he had looked about the tiers on entering, or the brief, almost dismissive bow he had greeted his opponent with. Whatever, it was enough to make Axel feel uneasy with Ebert’s brusque dismissal of the man. On balance, however, he had to agree with Ebert: the small man looked like an adept – a perfect fighting machine. Height, weight and breadth were no concern to him. His strength was of another kind.
‘Of course,’ continued Ebert, raising his voice so that it carried to the giant, ‘brute strength alone can never win. Intelligence and discipline will triumph every time. It’s nature’s law!’
Axel saw the giant’s eyes flare, his muscles tense. He had heard.
He leaned close to Ebert. ‘I’ll wager a hundred yuan that the big man wins.’
‘I’ll give you five to one.’
‘You’re sure?’
Ebert laughed arrogantly. ‘Make it two fifty, and I’ll give you ten to one!’
Axel met his eyes a moment, conscious of the challenge in them, then gave the barest nod.
Just then, however, the fight marshal stepped out into the combat circle and the crowd hushed expectantly.
Axel felt his stomach tighten, his heart begin to thud against his rib cage. This was it then. To the death.
The two men rose and approached the centre of the circle. There they knelt and bowed to each other – a full k’o t’ou, heads almost touching. Then they sat back on their haunches, waiting, while the marshal gave their names and read the rules.
The rules were short and simple. One. No weapons were permitted but their own bodies. Two. So long as the fight continued they were to keep within the combat circle. Three. Once begun the fight could not be called off. It ended only when one of them was dead.
Axel could feel the tension in his bones. All about him rose a buzz of excitement, an awful, illicit excitement that grew and grew as the moments passed and the two men faced each other at the circle’s centre, waiting for the signal.
Then, suddenly, it began.
The small man flipped backwards like a tumbler, then stopped, perfectly, almost unnaturally still, half-crouched on his toes, his arms raised to shoulder level, forearms bent inward, his fingers splayed.
Karr had not moved. He was watching Hwa carefully, his eyes half-lidded. Then, very slowly, he eased back off his knees, drawing himself up to his full height, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet.
Hwa feinted to the left, then sprang at Karr, bounding forward then flipping his body up and sideways, one foot kicking out at the big man’s groin.
There was a roar from the crowd. For a moment Karr was down. Then he was up again, his feet thudding against the canvas flooring, a hiss of pain escaping through his teeth. Hwa had missed his target. His foot had struck Karr on the upper thigh. The skin there was a vivid red, darkening by the moment, and as Karr circled he rubbed at the spot tenderly, almost absent-mindedly.
‘He’s too slow!’ Ebert hissed in his ear.
‘Wait!’ Axel answered. He had been watching Hwa’s face, had seen the surprise there when the big man had bounced up again. Hwa had thought he had him.
Hwa crouched again, in the classic ch’i ma shih, the riding horse stance, moving side to side from the hips, like a snake. Then he moved his feet in a little dance. From the tiers on all sides came a loud, low shuddering as the crowd banged their feet in applause. A moment later Hwa attacked again.
This time he ran at Karr; a strange, weaving run that ended in a leap. At the same time he let out a bloodcurdling scream.
But Karr had moved.
At the instant Hwa leaped, Karr ducked, rolled and turned. It was a movement that was so quick and so unexpected from such a big man that a huge gasp of surprise went up from the crowd. As Hwa turned to face him again, Karr was smiling.
Surprise turned to rage. Hwa attacked a third time, whirling his body about, thrusting and kicking, his arms and legs moving in a blur. But each blow was met and countered. For once Hwa’s speed was matched. And when he withdrew he was breathing heavily, his face red from exertion.
The crowd roared its appreciation.
‘It’s luck!’ yelled Ebert next to him. ‘You see if it isn’t! The Han will have him soon enough!’
Axel made to answer, but at that moment Hwa launched himself again, flipping over once, twice, like an acrobat, then feinting to left, right, then left again. He was only an arm’s length from Karr when the big man acted. But this time Karr moved a fraction too slowly. When Hwa kicked Karr was off-balance, striking at a place where Hwa had been but was no longer.
The crack of bone could be heard to the back of the tiers.
Karr groaned audibly and went down.
Hwa struck again at once, his foot kicking out once, twice, forcing the broken arm back at an impossible angle.
Axel gasped, feeling sick. Beside him Ebert gave a yell of triumph.
Hwa moved back, getting his breath, a look of satisfaction replacing the frown of concentration he had worn until that moment.
The Pit was tense, silent, waiting for him to end it. ‘Shau,’ he said softly, looking at Karr. Burn.
Karr was down on one knee, his face a mask of pain. Slowly, very slowly, he got up, supporting his shattered arm with his left hand. For a moment he seemed to look inside himself. His breathing slowed and his face cleared. With a grimace of pure agony, he wrenched his arm back, the click of bone against bone the only sound in the whole arena. For a moment he swayed, then seemed to gain control of himself again and tucked the useless hand into the cloth belt at his waist, securing it.
‘Come,’ he said, lifting his chin in challenge to the smaller man. ‘It isn’t over yet.’
The words were like a goad. Hwa exploded, twirling and somersaulting, kicking and punching in a furious rain of blows that went on for minutes. But Karr was up to the challenge. With his good arm and both legs he parried everything Hwa threw at him, weaving and ducking and turning with a speed and agility that surprised everyone. It seemed impossible for a man so big to move his weight so quickly, so subtly.
But Axel, watching, saw how much it cost him – saw, beneath the mask of outward calm, the agony as Karr flipped and jumped and rolled, avoiding the constant flood of blows. Saw it in his eyes, in the faintest movement at the corners of his mouth. Watched until it seemed impossible that Karr could take any more.
And then, just as Hwa was drawing off, Karr counter-attacked for the first time.
Hwa moved back, his full weight resting momentarily – perhaps, for the only time during the contest – on his back foot, in hou shih, the monkey stance. And as he moved back, so Karr rolled forward, pushing up off the floor with his good left arm, his wrist straining and flexing, the whole weight of his huge frame thrust forward into Hwa.
He caught Hwa totally off-balance, his legs wrapping about the small man’s neck, his huge weight driving him down into the canvas.
For an instant there was silence. Then, as the big man rolled over there was a groan. Karr sat up, clutching his arm, his face rent with pain. But Hwa was dead. He lay there next to Karr, pale, unmoving, his back, his neck broken, the back of his skull crushed by the impact of his fall.
Axel let out a shivering breath. Beside him Ebert was suddenly very quiet. On all sides the Pit was in uproar.
‘Magnificent!’ Fest yelled into Axel’s ear. ‘They were giving odds of thirty-five to one! It’s the biggest upset in five years, so my friend here says!’ But Axel was barely listening. He was watching Karr, filled with admiration and respect for the big man.
‘He was magnificent,’ Axel said softly, turning to look at Ebert.
‘He was lucky!’ For a second or two Ebert glowered back at him. Then he laughed dismissively and dug something out of his tunic pocket and handed it across to Haavikko.
‘It’s only money, neh?’
Axel looked down at the thick square of plastic in his hand. It was a secure-image holo-chip. A bearer credit for 2500 yuan. Axel looked up, surprised, then remembered the wager. Two fifty at ten to one. It was more than three months’ salary, but Ebert had treated it as nothing. But then, why not? To him it was pocket money.
Ebert was leaning across him, yelling at Fest. ‘Hey! Let’s go back to the dressing room and congratulate him, neh?’
For a moment longer Axel stared at Ebert, then he looked back at the big man. Karr was picking himself up from the floor painfully, no sign of triumph in his face.
Fest took Axel’s arm and began to pull him away. ‘Let’s go. Hans has had enough.’
‘Come on,’ said Ebert as they stood outside. ‘We’ll buy the brute dinner. He can be our guest.’
They stood in the corridor outside the dressing room, leaning against the wall, ignoring the comings and goings of the lesser fighters. There were bouts all afternoon – challengers for the new champion. But they had seen enough. Ebert had sent in his card a quarter bell ago, the invitation scribbled on the back. Now they waited.
‘There’s a problem with such mechanical virtuosity,’ Ebert said rather pompously. ‘It can so easily switch over into automatonism. A kind of unthinking, machine-like response. Totally inflexible and unable to adapt to approaches more subtle than its own. That’s why Hwa lost. He was inflexible. Unable to change.’
Fest laughed. ‘Sound stuff, Hans. But what you’re really saying is that you knew the big man would win all the time!’
Ebert shook his head. ‘You know what I mean.’ There was a slight irritation in his voice. Then he relented and laughed. ‘Okay, I’m trying to rationalize it, but we were all surprised. Even Axel here. Even he thought his man was going to lose.’
Haavikko smiled. ‘That’s true. He was good, though, wasn’t he?’
Fest nodded. ‘Impressive. Not the best I’ve seen, maybe, but strong. Brave, too.’
Axel looked about him. ‘It’s another world,’ he said. ‘Rawer, more basic than ours.’
Ebert laughed, looking at him. ‘I do believe our young friend is in love with it all. Imagine, living down here, in the sweat and grime!’ He laughed again, more viciously this time. ‘You’d soon be disillusioned.’
‘Maybe…’
He managed no more. Just then the door opened and the big man’s manager came out. He had the same look about him. You’re Karr’s elder brother, Axel thought, looking at him.
‘What do you want?’
Ebert smiled. ‘I watched your man. He fought well. I’d like to take him out to supper. My treat.’
Axel saw how the man controlled himself; saw how he looked from one of them to the next, recognizing them for what they were, Above aristocrats, and knew at once how it must be to live as this man did – wanting to stay clear of their kind, but at the same time needing them. Yes, he saw it all there in the man’s face, all the dreadful compromises he had had to make just to live down here. It rent at Axel’s soul; made him want to turn and leave.
‘Okay,’ the man said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘But Karr’s not feeling well. The contest took a lot out of him. He needs rest…’
Ebert held the man’s hands a moment. ‘It’s all right, friend. We’ll not keep him. A celebration meal, and then…’ He shrugged and smiled pleasantly, letting the man’s hands go. ‘We have influence. Understand? We can arrange things for you. Make it easier…’
Axel narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean, Ebert?’
Ebert turned and looked at him sharply. ‘Shut up, Haavikko! Let me deal with this. I know what I’m doing.’
Axel looked down. Do as yo
u will.
Ebert had a reputation for being headstrong. For doing what others would never dare to do. But it was understandable. He had been born to rule. His father, Klaus Ebert, was head of Chung Kuo’s second largest Company: a Company that had existed since the first days of the City; that provided all the body-servants for the Great Families – sweet, intelligent creatures, scarcely distinguishable from the human; that provided a range of taste-sculpted servants for the richest of the rich, and armies of mindless automatons for the Seven. A company that produced over a third of all the synthesized food eaten in the levels.
Hans Ebert was heir to GenSyn, second only to MedFac on the Hang Seng Index. Rumour was his father could buy the Net twice over. What, then, if he should haggle with the manager of a small-time fighter? Even so, Axel found himself annoyed. Hadn’t Ebert seen? Hadn’t he realized how fine, how powerful the man was?
‘We’ll go in, then?’ Ebert said, his tone insistent, commanding. The manager lowered his head, then bowed to the waist, letting them pass.
So power is, thought Axel, moving past him. So power acts.
Karr was sitting at the far end of the room, his right arm strapped to his chest, a bowl of soup balanced in his left hand. He looked up at them sharply, annoyed at their intrusion.
‘What do you want?’
Ebert smiled, ignoring the big man’s hostility. ‘You fought well. We’d like to celebrate your success. To honour you.’
Karr laughed. He set down the soup and stood up, then came across the room until he stood two paces from Ebert.
‘You want to honour me?’
For the briefest moment Ebert seemed intimidated. Then he recovered, turning to smile at his fellows before looking back up at Karr. ‘Why not? It was a great victory.’
‘You think so?’ Karr smiled, but his voice was sharp and cold. ‘You don’t think it was the triumph of meat over intelligence, then?’
Ebert’s mouth worked ineffectually for a moment. Then he took a step backwards. But as he did so, Karr spat on the floor between Ebert’s feet.
‘Fuck off! Understand? I don’t need you.’
Ebert’s face turned ashen. For a moment he struggled to form words. Then he found his voice again. ‘How dare he!’
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