Short Fiction Mack Reynolds (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📖

seem likely if they wished to colonize the Solar System since all our life forms are based on oxygen.

The only thing was to provide me with several weapons, one each for the various different types of creature our Centaurians might be. In fact, it was only by dint of argument that I was allowed to take my short sword with me into the arena when the day finally arrived. The managers who’d had my training in hand wanted to use the space and weight the sword would take up to carry another half dozen atomic grenades.

I growled at them. “Listen, if these grenades are going to work⁠—and how the kert they could possibly fail to work, I don’t know⁠—one of them will do the job. I’ll take my sword along if only for a good luck charm; I’ve never been in an arena without it yet.”

And I added sarcastically, “This is going to be some fight, this is. I feel like a murderer.”

I kept the sword.

Needless to say, the amphitheatre was packed. Tens of thousands must have pauperized themselves for fare to Venus and for the highly priced seats. But whatever the cost, the stands were packed beyond belief. And, of course, throughout the system every man, woman and child, every brim, mador and loet, every⁠—but you get the idea. Every intelligent living thing in the Solar System was glued to his viziscreen.

And above the arena floated the Centaurian ship, silent, sinister.

There were no preliminaries. That would have been too much.

Instead, when the moment of conflict arrived, I came out into the arena⁠—staggered, might have been the better word. I had a burden of weapons that was just about all I could carry.

When the stands first saw me enter, they came to their feet and began a cheer that should have echoed and reechoed⁠—but didn’t. It died almost before it began. When they saw my equipment, the cheer faltered, then died in shame.

They realized, those citizens from all over the Solar System, what was happening. The stakes were too high. The Solar System was trading honor for security. Instead of being armed with the traditional sword or spear, battleaxe or boomerang, I was laden with the most deadly devices our scientists could develop.

As I said, the cheers died almost before they began.

Maybe I flushed a little. I don’t know. But I tightened my jaw. At least they didn’t boo. Everyone in the stands knew the issue; however he writhed in shame there must be no indication to the Centaurians that we weren’t playing the game, that we weren’t living up to our own rules.

I stood, my back to the judge’s stand, and waited. To the left was the sports box, and I could make out Suzi, even at that distance. Her face was expressionless.

A great helicopter suddenly and deftly detached itself from the Centaurian ship and gracefully swooped down. It was beautifully handled, settling to the opposite side of the arena as gently as a butterfly.

A large door in its side opened, the Centaurian emerged, and a gasp from the stands went up; a gasp louder than the cheer that had originally greeted me.

Of all Solar System intelligent life forms, Jupiter’s Slaber is by far the largest, and, for that reason, that and its natural armor shell, Jupiter had been winning the Interplanetary Meets two out of three times for centuries.

But this hulking brute made the Slaber seem a babe in arms. It resembled somewhat a six legged turtle, roughly twice the size of a Terran elephant. It had two lobster-like claws and four other limbs.

Evidently, it had decided to end the battle as quickly as possible, because without either salute or warning it headed for me, the dust churning up behind it as it came. Its legs were short but fantastically fast. They seemed a blur of speed and before I had got over the surprise of its appearance it was half way across the arena toward me.

A shout, almost a moan, of warning went up from the stands, and suddenly those citizens of the Solar System were no longer ashamed of the weapons I carried, no longer contemptuous of my honor.

I grasped my atomic grenade from its hook on my belt, dropped the projectile thrower to the ground to give my arm free play, and threw.

Half the total acreage of the arena went up in a gust of dirt, dust, gravel and colored smoke. Seconds later I had been thrown prostrate by the blast. Probably half the amphitheatre’s occupants had been similarly treated, and how many blast casualties might have been among them, I couldn’t know.

But at least, I thought, the fight was over and I’d done the Solar League’s dirty work for it. I’d never be able to hold up my head again in a circle of gladiators, but the System was safe.

I came to my feet and turned to go.

A shout, incredulous, unbelieving, arose from the stands, drowning out the cries of those wounded by the blast of my grenade.

I spun and stared.

Crawling laboriously over the lip of the crater my grenade had caused was the Centaurian. One of his many limbs seemed limp and useless, and his shell was battered and begrimed, but he was still alive, and not too much the worse for wear.

When it got to level ground again it seemed to pause momentarily, seeking me out.

I grabbed up the heavy submachine gat⁠—as Suzi tells me they called them in the old days⁠—and threw it to my shoulder. The projectiles it threw were only half an inch in diameter but each of them packed a charge of atomic explosive.

I trained it and held the trigger down. The two hundred round drum was exhausted in less than a half minute, and the sound of the projectiles exploding against the shell of my foe was ear shocking in intensity. Once again, a cloud of smoke and dust enveloped the Centaurian. And only after the last cartridge had been expended and the submachine gat now useless,