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

Conquer.’ That’s what I did. I got my opponents to fighting among themselves so that I could defeat them easier.”

“The Romans, not the Sioux Indians,” Alger muttered.

“Then you mean that this was actually a maxim of Terra?” the judge said in surprise. I could see the other judges and diplomats, including those from earth, were as shocked as the Martian.

“Well, yes,” Suzi told him. “Of course, they usually didn’t use quite the method that Jak did.⁠ ⁠…”

The judge snorted again. “Be that as it may, I don’t see how Demsi can justify his fleeing before the Calypso gladiators like a common coward. Meet rules are that each gladiator must fight any who oppose him.”

Suzi shot a worried look at me.

“Right in accord with Terran history and custom,” I said decisively. “For one thing, it was always a basic rule with a Terran general to choose the battlefield where the fight was to be joined. It was considered a major advantage. Another maxim was, ‘Git there fustest, with the mostest.’ I merely ran to the ground that best suited me, and then, when the Calypso Dwoorfs were no longer the mostest, I fought them one at a time.”

The judge raised his eyes questioningly at Alger and was rewarded with a gruding nod.

The Martian shook his head as though in disbelief but went on. “Those two matters you have explained, surprisingly, but acceptably. But to this last charge there can be no possible honorable background in Terran custom. I refer to the fact that in the final conflict you fell as though dead and remained on the ground until the other contestants had all but eliminated each other. When only the badly wounded Slaber and the half dead Venusian gladiator remained, you got up again and, reentering the fight, finished off these opponents.”

The judge threw up his four hand in horror. “Certainly, you can’t claim justification for that! Not on any grounds, not by and.⁠ ⁠…”

I stood up as straight and defiantly as my heavy bandages would allow. “Listen,” I growled. “It’s one of the oldest traditions of Terra. It’s called playing possum.”

For a full minute silence fell on the whole group. Then I could hear one diplomat whisper questioningly to another. “Playing possum? What does that mean?”

And then with one of the most outstanding bits of pure statesmanship the system has even seen, Suzi took up the cue and spoke in collaboration.

“He’s quite right. Playing possum is in full accord with Terran custom. Why,” she added innocently, “earth always acts in that manner. She pretends she’s weak, helpless, someone to be ignored; and, then, suddenly, and without warning, she shows her full strength.”

The various judges and diplomats shot glances at each other from the sides of their eyes, especially those from Venus, Saturn, and Pluto.

The Terran judge was no makron. When somebody yelled glorm he knew enough to grab the gaboot and run with it. He looked at Suzi and I severely. “Say no more, either of you. You are not here to reveal Terran secrets.”

The other diplomats eyed each other again, nervously.

The Martian judge, more genial now, said, “Undoubtedly, a mistake has been made due to our lack of knowledge of Terran customs and practices. The emerald shall be awarded the Terran gladiator, Jak Demsi, as soon as it is found. It is undoubtedly still in the arena in the possession of some slain contestant.”

I took it from my belt. “As a matter of fact, I have it here. I picked it up while playing possum under that heap of corpses. It’s an old custom handed down from a Terran city named Brooklyn. ‘When you see something that ain’t nailed down, latch onto it.’ ”

Alger Wilde left the room hurriedly, followed hand in hand by Suzi and I. It was time for the diplomats to begin their wrangling, the wrangling that would settle the fate of worlds. As we passed through the door, I could see the anticipation on the faces of the diplomats from Terra.

From what I heard later, they must have given the other diplomats kert. If you’ll pardon my language.

The Martians and the Coys

Maw Coy climbed the fence down at the end of the south pasture and started up the side of the creek, carrying her bundle over her shoulder and puffing slightly at her exertion.

She forded the creek there at the place where Hank’s old coon dog Jigger was killed by the boar three years ago come next hunting season. Jumping from rock to rock across the creek made her puff even harder; Maw Coy wasn’t as young as she once was.

On the other side she rested a minute to light up her pipe and to look carefully about before heading up the draw. She didn’t really expect to see any Martins around here, but you never knew. Besides, there might’ve been a revenue agent. They were getting mighty thick and mighty uppity these days. You’d think the government’d have more to do than bother honest folks trying to make an honest living.

The pipe lit, Maw swung the bundle back over her shoulder and started up the draw. Paw and the boys, she reckoned were probably hungry as a passel of hound dogs by now. She’d have to hurry.

When she entered the far side of the clearing, she couldn’t see any signs of them so she yelled, “You Paw! You Hank and Zeke!” Maw Coy liked to give the men folks warning before she came up on the still. Hank, in particular, was mighty quick on the trigger sometimes.

But there wasn’t any answer. She trudged across the clearing to where the still was hidden in a cluster of pines. Nobody was there but Lem.

She let the bundle down and glowered at him. “Lem, you no-account, why didn’t you answer me when I hollered?”

He grinned at her vacuously, not bothering to get up from where he sat whittling, his back to an old oak. “Huh?” he said. A thin trickle of brown ran down from