Doomsday Warrior 18 - American Dream Machine (15 page)

Rock didn’t move. Behind the protective plasti-screen, the audience applauded. Was it for his so-called bravery? For sticking his ground? Or were they urging the
beast
to come at this new prey more quickly? The audience was as fearsome in its way as the Zrano. It seemed if every one would have joined the hunt against him in the arena, with clubs and fists and boots, as if they had been allowed. They
loved
this, Rock realized. Loved to watch this ritual of death. So much the better if he was brave.

The sportsmen kept up their applause as the beast now moved forward, paws outstretched, clawed thumb and two clawed fingers on each of three hands. Apparently the thing would grab him—first.

A voice shouted, “Kill! Kill!”

Rock didn’t budge. Now the asteroid-beast wasn’t more than ten feet from the tall, muscular warrior. Rockson waited with his own hands far apart. He hadn’t moved backwards or looked left or right. It was
amazing
the crowd. The shouts for blood died out. Even the Zrano hesitated, sensing strength.

The beast’s steps in his direction were slowed by his opponent’s unexpected behavior. Rockson surprised himself by recollecting that he’d never fought anybody in his playboy’s easy life. Was he fearless now because the medallion he wore was supposed to keep him safe from all harm? Had it been a joke, and nothing more? Kimetta’s little last joke against him, another indignity for a man who was going to die? He brought a hand to his shirt-front, pulled out the blue medallion. The monster focused all its red orbs on the object, froze in place, and seemed to gasp. If such a
big
thing could gasp.

Rockson noticed the medallion’s blue gleam catching the lights high above. The beast let out an insane, ear-blasting scream and twisted its head back and forth. It screeched out a long second howl, a wail to make everyone’s hair stand on end. The vibration rattled Rockson’s rib cage.

He stepped back, unable to stand the sound. There was for a moment an insane temptation in Rockson to let himself be ripped to shreds by the six rows of teeth. And there was also the desire to hold his ears and shut his eyes so that at least he wouldn’t hear and see what happened next. To
feel
would be more than enough. Yet he did nothing, neither retreated nor closed his eyes, nor moved forward to attack with his puny weapon. Perhaps, he thought, he just wasn’t able to bring himself to miss any part of the last experience he’d ever know. At the sight of what happened next, his eyes widened in disbelief.

The beast
didn’t
move forward to eat its helpless prey. Rather, the beast stayed in one place, its body swaying back and forth, trembling. Was there an expression of
fear
in those previously hate-crazed eyes? If that was true, such a switch didn’t resemble anything Rock had ever seen or imagined.

Somebody high up in the audience shouted, “What’s wrong?”

Rock made it a point to hold the monster’s eyes with his own, not sure why it should suddenly be of such great importance. But somehow, he knew it was: a warriors instinct.

The beast just stood there and gave out pained, hair-raising wails, like a dying elk. It couldn’t move at all, it seemed; just its mouth moved. The anguished sounds coming from it went on and on. He was close enough to get the residue of that foul and fearful breath, close enough to wish that the twenty minutes were already finished, one way or the other.

“Get it over,” somebody called. “What’s going on?”

The creature now began to shake and actually whimper, and kept walking backward, away from him, in the direction of the gate.

The crowd’s roar became confused, and as Rockson stamped his feet and walked after the beast, threatening it with his silly toy axe, they all erupted into applause. It was homage to the brave, tall Earthman who moved forward confidently while the Zrano stumbled away, homage to a playboy turned warrior.

The clock rang out twenty minutes. It was over. The Zrano went into its gate, the gate shut back. Rockson’s life had been spared. He wished he knew how it had happened. He had an idea it was the medallion. He bowed and raised his hand in the V-for-victory salute. The warden took off his laurel-wreath hat and threw it over the plexiglass and into the arena. Rockson put it on.

A nightmare had turned into a pleasant dream!

Eighteen

A
fter Rockson made many, many bows, the same blond guard who had taken care of him before took Rock, via a circuitous route, out to a small grav-car. The guard drove him “home,” back to the room he had been given. On the way, the guard said, “Maybe the others think you’re a hero. But I know you’re not. I know how you did it!”

“How?”

The guard explained it. Rockson was amazed at what had caused his good fortune.

There was a knock, much later. Before Rock said anything, the door opened, revealing Dovine. The officer’s perpetually disapproving look seemed frozen on that immobile, flaccid face. He wasn’t happy. That was an understatement. “You are only the third survivor in the history of the games! You are to be congratulated. How did you pull it off? You can tell me. There is an immutable law that you must not die now. Unfortunately, you will have to be released.”

“How soon can I get away from this asteroid?”

Dovine smiled. “You will be released
on
this asteroid, not
off
That’s all! You will
never
leave this tiny world. You live, that is all. There is only one condition to your claiming this “freedom”: You
must
tell me how you did it—how you defeated the Zrano. I am recording your answer now, on an audi-cube, for review of the council. Tell
them!”

“OK,” Rock sighed. “The medallion I wear had a picture of the Zrano’s
mother
on it, in a spectrum we humans can’t see. It got all shook up—guilty, if you will. I freaked it out.”

“Really? I doubt that anyone had ever thought that a picture of its mother would make a Zrano back down. How did you know
that
Rockson?”

“It’s the last of its kind. It hasn’t seen its mother since it was a little thing just out of its egg. It is usual that a child, especially an only child, remembers and misses its dead mother. I was taking a guess, but my guess was right.”

“Where did you get the medallion? What traitor gave it to you?”

Rock lied, not wanting to implicate Kimetta. “I found it jammed in a crevice in a rock formation near the spaceport. When we landed.”

Dovine seemed partly satisfied. He pondered for a time and said, “Yes. I see . . . contestants
have
been allowed to take harmless-looking fetishes into the ring with them, good luck charms. I have heard of these old souvenir medallions, like yours. Cheap holograms of the first Zranos. The people here don’t have any superstitious toys now, not being able to spare the time from work to indulge in pernicious nonsense. They surely threw away many such trinkets from the old days. Thank you Rockson. Thank you for reinstating my belief in your cowardice! Never again will a contestant be allowed to carry
anything
into the arena except his lot-weapon!”

Rock nodded sadly, seeing in his mind the next poor victim of the Zrano’s wrath. “Yes, I think I understand that. I guess I’m lucky!”

Dovine nodded. “So much so that you’re about to be visited by the council head, Esmerelda’s great
Panxux
himself.”

Rock remembered the furrowed brow and irritable look of the man who had occupied a cloth-draped box in the second row at the arena, the man sitting behind the warden when the warden had given him the laurel crown he still wore. “When is the Panxux coming here?”

“Soon. He wants to congratulate you Rockson, and help make arrangements for your future. The warden has no power over you now. You’re no longer a convict!”

“All he has to do is get me on a space rocket, and that’ll be all the future of mine I can care about.”

Dovine said, “Fat chance. Be happy if he doesn’t find something else nasty for you. You survived the Zrano, let’s see if you can survive meeting Panxux. He’s—quite changeable. A fruitcake, some say. You will see. Goodbye!”

A few moments after these words, an impatient knock led to the door’s being opened quickly. The man who walked in at the front of a small group was smaller than Rockson would have guessed from the stadium. His chin was not as assertive as it had seemed. Yet the eyes were the same, wide apart and darkly feral, and the lips as generously twisted.

“My congratulations and those of all Esmerelda!” Panxux spoke out clearly and robustly, shaking Rock’s hand. “You shall be permitted to live out your days with us in peace and honor as a citizen first class!”

“I don’t want that. I have the right to leave, according to the rules.”

“Are you not a criminal? You would just be rearrested on Venus and sent back! Only here is your ‘rehabilitation’ recognized!”

“I am a playboy. That used to be legal. I was railroaded.”

“You’re now respected on Esmerelda. Why do you want to leave? There is much you haven’t seen here. Very interesting pleasant jobs will be offered to you. The women will please you.”

“I know as much about this asteroid as I’d like to know, ever. And work of any kind doesn’t suit me, really,” Rockson picked at his nails. “I insist on leaving.”

“But you haven’t seen it all!”

“Nothing about this asteroid is worth knowing!”

“Not true.” The voice was growing unpleasantly whining. If he had been an Earthman, Rock would have guessed the ruler’s age at about forty, but now he sounded like a spoiled infant. He raged, “On this asteroid
everybody
has to work in order to survive! In your case, you will be offered a good option. You can run a large industry, a factory of any kind at all!”

“I have an option to leave: that’s the one I want to take,” Rock insisted. “I read the rules. Over in
that
pile of books.” Rockson pointed at his mass of night readings.

The council head sighed. “There are certain problems of which you might not be aware,” Panxux said calmly. “To start, a supply rocket doesn’t take off until the end of the month. Twenty more day-night units.”

“I want to be on it, as soon as it arrives. I have the right.”

“Passage has been strictly apportioned out among diplomats, trade mission people, and vital cargo. There isn’t room for any luxury cargo like you. We didn’t—anticipate—your survival, you see. I suspect the warden’s daughter’s hand in
that.”

“When
will there be room?” Rockson wanted to keep off the subject of Kimetta.

“Perhaps four or five cargo runs from now.”

Rock sighed. “I want to be on the first available rocket in that case.”

“Yes. I see . . . well, you are a cool customer aren’t you? A tough cookie! It will be attended to,
if
you insist. But the wait will be very very long. You will go on a tour of Esmerelda in the meanwhile. Maybe you will decide to stay.”

“I
might
take a tour, since I have time. I’ll relax and go on a tour. But
don’t
welsh on me. I can be bad luck to cross. Remember the Zrano!”

If Rock hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn that the ruler of Esmerelda had blinked at the threat. Then Panxux laughed, long and hard. “Say you
are
a corker! What work will you accept in the meantime?”

“None. I will just tour around, if that’s OK.”

“But how will you earn your food and board? You need credits now. Say, didn’t you once have a managerial job? Wasn’t that in your file?”

“I never have.” The comic remarks that surged to Rock’s lips remained unspoken. “I never worked. Not ever,” he insisted.

Panxux smiled again. “What a strange man you are! Not before this have I encountered anybody who lived to your age without having done any work. Don’t you want to be socially useful?”

“I consider that many of the things I’ve done are socially useful. The women think so.”

Panxux didn’t follow that up directly, but Dovine put in, over a concealed mike, “I believe he refers to his well-known and many relations with women. He claims to have made many women happy. Indeed Rockson has been with one A-1 each and every night since arriving here. A different A-1 every night.”

“But where is the usefulness in that?” Panxux shrugged at Rock. “You may have an interesting philosophy, but it is bankrupt, Rockson. I don’t have the wish or the time for a long conversation about your bankrupt philosophy.”

Rock told him quietly, “You might be a better person if you did think about something more than toil on occasion.”

“Of course I might,” Panxux agreed surprisingly, “but I’m
far
too busy. My question is this: What do you mean by saying that to make a woman happy can be socially useful?”

“I’m not sure I know the full answer, myself,” Rock admitted. “But let a man make a woman happy and he’ll be happy himself. If they’re workers, they can work better as a result of a certain amount of mutual pleasure in sex.”

“You’re saying that to make bed with a woman is enough to sustain social usefulness?” Panxux shook his head fiercely.
“Not
here. If you knew this planetoid better, you’d agree. When you tour, you will understand, and then, I am sure, you will want to stay. I’m
certain
of it!”

“To do something nice for another human being is itself useful, I say.”

Panxux, with a wave of the hand, dismissed the subject. “The matter had been fully discussed. During the next five or six months, while you wait for a space ride,” Panxux said, “you will be studied by a group of our leading scientists and theorists and scholars. Their reports ought to be of some interest to the council—perhaps giving us all better knowledge of the latent criminality in some
earthlings.
An insight into the great crime of laziness.”

Rock ignored the racial slur. “But you’ll still put me on a supply rocket, see that I’m reserved for it?”

“Yes, provided you will assist our studies. Is that clear?”

Without waiting for an answer, the ruler started to the door. Watching his swagger intently, Rock realized how much the two of them really shared. Each was intelligent and opinionated, each was willing to talk from a point of wary mutual respect, a respect that shaded into a liking of sorts. But there was yet something else that the two of them shared: at no time would either be able to understand the other!