Starbridge (44 page)

"He's right, Uncle Raoul!" Mahree said. "Dhurrrkk', is there another way out of here?"

"I am sorry, FriendMahree, but I do not know," her friend said.

Mahree turned in a dizzy circle, blinking in the overly bright Simiu illumination, trying to spot another exit. "You've got to get out of here, Uncle Raoul! He'll kill you!"

"I'd be happy to run,
cherie,"
her uncle said tightly. He was sweating, not only from the humid Simiu heat, but from fear. "But I only see the one exit."

"Honored Kk'arrrsht'," Ssoriszs said, in his most persuasive tones, "let us discuss ways in which your injured honor may be restored without resorting to lawless acts. Perhaps I can act as mediator--''

"Keep silent, scaled one!" Kk'arrrsht' snapped. "It is you and your kind that are weakening my people, making them doubt the honor-codes we have lived by for centuries! Stay out of what does not concern you!" She beckoned with one hand at the gladiator, and he slowly approached Raoul, ignoring the doctor, his muscles rippling beneath his flame-colored fur, his violet eyes blazing with excited eagerness.

"As honor-vessel for the clan"--and he voiced the growl of Khrekk's family name--"I, Hekkk'eesh, challenge you. I demand reparation for the injuries you have given--you will pay in blood, in bone, with life itself. I voice death-challenge!"

Raising himself onto his haunches, he snarled, his mane bristling out in a stiffened flame-colored halo, his enormous fangs gleaming as he offered the ritual threat-display. "Come to meet me, RaoulLamont, or continue to hide behind your underling, it makes no difference. Stay, or run--it will be the same. I am Hekkk'eesh, and you are the path I will take to restore my honor, as well as the honor of my client."

Rob bent his knees slightly, assuming a boxer's stance, fists up and ready.

He was pale, but resolute. Behind him, Raoul also clenched his fists as he braced his body for the anticipated rush.

The Simiu gladiator's dappled hindquarters quivered as he tensed for the leap designed to carry him into battle with his chosen opponent.

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"No!" Mahree cried desperately. "No,
don't!"
She moved to throw herself at Hekkk'eesh.

'Wo.'" A flash of flame blurred by her, slamming into Mahree's calves, sending her stumbling back. Her feet flew out from under her, and she sat down hard on the deck. The impact was doubly jarring in the high gravity, and her breath
whooshed
from her lungs.

"I challenge!" Dhurrrkk' skidded to a halt before Hekkk'eesh, his mane bristling nearly as full as the larger, mature male's. "In the name of my friend, MahreeBurroughs, I challenge! She and I are honor-bound, and nobody touches her or her kin while I live!" he growled, then yawned his own threat-display full in the other's face, his fighting fangs nearly brushing the astonished gladiator's nose.

"Stand aside, youngling," Hekkk'eesh rumbled, putting out a hand to push the smaller male aside. "My fight is not with you."

"I say it is! In the name of my friend, MahreeBurroughs, and in the name of my teacher, K't'eerrr--he whom you so dishonorably maimed--I say that before you will touch any human, you will first kill me!"

At the mention of K't'eerrr's name, the gladiator's violet eyes narrowed angrily, but still he hesitated. Dhurrrkk' gestured at the platform over top of
Rosinante's
hull. "If you ingested even the smallest measure of true courage or honor with your mother's milk, you will meet me on that platform, so we may settle this between ourselves, without interruption. Follow me, if you have any honor left you, Hekkk'eesh--or be forever named Hekkk'eesh the coward!"

Then, without a backward look, Dhurrrkk' loped straight over to the lattice-ladder and swarmed effortlessly up it. Hekkk'eesh, despite Kk'arrrsht's rumbled protest, followed him, his strides quick and furious, his mane bristling with indignation at Dhurrrkk's insults.

With Rob's help, Mahree stumbled to her feet, barely aware of the doctor's steadying hand on her arm. "My God!" she gasped, half sobbing with fear.

"He'll be killed! He can't face a professional fighter like Hekkk'eesh!"

Frozen with shock, the observers watched as the two Simiu squared off to face each other atop the platform. Both combatants made the greeting gesture, formal as a martial arts expert's

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bow, then began the ritualized movements so familiar to her from the holovids she'd watched aboard
Rosinante.

"We have to stop them!" Rob muttered, gripping her arm.

But how?
Mahree thought, watching the two maned figures.
Hekkk'eesh is
determined to regain his honor by killing Uncle Raoul, and Dhurrrkk' is
determined that he'll die trying to prevent that! I know he won't declare ritual
hence this time, no matter how badly he's injured!
I know
it! He'll keep fighting until he's too maimed to continue ... or until he's dead.

She wrung her hands, thinking furiously, her mind grappling with the problem even as the two fighters eased into the ritual circling that would end with a mutual rush and the true beginning of the battle.
Hekkk'eesh sees this
as his return path to true honor, he said so . . . but Kk'arrrsht' and her clan are
really using him as a dupe, because this fight won't restore their honor, and
they must know it . . . the whole planet will turn against them. They're just
seeking revenge . . .

Her mind cleared as she managed to push aside her terror, her fear for Dhurrrkk', the emotions that were clouding and slowing her thinking. Mahree constructed the problem again, searching for a solution.

Searching--

Turning, she grabbed Rob's arm. "I think I know how to stop them!" she hissed, in a tense undertone. "But I've
got
to get up there with them, so Hekkk'eesh can hear me! Don't let anybody stop me from climbing up there, Rob, understand?"

"But you could be--"

"No buts!" she insisted. "This may be Dhurrrkk's only chance! Don't let anybody stop me, no matter what!"

Reluctantly, he nodded, then Mahree dashed toward the platform, before anyone realized she'd left the stunned little group of observers. She heard her uncle shout for her to stop, heard the pound of human footsteps, but she forced her aching legs to cover the hard deck in record time.

In seconds, she was at the lattice, her hands going out to grasp the curved sections, her feet feeling for the first steps in her upward climb.

"Mahree!" she heard Lamont's yell.

She swarmed up the lattice like a pirate going up rigging, thankful that she'd never been bothered by heights. The platform was at least fifteen meters high.

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"Mahree!"
Raoul bellowed, from below her, and a hand snagged her ankle.

She clung frantically to the lattice, trying to jerk her foot away.

Raoul tightened his grip, just as Rob's full weight slammed against the Captain's side, breaking her uncle's hold. Mahree scrambled a little higher, then glanced down, seeing Rob dart in front of Lamont as he recovered himself. Looking dangerously slender and boyish in comparison to the Captain's height and bulk, the doctor braced himself against the lattice.

"Raoul--no!" "Get out of my way!" Lamont roared, sweeping the younger man aside as effortlessly as a bull would bat a sparrow. But Rob skidded, regained his balance, then came in again, yelling wordlessly.

Absently, Raoul reached out to thrust him away again, and the doctor ducked under his arm, slamming a vicious left into the Captain's stomach.

Lamont's breath went out in a
whoosh
and he grunted, doubling over. In a blur of motion Rob punched him again, a hard right to the jaw, wringing cries of pain from both men as the doctor's knuckles impacted on bone. Raoul staggered, and Rob gave him a short, sharp left in the eye. The bigger man buckled at the knees and went down. Gasping with pain and exertion, Rob looked up, cradling his right hand. "Get
going!"

Whimpering with shock and terror, Mahree climbed. When she reached the platform and swung herself up, Dhurrrkk' and Hekkk'eesh were already locked in a straining, grunting mass of flame-colored fur. It took her dazzled eyes a moment to sort out which of them was which as they grappled, biting viciously at each other's heads and necks, their canines flashing the overhead lights.

Oh, God, I'm too late!
she thought, watching helplessly as they rolled over and over, snapping and clutching, dangerously close to the edge of the platform. Both were bleeding from jagged rips on their muzzles and shoulders. Dhurrrkk' had given good account of himself--the gladiator was streaming blood from a slash on his forearm, and his ear was torn. But Hekkk'eesh was strong, and seasoned, and he knew every trick. Slowly, inexorably, he forced his opponent down, onto his back, as his hands wormed themselves past Dhurrrkkks muzzle, burrying themselves in the thick mane, groping for a stranglehold the younger Simiu's throat.

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Seconds later he found it, and the muscles in his arms bulged as he slowly, inexorably, tightened his grip. Dhurrrkk' struggled without success to free himself.

Mahree flung herself down beside the gladiator, knowing full well that physically she could do nothing. "Hekkk'eesh!" she demanded. "Listen to me! You have been played false by Khrekk's family! If you kill Dhurrrkk', or me, or RaoulLamont, your honor will be forever gone! Listen!"

Without releasing his pressure on Dhurrrkk's throat, he glanced sideways at her, and the ripped ear nearest her twitched. Mahree plunged on, speaking in rapid Simiu. "Your path to honor does not lie with killing this youngling--

what honor is there in that? You are so far above him that everyone will know how easily you could have conquered him--or all of us! True honor only lies in
not
killing! In being wise enough not to allow yourself to be used, as Kk'arrrsht' would use you!"

Dhurrrkk' was gasping, now, thrashing helplessly.

"Listen to me, Hekkk'eesh!" she pleaded. "I speak the truth, may my mother die in misery if I lie--they will use you and discard you, as they have discarded their own honor ... you must know that the Council has decided against them! Since the Avernian Contact their clan has no public support--

and Dhurrrkk', whose throat is between your hands, is the hero who
made
that contact! Tell me, will your world honor the person responsible for his death?"

The grasping fingers grew no tighter, but there was no need to--by now Dhurrrkk's violet eyes were glazing, and his frantic struggles grew weaker.

"You know me!" Mahree said. "I am MahreeBurroughs, and my name is spoken of with honor among your people, is it not?'

Hekkk'eesh did not answer, but she thought she saw acquiescence to her statement in his eyes. "Then consider!" she said. "I have seen your holovids, watched you fight and admired you for your grace and ability! Before you tarnished your honor with K't'eerrr, you were the best--the best! I do not want you to throw away your honor this way, and so I care enough for your honor that I have been willing to compromise my own! Have I not broken the rule of silence, to speak during the battle? No person of honor would do that except to prevent a greater wrong! I speak truth!"

The gladiator's hands slackened a little as he turned his head

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to regard her, full-on. Mahree dared to put out her hand, touch that bloody forearm, her arm only a handbreadth from Hekkk'eesh's muzzle, from the canines that could slash her open as a human would rip frayed fabric. "Trust my honor," she said. "I beg of you. Do not make my sacrifice in breaking silence be in vain. Let us both regain our honor. Release him."

For a heartbeat longer, the Simiu hesitated, then his fingers loosened, and slipped away. Dhurrrkk' slumped bonelessly to the top of the platform and lay inert--

--but still breathing.

Mahree watched his nostrils move, saw his chest rise and fall, and tears of relief flooded her eyes.
He's not dead! He's just unconscious! He'l be al
right!

She turned back to Hekkk'eesh, who was staring at her. Slowly,

ceremoniously, the gladiator made the sign for ritual hence--formally conceding the battle to Dhurrrkk'.

"You have gained great honor by this, Honored Hekkk'eesh!" she cried, her throat tight with emotion at the Simiu's gesture. "I will tell everyone of your actions, by my mother's honor, I swear it!"

There came an enraged shriek from below. "No! Kill them! You must
kill
them!"

Both Mahree and Hekkk'eesh scrambled to the side of the platform to look down. Kk'arrrsht' and the others were standing on the deck, looking up at them. The former Council member was nearly foaming as she glared at her erstwhile champion. "Kill RaoulLamont!"

Hekkk'eesh regarded her steadily. "No," he said, finally. "I will not."

"Then I will!"

The former Council member leaped at Raoul's throat. Kk'arrrsht' did not have the formidable fighting fangs of the Simiu males, but she still posed a grave threat, lost as she was in a berserker rage. Lamont went down with a crash, arms stiff and braced, trying to hold her off.

"No!" Rhrrrkkeet' grunted, and charged full into the other Simiu, knocking her away from the Captain. The two female aliens struggled, gasping and snarling, ripping at each other's flesh.

"We have to stop them! You must carry Dhurrrkk'! Come on!" With desperate haste, Mahree swung herself over the side

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of the lattice and began climbing down. Hekkk'eesh, Dhurrrkk's limp body slung over his shoulder, passed her before she was halfway down.

When Mahree reached the deck, she saw that Rhrrrkkeet' lay helpless, while Raoul and Rob were trying desperately to pull Kk'arrrsht' off her. Esteemed Ssoriszs was beside the airlock, the Mizari's tentacles flying as he tried to release the fused and jammed controls so he could open it and summon help.

Mahree bent over Dhurrrkk' for a second, saw that her friend was beginning to stir back into consciousness, then she raced toward the struggle.

Hekkk'eesh loped ahead of her.