by Scott Sigler
He bent at the knees, held the weapon out in front of him, feeling the weight. He tried a slash, getting a sense for the inertia. How would he attack? Was it better to jab or to slice?
John entered the chamber.
“Hey, Q. Becca give you a pep talk?”
“Yeah,” Quentin said. “Sort of.”
“Good. You feel peppy, then?”
Quentin shrugged, tried a forehand slash followed by an immediate backhand. “Peppy-er than I was before, at least.”
“Good,” John said, nodding. “Good. Becca knows words. That’s helpful right now, seeing as you’re in a duel to the death and all.”
PUT SOME PEP IN THAT STEP, SOLDIER scrolled across his forehead in bright blue letters.
Quentin stopped slashing. He looked at John. This might very well be the last time he spoke to the man.
“Look, John ... just in case I don’t make it, I’m sorry about you and Becca. I didn’t mean for ... you know.”
John smiled, shook his head. “Q, your timing is awful. Right now you might want to pay attention to the job at hand.
“I know, but I—”
“It’s done,” John said. “I’ve moved on.”
Apparently he had. He’d lost that air of constant animosity. Quentin wasn’t sure when that had happened, but it had happened, and he felt immense relief.
John pointed at the knife.
“Let me see what you can do with that.”
Quentin again squatted into a fighting stance. He focused on his motions — thrust, slash, spin, slash.
John frowned. “Hell but that’s an ugly weapon. How’s the balance?”
“Awkward. This ring-handle thing...I’m afraid it’s going to slip.”
He tried palming the ring, thumb wrapped around the bottom, his fingers curling over the top. That was a little better. When he held it that way, it looked like he had eight-inch curved blades coming out the sides of his fist.
“Thing is so damn sharp,” he said. “If my grip slips at all, it could spin in my hand — I might cut myself before the Gouger does.”
FIGHTS TO THE DEATH ... AIN’T THEY GRAND? played across John’s face.
“Q, you sure you want to do this?”
Here it came again, John trying to talk him out of it.
“Don’t start,” Quentin said. “If they had Ju instead of Jeanine, you know damn well you’d be the one in that pit, and no one would be able to tell you otherwise.”
John’s jaw muscles twitched. For once, nothing scrolled across his face. He was just a normal man who didn’t want his friend to die.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I’d do just about anything for my brother.”
Quentin tried another thrust, basically throwing a punch with one of the platinum points leading the way. That felt good.
“You’ll have to watch out for their reach,” John said. “Looks like those booger-bags can stretch their licorice arms a long way. You need to close in fast. If you stay at a distance, that thing will cut you to pieces.”
John was right. Those boneless extrusions gave the Portath a reach advantage of several feet. With blades this sharp, the Gouger could keep Quentin at bay with little nicks and cuts, then just wait for blood loss to take its toll.
“But what if I keep my distance and make the Gouger really reach for me? I could dodge and cut behind the blade, try to slice the arm off like Bloodletter did to Taker of Souls.”
“Sure, sure,” John said, nodding. “If you’re faster than it is.”
“I’m plenty fast,” Quentin said. “And if it attacks at a distance, I have more reaction time. When it strikes, I can spin out of the way—” he held the blade close to his chest as he planted his left foot and spun his right shoulder in a reverse arc, a move he had made countless times on the football field, his whole body whipping around so quickly he might as well have teleported a foot to the left “—then close in fast—” he landed on his right foot, his spin momentum moving him forward, lunging ahead with his left foot, blade extended “—and then ...”
He stopped, a sickle-point thrust out in front of him. His hand was shaking. The polished metal blade wavered in the small room’s light. After the spin move, he would ... what? Jam that blade into another sentient being?
“Then you cut,” John said. “Make sure you don’t go too deep, you don’t want your hand or wrist to hang up on his innards. Let the blade do the work.” He mimicked a short right jab, starting from his right hip, as if he were punching an imaginary Human foe in the stomach. “Thrust the blade in, then slice up—” he raised his fist as if he were doing a fast bicep curl “—and you get away quick.” John stepped back, his hips low, knees bent, his weight on the tips of his toes, a move of pure grace. “Then all you have to do is stay alive long enough for his innards to become outards.”
Quentin’s stomach churned. John had it perfect — get in, make that one strong, brutal slice, get out fast and wait for the Portath to die. Whatever internal organs existed inside that squishy body, the blade would slice through them with ease. It wouldn’t be like the movies, with a long clanging exchange of blade-on-blade. This was real life: one pass, two at the most, and either he or his opponent would be bleeding to death.
“Q? You okay?”
He realized he was staring at his blade. His own dumbfounded, horrified expression stared back at him from the polished surface.
“Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”
John stepped closer. “Q, you ever kill something before?”
“Of course I have. Back on Micovi, I set a camp record for killing roundbugs.”
“Sentients, Q,” John said. “I mean something that can think, something with culture and whatnot?”
Quentin nodded, remembering the ship battle that had almost sucked his body into the ice-cold void. “When those pirates attacked us, I blew one of them up.”
John nodded. “Yeah, that was really intense. But that’s still not what I mean.”
He took another step closer. John’s face was only inches from Quentin’s. He spoke in little more than a whisper.
“I mean up close and personal, where you get your hands on them. Where you know it’s your fists or your gun or—” he tapped the double-sickle blade “—or your knife that ends them, that makes them go bye-bye forever. I mean where you watch something intelligent die, where you watch it change from a thinking, caring, living being with emotions and dreams into a hunk of meat that doesn’t move until someone drags it away.”
Quentin couldn’t breathe. He stared at the trembling, double-crescent knife.
“You ever done that, Q? Because it ain’t pretty, and you can’t let yourself think about it. You hesitate in that pit, even for a fraction of a second, and it’s the difference between living and dying. You have to pull that trigger.”
Those words ripped free a memory: Rick “Sarge” Vinje, the man who had pretended to be Quentin’s father. Quentin had pressed the barrel of a gun into Sarge’s eye, had started to squeeze that trigger because he wanted to kill the man. Wanted to ... but could not.
Quentin realized John had chosen the words pull the trigger on purpose, because John also remembered how Quentin had let Sarge live.
“This is different,” Quentin said. “This isn’t some helpless actor. That thing out there is going to try and kill me. It’s different.”
John nodded. “You said that. Twice. So have you, Q? Have you ever killed a sentient being all up close and personal?”
The roiling in Quentin’s stomach increased. Back on Micovi, he’d been in more fistfights than he could remember. He’d even been in a few knife fights, but those were only about drawing first blood, where even a tiny nick would win. He’d fought, but he hadn’t killed.
“No,” Quentin said through dry lips. “I haven’t.”
John gestured to the small table. “Put the knife down for a second, my brother. I know how to get you ready. Let me help you get your mind right.”
Quentin set the double
-sickle blade on the metal surface, where it clanked slightly.
“Good,” John said. He squeezed Quentin’s shoulder. “Q, I’ll tell you exactly how you’ll get through this. Remember when you fought my brother?”
Quentin nodded. A fistfight with Ju had determined who would run the team, who would be “the man” of the Krakens franchise. But there would be no secret needle from Doc Patah today, no way for Quentin to cheat.
“Yeah,” he said. “I remember.”
“Good, good. And remember what you said to me right before that fight?”
John had asked Quentin not to square off against Ju. Quentin hadn’t said much in response, because instead of trying to reason with John, he’d sucker-punched the man to get him out of the way ...
Quentin had an instant of realization — that he’d let John in too close — just before a crushing uppercut caught him under the chin. Quentin’s legs turned to water; he sagged, flopped limply on his back.
The room swam and blurred. Quentin tried to rise, but John knelt down next to him and put a hand on Quentin’s chest.
PAYBACKS ARE A BITCH scrolled across John’s forehead.
“I got this,” he said. “On the gridiron you’re a dreamy dream-machine, but you’re not cut out for the messy stuff. I said I’d do anything for my brother — that’s what you are, Q, my brother, just as much as Ju is.”
Quentin started to answer but found that his mouth wouldn’t work. The dull, overpowering pain tried to squeeze his eyes shut.
John smiled. “And come on, Q-Dawg — did you really think I wasn’t going to light you up for what you did to me before Ju’s fight?”
The eldest Tweedy brother stood. He reached out to the table and picked up the double-sickle knife.
No, no-no-no ... John was going to get killed, and it would be Quentin’s fault.
John wiggled the blade; the curved edges sparkled in the room’s light.
“Time to go to work,” he said, then walked out the door.
23
Broken
QUENTIN STUMBLED OUT of the prep room, his legs still wobbly. Kimberlin caught him, steadied him, leaned him against the curved wall as Doc Patah fluttered close.
“My goodness,” Doc said. “Your mandible looks fractured.”
Quentin started down the hall, tried to push past Kimberlin, but the HeavyG held up a hand to stop him.
“Easy,” Kimberlin said. “You’re in no condition to fight.”
“We didn’t know John was going to do that, Quentin,” Doc said. “And really, Michael, why didn’t you stop John from going to the pit?”
“Because he was carrying a blade,” Kimberlin said. “And he didn’t look like he was in the mood for a debate.”
Quentin’s head pulsated with echoing pain. It felt like someone had jammed a point of that sickle blade into the hinge of his jaw. All this from just one punch?
Harrah mouth-flaps reached out, pressed something against the side of Quentin’s face. There was a brief burst of even more pain, then a cooling, numbing feeling. It still hurt, badly, but now it didn’t make his eyes scrunch tight with agony.
“That should help,” Doc Patah said. “I’ve seen injuries like yours before, many times. I will start repairing right away — although if John is going to fight, I assume you want to watch that first?”
A few minutes ago, Quentin had trembled with fear — now he shook with fury. John had sucker-punched him, broken his jaw. If that alone didn’t make it impossible to win a fight against a knife-wielding alien, Doc had just injected painkillers — Quentin felt that same coolness in his jaw spreading through his body. He could already sense the effect on his reaction time, on his movement.
John Tweedy had tricked him. John Tweedy had gotten the better of him. And now, John Tweedy — his brother — would fight to the death for him.
Quentin spoke quietly, just two words, tried to use only his lips.
“Fight. Watch.”
Kimberlin put an arm around Quentin’s waist, helping him stay upright as they walked down the corridor.
24
Uncle Johnny
THEY WALKED THROUGH AN OVAL DOOR and onto the black stone ring. It must have been the area designated for John’s supporters, because Becca and Ju were already there. Ju yelled down at his brother, who was standing in the pit, calmly waiting, curved knife in his hands.
“You the man, Johnny,” Ju screamed. “Gonna mess that booger-bag up!”
Portath filled the rest of the spectator ring, except for the area directly across from Quentin. There stood Hulsey, Jeanine on her left, Fred on her right.
Jeanine’s head hung low. Her hands hugged her own shoulders. Quentin wanted to go to her, tell her everything would be okay, but if John lost, everything would not. Fred gazed into the pit with the air of someone resigned to his fate — or, maybe, someone who had lived through things far worse than being a “trainee.”
Most of the Portath looked no different than the last time Quentin had been at the pit, their skin wavering in soft patterns of yellow and green. One, however, stood out; the biggest Portath Quentin had yet seen, perhaps twice the size of the others. It flashed in maddening swirls of red and orange, blue and green, yellow and white, colors sliding across skin dotted with dark-blue eyespots. One stubby extrusion held a double-sickle knife identical to John’s.
Quentin felt strong enough to stand on his own. He brushed Kimberlin away, moved next to Becca at the black ring’s front edge. Kimberlin stood behind them both. Doc Patah floated overhead.
Hulsey raised her hands and spoke with a formal air, her robe flashing colors in time with her words.
“A challenge has been issued,” she said. She pointed at John. “This Human, John Tweedy, challenges the Gouger.” She pointed at the oversized Portath. “Gouger, do you accept the challenge?”
Flashes of color cascaded across the Gouger’s skin. Those patterns might have been an eloquent speech, a sharp insult or even outright cursing, Quentin didn’t know, but the Portath didn’t have to speak — the real answer came when it rolled off the black circle and into the stone pit.
Hulsey lowered her arms, looked right at Quentin and the others.
“The challenge has been accepted. The only way to leave the pit is to win, surrender or die. If any of you interfere, if you enter the pit or touch the fighters, if you try to help in any way, you will be executed immediately.”
John laughed, thumped a fist against his chest. “You think I need any help against this walking pile of diarrhea?” He pointed at his opponent, sneered, then drew his thumb slowly across his throat.
“Ridiculous,” Doc Patah said. “Portath don’t even have necks.”
John set his weapon on the pit’s edge, then stripped off his shirt and tossed it away. Thick muscles fluttered beneath his skin. He grabbed his blade and strode around the bowl’s slope, bouncing on his toes, twisting at the waist. He snorted. He spit. He growled. He looked much like he did on the football field just before every snap, only without the heavy protection offered by pads and jersey.
COME PLAY WITH UNCLE JOHNNY scrolled around his chest and back in a constant circle of orange and black letters. As if that wasn’t enough of a message, EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY ASS-KICKER flashed repeatedly across his forehead.
Quentin’s jaw felt numb; his heart did not. His heart hurt. John was trying to do what he thought was the right thing, and for that effort he was going to die. Quentin wanted to stop it, but it was either let John fight or leave Jeanine and Fred in the Portath Cloud forever. Quentin didn’t want to see John die, but the man had made his choice.
Ju leaned over the edge, out so far Quentin thought he might fall in.
“Johnny, you ... are ... the ... MAN! He ain’t got nothing on you, brother!”
The Gouger extended stubby pseudopods. Colors flashed as the extrusions thickened, lengthened, raising the roundish body high into the air. New limbs budded up and out, stretching to show a waving wingspan at least ten feet a
cross.
That Portath had to weigh at least five hundred pounds, maybe even six hundred. It carried as much mass as the GFL’s biggest lineman. The Gouger had a huge advantage in both size and reach — there was no way John could win. Broken jaw or not, Quentin had to stop this. He put one foot over the edge, then a giant hand clamped down on his shoulder.
“Don’t,” Kimberlin hissed in his ear. “It’s too late. John is one of the best athletes in the galaxy, Quentin — he can do this.”
John walked to the very bottom of the stone bowl. He smiled up at the Gouger. U. G. L. Y. YOU AIN’T GOT NO ALIBI scrolled across his chest.
John then looked over at Jeanine. He winked.
“Piece of cake, beautiful,” he said. “Don’t you worry.”
Jeanine stared at John like she didn’t know what species he was. She nodded, slowly.
“Good luck,” she said.
John held the knife to his chest, then bowed deeply. He stood, smiled at Fred.
“Don’t get jealous, Freddy,” John said. “You’re beautiful, too, just not like Jeanine is — but probably only ‘cause I like girls. I’ll do me some carving and get you out of here, buddy.”
Fred’s eyes narrowed. Quentin wondered how long he’d known John, wondered if Fred feared for John’s life as much as Quentin did.
“You’re a brave man, Uncle Johnny,” Fred said. “Kill it dead.”
John nodded. The letters faded from his skin. He stared at his wiggling, wavering, glowing opponent.
“All right, Mister Gouger,” he said. “Know that this ain’t personal. Let’s get this party started — these ducks aren’t going to cook in a row all by themselves.”
John backpedaled up the bowl, almost to the edge, then started shuffling to his right. He swept the double-sickle in front of him, back and forth, testing the weight. His hate-filled eyes never left his new enemy.
The Portath started rolling in the same direction, remaining directly opposite John. Its boneless limp protrusion waved the curved knife, a hypnotizing dance of mad color and white light reflecting from the blade’s sharp edges.
