by Anthology
In the beginning there was difficulty in selecting the proper period of the past. To go too far back resulted in poor warfare. To go too short a distance into the past, was dangerous. At last it was decided that the savages of the twentieth century were the best. They had the beginnings of a technology and they yet retained much animal cunning.
In the beginning of this mock warfare the soldiers of Kane used the most modem of weapons and the opponents were annihilated so rapidly that the technicians were hard pressed to maintain the supply of combatants.
Also, with such vast armies on Thor, when the available weapons were equalized the loss among the soldiery of Kane was too great. In addition the images of the conflict beamed to all planets were vast, dusty, confusing.
The great-grandson of Bannot, bored with this type of conflict, devised new rules. He changed the scene of the conflict from Thor to Lassa. Lassa was a lush Earth-size planet, circling the bright sun Delta Virginis.
He ordered the manufacture of small individual scanners. He ordered brought from the past young healthy persons of both sexes, savages who could be expected to adjust to the wild conditions of Lassa and put up respectable battle.
In addition his propagandists inculcated a horror of the savages in the minds of those selected to oppose them.
In the beginning, because billions sat entranced before the screens watching the combat, there was intense rivalry among the young men to be selected as they hoped thus to gain fame.
But Orn, the great-grandson of Bannot, was shrewd enough to realize that he could kill two birds with one stone by making combat with the savages a necessary stepping stone to rank and authority within his elite corps of space warriors.
In this manner he assured his forces of constant supply of bold officer material as hand to hand combat, obsolete for two thousand years, was a screen to sieve out the faint of heart.
It was discovered that, by arming his warriors with short broadsword, shield and battle axe, the thrill of the combat was intensified in close quarters.
And Orn was sufficiently wise to know that the periodic spectacles served to keep reasonably content a mass of humans who otherwise might think of the personal liberty which they lacked, of the restrictions of life under dictatorship.
Ibid
Chapter VI
No Stage
As dusk came, as the last attempt ceased, Joe laid on his back on the sandy floor of the cave, completely exhausted.
Mary Callahan stared down into the valley, watched the shadows slowly mask the two bodies remaining.
During the bitter afternoon, during the silent combat, neither side had been able to gain any decisive edge.
The crucial moment had come when the dark-haired warrior had, for a moment, gained the flat place in front of the cave. A blow from the club held in Joe’s right hand had knocked his sword spinning into the valley. The warrior had left his axe behind so as to simplify the ascent.
He had blocked Joe’s further blows with the shield, had beat an orderly retreat back down the ledge.
Joe sighed, inched over to the sagging water-bag, drank deeply.
Mary said ruefully, “Paging DeMille. Only his makeup was never this good.” Joe grunted. He said, “Always with the jokes, eh?”
“Either that or start screaming, laddie. Which’ll you have?”
He didn’t answer. She looked around, said, “Our best gadget was the rocks. And we’re down to three good-sized ones. Can you help me or do I go down and see if I can bring up a few lady-sized ones.”
Joe said, his voice oddly high, “Damn you, Johnny! You promised me that five bucks!”
Mary went over to him. She knelt and put the back of her hand against Joe’s forehead. It was like fire. She got some of the fetid water, tore a new strip from the hem of her dress and began to bathe his face.
Joe moaned, rolled from side to side and talked incessantly. At last he went to sleep. Mary suddenly realized that the last of the carefully guarded store of matches was gone and in the heat of combat they had let the last embers die.
The stars shone with hard brilliance. She sat in the cave mouth. For a time she sang softly to herself because it was good to hear the lift of a song. In the starlight she felt her way down the ledge, struggled painfully back up with stones. Four trips was all that she could manage.
And then she talked aloud to herself. She told herself that it was a stupid and empty thing she was doing, to resist. The second death might come as quickly as the first. But she felt the hard core of her courage, the will that would not give up. And she knew a sardonic amusement.
She gnawed on the strips of hard smoked meat until her hunger was gone. Joe shivered in his comatose state, his teeth chattering.
She lay down beside him, warming his body with hers, at last drifting off to uneasy sleep.
The shadow in front of the morning sun awakened her. Even as she rolled to her feet, backed slowly to the cave wall, she knew that she had been fighting to remain asleep, squinting her eyes against the sun.
It was the dark-haired one.
He walked lightly toward her on the balls of his feet. At first he was in silhouette and then he turned so that she could see his face where the light struck it, see the lip lifted away from white teeth.
He lifted the sword, his right arm held in front of his body for a backhand slash.
Mary Callahan lifted her chin, smiled at him and said softly, “A quick one right across this swanlike neck, honey-bun. A real quick one.”
The web of muscles stood out on his bronzed forearm. Dawn light shone on the crest of the helmet.
She shut her eyes and waited. But the slashing blow did not come. She heard the thud, the grunt of effort and opened her eyes to see the dark-haired one drop like a log.
Joe stood on his feet, the wildness gone from his eyes. He held the club in his left hand. The swelling had begun to leave his right arm.
He said, “He was a soft one, Mary. He couldn’t quite do it. And while he was making up his mind I got him.
Joe dropped the club, picked up the sword, wedged his toe under the fallen one’s shoulder, rolled him over and aimed the point of the sword at the unprotected throat for a downward thrust.
“No!” Mary shouted. “Don’t do it, Joe.”
He gave her an odd look. “Why not?”
“Because—well, maybe we can use him for a hostage.”
The fallen man stirred. Joe shrugged, kicked him on the angle of the jaw, while Mary cut two strips from the empty water bag, tied the man’s wrists tightly, then his ankles.
As she finished his ankles, the man opened his eyes and stared calmly at her. Joe once again pressed the tip of the sword to the man’s throat. He looked as calmly up at Joe. The keen tip punctured the skin and a tiny rivulet of blood flowed down into the hollow of his strong throat.
Joe cursed. “I could have done it before, Mary, but I can’t do it with him looking at me.”
Mary pushed the blade away with the flat of her hand.
“Go watch for the other one,” she said.
Joe stalked to the mouth of the cave, muttering. She turned and glanced up at the two silver boxes which floated, motionless, a few inches from the high roof of the cave.
She smiled up at the lenses and said, “How do you like this, fight fans?”
Shawn, son of Orn, carried on the conflicts as devised by his father, ordering the technicians to make minor improvements.
But Shawn was wearied by the difficulties of administration of the greatest Empire the universe had ever seen.
With the passage of the years, as the blood of the Kanes thinned, unrest had spread throughout the four hundred and eleven colonies and throughout Mother Earth. This unrest was based primarily on the accelerating reduction of the birth rate.
Colonies which once had numbered in the hundreds of millions had shrunk to half their original number. Shawn had kept the court scientists hard at work on the problem but they spoke to him of the tiring germ pla
sm, of the diminishing vitality of the race. They at last convinced him that the race of man had passed the crest of vitality and was doomed to gradual reduction in numbers until at last, when all vitality was gone, the weeds and the rot would take over the works of man.
When Shawn at last believed the word of his court scientists, when he knew that the Empire would eventually fall with the race, he embarked on a course of personal extravagance, of dissipation, that exceeded anything previously known during the reign of the line of Kane.
His subjects became increasingly discontented, the malcontent spreading even to the officers of his elite corps of warriors of space.
The flames smouldered deep underground and various secret societies were formed, each pledged to overthrow the empire. Such was the efficacy of the espionage system of the house of Kane that these societies were, for the most part, ignorant of the existence of the others and consequently each underestimated the total power of the spirit of rebellion.
In line with the spirit of malcontent, all decent men wearied of the spectacle of combat, feeling in their hearts that the bitter little battles on Lassa were but an evidence of the harshness of their ruler.
When Shawn found that his billions of subjects were not being entertained by the battles on Lassa, he cleverly recreated their interest by using Lassa as punishment for those he suspected of insubordination, of desiring to overthrow his empire.
He was not so foolish as to send only the rebels against the savages—against the savage dead, as they were called—but carefully kept the proportion down to three loyal and ambitious young officers to one rebel.
There was one minor difference. Once an officer was victorious on Lassa, he was free to rejoin the fleet. But a rebel was condemned to remain until he at last was killed by one of the savages.
What Shawn did not realize was that his subjects, more than sated with the sight of death, had begun to be sympathetic toward the savages and had lost most of the superstitious horror and fear which was the result of the propaganda of his infamous ancestor.
Shawn was careful to see that loyal technicians handled the individual scanners so that, should any condemned rebel attempt to shout his defiance to the listening universe, he would be quickly taken off the receivers of the world.
But Shawn made one mistake. He misjudged the loyalty of one scanner operator, or possibly the operator of the scanner was loyal until he saw what happened in the case of the ex-officer, Anthon.
Or it can be argued that the Empire was in so precarious a state that any incident would have been sufficient.
Ibid
Chapter VII
Final Gesture
The strands of hide cut deeply into his wrists and ankles and Anthon wondered at the strength of the savage woman who had tied him.
He knew that he was close to the end of his life and felt nothing but fury that his life should have ended in such a meaningless fashion. He would have willingly died in striking one more blow against the rule of the infamous Shawn.
These four savages had fought bravely. At least two of them had.
In the beginning, when he had been searched, when they had found on him the sketch of the castle defences, when he had been condemned to Lassa to fight against savages until he at last was killed, he had thought it best that to go into combat with the idea of being sufficiently clumsy so that death would come easily.
He knew that it would pain his friends, his relatives and those who had plotted with him against Shawn to see his death on the screen, but it had seemed worth the candle to spite Shawn’s plan for him to provide sport and entertainment.
Thus, during the training period, he had made no special effort to become adept with sword and axe as had the loyal officers, who looked upon Lassa not as punishment but as a field where they could gain fame.
He had nothing but contempt for those officers who put personal gain above the needs of the race, above the spirit of rebellion. But Anthon was human—he was a victim of hope—and he found that he did not wish to die so pointlessly.
Possibly, if he remained alive for a sufficiently long period, the Empire would be overthrown and he would be free to help build a new world for mankind. Anthon was a sensitive and intelligent man. He recognized the basic weakness of his stand, and the forlorn slimness of his hope. And now the last of his hope was gone.
Incomprehensibly the girl had saved him from his own sword, held in the uninjured hand of the huge sunburned savage. Basically it was his own fault. Had he been able to steel himself to cut the throat of the woman with one backhanded slash he could then have disposed of the man.
He wondered ironically if the savage woman had saved him from the sword thrust out of some desire to repay him for not being able to strike the blow that would kill her. Surely, when Kor attacked, either the girl or the man would have one free moment in which to kill their bound captive before they died.
He pitied the two of them. They had been brought from their own world of the past to fight vainly against force that would eventually quell them. The girl knelt beside him and, with a bit of cloth, wiped away the blood at the base of his throat. Her eyes were as gentle as her touch.
Anthon wondered at the odd feeling of warmth within him. It had first occurred when he had seen her, standing with the smaller one with the yellow l air. He had not liked the death of the smaller one. He had wanted to interpose himself, to save her, but his resolve had come too late.
And the smaller man had died like a warrior, crippled a strong man even as he died.
He looked up into the blue eyes of the woman in the ragged dark red dress and something in her look was like a note of strange music. He smiled as he thought of the absurdity of feeling affection—even love—for one of the savage dead.
Yet, philosophically speaking, was she dead? She could feel pain and cold and fear. Her touch was gentle. Yes, this was a far different sort of being than the lean, rather astringent women of his own class. This savage one had a deep, lusty strength about her. And she was incredibly brave. She had smiled and when she had asked for death the meaning was clear.
He had but few words of her archaic tongue. He said, “Why not kill?”
“Why it speaks busted English,” Mary said. “Why not kill you? Look, pretty boy. I want to live. Mary wants to live. Understand? How can I do that?”
“Mary,” he said, rolling the name softly on his lips.
“That’s right. Mary. Who are you?”
“Anthon. You will die.”
“You say the nicest things, Tony. But you didn’t say that fiercely now, did you? You said it like you didn’t care for the idea very much but it was inevitable.”
“No understand,” he said and he wanted her to talked some more. He wanted very much to hear the sound of her voice.
“You’re the soft one of the group, aren’t you? The only one that doesn’t seem to get a crazy joy out of killing off the innocent.”
With his few words it was hard to tell her what he wanted to say. “If another way. If not die. Mary and Anthon.”
Her laugh was husky silver. “Bless him! I get it, Tony, If not die maybe you’re right. I like the look of you, lad.”
She stood up quickly as Joe shouted hoarsely. The other warrior stood in the mouth of the cave. Anthon saw the dangling end of vine and knew how the man had been outwitted by Kor.
Kor was between the savage man and the mouth of the cave. The man had no chance. The man fought bravely with his club, but Kor parried the blow, slashed the man across the face. The man, his face spurting blood staggered back.
With another slash of the sword Kor disemboweled him and the man toppled slowly over, fell out of sight. Anthon heard the crash as the man struck the floor of the valley below the cave mouth.
The girl, holding the crude spear rushed at Kor, trying to prod him over the edge. Anthon found himself wishing that she would be successful, wishing it so hard that his teeth almost met in his lower lip.
Kor twisted away from the
thrust.
Anthon saw the ready blade and he screamed, “No! Don’t—”
His scream faded into a sob. The girl with the dark hair lay face down on the cave floor, coughed once and then was still.
Kor came smiling forward and said, “Rebel, you live to try your luck again. Why they kept you alive I’ll never know.”
With a flick of the sword blade he severed the thongs that bound Anthon. Anthon moved as though in a dream. He waited a moment until feeling came back to his numbed hands. He reached for his own sword, came up off the floor with a roar of rage, with inhuman strength born of fury.
The startled Kor parried the first blow but the second caught him at the angle of neck and shoulder. The blade severed bone. Kor dropped with the blade still in him.
Still blind with anger, Anthon spread his arms wide, looked up at the silver box above him and said, “Would that it was Shawn who received that blow. Shawn and every one of his assassins and his thieves and the criminals who surround him.
“It is time that we are done with Shawn and his brood. It is time that we were free. It is time for every man of courage to stand upright and fight off oppression. We are not as free as these poor savages who die on Lassa.”
And then Anthon realized that with his first words the scanner would have been turned off, that he spoke only to the empty cave of death. He walked two heavy paces, sank on his knees beside the body of the girl and began to sob hoarsely.
History records that the technician operating the scanner turned and fought with bare hands against the supervisor who would have turned it off. By the time the technician was killed, the damage was done.
No battle cry was ever broadcast so instantaneously to all parts of a vast empire.
Everyone had misjudged the strength of the forces of rebellion.
Entire space cruisers, almost to a man, revolted against Shawn. Those who remained loyal died suddenly. The rays of destruction crackled and spat and the air of many planets hummed with the blue fury of released power.
It is recorded that seven hundred millions died in that bloodbath. Shawn and his court died when the Palace of the Kanes became a wide pool of rock and molten metal which bubbled for many months like the crater of a somnolent volcano.
