by John Scalzi
“Looks like they’re ready for the second round,” Schmidt said, and pointed at the judge, who was standing with his horn. On the other end of the gym the Korban was hopping from foot to foot, loosening himself up for the hand-to-hand combat.
“Swell,” Harry said, and handed the water bottle back to Schmidt. “Words of wisdom for this round?”
“Mind your ankles,” Schmidt said.
“You’re a big help,” Harry said. The horn blew and he stepped back onto the gym floor.
The Korban wasted no time fronting an offensive, charging Harry almost as soon as he was on the floor. A few meters out the Korban kicked and launched himself into the air, claws out; he was aiming for Harry’s head.
Not this time, you son of a bitch, Harry thought, and pushed himself back and toward the gym floor. The Korban slid just over Harry’s head, slashing as he did so; Harry responded by bringing up a leg and delivering to the Korban’s posterior a truly excellent bicycle kick. The Korban suddenly accelerated head first into the stands, colliding violently into several other Korba, whose refreshments went flying. Harry arched his head from a lying position to see the carnage, then glanced over to Schmidt, who gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up. Harry grinned and picked himself off the floor.
The Korban burst out of the stands, enraged and refreshment-coated, and launched himself once more and incautiously at Harry. Being suddenly and humiliatingly launched into the stands had apparently simplified the Korban’s attack strategy down to tear the human a new one. Harry didn’t mind.
The Korban approached and wheeled back to deliver a mighty blow, either to Harry’s midsection or genital region, whichever was closer. Harry responded by holding steady until the last second and then shot out his arm. The Korban’s forward motion smacked to standstill as Harry’s left palm met the little alien’s forehead. It was like stopping a particularly aggressive eight-year-old. Harry smirked.
The Korban was not amused at what it registered as a condescending defense maneuver on Harry’s part; it burp-snarled its rage and prepared to shred Harry’s forearm. Harry reared back his right arm to slug the Korban, distracting it, and then quickly retracted his left palm, made a loose fist, and popped the Korban in the face. The Korban snorted in alarm; Harry took that moment to bring his right hook square into the Korban’s snout.
The scales and plates of the Korban’s face puffed out as if the alien’s head were a flower traumatized into blossom; they settled back as the Korban collapsed onto the ground. Harry kept him on the ground by kicking it viciously every time it so much as puffed a plate. Eventually the judges got bored with this and blew their horn. Harry walked off the floor; the Korban’s second came and dragged him off.
“I think you might have overdone the kicking,” Schmidt said, handing Harry his refilled water bottle.
“You’re not the one whose kidneys were mashed into pâté in the first round,” Harry said. “I was just giving him what he gave me. He was still breathing at the end of the round. He’s fine. And now the contest is closer, which is what you wanted.” He drank.
A door opened on the side of the gymnasium and a forklift-like contraption drove in, carrying what appeared to be a large kiddie pool full of water. The pool was set down near Harry; the forklift then retreated, to reappear a minute later with another pool, which it set down near Harry’s Korban competitor.
Harry looked over at Schmidt, who shrugged. “For the water combat round?” he ventured.
“What are we going to do, splash each other?” Harry asked.
“Look,” Schmidt said, and pointed. The Korban competitor, now somewhat recovered, had stepped into his pool. The judge, standing again in the middle of the gym, motioned at Harry to step into his pool. Harry looked at Schmidt, who shrugged again. “Don’t ask me,” he said.
Harry sighed and stepped into his own pool; the water, very warm, came up to his mid-thigh. Harry fought back the temptation to sit down in it and have a nice soak. He looked over again to Schmidt. “Now what do I do?” he asked.
Schmidt didn’t respond. Harry waved his hand in front of Schmidt. “Hart. Hello?” he said.
Schmidt looked over to Harry. “You’re going to want to turn around, Harry,” he said.
Harry turned around, and looked at his Korban competitor, who was suddenly about a foot taller than he had been, and growing.
What the hell? Harry thought. And then he saw it. The level of the water in the Korban’s pool was slowly falling; as it did, the scales and plates on the Korban were shifting, sliding against each other and separating out. Harry watched as the scales on the Korban’s midsection appeared to stretch apart and then join, as the plates that used to be underneath locked into place with the plates that used to be above, expanded by the water flooding into the Korban’s body from the pool. Harry’s eyes shifted from the Korban’s midsection to its hands, where its digits were expanding by rotating the overlapping scales, locking them together into a previously unknown dance of Fibonacci sequences.
Harry’s mind thought of several things at once.
First, he marveled at the absolutely stunning physiology of the Korbans on display here; the scales and plates covering their bodies were not simply integumentary but had to be structural as well, holding the shape of the Korban body in both states; Harry doubted there was an internal skeleton, at least as it was understood in a human body, and the earlier puffing and expanding suggested that the Korban structural system used both air and water to do certain and specific things; this species was clearly the anatomical find of the decade.
Second, he shuddered at the thought of whatever evolutionary pressure had caused the Korban—or its distant amphiboid ancestors—to develop such a dramatic defense mechanism. Whatever was out there in the early seas of this planet, it had to have been pretty damn terrifying.
Third, as the Korban forced water into its body, growing to a size now a square of the size—and some terrifying cube of the mass—of Harry’s own dimensions, he realized he was about to get his ass well and truly kicked.
Harry wheeled on Schmidt. “You can’t tell me you didn’t know about this,” he said.
“I swear to you, Harry,” Schmidt said. “This is new to me.”
“How can you miss something like this?” Harry said. “What the hell do you people do all day?”
“We’re diplomats, Harry, not xenobiologists,” Schmidt said. “Don’t you think I would have told you?”
The judge’s horn sounded. The towering Korban stepped out of his pool with a hammering thud.
“Oh, shit,” Harry said. He splashed as he tried to get out of his own pool.
“I have no advice for you,” Schmidt said.
“No kidding,” Harry said.
“Oh God, here he comes,” Schmidt said, and then stumbled off the floor. Harry looked up just in time to see an immense fist of flesh, water and fluid dynamics pummel into his midsection and send him flying across the room. Some part of Harry’s brain remarked on the mass and acceleration required to lift him like that, even as another part of Harry’s brain remarked that at least a couple of ribs had just gone with that punch.
The crowd roared its approval.
Harry groggily took stock of his surroundings just as the Korban stomped up, lifted its immense foot, and brought it down square on Harry’s chest, giving him the sensation of involuntary defibrillation. Harry watched as the foot lifted up again and noted two large hexagonal depressions in them. The part of his brain that had earlier marveled at the physiology of the Korba recognized these as the places where the body would take in water; they would have to be at least that large to grow the body as quickly as it did.
The rest of Harry’s brain told that part to shut the hell up and move, because that foot was coming down again. Harry groaned and rolled, and bounced a little as the impact of the foot on the floor where Harry had just been caused everything to vibrate. Harry crawled away and then scrambled to his feet, narrowly missing a kick that would have
sent him into a wall.
The Korban lumbered after Harry, swinging at him as the crowd cheered. The alien was quick because its size allowed it to cover distance quickly, but as it swung at Harry, he realized that its attacks were slower than they were before. There was too much inertia going on here for the Korban to turn on a dime or make quick strikes. Harry suspected that when two Korba fought in this round, they basically stood in the middle of the gym and beat the hell out of each other until one of them collapsed. That strategy wouldn’t work here. Harry thought back on the first round, where the smaller Korban’s size was an advantage—size and the fact it knew its way around a bongka. Now the situations were reversed; Harry’s smaller size could work to his advantage, and the Korban, in this size, wouldn’t know how to fight something smaller.
Let’s test that, Harry thought, and suddenly ran at the Korban. The Korban took a mighty swing at Harry; Harry ducked it, got in close, and jammed an elbow into the Korban’s midsection. Whereupon he discovered to his dismay that thanks to their engorgement, hitting the Korban’s plates was just like punching concrete.
Oops, Harry thought, and then screamed as the Korban grabbed him by his hair and lifted him. Harry caught hold of the arm lifting him so his scalp wouldn’t tear off. The Korban commenced punching him in the ribs, cracking a few more. Through the pain, Harry levered himself on the Korban’s arm and kicked upward, jamming his big toe into the Korban’s snout; clearly it was the one body part of the Korban’s that Harry was having luck with today. The Korban howled and dropped Harry; he flopped down and thudded to the floor on his back. Before he could roll away the Korban stamped on his chest like a piston, once, twice, three times.
Harry felt a sickening stab. He was reasonably sure he had a punctured lung. The Korban stamped again, forcing fluid out of Harry’s mouth. Definitely a punctured lung, he thought.
The Korban raised his foot again and this time aimed for Harry’s head, taking a moment to perfect his aim.
Harry reached up and grabbed the top of the Korban’s foot with his left hand; with his right he formed his fingers into a point and jammed them into one of the hexagonal depressions as hard as he could. As he did, Harry could feel something tear: the fleshy valve that closed to keep the water inside the Korban. It tore, and a spray of warm water pushed out of the Korban’s foot and splashed over Harry.
The Korban offered an unspeakably horrible scream as the unexpected pain obliterated any other focus and tried to shake Harry off. Harry hung on, jamming his fingers further into the valve. He wrapped his left arm around the Korban’s lower leg and squeezed, juicing the Korban. Water sprayed on the floor. The Korban hopped, frantically attempting to dislodge Harry, and slipped on the disgorged liquid. It fell backward, causing the entire floor to quake. Harry switched positions and now started pushing on the leg from the bottom, forcing even more water out of it; he could actually see the leg deflating. The Korban howled and writhed; he clearly wasn’t going anywhere. Harry figured that if the judges had any brains at all, they would have to call the round any second now.
Harry looked over to Schmidt. Schmidt looked at him with something akin to raw terror on his face. It took Harry a minute to figure out why.
Oh, right, Harry thought to himself. I’m supposed to lose.
Harry sighed and stopped juicing the Korban, letting the leg go. The Korban, still in pain, eventually sat up and looked at Harry, with a look that Harry could only imagine was complete confusion. Harry walked over and knelt down into the Korban’s face.
“You have no idea how much it kills me to do this,” Harry said, reached out to the Korban’s face and made a grabbing motion. Then he stuck his thumb out from between his index and middle fingers and showed it to the Korban. The Korban stared at him, not comprehending.
“Look,” Harry said. “I got your nose.”
The Korban swung a haymaker straight into Harry’s temple, and the lights went out.
* * *
“That’s really not the way we expected you to do that,” Schmidt said.
From his bunk, Harry tried very hard not to grimace. Facial expressions hurt. “You asked me to keep it close, and you asked me to lose,” he said, moving his jaw as little as humanly possible.
“Yes,” Schmidt said. “But we didn’t think you’d make it so obvious.”
“Surprise,” Harry said.
“The good news is, it actually worked for us,” Schmidt said. “The Korban leader—who, incidentally, you caused to get drenched in fruit juice when you kicked your competitor into the stands—wanted to know why you let your competition win. We had to admit we told you to lose. He was delighted to hear it.”
“He had money on the other guy,” Harry said.
“No,” Schmidt said. “Well, probably, but that’s not the point. The point was he said that your willingness to follow orders even when winning was in your grasp showed that you could make short-term sacrifices for long-term goals. He saw you almost winning as making a point about CDF strength, and then losing as making a point about the value of discipline. And since he seemed quite impressed with both, we said those were indeed exactly the points we had wanted to make.”
“So you have brains after all,” Harry said.
“We rolled with the changes,” Schmidt said. “And it looks like we’ll come out of this with an agreement after all. You saved the negotiations, Harry. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Harry said. “And I’ll bill you.”
“I have a message for you from Ambassador Abumwe,” Schmidt said.
“I can’t wait,” Harry said.
“She thanks you for your service and wants you to know she’s recommended you for commendation. She also says that she never wants to see you again. Your stunt worked this time but it could just as easily have backfired. All things considered, you’re not worth the trouble.”
“She’s welcome,” Harry said.
“It’s nothing personal,” Schmidt said.
“Of course not,” Harry said. “But I like the idea that I had choreographed having the crap kicked out of me down to that level of detail. Makes me feel like a genius, it does.”
“How do you feel?” Schmidt said. “Are you okay?”
“You keep asking that same very dumb question,” Harry said. “Please, stop asking it.”
“Sorry,” Schmidt said. He turned to go, and then stopped. “It does occur to me that we know the answer to another question, though.”
“What’s that?” Harry said.
“How well you can take a punch,” Schmidt said.
Harry smiled, and then grimaced. “God, Hart, don’t make me smile,” he said.
“Sorry,” Schmidt said again.
“How well do you take a punch, Hart?” Harry asked.
“If this is what it takes to find out, Harry,” Schmidt said, “I don’t want to know.”
“See,” Harry said. “I told you you were soft.”
Schmidt grinned and left.
Hafte Sorvalh Eats a Churro and Speaks to the Youth of Today
Hafte Sorvalh, alien, walked the Mall in Washington, D.C. toward Antonio Morales, proprietor of Tony’s Churros, a small stand parked not too far from the Lincoln Monument. She had completed her morning meetings, had a couple of hours before her afternoon engagements, and had a craving, as she usually did when she was in D.C. for hot Mexican pastries.
Tony had her standard order of a half dozen cinnamon churros ready by the time she approached the stand. He handed them to her in a bag, smiling. “You knew I was coming,” Sorvalh said to Tony, as she took the bag.
“You are ten feet tall, Señora,” Tony said, using the Spanish honorific because he knew it charmed Sorvalh when he did; Morales had lived in the D.C. area his entire life and struggled through Spanish in high school. “It’s hard not to know you are coming.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Sorvalh said, paying for her pastries. “And how are you, Tony?”
“Business is good,” Ton
y said. “But then business is always good. People like churros. Are you happy? Have a churro. Depressed? Have a churro. About to go to prison for embezzlement? Have a churro before you go. Just got out of prison? Churro time.”
“Truly, the miracle food,” Sorvalh said.
“You come to get them every time you’re in town,” Tony said. “Tell me that I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong,” Sorvalh said. “Although a sentient being cannot live on churros alone.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Tony said. “In Uruguay, they make churros filled with cheese. That’s lunch right there. I may experiment with that. You can be my test subject the next time you come round.”
“I think I’ll pass,” Sorvalh said. “I like what I like. I am a creature of habit.”
“Your loss,” Tony said. “And how have you been, Señora? How is the diplomatic whirl?”
Sorvalh did her version of a grimace at this. Things had not been going well at all; since the destruction of Earth Station, things had been a real mess. Although the Conclave, which she represented, had nothing to do with its destruction, the loss of the station had put the entire planet into paranoid, angry mode at anyone who was not in fact a human from Earth. Consequently, her meetings with human diplomats and officials in Beijing, Moscow, Paris and the Hague were less like discussions and more like therapy sessions, in which her human counterparts vented as she sat there, cramped in their tiny offices (when one is nearly ten feet tall, all human offices are tiny), practicing what she hoped the humans involved would interpret as a sympathetic expression.
“It could be better,” Sorvalh admitted.
“That bad,” Tony said. He was getting used to reading Sorvalh’s physiology, and correctly guessed that there were many things Sorvalh was choosing not to say at the moment.
“It’s a complicated world we live in, Tony,” Sorvalh said.
“It’s a complicated world you live in,” Tony said. “I make churros.”
