Mack Reynolds

“ Terra wouldn't allow me to fight—not even in exhibitions.
Mari Nown's chicken head beamed as he bounced back and forth on his heels. "You're going to live to a ripe old age," he shrilled happily, "and the most dangerous thing you'll ever do is sign endorsements for Venusian Salt Water Taffy." He added, more happily still, "And I'll get ten percent of everything you make."
"Everything but Suzi," I told him, sticking out an arm to encircle her.
Alger Wilde frowned. "You know, Jak," he grunted, "I think you're right about that music. The Solar System Forever is a raucous thing." ”

“ Evidently, it wasn't waiting to see what the Solar System fleet would do when the farce was made known.
I turned, and for a moment stared at the robot the Centaurian had occupied. Then my injuries and fatigue caught up with me. The fog rolled in and I slumped to the arena sands.
I explained later in the hospital room to the diplomats, the I.V.S. reporters, and the others. And I made the explanation as short as possible.
In the first place, how could a thing that big and awkward have handled the helicopter so gracefully? How could any organic creature survive the explosion of an atomic grenade? ”

“ I snorted in self-deprecation. "I wonder what the crowd out there is thinking. I enter the arena with enough weapons to depopulate a small planet, and it takes me half an hour to find out it's all a hoax."
She remained kneeling there, but it was another voice that said, "The crowd doesn't see it that way, Jak." It was Alger Wilde, who had entered with my manager.
"Of course not," Suzi insisted. "You didn't know what you were against, but you were in there all the time, taking on something worse than any gladiator in the System.—You proved yourself, Jak." ”

“ We all sat down—with me congratulating myself that Suzi didn't object—and Suzi, her eyes shining, gushed, "Oh Jak, isn't it wonderful?"
I said, "I guess so. What?" I looked around the room in irritation. "What's all the noise about? I can hardly hear ourselves talk."
Alger Wilde said stiffly, "It's the new anthem, The Solar System Forever. Very patriotic. It was just completed by a staff of more than three hundred of the System's outstanding musicians. I understand that it's being played on every viziscreen on nine planets and twenty satellites. ”

“ But whatever the cost, the stands were packed beyond belief. And, of course, throughout the system every man, woman and child, every brim, mador and loet, every—but you get the idea. Every intelligent living thing in the Solar System was glued to his viziscreen.
And above the arena floated the Centaurian ship, silent, sinister.
There were no preliminaries. That would have been too much.
Instead, when the moment of conflict arrived, I came out into the arena—staggered, might have been the better word. I had a burden of weapons that was just about all I could carry. ”

“ I said. "Just because you've known me for years and just because for most of that time I've been chasing you, doesn't mean that the Gladiator Champion of the Solar System is a nobody." I finished with what I thought would be the clincher. "Let me tell you, there isn't one girl in a billion who wouldn't be glad to be in your shoes—engaged to Jak Dempsi."
It was the clincher all right. She took her hands from her hips and folded them over her breasts and glared. "Oh yes there is," she told me. "There's exactly one girl who isn't interested in being engaged to you Gladiator Jak Dempsi. ”

“ Suzi worked for a chain of publications as a female sports reporter covering the gladiator meets from the woman's angle. What she wanted to do was write books about primitive culture, and for years that had been the barrier between us. She couldn't stand the fact that I wasn't particularly interested in the ancients and spent half the time we had together in trying to fill me with the lore she thought the big interest in life. She'd even given me my professional name, explaining that the original Jak Dempsi was one of the outstanding gladiators in ancient times. ”

“ You won't have to fight now. You can retire from the arena, as undefeated champ, and make a top notch living for the rest of your life endorsing—"
I jumped out of the bed and dashed to the telo, but even before I could reach it it glowed on and Suzi's face, cold as a winter day on Pluto, was there.
Her eyes seemed to focus about three feet beyond my head and she said, "Jak Dempsi, you're a phony. A cheap, petty, cowardly phony. Venusian Elephantiasis, indeed!" Her voice dripped scorn. "I never want to hear from you again." ”

“ I tried everything, but Suzi just wasn't having any of me.
We started my training, and it became more or less of an Earth-wide secret that the scientists were fixing me up with some secret weapons which would guarantee the victory. Most of the sportswriters who came to the training camp were tight lipped and disapproving about it—not quite playing the game, you know—but the governmental big shots who were trembling in their boots over the Centaurian threat, made it clear that anything was going to go to insure Solar System victory. So the reporters didn't print the stories they might have. ”

“ In the arena the only weapons allowed are primitive ones, swords, spears, battle axes, boomerangs—"
"Yes, yes," he shrilled excitedly, beginning to hop again. "But this is different. They—the Centaurians—don't know that." He clicked his heels together again. "It's the solution! We'll devise, in the next month, some sure thing weapon. You can't lose!"
But I was worried more about Suzi than about the fight. I growled at him, "I don't need anything but my short sword. All I want to be sure about is that I'm in that fight, see? ”

“ He spoke very seriously, very earnestly—and I had to sit through it after Suzi had switched on the sound again. He pointed out at some length that we all must maintain faith and calm and hold in our hearts the image of the champion of the Solar System, our own Terran Gladiator, Jak Dempsi.
The President's face faded and was replaced with a still of mine.
The audience rose to a man, faced our box and applauded like crazy. I had a sneaking suspicion that the show wasn't going to go on as long as Suzi and I were there. ”

“ Alger Wilde, I might as well explain here, is a makron from the word glorm, if you'll pardon my language. He's been trying, in his smirking way, to get in with Suzi for almost as many years as I have, and until I won the championship was doing at least as well as I. His strong point was the fact that he was even further around the corner in regard to the ancients than was Suzi. They could sit and talk for hours about the primitive comic books and other cultural matters that the average person had no interest in whatsoever. ”

“ Suzi's words were still burning. I added, out of the side of my mouth, "If you really got it, you got it, and if you haven't you haven't and all the training in the world won't give it to you."
I flexed my muscles. "Woji isn't going to hurt a man like me."
He blinked in admiration. "Guess you're right at that, Champ," he said. "It's the second-raters that have to be watching everything they eat, everything they drink, everything they do." ”

“ You're too stupid, too conceited to be afraid. I'm afraid, understand? I'm your manager; I know how good a gladiator you are, and I'm afraid. I'm afraid first that you'll get killed and I'll lose the best thing I've ever had, but even more than that I'm afraid that this Solar System isn't going to be fit to live in after you lose this fight and the Centaurians take over."
I growled truculently, "I can whip anybody in the Solar System and I can whip—"
He flung two of his wing-arms up in despair. "We have Slabers, we have fast moving Spidermen, we have four armed Martians ”

“ If they can put forty-three thousand scientists to work figuring out a way to cure a disease they think you have, why can't they put ten times that number—a thousand times—to work on some new weapons you can use against this Centaurian makron? ”

“ I stared at it and then at him. "What in kert is Venusian Elephantiasis, and where'd you get the idea I have it?"
He shrilled proudly, "I had to do a lot of research. It's one of the few diseases left in the system that's incurable. So rare, for one thing." ”