To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) (20 page)

The police airbus dropped directly into the compound, down past the guard towers and high walls into a rather small landing space. Blake had not been able to see any of the vast Caligula Sports Arena, for the ship had no windows. He was still wearing the neckband, as were the other four passengers, and they were all chained together.

As they filed out on command, Blake smelled the sea. He wanted to ask where they were, but conversation had been forbidden.

As the five prisoners marched into the tunnel, Blake kept his eyes open for Rio and Doreen. Sneering guards had told them that since they were notorious they would be processed quickly. Blake took that to mean they would all be put directly into the games while their novelty value was still high. But he did not see either of the women and he wondered again, for the thousandth time:
Where is Voss?

Their file tapes were passed over to a beribboned lieutenant, the crossed swords of his order glittering on his cap device.

The officer scanned the hardcopy, and snapped orders to the sergeant in command. "Weissman, Linford, and Rampton are to go to the armory. Mason, come with me!"

The sergeant used his mag key to free Blake from the common chain, and Blake followed the officer to a heavy-duty lock. Two of the laser-bearing soldiers followed.

The officer keyed another lock and they walked a few meters to his office. Blake stood before a desk as the lieutenant sat down behind it.

On the wall behind, a huge map of the arena showing six underground decks was dotted with colored symbols.

On the wall to his right, Blake saw a collection of framed plaques, tridee photos of the officer with various people, and four large, shiny trophies. On the left-hand wall was a collection of ancient Roman gladiator armor, swords, and helmets – all dented reproductions. He also noticed the scratched and ruined arm of a fighting robot, with wires still trailing from the shoulder; it had been lovingly mounted on a wooden plaque, and there was a shiny metal panel with engraving that Blake could not read.

"Mason, Blake, Two-dash-One Two-Five-Three point Two-Two-Three. Sentence of the court: twelvemonth duty with this command." The officer looked up from the hardcopy readout and his eyes were stern. "We've had a lot of men and women sent to us for disposal, Mason, but you and your perverted friends are the worst. You have offended our whole society. You are disgusting, an offense to every right-thinking Christian."

The officer leaned forward and his face folded into the caricature of a smile. "You will die here, heretic. You will die, but it will not be an easy death." He leaned back. "Frankly, I'm sorry we don't still have the stake as a legal method of execution. I always thought it was an excellent deterrent. Nice, crisp close-ups going into every schoolroom in the parish would soon set those little imps on the right path. They would never be heretics, they would be believers!"

The Christians are throwing the pagans to the lions,
Blake thought.

"Why are you smiling, Mason?"

Blake was genuinely surprised. He didn't feel much like smiling, now that he thought of it. Hearing a judge pronounce a rather oblique death sentence in a courtroom had not really penetrated. Hearing the man who seemed to be the one who would implement that death sentence was another matter. The trouble was that Blake suddenly found the reversal of the traditional historical roles quite ludicrous.

But he did not want to let his sense of humor, even gallows humor, obscure his objective: escape. "I'm sorry, sir, I guess it was just a nervous reaction."

The lieutenant looked at him narrowly, and Blake stared steadily at a point just below the officer's hairline.

He felt no desire to exhibit a bravado that would put him in some dark cell until he was trotted out to meet the "lions" – probably some horrible robotic version of an updated gladiator.

The officer seemed slightly mollified and he continued: "My name is Lieutenant Cady. The commandant is Colonel K. A. Ozanne. The adjutant is Major Miller. Your section sergeant will be White. You will start training immediately, not that it will do you much good. But the crowd likes a good fight. They become restless when someone commits suicide in the ring. So learn as much as you can in the time you have left."

Cady let a crooked smile crawl across his face, and Blake felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. "From birthdate to deathdate, you will be the oldest man we've processed here. But make no mistake – you will be processed!"

Blake said nothing. What was there to say, except some melodramatic statement that would only lead to physical pain. He was no larger-than-life hero from the television dramas.

"Dismissed!"

The guards led him out to a fortified elevator, in which they dropped into the depths of the arena complex. The guards seemed studiously watchful.

Blake stepped out into mass confusion. The sheer volume of the noise startled him.

The elevators were in an alcove, beyond which a five-meter-high passage came from the left and disappeared to the right. The unbelievable confusion was caused by a steady stream – in both directions – of as motley a group of people, animals, robots, props, and assorted oddities as Blake had ever seen.

From the right came a procession of bloody and broken bodies, both wounded and dead. Some of them walked, or limped, and several fell as Blake watched; others were carried by robot one-place ambulances with stretchers and life-support systems as part of their bodies.

Blood, warmed to the proper body temperature and matched perfectly to the victim's blood type, was being piped into their bodies from inner recesses of the robot's carriage. Tiny waldoes administered oxygen and pain killers as other sensors monitored the life functions. Blake saw one ambulance stop as lights flickered, then reverse direction and disappear down a side passage as the lights blinked red. The waldoes retracted into the machine, and the blood needles returned to their niches.

Blake gave it a quick salute with two fingers.
We who are about to die, salute you.

Seeing a break in the stream of arena warriors, Blake's guards shoved him forward into the crowd.

Many robots were returning from the fray. Most were anthropoid and only a few were injured in any way. Some looked like centaurs – gleaming metallic animals whose fierce mask-like faces were made to resemble ancient statuary. A few were quite small, hardly more than shiny silver beetles bristling with teeth and tiny claws, weaving their way expertly through the crowd in long lines of thirty or forty – a miniature death swarm. More than one had tiny gobbets of flesh still hanging from their claws. Some of the robots were hulking monsters, with one and two sets of powerful arms and thick armor.

Blake saw guard posts set into the wall at intervals and protected by television monitors everywhere.
They are taking no chances,
he thought.

Going in the opposite direction, toward what Blake assumed to be the Arena gates, were examples of what he could only think of as fresh meat. Some walked bravely, with grim faces and narrowed eyes. Some were pushed by burly guards with nervelashes. A few of the prisoners, who were catatonic or shivering with uncontrollable fear, were carried in little electric carts driven by brutal-faced men in black. Not even such paralyzing fear was going to prevent the condemned from appearing on the execution dock. Not one of the men or women was armed, and Blake presumed they would be issued weapons at the gate.

The guard behind Blake shoved at him with the butt of his laser and gestured to the left.

Blake merged with the traffic and found himself walking next to a young man who had an unbandaged head wound. The youth was staggering but still moving. He fell against Blake for a moment, who supported him until the guard grunted and knocked his arm down.

The wounded man looked up at him wearily. "You seem to be in one piece. What did they do, match you with a gone-under?"

"No, I just arrived."

The injured gladiator flashed a smile, then grimaced with pain.
"Ow!
Damn." He tried the smile again, but it was a little ragged. "Welcome aboard, as they say. Let me give you some advice: Don't make friends here. They'll ... they'll be certain to match you up against him." Tears welled up in the young man's eyes. "Or her. They rely on your sense of self-preservation." He closed his eyes, another wave of pain torturing his features.

The blood-splattered warrior staggered and fell against the wall. He was jostled roughly by a three-meter robot. The big, clanking machine had a smear of blood running down his side from a red mess jammed into where his saber-tipped arm joined the trunk of his silvery body. The robot swayed, then righted itself with a whir of gears and strode on without looking back. After a few steps, he turned down a passage marked ROBOT REPAIR, BAY SIX. Blake looked back as the guard pushed him on, but the injured young man was already lost in the hurrying crowd.

The guards stopped Blake and directed him down a passage. He walked down a ramp that was relatively free of pedestrians, except for an old man leading a docile grizzly bear. The bear had a metal plate set into the fur of his skull, and the old man carried a black control box clipped to his belt.

They emerged into a two-story hall. Cells lined both levels. Some had solid doors but most were barred. In the center was a long table with a scarred top. Against one wall was an enormous weapons rack, with locked and shatterproof plastic doors. Inside were swords, spears, tridents, axes, maces, and morningstars.

At the far end of the room were a large wallscreen and a door. The door opened and a tough, well-muscled man in a dark-gray uniform entered. His shaved head was scarred. He eyed Blake without expression as he took the hardcopy orders from the guards.

The hard-faced trainer thumbprinted the orders and handed them back. "All right, he's mine." He hooked his thumbs into his belt and gave Blake a searching look that lasted until the guards had disappeared back up the ramp.

"I'm Sergeant White. You will learn to hate me, but most of all you will fear me." Without warning, he struck Blake in the stomach.

As he doubled over with pain, Blake had the feeling he was either going to rupture or to vomit, possibly both. Then White hit him on the side of the head, crashing him to the concrete floor. Blake gasped with pain. The room blurred, and he felt as if something had broken, somewhere.

"Get up," the sergeant said conversationally.

Blake expected a kick, but none came. Using the wall, he pulled himself upright. He had a hard time focusing on the bare-chested sergeant, and swayed on his feet. He still felt as if he were going to vomit. The taste of bile was in his mouth and that alone was almost enough.

"You will fear me, but you will obey me. I may be the one that sends you out to die, but if you don't go, I will see that you find it less attractive to stay. Come here."

The sergeant turned to one of the solid doors and opened it. He looked back at Blake and gestured him forward.

Blake started toward the door, but veered off to the left. He stopped, corrected, and made the entrance to the cell. He thought he was being put away, but what he saw within shocked him.

Two figures in dirty tunics hung from the ceiling. One was a woman and one was a man. As Blake watched, their fists clenched in the irons and their entire bodies stiffened into twisted and tortured positions. The man screamed, but the woman made no sound, even though the cords of her neck stood out plainly and her mouth was distorted. Then, just as suddenly, their bodies went limp and they hung there by their wrists, their feet a few inches from the floor.

"Nerve shock," the sergeant said casually. "Ten hours' discipline.
She
refused to go up against her old priest, and
he
tried to escape." The sergeant reached up and roughly pulled the woman's face toward him. Her eyes were open and she was quite mad.

The sergeant turned and walked from the cell. Blake followed, eager to be out of sight of the two prisoners. He had no desire to help them, for they were beyond help. The crude lesson the sergeant had given him was
all
too clear.

Blake realized that the sergeant was looking at him, still without expression. Finally White grunted, as if in satisfaction. He sat on the corner of the table and said, still quite conversationally, "I guess you degenerates back in the old days saw plenty of action, huh? I read some of the old books. I saw some of the tapes when I was a kid – before they burned them all. Great big Games with lots of bare tit and plenty of splash. I guess you ate that up, huh?" He waited for an answer, leaning forward expectantly.

"Yes, they were quite popular."

"Yes,
sir!"

"Yes, sir. We had some big Circuses then, too. They called
them
degenerate then, too. But they were nothing like this."

The sergeant laughed in
a
surprisingly high voice. "Yeah, some of those short-swords call
us
degenerates, too. Imagine that? We who perform such important public services. We give good solid entertainment – real entertainment, not that acting stuff – to the millions. And we purge society of the heretics and malcontents and criminals in a way that is honest and that gives them a sporting chance."