To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) (25 page)

Several days passed, but Blake had received no folded notes, no whispered code words, and no encouragement. He only spoke of it once to Bennett. "Are they taking us all out, or just me?"

Bennett shrugged. "I don't know. One is easier to hide, but then again, they would gain a few trained soldiers if they took all of us."

Blake waited impatiently.
Where is Rio?

A few days later, they were sent out on parade, in full armor and weapons. Blake could not help but notice the guard bunkers all along the wall, small recessed forts with heavy lasers and monitoring television cameras.

It was Blake's first visit to the floor of the Arena where he could look around as he cared to, rather than seeing it while restricted to the movements of the sensory recorder. The real thing offered much more than the recorder had given him A thousand small details had been lost in the transfers of brain to tape and tape to new brain, almost an avalanche of information. Music, waving pennants, bright colors, roars, cries, screams, a steady undulating hum, the echoing roars of beasts still caged, the creak of armor, the crunch of sand, the clink of metal, the low-voiced commands of the officers, the erotic moans of the women aroused by the sight, the trumpets, the booming broadcast blessings by the archbishop, and the blessing by a visiting French prelate.

They marched around, their pseudo-Roman costumes gleaming, their legs moving in perfect unison. Circling the Arena, they went out again.

Blake pulled off his helmet and wiped his sweating forehead as they paused a short way down the large ten-meter-wide corridor to watch the first act move by.

The Tamerlane robots were brightly painted but obsolete, and were up against a band of New American Protestants who had defeated a mammoth Darius Tiger the week before. The muscular Protestants walked along next to the Tamerlanes without so much as a glance at them. They carried their only weapons – long spears – in their right hands, moving easily and loosely. Their eyes scanned the mixture of prisoners, robots, and guards that lined the corridor. They had the eyes of trapped animals that had learned patience.

Blake was not to see the outcome. Sergeant White sent them back to their cells, down a long ramp and into a bank of elevators.

When he stepped out, a short, dark man in the uniform of an accountant stood waiting for the elevator to empty. As Blake passed, their eyes met and the man nodded. Blake walked on down the passage to their cell complex, wondering if the nod had been a signal or not.

My life depends on this, and I'm not even sure of the signals!

They watched the rest of the day's games on the wallscreen, Sergeant White pointing out mistakes and good work by both sides. Afterward, he put a sheet of reprofax on the board and went off to his room.

"Blake," Rob said, "you better read this."

Mason, Blake, 8420-2925-M-14, 10/19: Main arena, #17, it said.

"You're the seventeenth act tomorrow," Rob explained.

"What am I up against?" Blake asked.

"I don't know. None of us – or at least we aren't posted."

"Then ... tomorrow is it."

Blake felt very hollow and not one bit brave. Suddenly all his expertise at swordplay and robot-kill simulation seemed as nothing. All his hours and days of physical training, of hard work and bruises, all his efforts, seemed futile.
How can I, a displaced person in the time stream, a novice gladiator, hope to overcome killer robots designed by several generations of trained technicians?

Blake went to his cell and tried to get some sleep.

Where is Rio? Where the hell is Voss? Is this "underground" really going to try and take me out?

Blake turned his face to the wall and attempted to put it all away from him, back into the fantasyland from which it had come.

The wait seemed endless. First, marching with his companions in the parade, seeing the thousands awaiting his death, smelling the heat and sweat, sensing the bloodletting mood of the crowd. Then, the long stand in the corridors, shuffling forward and waiting.

Ahead of him were small, slim young men and women, possibly from Southeast Asia, sitting astride mechanical mounts, grotesque spindly-legged robots something like ostriches. One-half of the humans rode green birds and the other half sat on red ones. They carried short spears and didn't look at one another. Behind him squatted the act that would follow him into the Arena, or at least one-half of it: an outsized gorilla with a steel hemisphere where the top of his skull used to be.

Electronically controlled?
Blake wondered. At first he had thought the monstrous gorilla was to be his antagonist, but the ringmaster's list showed it to be Number 18. Blake knew that often opposing members of a combat entered from different corridors to the ring, so he still had no idea whom – or what – he was to fight.

The line started moving forward again. In a few minutes, medics came out bearing the gutted bodies of two women and a man, all wearing costumes patterned after World War I uniforms. Behind them rolled a red machine, its scalloped wings folded back against the body of the ship, and large Maltese crosses painted on the wings and tail. In the cockpit sat an animatronic mannikin formed to look like a mustached, begoggled German officer, complete with leather-like flying helmet, black leather coat, and a flowing white scarf. There was a bullet hole where the pilot's right eye should have been; but the animatronic Red Baron still flashed his teeth and looked pertly over the side. The propeller was bent, and turned spastically, with a wrenching squeak.

Suddenly the ringmaster was at his side. "Get ready, Number Seventeen, you'll go on soon."

A number. Not Blake Mason, but Number Seventeen.

Blake turned, expecting to receive the order to go on, but it did not come. He looked inquisitively at the ringmaster, who was gazing into a small screen at the side of the gate and pressing his earphones to his ears. He glanced at Blake and held up his hand.
Not yet.

The big gate closed and Blake looked out through a port. Men and robots were setting up something in the center. There was a flash of something white between the figures, then the men were moving away and the utility robot was lumbering off. They left behind them a three-meter post firmly implanted in the center of the ring. It was garlanded with flowers, and tied to it was a woman dressed in flowing white. Blake could not see her face because of the fall of dark hair, but his senses began sending him messages. He pressed to the view-port, staring at her.

A roar came from the crowd and a movement from one of the other gates. Blake looked to see a monstrous anthropoid robot move ponderously out onto the sand. It stopped at the edge of the Arena shadow, and Blake saw it was a three-meter-high Attila. The crowd shouted its approval.

As the noise brought the head of the bound girl up, Blake cried out:
"Rio!"

He pressed against the gate, but it was unyielding. He ripped his sword from its scabbard and pounded on the viewport with the hilt. The gorilla behind him snarled and pressed back against the retiarius, who jabbed at it with his trident. The crashcars raced their engines and a lion roared somewhere.

The ringmaster grabbed at Blake's arm. "Bless you!" he snarled. "Not yet! You'll get out there!"

"Let me out now!" Blake shouted.

He fought the ringmaster and shoved him away. He leaped across to the control desk and reached for the door control, but the ringmaster knocked him back with a stinging blow from his nervelash.

"Bless you,
not yet!"

Blake jumped to a viewport in the gate and looked out. The Attila was circling the helpless Rio, and the crowd laughed as it swung one of its four arms near her face. Blake pounded again at the port and the ringmaster struck at him again with his nervelash, causing Blake to double up with pain. But he fought the agony and lunged back to the port.

"Let me out!" he cried once more.

The huge Attila was reaching out. Blake uttered a raw cry of rage. Almost delicately, the robot's claw slipped under the shoulder opening of the dress, then with a wide vicious sweep of his arm he ripped the dress. The crowd gasped with shock, and nervous laughter followed. Blake could see them leaning forward, eyes staring at the bare shoulder of the captive girl, lasciviously taking in every detail while they commented on her obvious guilt.

The ringmaster grunted, watching the screens over his control desk. "Bless me, they are programming those tin cans to be positively obscene." He shook his head. "We don't have to put on a dirty show to draw the crowds."

Rio's initial shock had worn off and she stood straight and bravely, looking at the Arena wall rather than at the circling robot.

The mob started shouting encouragement to the robot executioner, and more than a few wanted him to tear more of her dress.

"All right, Seventeen!" the ringmaster said.

Blake looked hard at him, then at the guards behind the gunports, with their lasers and stunners aimed at him. The ringmaster pressed the button and the gates started to rumble open. Blake was ready. He threw himself at the narrow opening and forced himself through as the gate widened.

Sword in hand he raced out into the sunlight and across the sand. He had only a metal sword to use against the awesome height and skill and weight of the Attila, but he had to try. The crowd screamed approval.

Rio looked at him.

He could see her mouth move, but he could not hear her words, which were drowned by the crowd's strident cries. Blake raced toward her, hoping to cut away her bindings in order to give them both mobility. He had no real hope of winning, but at least they could die together, on their feet and fighting.

The Attila moved to cut him off, blocking his way. Blake changed direction, trying to outflank it. The armored robot waved its four threatening fighting arms and blocked him again.

Blake now stopped, breathing heavily, and forced calm upon himself.
Anger gives strength,
he told himself,
but it can more easily betray you.
Sergeant White's words were coming back to him: "The Attila is fast, but has limited use of its upper arms. General Robotics' robbies are usually weak in the upper-right rear quadrant."

Blake started walking toward the huge cybernetic killer in a slow and deliberate way. The crowd fell silent, with only an occasional yell.

He stopped just out of waldo range and looked up at the automaton half again as tall as he was and ten times heavier. If it had been human, Blake would have used some kind of psychological trick. He stared at the grim Attila, knowing it was going to kill him. Then he looked at Rio, and a mood of fatalism overcame him. Its effect was a surprising one, even to Blake.

"Your mother was a trash heap," he said to the robot. "Your father was an ingot." He laughed at himself and waved his sword at the assembly. "They
want
you to fail, Attila the Ashcan! I am human and you are a machine!"

Blake felt suddenly foolish and moved to the side to be able to see Rio. But the robot did not move, except for its stereo lenses. This non-reaction puzzled Blake, and he frantically tried to remember what he'd been taught about robot reaction programming. "They have only a limited number of self-initiated programs," Sergeant White had
said.
"Mostly they react to you, to your attacks or retreats. If you were to do nothing at all, they would initiate standard kill programming, and get it over with. But remember, 75 percent of the time their reactions are just that – reactions."

Blake began walking up and down before the robot, keeping an eye on its feet. They would provide the clues to a coming attack.

He started to berate the robot. "Your waldoes are ugly, your skin is made of recycled oil drums." Blake was neither attacking, retreating, nor standing still, frozen into immobility by fear. "Your eyes are from an old Napoleon, and everyone knows what miserable fighters they were! You have third-rate drip in your gears, you smell like something is burning inside you. Checked your interior alarms lately? Nothing? Aha! But I can smell you burning! You'll go in a minute, and they'll scrap you; they won't even recycle your parts. They won't put your program in another body. No, sir; they'll just dump it in the torch and reclaim the elements. Oblivion, Attila baby, nothingness, complete unawareness."

Blake still walked back and forth, but on each turn he went a step or two nearer.

The crowd was restless, annoyed by this unconventional fight. The mikes were probably picking up his words for the television audience, but the shouting throng in the stands couldn't hear, and they were restless.

Blake could see Rio struggling to get free, but so far she was unsuccessful. He continued his verbal attack without stopping.

"Or maybe they will just dump your program into some box somewhere and let it set. Awareness of nothingness, Attila, my beauty! No input, no exterior senses, nothing but your own dull thought, reliving old fights just to have something to do."

The robot stayed motionless, except for the tracking lenses, with a stillness a human being was unable to match.

"You're going to lose today, Attila. Everyone loses someday,
even
you! You've seen others lose, haven't you? A nice shiny Genghis Khan comes tumbling down. A good-old experienced Black Prince gets his. A Kublai Khan mysteriously fails. A Saladin One Hundred blows up; an Eisenhower stops for no reason. You've seen it happen, Attila, my pigeon, you've seen it happen."

Then its right foot moved, and Blake threw himself down and forward as the big robot attacked. The lower set of arms both swung at him, but Blake was on the sand, rolling, and getting to the safe area just around the robot's feet. The huge feet kicked at him awkwardly, but Blake was already climbing the robot's back.

The sea of faces in the stands screamed approval as Blake gained the head of the metal giant. The upper set of arms clawed back at him, but Blake struck at them with his sword, bending several claws with hard-flung blows.

Blake climbed higher and reached around to jab at the lenses of the face with the butt of his sword. He smashed one lens; then a claw ripped at his left arm, gashing him deeply in the back of the bicep. Blake cried out and grabbed the waldo and bent it in a surge of strength. The bent arm lashed at him but only managed to get in the way of the lower waldoes, which were trying to get at him. The other upper arm clawed at him, but Blake sent a savage blow into one of the elbows, partially severing the limb and cutting the connections. The lower part of the arm went dead and hung loosely while the upper part still tried to reach him.

He now smashed the other lens and took a cut on the shoulder, then the loose waldo became entangled in the claws of the lower arms. Thinking it had found Blake, the lower limb savaged the arm, pulling it out and throwing it away. But by then Blake had driven his swordpoint into the joining of the upper-right back plate. The swordpoint broke, but Blake savagely forced in the rest of the blade, using it as a pry bar to break the connections. The rear quadrant plate fell away, and Blake plunged his ruined sword into the complex interior mechanisms.

The robot jerked, went rigid, then began a spastic dance that flung Blake off. He fell heavily to the sand and almost blacked out.

In a moment, Blake looked up to see smoke coming from around the sword still buried in the spasming robot. The four clawed waldoes fought at each other and the robot lurched toward the Arena wall. It hit with a crash and stood there, its feet still trying to force it on, sparks and smoke pouring from its back. Then it stopped moving and the sparks ceased, and slowly ... very slowly ... it began to fall over. The waldoes made a series of scratches on the wall as the robot fell. The metal monster finally toppled sideways to crash with the sound of dropped trash.

The shouting of the multitude deafened Blake as he rose wearily from the sand. Some of the people were screaming in rage, but most were shouting in praise. It was seldom that a human defeated a robot, and the novelty was exciting. The robot had stopped moving completely, and only a thin line of smoke came from it. Limping, and with blood running down his left arm and right shoulder, Blake went over to Rio. He saw that her bindings had magnetic clips and freed her easily.

Rio flung her arms around him, kissing him all over his face, laughing and crying at the same time. He saw blood on her hands and body when she pulled back, but she was smiling She repeated his name over and over as if she couldn't believe it.

"Those goddam sneaking bastards!" he cried. "They planned this whole thing!"

Angrily, he tore away from Rio and started toward the bishop's box. He knew he could not get up the wall, or over the electric fence, but he was mad enough to try.

Rio ran after him, grabbed his arm, and pleaded, "Don't, Blake! Not now!" She pressed her mouth to his ear and tried to keep up with his angry stride. "They are going to get us out! They told me today! The New Day people! They are going to do it
today!"

He stopped. He looked at Rio, and for the first time felt the pain in his arm. At that moment the medic team arrived on the scene, and the lead doctor hit him with a hypospray. As Blake fell back into the arms of the stretcher bearers, he said, "Today..."