I snorted, "Especially since I haven't got it in the first place.
Listen, what gave you the idea I wanted to get out of this fight,
anyway? I'm not afraid--"
He started hopping at that. "_You're_ not afraid! 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; but who do we
get to represent us in the most important gladiatorial fight in history?
A second-rate, inflated, balloon headed--"
"Hey...." I protested indignantly.
But he'd stopped of his own accord and clicked his heels in the
Mercurian version of snapping of fingers in sudden inspiration.
"Look," he whistled. "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 scowled at him, not getting it. "You know better than that. 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? If I'm not I'll never see--"
But he was already darting for the door.
* * * * *
Well, within the week the scientists had "cured" me of the disease that
Mari Nown had dreamed up. I was scheduled for the fight again.
But no word from Suzi. And no way of getting in touch with her. 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.
Except for Suzi.
Evidently the word got back to her about the weapons I was learning
to use, and she let loose at me in her column. Nothing that the
Centaurians would understand, of course, but the digs were there. She
made it pretty clear that Jak Dempsi was a phony and that only with the
use of unsportsmanlike weapons would he consent to go into the arena at
all.
She had some nasty comebacks, because sentiment was running pretty high
throughout the League planets, and anybody saying a word against the
Champ was apt to find himself mobbed. They were frightened, understand?
The whole Solar System was frightened, and they couldn't bear the
thought that I was less than their saviour.
But Suzi kept it up. She was the only sports reporter in the system who
dared point out what they were all probably feeling.
The great trouble in the training was that we hadn't the vaguest idea
of what the Centaurians looked like. Their tremendous ship, several
times the size of the greatest of ours, hovered motionlessly over
Krishna-Krishna, the Venusian capitol city, but thus far not one of
them had been spotted. They communicated with us, blank-screened, and
we had nothing to go on to decide whether or not they were humanoid, or
even if they were air breathers, although the latter would seem likely
if they wished to colonize the Solar System since all our life forms
are based on oxygen.
The only thing was to provide me with several weapons, one each for the
various different types of creature our Centaurians might be. In fact,
it was only by dint of argument that I was allowed to take my short
sword with me into the arena when the day finally arrived. The managers
who'd had my training in hand wanted to use the space and weight the
sword would take up to carry another half dozen atomic grenades.
I growled at them. "Listen, if these grenades are going to work--and
how the _kert_ they could possibly fail to work, I don't know--_one_ of
them will do the job. I'll take my sword along if only for a good luck
charm; I've never been in an arena without it yet."
And I added sarcastically, "This is going to be some fight, this is. I
feel like a murderer."