Doomsday Warrior 18 - American Dream Machine (14 page)

The others protested. “What? What are you saying!”

Rockson sighed and said, “How about a toast to the enjoyment of all the senses? I drink to
pleasure,
gentlemen. Here’s to pleasure, and
NOT
to monsters. We who are about to die salute
pleasure.”

He was prepared for a knock at his door some time around ten o’clock that night, and it came. His dark hair with the white streak was combed, his welcoming smile was in place when the door opened. It was Dovine, not a girl! Rock couldn’t say he was pleased.

The fat officer looked around at the neat, bare room and the pile of books. He didn’t make the slightest personal remark, but said, “I have come to discuss the request you made to a guard this afternoon, asking for audi-writing materials.”

“Is there any objection? I get women, books, why not audi-cubes or a pen and some paper at least.”

“Not in principle, of course, it’s fine. You said that you wanted the audi-writing to go to your friends on Earth and Venus?”

“Certainly.”

“But why send them anything? To what purpose?”

“So they’ll know what happened to me.”

“Will they care? Surely they’ve got their own existences to plan, their own selves to provide for. They certainly wouldn’t welcome the
taint
of a letter from a heinous
felon.”

“They’ll care,” Rock said. “I was famous back there.”

“Even if they want the messages you send it may take a number of months until the audi-writing can be delivered. Our rockets don’t make many trips in that direction.”

“Am I being told I can’t have some means to write letters?”

“No,” Dovine said. “People of influence have given you a great many privileges, I wish that was not the case. However, you will soon face the Zrano, and then,” he gleefully slapped the swagger stick on the door frame, “you’ll be crushed like a bug!”

Dovine left without formal farewell, his usual habit. Several tiny gray audi-writing squares were brought in shortly afterwards. With the door locked behind him, Rockson pushed the lower toggle of one cube to the left, named the address of his family—the last address he had for them. The material began being printed on the micro-face of the gray square as he began to speak: “This is Rockson here. I may be dead by the time this gets to you.” He touched the base of the blue moon lucky medallion at his throat. “Unless a miracle saves me. I won’t have died in war, but on account of a retroactive law against playboyism! It’s a shame my life should have been so short and that I’ll have lost it when I’ve just started to really enjoy so many wo
—er—things.
But I can’t complain too much. I’ve had some very good times and given back a lot of enjoyment to others. I’ve eaten, drunk, made women happy, and taken the big and small pleasures without hurting anyone—not even myself. That isn’t a bad thing to say about somebody who’s likely to be dead very soon. Don’t think of me the way I’ll be when you get this, but the way you knew me. Bless you all.” It was short but sweet. Now, if only—

A soft knock came at the door just as he was finishing. He turned as the door was opening on a young girl; his “date” for tonight. She was the best one of all. Still, he was missing Kimetta, traitor and baffler that she was! Kimetta, who had arranged for all sorts of privileges for Rockson.

Rock didn’t get any sleep at all.

At daybreak he and the other prisoners were taken out of the building and walked to a jet car that would take them to a special, new arena. This was the day!

Sixteen

T
he wide, smooth-running surface vehicle took them past artificial pines and miniplastic hills on the flat asteroid, on toward a huge dome. They were led into the new stadium itself, then down a badly lighted hall to a fair-sized assembly room. Four guards were waiting for them and a door opened on Dovine, as soon as the men had sat down on the marblelike benches.

The sadistic officer started to talk immediately. “I think that all of you are as well prepared as you can be. Except,” he smirked, “for Mr. Important. (He meant Rockson.) Whatever could be done by indoctrination and training has been accomplished. You have your chances. May your skills be equal to the great task.”

The mournful prisoners’ faces didn’t change. They all looked at their punishment bracelets with disgust.

Dovine wasn’t finished yet. “A message for Rockson has been sent by my co-worker, Kimetta Langdon.”

Rock smiled. So the independent-minded young miss who’d helped finger him and bring him here against his will hadn’t forgotten his
problem
after all. “Is it a pardon?”

“The message is simply this: ‘May the end come quickly,’ ” Dovine sneered. “That’s all.”

Rock nodded. “Thank her for me. I’m touched.”

Dovine said, “I will; but I personally hope that the end comes
slowly
for
all
of you.”

Those were his farewell words.

Silence followed his departure, lasting until Skinny Jones said bitterly, “I wonder if we should find some way to chop off our right wrists, and try to escape.”

They were now in a holding area. One of the rather fancy dressed Praetorian honor guards said briskly, “You will soon pick up your weapons, which have been chosen by lot for you. All that remains to be done immediately is for you to choose the order by which you enter the ring.” The guard swooped down toward a drawer in the table and reached for a quintet of club-shaped sticks that bulged at one end. Carefully he put them down. “Each will pick one. A cluster of dashes appears on the other side of every stick, and the numerical total will determine the order in which you go into the arena. These ceremonial sticks have been used at every Zrano game for the last thirty years. They’re sacred objects.”

“Yeah, they’re
sacred,”
Horse-face repeated caustically, “and life
ain’t.”

“When each man chooses a stick he will hold it and not look at the bottom side until the signal is given to do so. That’s the rule.”

Skinny Jones asked grimly, “And what’ll you do if we look right away? Will you punish us by imprisonment until the next games?” No answer.

Horse-face, the first prisoner in line, was directed to reach for a stick, and as he did, he promptly looked at the opposite side.

“Two.”

The guard was irritated. “You have broken a tradition.” He pressed a button on his metal breast armor and the disobeyer writhed in pain, tearing at his punishment bracelet. After ten seconds, the pain ceased. “Any other wise guys?” sneered the guard.

There were none. After they all got their sticks, they were told to turn them over and count the dashes.

Reelk was staring at the opposite side of his club. “Number four.”

Skinny Jones told him eagerly, “That’s the
worst
spot because the monster is warmed up. I’m five.”

Now Jansen looked at his club. “Three. I’m in the middle.”

Rock shrugged and checked his. To his surprise, he too counted three dashes.

“I must have brought a wrong stick,” the guard said grabbing it. He went off and started hunting in a side cabinet drawer. “Nothing like it ever happened before,” he muttered. He kept shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s all cut and dried. How could this have happened?” He finally handed Rockson a number one. “Here, shithead. Wipe off that grin!”

Rock did so.

“First man,” the speaker shouted. “You are to leave now for the floor of the arena.”

The mournful-looking Reelk turned toward Rock and drew out a hand. “I never told you my first name. I’m Birki. It was a pleasure knowing a playboy. Best kind of crime if you ask me! I was a plumber. Declared retroactively illegal in—I’m
sure
you’ll be all right!”

“Thank you for your confidence,” Rock said.

They shook hands firmly. “Where’s my weapon?” Rock asked.

The guard opened a wide drawer in another synth-oak rolling-cabinet and smirked as he handed Rockson a small tomahawk, the kind you get as a souvenir when you go to a “Wild West” show.

Rock didn’t blink as he took it. He had expected this move.

The tall guard that had shocked Horse-face opened the door. A pair of guards in the doorway gestured for Rock to follow. The tall guard closed the door behind him and firmly put his back against it. They were on the floor of the arena, in the glare of TV lights.

There was a big audience. Maybe 100,000 onlookers, all healthy looking, mostly couples. Rockson was expecting a roar of approval or boos from the arena crowd. He heard nothing at all until someone in the first row shouted, “Good luck, sucker.”

Prisoner Jansen paced back and forth. “What do you think is happening? It’s been nearly twenty minutes. Could he still be alive? And what happens if he stays alive? Do we
all
get to go free?”

“It’s been twenty minutes since he left,” Reelk exclaimed. “I
know
it’s been twenty minutes! He made it, I tell you! That playboy lucky-assed bastard made it! And that does mean we go free! It’s the rules!”

“Shut up, fool,” Skinny Jones said. “He’s been gone one lousy minute!”

The walk to the center of the wide dirt floor of the arena took about a minute. A huge clock’s sweep second hand—on Rock’s right—halfway up in the seats—was counting off the seconds. Rock walked
very
slowly, but when he took more than a minute to get there, his pain-bracelet started egging him on. He moved faster and then stood there with his silly tomahawk. He concentrated fiercely on the huge, closed gate of the Zrano. It didn’t come out. Two minutes. What was happening?

At the four-minute mark, the huge death-gate was still shut. The guards who’d been near him suddenly ran away to join the other guards inside the impact-plastic-covered gate he had entered by.

“Walk forward,” the speaker shouted. “Face your death bravely.”

Seventeen

P
robably the voice was Warden Langdon’s. But Rock didn’t know or care whose voice that was. He wasn’t avid with curiosity to see the Zrano. His skin crawled at the idea, as a matter of fact. The echoing speaker-voice called for him to make the proper salute. He did not raise his arm at first but as pain, like a tearing buzz saw, came through his wristband, he did as requested, raising his tiny tomahawk and saying, “Those of us about to die salute you.” He spat up at the warden, who smiled back. The warden was in the first row of the stands, behind plexiglass. Beyond him were seated row after row of shiny-skinned men and women, eager young couples watching his every movement. Two children in the fourth row were open-mouthed.

The wide and sturdy gate at the northeast end of the stadium was still shut, but a sound of pawing came out from behind the gate. Its grooved hasps were held in place by remote control electronic gears, no doubt. What was a Zrano like? Rock found he was interested. A curious reaction. He was dead calm, too. Oddly enough, though he should have felt fear now, he felt
heroic.
And somewhere inside him a tiny voice came:
“You are the Doomsday Warrior. You can conquer this dream. Wake up. Wake up!”
What did the voice mean? Was he going mad?

To his own surprise he was glaring at the dark, woodenlike substance that made up the body of the gate facing him. He heard a series of rhythmic sounds and recognized music, heroic strains. He realized that the audience had risen and was standing rigidly, most of them with their shiny hands flat at their sides. A look out of the corners of his eyes convinced him he was receiving silent
respect
from the audience. He wasn’t whining, retreating, or pissing in his boots, like so many others had! They’d never seen that, evidently.

There was a noise that reminded him of nothing he had ever heard before, a slurping and scratchy sound as unlike a human’s—or an animal’s—as seemed possible. That was when he knew the gate was being raised: when he could hear it.

A turn in that direction showed the gate indeed was rising slowly. The huge dark shape moved forward as the crowd held its breath. He stood and watched as the eighteen-foot-high mass came out into the light. It was surely an extraordinary beast! Three sturdy legs, a thick, chunky body in a most natural tan color—almost like a tree trunk. Six rows of teeth, three facing sets, the middle row like a jagged plank. Three eyes, all red and glowering. The forehead had a single short horn two feet long. It had no hair, not a tuft of hair to be seen—just a few wrinkles on its tan hide. It moved very slowly, forked tongue flicking out as it came clear of the gate. The beast didn’t rush out, as it had on the visi-screen in the spacecraft. Probably the Zrano was a little tired of chewing human beings by now.
One could hope!
But its red orb eyes gleamed wickedly. The lust for blood, for death, remained strong in the beast coming toward him. Rockson could sense that.