Mack Reynolds - Brain World

The inspection of the premises over, they retired again to the living room. Ronny pulled up a chair before the floating table top and brought forth his communicator. He had his fingers mentally crossed. In view of what Rosemary had said about their time instruments being disrupted, all he needed was for his Section G communicator not to function. He was relieved to get an answer when he called the Alexander Hamilton .

Ronny reported briefly to John Fodor, who looked worried, but obviously knew that there was nothing that he could do. Thus far, he hadn’t spotted any signs of Dawnworld spacecraft, which could only be a relief to him.

Ronny told him that there was no night and day here and that evidently you slept when you became tired. He was beginning to feel that way already, so if he didn’t report in within the next six hours, the captain was not to become alarmed. He would as soon as sleep was over.

The captain gone, Ronny called the Octagon on Earth again and was put through to Sid Jakes. He gave him the whole story.

“A gladiator fight?” the assistant to Ross Metaxa protested. “The more I hear about these Dawnmen, the more I disbelieve. How can they be that far advanced and still put up with gladiator fights?”

Ronny shook his head. “They live by traditions and rituals, most of them going back to the dawn of their race. They’re bred into them. Evidently, it’s impossible to change them, any more than it’s possible to change a drone into a worker bee.”

“So the story is that if you win, you go free. All but Lee Chang, that is, and the girl from Einstein.”

“That’s right, Sid,” Ronny said lowly.

“Well, you and Dorn take the cloddies, Ronny, and figure out some way of getting the girls off the hook, especially Lee Chang.”

“Ha, you dreamer,” Ronny growled at him.

“Stiff upper lip, old chappie,” Sid Jakes grinned at him. “You’ll find some way. You always do.”

“Having a wonderful time,” Ronny snarled at him. “Wish you were here… instead.”

He flicked the communicator off and turned back to Dorn and Lee Chang who had been following the reports he had been making.

He snarled, “That grinning funker.”

But Lee Chang shook her head. “Poor Sid’s worried sick. How would you like to be in his position, sitting helpless there in Greater Washington?”

Gil entered and said, “Meal time again. At least the table is freshly loaded with their Dawnworld gook.”

They followed him into the dining room where the others had already gathered and found that Rosemary had exaggerated the quality of the food. It wasn’t as bad as all that. They were accustomed to none of the basics but they were obviously nourishing. There were even some fruits for dessert that were quite exotic in taste, though less sweet than the Earthlings were used to.

Following the meal, the three Section G agents felt like sleep. They were still used to the routine of the Alexander Hamilton in spite of the daylight that prevailed on the Dawnworld. The others had fallen into the habit of sleeping when tired, no matter how many hours they had been up.

Lee Chang and Ronny retired to their room. There were two windows and they could discover no way of darkening them. There were no drapes or blinds and evidently no mechanical means of opaquing them. It would seem that theDawnworlders slept in bright daylight. Ronny vaguely wondered if this perpetual light had always been so, or if it was a result of planetary engineering, perhaps some megayears ago. In either case, the need for dark to sleep comfortably would have evolved out of the Dawnmen, if they ever had it.

He wasn’t up to sex, even if Lee Chang had been. The fact that she was doomed, even if he had a very remote chance of surviving, hung heavily over the two of them. They undressed, kissed, and took to separate beds.

She said, before they dropped off into sleep, “Ronny, during your years as a Section G operative, have you ever before been in a spot where it seemed impossible that you could survive?”

“Yes,” he said.

After a moment, she said, “So have I, but never one where it seemed so very impossible.”

There was no answer to that. When they awakened, they made their toilets, dressed and returned to the living room to find nobody but Gil there. Gil and the dogs. Boy and Plotz had elected to spend their time here, rather than in the smaller bedrooms.

Boy looked up and said, “Boss, when do we eat? There’s a big spread on the dining room table.”

“I suppose now,” Ronny told him. “Eat, drink and be merry for… ” He broke it off. It wasn’t funny, with Lee Chang there beside him. And, seated across the room, Gil, who had never been in physical combat in his life and was slated to go up against expert gladiators.

Lee Chang looked at him from the side of her almond eyes but she had the guts to be amused. She said softly, in her Lee Chang voice, “You’ve got a real touch there, darling.”

“Sorry,” he said gruffly. They headed for the dining room.

Dorn was already there and making himself up a plate of the unappetizing looking Dawnworld dishes.

He said, pushing his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, “I am of the opinion that we should act on the basis that our best bet is to keep up our strengths—we’ll need them.”

The Dawnmen didn’t have the institution of different dishes for different times of the day. The food presented at this meal was identical to that Ronny had eaten at the last one. The bee-hive culture, Ronny thought inwardly. But he heaped his plate, following Dorn’s advice.

That worthy looked at Lee Chang thoughtfully. He said, “My dear, I am a physician, among other things. I could kill you quickly and almost painlessly, in seconds.”

Lee Chang looked at him and made an Oriental moue. She said, “Thanks, Dorn. But, no thanks. I follow the old saying, as long as there’s life, there’s hope. Besides, as I told you, I know kenpo. If at all possible, I’m going to get in at least one deadly blow at these funkers.”

“Well said,” Dorn rumbled. He turned back to his food, his face somewhat embarrassed.

Ronny had put down two plates for the dogs.

Boy chomped and said, “This stuff is grim. Don’t they have meat on this planet?”

Ronny said, “It would seem not. They don’t even seem to have animal life at all. That captain, or whatever he was, of the Kshatriyas, not only didn’t know what a pet was, but obviously had trouble in his telepathy in using the thought animal.”

“Some world,” Boy growled, but he went back to his food.

Roy wandered in, yawning, and began to fill a plate. He said, “I wish that they at least supplied us with reading material, or some games, or something. I’m beginning to go around the bend from sheer boredom.”

But it was then that a thought came into all of their minds.

Prepare to receive us.

They filed back into the living room and found the others there.

Gil said unhappily, “This is the first we’ve seen of any of them since they stuck us in here. I have a sneaking suspicion that the time has come for the annual ceremonies.”

The door opened and through it, swagger stick in hand, strode the Kshatriya officer, followed by two of his trident-bearing soldiers.

He faced them and the thought came, It is time for you to choose your weapons .

“Well, at least we’ve got a choice,” Ronny muttered.

The two soldiers posted themselves near the door, which had automatically closed. The officer approached the large center table, floating there without support and looked at its surface. The table disappeared, to reappear almost immediately covered with a wide range of weapons—hand weapons.