Piers Anthony - Split Infinity

But Hulk selected FLAT. There was a murmur of surprise from the audience. Had Hulk expected Stile to go for another combination, or had he simply miscalculated? Probably the latter; Stile had a special touch with the grid. This, too, was part of his Game expertise.

Now they assembled the final grid. They were in the category of races, jumps, tumbling and calisthenics. Stile placed Marathon in the center of the nine-square grid, trying to jar his opponent. Excessive development of muscle in the upper section was a liability in an endurance run, because it had to be carried along uselessly while the legs and heart did most of the work. Hulk, in effect, was carrying that twenty-kilo pack.

Hulk, undaunted, came back with the standing broad jump, another specialty of his. He had a lot of mass, but once he got it aloft it carried a long way. They filled in the other boxes with trampoline flips, pushups, twenty-kilometer run, hundred-meter dash, precision backflips, running broad jump, and handstand race.

They had formed the grid artfully to prevent any vertical or horizontal three-in-a-row lines, so there was no obvious advantage to be obtained here. Since Stile had made the extra placement. Hulk had choice of facets. They made their selections, and it came up 2B, dead center: Marathon.

Stile relaxed. Victory! But Hulk did not seem discouraged. Strange.

“Concede?” Stile inquired, per protocol.

“Declined.”

So Hulk actually intended to race. He was simply not a distance runner; Stile was. What gave the man his confidence? There was no way he could fake Stile out; this was a clear mismatch. As far as Stile knew. Hulk had never completed a marathon race. The audience, too, was marveling. Hulk should have conceded. Did he know something others didn’t, or was he bluffing?

Well, what would be, would be. Hulk would keep the pace for a while, then inevitably fall behind, and when Stile got a certain distance ahead there would be a mandatory concession. Maybe Hulk preferred to go down that way—or maybe he hoped Stile would suffer a cramp or pull a muscle on the way. Accidents did happen on occasion, so the outcome of a Game was never quite certain until actually played through. Stile’s knee injury was now generally known; perhaps Hulk overestimated its effect.

They proceeded to the track. Sheen paced Stile nervously; was she affecting an emotion she did not feel, the better to conceal her nature, or did she suspect some threat to his welfare here? He couldn’t ask. The established track wound through assorted other exercise areas, passing from one to another to make a huge circuit. Other runners were on it, and a number of walkers; they would clear out to let the marathoners pass, of course. Stile and Hulk, as rung contenders be-fore the Tourney, had priority.

The audience dispersed; there was really no way to watch this race physically except by matching the pace. Interested people would view it on intermittent view-screen pickup, or obtain transport to checkpoints along the route.

They came to the starting line and checked in with the robot official. “Be advised that a portion of this track is closed for repair,” the robot said. He was a desk model, similar to the female at the Dust Slide; his nether portion was the solid block of the metal desk. “There is a detour, and the finish line is advanced accordingly to keep the distance constant.”

“Let me put in an order for my drinks along the way,” Hulk said. “I have developed my own formula.”

Formula? Stile checked with Sheen. “He’s up to something,” she murmured. “There’s no formula he can use that will give him the endurance he needs, without tripping the illegal-drug alarm.”

“He isn’t going to cheat, and he can’t outrun me,” Stile said. “If he can win this one, he deserves it. Will you be at the checkpoints to give me my own drinks? Standard fructose mix is what I run on; maybe Hulk needs something special to bolster his mass, but I don’t, and I don’t expect to have to finish this course anyway.”

“I will run with you,” she said.

“And show the world your nature? No living woman as soft and shapely as you could keep the pace; you know that.”

“True,” she agreed reluctantly. “I will be at the checkpoints. My friends will keep watch too.” She leaned forward to kiss him fleetingly, exactly like a concerned girl friend—and wasn’t she just that?

They lined up at the mark, and the robot gave them their starting signal. They were off, running side by side. Stile set the pace at about fifteen kilometers per hour, warming up, and Hulk matched him. The first hour of a marathon hardly counted; the race would be decided in the later stages, as personal resources and willpower gave out. They were not out after any record; this was purely a two-man matter, and the chances were that one of them would concede when he saw that he could not win.

Two kilometers spacing was the requirement for forced concession. This was to prevent one person slowing to a walk, forcing the other to go the full distance at speed to win. But it was unlikely even to come to that; Stile doubted that Hulk could go any major fraction of this distance at speed without destroying himself. Once Hulk realized that his bluff had failed, he would yield gracefully.

Soon Stile warmed up. His limbs loosened, his breathing and respiration developed invigorating force, and his mind seemed to sharpen. He liked this sort of exercise. He began to push the pace. Hulk did not have to match him, but probably would, for psychological effect. Once Stile got safely out in front, nothing the big man could do would have much impact.

Yet Hulk was running easily beside him, breathing no harder than Stile. Had the man been practicing, extending his endurance? How good was he, now?

Along the route were the refreshment stations, for liquid was vital for distance running. Sheen stood at the first, holding out a squeeze bottle to Stile, smiling. He was not yet thirsty, but accepted it, knowing that a hot human body could excrete water through the skin faster than the human digestive system could replace it. Running, for all its joy, was no casual exercise. Not at this velocity and this distance.

Hulk accepted his bottle from the standard station robot. No doubt it was a variant of the normal formula, containing some readily assimilable sugars in fermented form, restoring energy as well as fluid; why he had made a point of the distinction of his particular mix Stile wasn’t sure. Maybe it was psychological for him-self as well as his opponent—the notion that some trace element or herb lent extra strength.

With any modem formula, it was possible to reduce or even avoid the nefarious “wall” or point at which the body’s reserves were exhausted. Ancient marathon runners had had to force their bodies to consume their own tissues to keep going, and this was unhealthy. Today’s careful runners would make it without such debilitation —if they were in proper condition. But the psychology of it remained a major factor, and anything that psyched up a person to better performance was worth it—if it really worked. Yet Hulk was not a man to cater to any fakelore or superstition; he was supremely practical.

After they were clear of the station, and had disposed of their empty bottles in hoppers set for that purpose along the way. Hulk inquired: “She is yours?”

“Perhaps I am hers,” Stile said. They were talking about Sheen, of course.

“Trade her to me; I will give you the Rung.” Stile laughed. Then it occurred to him that Hulk just might be serious. Could he have entered this no-win contest because he had seen Sheen with Stile, and coveted her, and hoped for an avenue to her acquaintance?

Hulk was, like Stile, a bit diffident about the women he liked, in contrast to the ones that threw themselves upon him. He could not just walk up to Sheen and say, “Hello, I like your looks, I would like to take you away from Stile.” He had to clear it with Stile first. This was another quality in him that Stile respected, and it intefered with his hate-his-opponent concentration. “I can not trade her. She is an independent sort. I must take the Rung to keep her.”