Hugh Cook - The Worshippers and the Way

"Well," said Fax, "get on with it."

"Get on with what?" said Hatch.

"You didn't come here just to admire the scenery, did you?

You want something. You want Lupus dead."

"No," said Hatch. "Not Lupus."

"Who, then?"

"Gan Oliver."

"Why Gan Oliver? Why not Lupus?"

"I trust to my judgment," said Hatch.

Lupus Lon Oliver was 27, a man full-grown by the reckoning of some societies, but in Dalar ken Halvar he counted as no more than a boy, for he done nothing in life except to indulge himself in his own education. Manfred Gan Oliver, on the other hand, was aged 57, and so was approaching the prime of political life. Those he had grown up with were in positions of power, and Gan Oliver had cultivated them as they eased themselves into those positions. He had, too, the authority which comes with age, for people would listen to him when they would never listen to a boy.

Furthermore, Hatch judged Lupus to be a romantic and Gan Oliver to be a realist, and on that account alone he feared Gan Oliver the more.

"You're sure it's Gan Oliver you want?" said Fax.

"Lupus I can handle myself," said Hatch, hoping this was so.

"So why… why should I favor you with Gan Oliver's death?" said Fax.

So saying, Scorpio Fax looked up at Hatch, looked up from his sickbed and remembered. Scorpio Fax remembered how Asodo Hatch had recruited him to kill Impala Fax, the Butcher of Shintoto. Fax had done as much. And remembered. Blood on his hands, blood on the floor, blood daily and nightly in waking dreams and sleeping.

"We are at war," said Hatch. "At war, with Dalar ken Halvar the prize. If Gan Oliver wins, we're dead men, both of us. You must strike him down to save your own life. What more reward could you want?"

"I want – "

Fax knew just what he wanted, but could not bring himself to say it. He was not sure how Hatch would react, but suspected the big-built Frangoni would be angry, maybe murderously so.

"Kill me Gan Oliver," said Hatch, "and you can have anything you want. Anything."

"Even your sister?"

"My sister!" said Hatch, startled.

"Yes," said Fax, who looked positively terrified as he made the confession. "I – I'm in love with Penelope."

"Grief of gods!" said Hatch.

"You – you've chosen another? As – as her husband, I mean? Is she betrothed?"

"Penelope," said Hatch, who thought it would be unfair to conceal the complications from the infatuated Fax, "is betrothed to no man, though Lupus Lon Oliver has declared her love for him.

Furthermore, Penelope has declared her reciprocal love for Lon Oliver."

"Well," said Fax, with sturdy resolution, "she can hardly love him once he's dead."

"Quite so," said Hatch. "But if you're going to kill Lon Oliver, then strike him down in secret, else Penelope will have your testicles by way of revenge."

"It's as good as done," said Fax fiercely.

"But if you're going to kill young Lupus Lon Oliver," said Hatch, "then you do so on your own account. Remember it's the father I want. Manfred. Kill Manfred, and I'll give you my sister – at least to the extent that she's mine to give."

"Manfred, then," said Fax. "But – how dod I kill him?"

"That's over to you," said Hatch. "But do it soon!"

Then Hatch took his leave and headed for the combat bays. One the way he met Lupus Lon Oliver. Following close behind the redskinned Ebrell Islander was the grayskinned Combat Cadet of Janjuladoola race, the ever-reticent Jeltisketh Echo. Hatch immediately deduced that Echo had been recruited as Lon Oliver's bodyguard.

"Hail fellow, well met," said Lupus. "Are you ready for the singlefighters?"

"Singlefighters?" said Hatch. "Who told you we'd have singlefighters?"

"It's a guess, of course," said Lupus. "But I'm right, I'm sure of it."

"Maybe," said Hatch, hoping that they would not be dueling with singlefighters.

"Definitely," said Lupus. "You'll go down in flames, Hatch.

Then they'll kick you out. And my father will be waiting for you when you get kicked out."

Hatch made no reply to this, because he could quite easily imagine this exchange of pleasantries escalating quite suddenly into bloody battle. Rather than risk a brawl, he kept his lips sealed, strode through the open doorway of the nearest functional combat bay and settled himself in the initiation seat. It sighed faintly as it took his weight.

In the open doorway, a sheet of kaleidoscope started to form, then collapsed into hissing slob. Hatch swore, and leapt out of the initiation seat. He was certainly not going to sit helplessly in an initiation seat while he was exposed and vulnerable to his enemies. A new sheet of kaleidoscope started to form in the doorway. Slowly, slowly. It hesitated, wavered, then consolidated itself. Hatch kicked his way through the cold and swiftly disintegrating slob, reached the door, put his weight against the kaleidoscope – which was slightly warm to his touch – and pushed.

Hard. He threw his whole weight against the door. It held.

Okay.

Hatch went back to the initiation seat and settled himself.

He glanced at the countdown telltale. It had not yet started to count down the last pulsebeats.

"Worried, were you?" said Paraban Senk, appearing on the combat bay's display screen.

"Very," said Hatch frankly.

"But now you're safe. Very well. You know the dual viewpoints of this combat session will be relayed to the Forum Three."

"Of course," said Hatch. "Hi, Shona. Hi, Dog. How's things, Manfred my old friend?"

"Clowning is not in order," said Paraban Senk, frowning.

"No," said Hatch. "Of course it isn't. I apologize."

"Your apology is accepted."

"Very well," said Paraban Senk. "We are gathered here today to observe the combat between Lupus Lon Oliver and Asodo Hatch.

The prize is the instructorship of the Combat College. To the victor, the spoils."

There was a pause. Hatch assumed that Paraban Senk was saying something to Lupus Lon Oliver. Then:

"Are you ready to receive your first combat assignment?" said Paraban Senk.

"I am ready," said Hatch.

A flickering motion attracted his attention. It was the countdown telltale.

There was a pause. Hatch assumed that Lupus Lon Oliver was being given the combat assignment. Then:

"Asodo Hatch," said Paraban Senk. "You will duel with Lupus Lon Oliver with the Scala Nine singlefighter."

Hatch almost flinched, but restrained himself. But even so: he did not like this idea one little bit. The singlefighter was a small and turbulent flying machine designed for solo combat missions within a planet's atmospheric envelope. To use it effectively in combat, one required razor-sharp reflexes, and there young Lupus most definitely had the edge.

For a brief moment, Hatch indulged himself in notions of despair. Then steadied himself by bringing to mind memories of the desert and the gasping thirst and bleeding leather of real war – real war which he had endured and survived.

The task ahead was only a game, for all the seriousness of purpose which attended it. Win or lose, he would still walk from the combat bay with all four limbs intact. Here you could die and it would not matter.

Hatch wished, above all, that he was not so alone, not so isolated. But he was himself alone, alone and unaided, with nobody to help him, guide him, support him, advise him.

– To survive.

Hatch remembered.

The High Priest of the Great God Mokaragash, old Sesno Felvus, had said something about survival. But what? Hatch thought back to their encounter in the precincts of Temple Isherzan.

– To survive is victory sufficient.

True, true, but Hatch had always known that, it was a platitude, a nothing-statement, proof of the ancient teaching which holds that wisdom is often but hair from the idiot. If Lupus was an idiot, if Hatch himself was an idiot… but of course they were idiots, they were both of them idiots to be wasting their time dueling in skies of imagination while the city of the flesh wailed through the agony of its burning.