Hugh Cook - The Worshippers and the Way

Hatch moved his jaw cautiously. Tested his tongue.

Heard himself question with a word, a word which sounded as if spoken by someone else, spoken by a machine:

"Result?"

"Partial point in your favor," said Paraban Senk, as calm as an accountant.

"Details," said Hatch.

"You died, but you outsurvived Lon Oliver. You win a partial point. You win 0.0000057 of a point."

"Good," said Hatch. "Good."

"However," said Paraban Senk. "However… wait one moment.

Ah yes. Lon Oliver is contesting this decision."

"Contesting?" said Hatch. "What do you mean, contesting?"

"He claims you have no right to your partial point. He claims that partial point is contrary to reason. He says there must be an error in the adjudication software."

"He thinks I won through computer error?" said Hatch.

"Precisely," said Paraban Senk. "So he has demanded that the partial point be wiped."

"Wah!" said Hatch.

"I have decided to let Lon Oliver argue his case in Forum Three," said Senk. "I will then arbitrate on this matter."

"Will I be able to make my own case?" said Hatch.

"Not if you sit here all day talking to me," said Senk. "I think you had better be going."

So Hatch hastened to Forum Three. He used a side-door which gave him admission to the small stage which faced the steep-banked tiers of seats. On that stage was Lupus Lon Oliver.

Lupus was giving a speech, playing to the gallery for all he was worth. The speech was not just for the benefit of Paraban Senk, for Lupus would ultimately be judged not just by the Teacher of Control, but by his family, his peers, and the Free Corps as a whole. Manfred Gan Oliver sat stonefaced on one of the tiered benches, watching his son and passing judgment.

" – as a warrior," said Lupus, glancing sideways at Hatch.

"But Hatch threw his life away, thereby winning – "

"My life is as you see it," said Hatch, interjecting staunchly.

"He threw it away!" said Lupus. "Threw it away, and so, so won a cheating point from the derelict machineries of judgment.

Had this been a real war with a real death to match it, what would he have won? Only our mutual extinction. In the Season, we count it a victory only when one walks away. Did Hatch's father walk away? No. He killed himself."

"My father!" said Hatch, flashing white-hot with rage.

"Your father!" said Lupus. "Do you deny it? The whole city saw it. And – and it is said that any man who kills himself hands a sharp sword to his son. Hatch has accepted the sword. Having accepted the sword, he has killed himself once already before your very eyes. As he killed himself in the illusion tanks, so he will kill himself in the world of the real. And this – this walking corpse – it thinks it has a future? I see for it a vibrant future as a suicide."

The vehemence of Lupus Lon Oliver's attack was such that it silenced the whole of Forum Three. Hatch was aware that everyone was watching him, seeing how he would react. His anger was so extreme that he durst not move, durst not speak, lest he do or say something extreme.

– Not yet. Not yet.

So thought Hatch, distancing himself from the scene, managing to make himself cold, immobile, stonefaced and continent.

Yet he knew he would kill Lupus on account of what had been said. Till then, Hatch had been concerned with the father, not the son. He had primed Scorpio Fax to kill Manfred Gan Oliver because the father was a danger, while the rat spawned by that father – well, it had sharp teeth, admittedly, but it was still a very small and inconsequential rat.

But now it was a doomed rat.

As good as dead.

"Asodo Hatch," said Paraban Senk. "Are you ready to plead your case?"

Hatch breathed deeply.

Then:

"I am," said Hatch.

"Then speak," said Senk.

"Very well," said Hatch. "This young colleague of mine, Lupus Lon Oliver, he, he speaks from his youth – and in his youth he is enamoured with the romantic vision of two men engaged in combat to the death. He is drunk – "

"Drunk!" protested Lupus. "I haven't had a drink – "

"Drunk with machismo," said Hatch, steamrollering over the interjection. "Intoxicated with visions of the triumph of muscle and nerve, the victory of brute as brute. But we are not animals training to die in the Season. Rather, we train for war.

"In war, merely to outsurvive the enemy can be an advantage.

He who survives can communicate his outsurvival to headquarters, meaning that the masters he serves will know of the outcome of his struggle even if he dies shortly thereafter. All things being otherwise equal, intelligence determines the outcome of wars.

"By outsurviving Lon Oliver in combat I demonstrated the ability to – potentially at least – give my headquarters an edge in intelligence. The fractional point awarded to me may be construed as being in recognition of the fact that simply to outsurvive the enemy is of potential military benefit."

Was this making sense? Hatch hoped so. The truth was that the games played in the illusion tanks were just that: games. So all that mattered was to win within the rules. But to say as much would make him sound like a child too fond of its own cleverness, and so would be quoted against him. So: so he had to pretend to take these games absolutely seriously.

"If that fractional point serves to win me the position of instructor," said Hatch, "then I say the position is rightly won, for I achieved my fractional point not by pursuing delusional dreams of glory in combat, but by applying a mature understanding of the process of war. I won out of my maturity: out of my mature understanding. I won as a man wins when in combat with a child, however monstrous the child in its viciousness."

"I'm better than you!" said Lupus, shouting. "You fight me man to man and you're a dead man! You want to fight? Fight me, then! Fight me, and I'll tear you apart with my bare hands!"

Hatch smiled. This was good, very good. The boy-child was tender in his dignity, and was making a fool of himself by his fist-shaking histrionics.

"You think this is funny, do you?" said Lupus, advancing on Hatch.

"Lon Oliver," said Paraban Senk. "Back off. Back off – now!

Leave the stage and seat yourself."

With some reluctance, Lupus obeyed. Hatch wondered if Lupus realized he had made a fool of himself. Asodo Hatch was a very large and well-coordinated mass of muscle and bone, a monster of a warrior big enough and bad enough to give the burliest brawler a fright in a fight. If Lupus Lon Oliver and Asodo Hatch were to fight it out in Forum Three, it was more than likely that any smashing of skulls, rending of limbs and extinguishing of life would be done by Hatch, with young Lupus the probable victim.

As Hatch watched Lupus seat himself, he was tempted to comment on his own bigness and Lupus's smallness. He was tempted to glory in his brawn and muscle, in his undoubted physical prowess. It was, after all, a severe blow to his ego to admit that Lupus was the better fighter pilot, faster of reflex and more adroit in his aerial tactics.

"There Lupus sits," said Hatch, yielding to temptation.

"There Lupus sits – "

He brought himself up short. It was all too easy to play the game of man against man, to play at being a gladiator, a thugfist brawler, a streetfighter. But Hatch and Lupus were not gladiators or streetfighters. They were players in a political struggle which would decide the future of Dalar ken Halvar. In this struggle, there was more than Hatch's ego at stake. The entire Frangoni nation might be endangered if the leaders of the Free Corps found themselves firmly in control of Dalar ken Halvar.

So Hatch reconsidered, and in a moment saw what he had to say.

"There sits Lon Oliver, sulking like a child because I will not match my weaknesses to his strengths. Well, why should I?