Whistles blew as instructors noticed the two.
“Will he kill him?” asked the Praetor.
Lycon was shocked to realize that he would.
The winning boy’s teeth were visible as his lips curled in a savage snarl. His forearm muscles were stark and trembling, his neck was seemingly made of cords and cables as he strained with all his might. The other boy’s head bent lower and lower, but he refused to cry out or ask for quarter.
Lycon resisted the urge to leap over the barrier and into the sandpit. He disproved of killing one so young. Revival at this age strangely tainted them. He recalled a Lot 6 specimen by the name of Sigmir. He shook his head. If he jumped down and stopped the lad from killing the weaker boy, he knew he would lose rank in the Praetor’s eyes. He couldn’t afford that, not today.
“Well?” asked the Praetor. “Will he kill him or not?”
The instructors shrilly blew their whistles as they rushed toward the two boys.
The crack of a breaking neck was loud and sinister. The killer didn’t gasp in disbelief at what he’d done. He simply let go and watched the corpse drop onto the sand.
The instructors knocked the killer aside as they knelt beside the dead boy, with his head titled at an impossible angle. Pneumospray hypos appeared in their hands and hissed as the instructors pumped Suspend into the corpse.
“Will they be in time?” asked the Praetor.
“It seems so,” said Lycon.
“Yes,” said the Praetor. “The boy should make a clean revival.”
In 2350, the dead didn’t always stay down. Resurrection techniques revived many if Suspend froze their brains and various organs in time.
“What will happen to the other boy?” asked Lycon.
“The killer?” said the Praetor.
Lycon waited. Over-talkativeness was a bad trait.
“He will be punished,” said the Praetor, “and marked as a ranker, a climber.”
Lycon had known it would be so. Teach them to obey, but use a natural killer where he belonged: leading combat troops. The Praetor ran the Gymnasium strictly according to regulations.
“Come with me,” said the Praetor.
They strolled along the walkway, passing other sandpits: knife-training areas, boxing matches and battle-stick duels. Lycon kept debating with himself when he should tell the Praetor about today’s little incident.
“You are an infantry specialist,” the Praetor said. “What is your analysis of our future?”
“They are well-trained.”
“And strong, yes?
“Big and strong,” said Lycon.
“True Highborn,” the Praetor said.
Lycon nodded, not trusting himself to speak, wondering if the Praetor meant more by the remark.
They came to the end of the walkway. To the left, stairs led down to a staging area. The Praetor ignored the stairs. He kept heading toward the wall.
“Praetor,” said Lycon.
The Praetor turned.
“Did you instruct your Chief Monitor to relay a message to me today?”
“You query me, Training Master?”
“Your Chief Monitor spoke to me. I’m simply curious if he was ordered by you to do so.”
“He had no orders from me,” the Praetor said.
“It was from him that I learned to come to the Gymnasium.”
The Praetor appeared surprised. “I left a note on my door. Perhaps he read it and took it upon himself to deliver the message.”
“Ah,” said Lycon.
“He spoke with you?”
“The Chief Monitor hailed me.”
“Without correct address?” the Praetor asked.
Lycon nodded.
“He will be punished.”
Lycon rubbed his jaw. “He touched me. He grabbed my arm to stop me.”
The Praetor blinked. “You can verify this?”
Lycon hid his anger at being asked such a question. “I struck him for this outrage. Unfortunately, my blow killed.”
“You killed my Chief Monitor?”
Lycon pulled out his recorder. “If you would care to replay this…”
The Praetor accepted the slender recorder and listened to the premen. “You acted correctly,” he said later, returning the recorder.
“It was not my wish to kill him,” said Lycon.
“Next time I won’t select a fool for a Chief Monitor. I hold no ill will, Training Master.”
Lycon dipped his head.
“Now, come with me.” The Praetor strode toward the wall.
Lycon was puzzled but said nothing. He was relieved the Praetor had taken the Chief Monitor’s death so well. Some Highborn became attached to their premen.
The Praetor strode to the wall, glanced about—no one seemed to be watching—and spoke sharply. A section of wall slid open. The Praetor hurried through and Lycon followed.
Behind them, the wall section slid shut. Lights snapped on. They stood in a small changing room, complete with lockers and benches. The Praetor marched to the farthest bench and opened a locker, taking out leather garments.
“Yours are in the next one,” said the Praetor.
Lycon hesitated.
The Praetor, perhaps alert for this, asked, “Is something wrong, Training Master?”
“I don’t understand the meaning of this.”
“Exercise.”
“I have plenty of it while training the shock troops.”
“I’m certain of that, Training Master. But I have so many chores and tasks that often I’m forced to skip physical activity. Also, you’re an infantry specialist. So I wanted your opinion, and how better than to actually engage in it.”
“It, Praetor?”
“Oh, do leave me my surprises, Training Master. It’s finally ready and you’re the first beside me to run through it.”
Highborn prided themselves on snap decisions. Lycon wasn’t any different. “Yes, of course,” he said.
He disrobed, folding his blue uniform. Beside him, the Praetor did likewise. Both were highly muscled and perfectly toned. Flab appeared nowhere on the Praetor, despite his protests of lack of exercise. Lycon was thinner and leaner, although compared to a preman he was massive and thick. Both donned skin-suits and went barefoot.
“You’ll have to leave your sidearm behind,” the Praetor said.
Lycon set his big gun on top of his uniform. Then he put them in a locker.
“Take this,” said the Praetor.
Lycon accepted gauntlets with small iron knobs on the knuckles. He watched the Praetor slip on his own pair.
“Are we to spar?” asked Lycon.
The Praetor’s weird pink eyes seemed to glitter. “Does such a prospect worry an infantry specialist?”
“Only a fool ignores the odds,” Lycon said. “I do not like to think of myself as a fool.”
“Well said, Training Master. No, it is not my wish to spar today. Rather, we hunt.”
“What?”
“That is an interesting question,” the Praetor said. “I haven’t yet thought of a formal name. Perhaps after today you can name them for me.”
Lycon liked this less and less. He followed the Praetor out the locker room and through another sliding wall.
14.
They entered a huge room unlike any other in the Sun Works Factory, a former zoological area. It seemed endless. Sand, tall cacti and sagebrush was everywhere, together with rolling dunes and rust-colored boulders. Overhead, an undeterminable distance away, shined what seemed to be a sun. A breeze blew. Birds called.
“Observe,” said the Praetor, pointing.
Lycon frowned. A vulture wheeled overhead. “Is it real?”
“A holo-image, but very convincing. Yes?”
“Are there any real animals here?”
“Most certainly.”
“The ones we are to hunt?” asked Lycon.
The Praetor said, “Perhaps hunt isn’t the correct word. Perhaps it is we who are the prey.” He slapped the wall. “We can’t get out this way. We have to cross the dunes to the other side.”
Lycon dared put a hand on the Praetor’s forearm. “Am I to believe that you would allow yourself to be hunted, the Praetor of the Sun Works Factory, the Fourth Highest among us?”
The Praetor stared haughtily at the hand.