“There’s something eating on him,” I said. “I’d like to know what it is.”
“He doesn’t think the way you and I do,” she said. “He sees things differently. There is something driving him. Not a physical something. Nothing physical like fear or ambition or envy. A mystical force of some sort. I know. You’ve always thought he was just another religico. Another faker. One of that wandering tribe that takes on pretended religious attributes to cover up their strangeness. But I tell you he isn’t. I’ve known him a lot longer than you have. . .”
Paint came plunging over the hilltop and, setting his rockers, skidded to a halt. Tuck, sagging in the saddle, let go of the shield and sword belt and they clattered to the ground.
Tuck sat there and stared at us, half-paralyzed.
“What about the brain case?” Sara asked. “Have they got it?”
Tuck nodded.
“Will they trade it?”
“Not trade,” he croaked. “Not sell it. They will fight for it. It’s the only way...”
“Fight for it?” I asked. “With a sword!”
“That’s what they gave it to me for. I told them I came in peace and peace, they said, was coward. They wanted me to fight immediately, but I said I had to go and pray and they laughed at that, but they let me leave.”
He slid off Paint and collapsed in a heap upon the ground.
“I cannot fight,” he shrilled at us. “I have never fought. I have never held a weapon in my hand until this day. I cannot kill. I refuse to kill. They said it would be fair. One of me against one of them, but...”
“But you couldn’t fight,” I said.
Sara snapped at me. “Of course he couldn’t fight. He doesn’t know a thing of fighting.”
“Stop that sniveling,” I snarled at him. “Get on your feet and get off that robe of yours.”
“You!” gasped Sara.
“Who the hell else?” I asked her. “He goes out and gums up the business. It’s up to me to go out and finish it. You want that brain case, don’t you?”
“But you have never used a sword, have you?”
“No, of course I haven’t. What do you think I am? A damned barbarian?”
Tuck hadn’t stirred. I reached down and jerked him to his feet. “Off with that robe!” I yelled. “We can’t keep them waiting down there.”
I jerked off my shirt and began to unlace my shoes.
“The sandals, too,” I said. “I’ll have to look like you.”
“They’ll know the difference,” Sara said. “You don’t look the least like Tuck.”
“With the hood pulled up around my face, they won’t know the difference. They won’t remember what he looked like. And even if they did, they wouldn’t care. They have a sucker and they know it. It’s a lark for them.”
I stood up and peeled off my trousers. Tuck hadn’t moved. “Get that robe off him,” I said to Sara. “That prayer of his can’t last too long. They’ll get impatient waiting for him. We don’t want them to come out hunting him.”
“Let’s give it up,” said Sara. “Let’s just admit that we are licked. We can head back down the trail. . .”
“They’d come after us,” I said. “We couldn’t outrun them. Get that robe off him.”
Sara moved toward him and Tuck suddenly came alive. He unfastened the belt and shrugged out of the robe, tossing it to me.
I put it on and cinched it around me, pulling the cowl over my head.
“You’ve never used a sword,” said Sara. “You’ll be going up against the best swordsman that ‘they have.”
“I’ll have one advantage,” I told her. “This man of theirs, no matter how good he is, will be convinced he is paired off with a sissy. He’ll be off guard. He may try being fancy. Or he won’t try too hard. He’ll be a show-off and try to make it look like play. If I can get to him. . .”
“Mike. . .”
“The sandals,” I, said.
Tuck kicked them toward me and I stepped into them.
He stood naked except for a dirty pair of shorts and he was the scrawniest human being I had ever seen. His stomach was so flat that it seemed to be sunk in toward his backbone and you could count every rib he owned. His arms and legs were pipestems.
I bent down to pick up the sword belt and strapped it about my waist. I took out the sword and had a look at it. It was a heavy, awkward weapon, a little rusted, not too sharp-but sharp enough. I jammed it back into the scabbard, picked up the shield and slid it on my arm.
“Good luck, Mike,” said Sara.
“Thanks,” I said. But I wasn’t thankful. I was just burned up. This blundering fool had gone out and messed up the detail and left me a dirty job to do and, deep inside of me, I wasn’t sure at all of the kind of job that I could manage.
I climbed on Paint and as the hobby turned to go. Tuck rushed over to me and stood there, in his dirty shorts, reaching up the doll to me, offering it to me.
I lashed out with my foot and struck his arm. The doll, jarred out of his grasp, went flying through the air.
Paint, turned now, went plunging up the hill and down the trail. The centaurs were still as they had been before. I had been afraid that I might meet them, streaming up the trail, coming to get Tuck.
At my appearance they sent up a mocking cheer.
We reached the flat on which the centaurs were gathered and Paint went rocketing toward them at a steady clip. One of the centaurs trotted out to meet me and Paint stopped, facing him. He had a shield, exactly like the one I carried, and a sword belt strapped around one shoulder.
“You return,” he said. “We had not thought you would.”
“I remain still a man of peace,” I said, “Is there no other way?”
“Peace be coward,” he said.
“You insist?” I asked.
“There is,” he said, “no other way of honor.” He was mocking me.
“Speaking of honor,” I said, “how do I know that when I get through killing you I will get the sphere?”
“You speak most lightly of killing me,” he said.
“One of us must die,” I told him.
“That is true,” he said, “but it will be you.”
“Just on the chance that you are wrong,” I insisted, “how about the sphere?”
“In the unlikely event that you still live,” he said, “it will be brought to you.”
“And I’ll be allowed to leave in peace?”
“You insult me,” he said, in cold anger. “You insult my race.”
“I am a stranger here,” I said. “I do not know your race.”
“We are honorable,” he said, the words gritted through his teeth.
“In that case,” I said, “let us proceed to business.”
“The rules must be observed,” he said. “Each of us will move back and turn around to face each other. You note the fabric on the pole?”
I nodded. Someone in the crowd of centaurs was holding up a pole with a dirty piece of cloth tied to it.
“When the symbol falls,” he said, “the fight begins.” I nodded and kicked Paint in the ribs to get him turned around. I rode a few paces, then turned Paint around again. The centaur also had turned around and we were facing one another. The pole with the dirty piece of cloth still was held on high. The centaur unsheathed his sword and I followed his example.
“Paint, old hoss,” I said, “now we’re in for it.”
“Most honored sir,” Paint told me, “I shall strive my utmost in our cause.”
The pole with the dirty rag came down.
We rushed together. Paint was going full speed after the first two swings he made upon his rockers, and the centaur was thundering down upon us, his driving hoofs cutting great clots of earth out of the ground and throwing them behind him. He held his sword on high and his shield was raised above his head. As he charged toward us he let go with a strange shrill yodeling warwhoop that was enough to freeze the blood.
Not more than a couple of seconds could have elapsed between the time the flag had dropped and we were upon one another and in those two seconds (if it were two seconds) my suddenly busy mind thought of at least a dozen clever tricks by which I could outsmart my opponent, and as speedily dropped them all. In that last moment, I knew there was nothing I could do other than try to catch the blow of his sword upon my shield and to try, by whatever means presented itself, to get in a blow of my own.