Contest

Selexin limped to Swain's side and grimaced at the sight of the half-bodied hood.

''Initialise'. 'Cancel',' Selexin laughed softly to himself. 'It is nice to know,' he said wryly to Swain, 'that you do not forget everything I tell you.'

Swain smiled sadly, still hugging Holly. 'Not everything.'

Holly looked up at her father. 'I knew you would come back.'

Swain said, 'Of course I came back, silly. You didn't think I'd leave you here all by yourself, did you?'

'Ah, ahem,' Selexin coughed, 'I beg your pardon but the young lady was certainly not all by herself

'Oh, excuse me.'

Holly said, 'He was very brave, Daddy. He helped me a lot.'

'He did, huh?' Swain looked at Selexin. 'That was very noble of him. I really should thank him.'

Selexin bowed modestly.

'Thanks,' Swain said softly to the little man.

Selexin, proud of his new-found hero status, shook it off. 'Oh, it was nothing. All part of the service, right?'

Swain laughed. 'Right.'

'I knew you'd come back. I knew it.' Holly nestled into Swain's arms. Then she looked up suddenly, made a mock-angry face, and adopted a severe adult tone. 'So where have you been all this time? How did you find us?'

Actually, in the end, finding Holly and Selexin had been rather lucky.

From the parking lot, Swain had run into the Stack and arrived at the small red door through which he had been bowled out by the hoods. When he found nothing there, not even a trace of Holly and Selexin, he was at a total loss.

And then, in the silence, he had heard the nearby elevator ping.

It must have just been sitting there on Sub-Level Two when somebody on another floor had pressed the call button.

Swain raced for the elevator and reached it just as the doors were about to meet. He jumped inside and rode the lift to whichever floor the call had come from. It was better than nothing. And besides, who knew? Maybe Holly or Selexin had pressed the call button. Then again, it might not have been them, but by then Swain didn't care. It was a risk he had to take.

The elevator had opened onto the Third Floor and Swain had been confronted with the burning study hall.

He had ducked and crawled out of the lift on his hands and knees, trying to stay out of sight.

Then he had heard voices and the grunts of the hoods, and then the crash of a falling desk, and then another.

He jumped to his feet, and followed the noise, rounded a clump of desks and saw his daughter crouched on her hands and knees, nose-to-nose with one of the hoods.

Swain was too far away, and didn't know what to do, when he realised that the hood was standing over Selexin's white, egg-like hat.

And at that moment, a single word had leapt into his mind -- 'Initialise'.

----ooo0ooo------

'Can you get them?' Marshall asked the radio operator inside the NSA van.

'Negative, sir. There's no response from Commander Quaid or Agent Martinez.'

'Try again.'

'But, sir,' the operator insisted, 'all I'm getting is static. We can't even tell whether Commander Quaid has his radio turned on.'

Status Report: Station 4 reports detection of

contaminant inside labyrinth.

Awaiting confirmation.

'Just keep trying,' Marshall said, 'and call me as soon as you pick up anything.'

Marshall climbed out of the van onto the parking lot ramp. He looked up at the electrified grille, at the crumpled lead cube at its base, at the surging blue grid of electricity.

What the hell had happened to Quaid?

In the study hall, Swain stood up, holding Holly in his arms. 'We better get going.'

Selexin was putting his white, dome-like hat back on. It was stained with the black blood of the hood. 'You are right,' he said. 'Bellos cannot be far away.'

'Bellos,' Swain thought aloud. 'It had to be.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Bellos is the other one,' Swain said. 'The only other contestant left.'

'There are only two contestants remaining in the Presidian?' Selexin asked.

'Yep,' Swain offered him the wristband.

Selexin perused it for a moment, then looked up at Swain. His face was grim. 'We have a serious problem.'

'What?'

'Look at this.' Selexin held Swain's wristband up to him. It read:

INITIALISED--2

STATUS REPORT: STATION 4 REPORTS

DETECTION OF

CONTAMINANT INSIDE LABYRINTH.

AWAITING CONFIRMATION.

'What the hell does that mean?' Swain said. 'It means,' Selexin said, 'that they have discovered the hood.'

'Which hood?' Swain asked. 'And who on earth are they?'

'The hood that you just killed using the teleport in my hat.'

'And they?'

'They are the officials watching at the other end of that teleport, who I imagine received quite a shock when half a hoodaya was teleported into their laps. They are in Station Four, the teleport station assigned to monitor the progress of contestant number four -- you.'

'So what does the message mean?'

Selexin said, 'This contest is for seven contestants only. It is a fight to the death between the seven intelligent beings of the universe. Outside assistance is strictly forbidden. Hoods are like dogs. They are not intelligent beings. Wherefore, they do not compete in the Presidian. And they most surely do not live on Earth. So when the officials in Station Four received a hood teleported from the labyrinth on Earth, they immediately realised that the Presidian had been compromised, contaminated by an outside agent.'

Swain was silent for a moment. Then he said, 'So what are they doing now?'

'They are awaiting confirmation.'

'What's confirmation?'

Selexin said, 'An official must go to Station Four and visually confirm the existence of the contaminant.'

'And what happens when it's confirmed?'

'I do not know. This has never happened before.'

'Can you guess?' .

Selexin nodded slowly.

'Well?' Swain prompted.

The little man bit his lip. 'They will probably annul the Presidian.'

'You mean call it off?'

Selexin frowned. 'Not quite. What they will probably do--'

'Daddy...' Swain heard Holly's soft voice come from his chest. He was still holding her in his arms.