'He has no case!' said Lupus, giving way to anger. His volatility spoke of stress, of uncertainty, of strained nerves and fatigue. 'Stop playing games with me, Senk! He ran. He lost.'
'That is for him to say,' said Senk.
'Fates!' said Lupus, irritated beyond bearing. 'You watched it! You've got a record. What more do we need?'
'Motive,' said Senk. 'Asodo Hatch has a mind for which he must speak because I cannot.'
'Battles are not decided by motive,' said Lupus. 'The combat decides. Decided. Hatch ran.'
'On the contrary,' said Senk. 'The very fact that you are here seeking adjudication is a self-sufficient proof of the fact that this battle was not decided at all. Hence I require from Hatch a statement of his motive – his why for doing what he did.
Hatch.'
'My motive was simple,' said Hatch. 'I desired to bring Lon Oliver to his death. I chose as my weapon of war the very environment itself. I call your attention to the Book of War. It states, does it not – here I paraphrase, but it does so state – that the environment is ever the greatest killer. Is that not what it states? The jungle was my weapon. My weapon of choice. I did not run from battle. Rather, I made a tactical withdrawal calculated to expose Lupus to certain disaster.'
'These tactics are orthodox,' said Senk.
'Orthodox!' exploded Lupus. 'What made him think me meat for death?'
'Hatch?' said Senk.
'I have dwelt in the wilderness,' said Asodo Hatch. 'I can live there with ease for a day or forever. Lon Oliver has not.
He is a child of the Nexus, soft and weak. My choice of tactics necessarily doomed him down into the jungle. We all know the flight life of a singlefighter. My tactics forced him into the swamp, the snake-heat, the jungle. By my tactics he dies and I claim myself the killer.'
'Wah!' said Lupus.
'Hatch has spoken,' said Senk. 'And you?'
'I stand by my record,' said Lupus. 'You know my record.
Perhaps you would care to share it with Asodo Hatch.'
Senk sighed, and then:
'Asodo Hatch, your tactics displayed audacity and wit, a sound knowledge of your own strengths and points of weakness, and a remarkable degree of originality. Yet you erred in one thing, and that was your assessment of your enemy.'
'I erred?'
'Do you think yourself beyond error?'
'But I – '
'Hatch,' said Senk, 'Lupus has stacked up time in the illusion tanks doing survival training. Wilderness survival training.'
'How much time?' said Hatch.
'Seven full days and a fraction in the last standard year,' said Senk.
'But that's nothing!' said Hatch.
'Taken as a series of arduous survival sessions of a duration of ten arcs each, it is rather a lot,' said Senk.
'Ten arcs is nothing,' said Hatch. 'It means he's never had to sleep in the wilderness. It means – '
'Hatch,' said Senk, with a sharpness of tone which spoke of extreme displeasure.
'My lord,' said Hatch, suitably abashed.
'Hatch, I am not your lord, but I am your teacher,' said Senk. 'Earlier in his training in the Combat College, Lupus Lupus did several long-duration wilderness survival sessions in the illusion tanks. The sessions of the last year were simply refreshers.'
So.
Of course.
It was all starting to make sense now.
Lon Oliver was of the Free Corps, and the Free Corps preached a doctrine of the supreme individual, the masterman who could overcome all through intellectual audacity and physical skill. Of course Lupus would be attracted to Ultimate Tests of all kinds, wilderness survival being just one of these.
'Your ruling, then,' said Hatch.
'I adjudge the wilderness survival chances of Lon Oliver to be equal to those of Asodo Hatch,' said Paraban Senk.
'Accordingly, I adjudicate the results of the last combat session between Lupus and Hatch to be a draw. I award the contestants half a point each. Lon Oliver now has a score of half a point, of 0.5. Asodo Hatch now has a score of 0.5000057.'
So Hatch was still leading.
But only just.
'Do you wish to take a rest now?' said Paraban Senk.
'A rest?' said Lupus. 'I – '
'The choice is not yours,' said Senk, cutting Lupus short.
'I addressed Hatch. He has seniority. The choice is his.'
'Seniority?' said Lupus in outrage.
'He was in the Service when you were still bullying your brothers at the bottom of the Heights of Learning,' said Senk.
'Hatch. You choose.'
Hatch calculated furiously. Paraban Senk had privately stated his partisanship. Senk wanted Lupus to win. Yet Senk had given choice of timing to Hatch. Hatch was strongly motivated to defer the combat, because he wanted to maximize the length of time which his wife, his daughter and his mistress enjoyed the protection of the Combat College. Senk would surely know this, which implied that Senk wanted the combat deferred. Which meant that Senk thought that Lupus would do better if he was given a chance to cool down, a chance to discipline his present anger.
Or perhaps Senk thought Lupus needed to sleep. In Hatch's judgment, Lupus was suffering very badly from lack of sleep.
'What time is it?' said Hatch.
'Midnight has been and gone,' said Senk. 'The Day of Three Fishes is behind us, and we are entered upon the Day of Two Fishes.'
The Day of Two Fishes.
Just two days short of Dog Day.
'But it is not yet dawn?' said Hatch.
'Dawn is still a long ways distant,' said Paraban Senk.
'Then,' said Hatch, rousing his voice to an artificial vibrancy which masked the true depths of his own fatigue, 'since the night is so young, I am ready to fight on further. However, Lupus is young in his own flesh, and it is well known that the young need more sleep than their seniors. Accordingly, it may well be that Lupus would prefer to sleep, even though I for my part am ready to fight on. Since that is so, I defer to the choice of my junior colleague.'
Lupus was incensed. He was inflamed and furious at being called junior colleague – but he was now in such a state that he would have been equally enraged even had he been called the hero of the millennium. In his fury, Lupus declared:
'I will fight Hatch now. And I will kill him.'
'Then,' said Paraban Senk, 'let me brief you. No, Hatch!
Don't leave! I will brief you here.'
So Asodo Hatch and Lupus Lon Oliver stood fast, and Paraban Senk looked down at them from Forum Three's display screen and told them their doom.
