reach.
For a moment, Baskov was afraid things were going to be one-sided; those kinds of matches were never fun to watch. You couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for a creature running for its life. But the ’roo turned and stood its ground, attempting to connect with a series of jabs as the Saudi gladiator came at it.
The wolverine thing was too fast and took advantage of its lowered angle of attack. The ’roo had to bend down to punch, and the wolverine thing went for the descending throat. Twice it almost got it. Twice the ’roo flinched back at the last second. When the wolverine thing came in for the third time, the ’roo countered with a kick from a
The crowd screamed. Around him, in the skybox, voices shouted, faces pressed to the glass.
The kangaroo thing was smart to change strategies, but Baskov knew it would not be enough. Even before blood had been drawn, he could tell the ’roo was doomed. Against a taller enemy, one it could strike at from an upright position, the ’roo might have had a chance. But against something long and low to the ground, it couldn’t use the cutlery at the end of its arms without bringing its throat within striking distance.
The wolverine thing charged again, snapping at air.
The ’roo countered with a glancing kick to the broad skull. The wolverine thing screamed again, baring a wide row of jagged teeth. The two circled each other.
As Baskov thought it might, the fight ended at the very first show of red.
The wolverine thing came in again and drove the Aussie combatant off balance. When the ’roo tried to fend off the Saudi gladiator with a jab, the wolverine caught it by the throat, pulled it to the ground, and ripped out its windpipe.
Tissue flung away in a spray of gore as the wolverine thing pulled free a chunk of living meat and shook it violently in its teeth.
It took one second.
The crowd roared again while blood spurted the sawdust red. The ’roo thrashed in death. It was over.
The vibration rose up through Baskov’s feet again as the crowd roared, shaking the stadium.
Again, the victor was allowed to feed for a short while. Again, the icers moved in and brushed the survivor back into its holding pen. Again, the loser’s flag was lowered. And again, the people in the skybox moved back away from the window to freshen their drinks and grab a bite from the complimentary buffet.
Baskov glanced down at the glass in his own hand and noticed it was empty.
He was a drinking man, he’d admit that. Perhaps a heavy-drinking man.
On his darker days, those days when he was tempted to be honest with himself, maybe he’d acknowledge being a step beyond that, even. A step toward being what his father would have called a
The bartender slid another scotch toward him. Baskov dropped two notes on the counter, and as he took the first sip, his eyes snagged on someone across the top of the glass. At the far end of the skybox, the man’s shaggy blond mane set him apart from the older, conservative crowd, and when the face turned into full view, Baskov recognized Ben Wells.
Baskov scanned the crowd around him and was glad to see the young man wasn’t accompanied by his troublesome boss. Ben was alternately munching on a plate of chicken wings and talking heatedly with a man Baskov recognized as a representative from a pharmaceutical company—a pharmaceutical company that happened to own a controlling interest in a particularly lucrative bacterial gene patent.
When the announcer came on again, Baskov moved back to his position near the glass, and the flags of Germany and India climbed their poles. He could rouse only faint interest in which flag would come down; his mind was already ahead, on the U.S.-China competition. And he was certain that would be the matchup they’d face, the United States vs. China. What he wasn’t at all certain about was which flag would be coming down after
The most recent intelligence reports, which they’d paid so dearly for, had been anything but encouraging. China was going to be a huge obstacle.
He took a deep swig of his scotch, keeping Ben in the corner of his eye.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Silas unwound himself from Vidonia and collapsed next to her on the bed, breathing heavily. She was smiling now, and propped her head up with her hand, elbow planted deeply in the soft pillow. The flickering light of the holo-screen lent a shifting, semi-strobe quality to her features, and he thought again of how beautiful she was, the angular nose balanced perfectly by the full mouth.
She didn’t say anything at first, just looked at him with that soft, self-satisfied grin he’d come to know so well, a sweep of dark hair cascading casually over her cheek.
He closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation of her body pressed closely against his. It was in these moments, just after, that he felt closest to her, when their bodies were theirs alone again and he could still feel the connection, like words unspoken between them. She never talked during these times. She looked into his face and smiled. But what she was thinking, he had no idea. She’d tell when she was ready.
He opened his eyes and looked over the tops of his feet at the glowing images.
“Indonesia and South Africa,” she said, in anticipation of his unspoken question. She was good at that.
The two creatures were so poorly constructed, and so tangled in battle, that he couldn’t be sure where one began and the other ended. Finally, they broke, and the dichotomy became clear.
“Iguana-lion meets bull-hyena-leopard?” she said.
Silas looked closely at the creatures and had to agree that was a pretty fair assessment of the combatants. The bull thing had a clear advantage at this point, and was using its enormous, twisted horns to drive its adversary across the arena. The horns were eight feet wide, asymmetrical, and as thick as a man’s calf. One curled slightly forward, and the other spiraled out to the side for four feet before hooking upward in a vicious barb.
The crowd went absolutely crazy as the iguana-lion backed itself into the corner, hissing and pawing at the air. It had nowhere left to go.
The bull roared as no bull would, then charged. The impact was amazing. Silas clearly heard the snap- crackle of bone splintering as the iguana-lion was driven into the unyielding iron. Purple loops of gut spurted along the wall precisely the way a frog’s guts might squirt out from beneath the shoe of a sadistic child.
Whether there was still life left in the carcass, Silas didn’t know, but the bull spun the body on its bizarre horns and sent it tumbling into the air like an off-luck rodeo clown. It landed in a heap several yards away, and the bull charged again. It scooped the pulped animal off the sawdust and sent it tumbling toward the night sky, spraying blood and bile through the netting and into the first and second rows of the audience. The crowd orgasmed.
Silas tried not to look at Vidonia as the scene played across the screen. Not for the first time in the last couple of days, he felt self-conscious about what he did for a living. All that talk of truth and the statue of David seemed far away now. Just a story he’d been trying to convince himself of. This was science whored out for entertainment.
Eventually, when the cries of the crowd began to ebb, the automatic icers maneuvered the strutting bull back beneath its door with a fine spray of freezing particles.
Silas had to hand it to the Indonesians for their originality. They’d used territoriality for internal motivation rather than a typical predation drive. It was an unusual approach, and it had worked beautifully. Their gladiator hadn’t taken so much as a single bite out of the vanquished animal. Bulls aren’t carnivorous, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t aggressive.
Silas turned his head away from the screen and nuzzled himself into Vidonia’s breast, trying to block out the color commentary blathering through the speakers.
Across the bottom of the screen, a news bulletin broke in.
.
