The Science Fiction Anthology. Филип Дик

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      “You won’t, I suppose.”

      “Not on your life. Excuse the double meaning, Miss.” He smirked at Bee. “I ask you, who’s going to match us after we knock this one off?”

      Slag stared glumly from a chair, not even removing his hand from the glass beside him. “Practicing,” he said. “Getting into shape for our tussle, Doc. Like Teagle said, you had to come across.”

      Grant took the papers from the manager, filled in the blanks and signed.

      “Don’t talk much, this Doc Lane,” said Slag. “Should I show him, Teagle?”

      “Sure thing. Watch this practice, Doc.”

      The big man concentrated on the amber bottle beside him. Slowly, jerkily, it lifted—one inch, then two. Slag relaxed, and watched it ring as it fell to the table. “My job when I retire,” he said. “Got to pour it right into the glass. Pretty hot, eh?”

      Grant gave no warning. The man’s trousers were deluged as the glass shattered in his hand. He leaped up cursing, and then moved quickly and with ugly purpose toward his visitors.

      “Careful, boy,” warned Teagle. “There’s a dame present.”

      For fifteen seconds Grant’s eyes were locked with Slag’s. He looked into their red-rimmed hatred, fought to see the depths of the man. Then, just before the other turned away, an unreasoning, unexpected emotion surged in Grant. It swept over and left him shaken, all in that instant.

      The emotion was fear.

      Out on the court it was anger he felt, anger at Slag, who stood opposite and bowed to the noisy throng, anger at Teagle, who chanted insults until ordered behind the second’s shield, at the spectators, packing the Colliseum in hopes of seeing a player maimed or killed—and Bee Anthony, even at Bee.

      She had defied him, bribed her way in to act as his second, and had slipped behind the shield at his side of the court. In front of those jeering faces, it was out of the question to make her leave.

      There was a roar as the ball dropped from the referee’s overhead bubble. Grant left it to Slag, let the man shoot crudely several times, and fought to calm himself. The shots were forceful, but easily stopped and returned. It was like Tony’s match, almost too slow at first. Until the players became absorbed, it was hopeless to attempt any kind of hypnotic effects with the ball.

      Slag swung the sphere into rapid circles about the court. The crowd watched silently, as if impressed by the player’s control. To Grant it was absurd—he knew that any trained child could execute the movements. And yet, Tony must have felt so, too. But that was before—

      The ball dropped on him like a hawk, and he almost laughed. To give the gasping crowd a thrill, he barely deflected the shot, and feigned amazement. Slag retrieved control.

      Beneath the sudden amusement, Grant was uneasy. Slag had never won a real victory—never dazed or hypnotized an opponent before striking. All his triumphs rested on single, smashing thrusts. How was it possible? With such clumsy control, the professional could never set up a victory—yet the record stood. Grant could not fathom the problem. If the match went on forever, he could see no way for Slag to drop him. And if he quickly whirled Slag into dazed defeat, the real mystery might never be solved. His opponent would merely have suffered defeat in a match not even recognized by the Commission.

      Now he could guess why Tony had played carelessly. It was not only victory that was sought. He had deluded himself in accepting such an irresponsible way out. The whole affair depressed him, knotted itself into mind-snaring tangles. The ball blurred again and he hardly cared, only ducking to let it splat against the shield behind him. A spurt of rage sent the sphere spinning back at Slag, but the other diverted it easily into a screen-hugging orbit.

      Tony, Slag, Woods and Teagle—they seemed to merge confusedly in his mind. They stood, each in turn, at the door of an iron-barred cell. For Grant, there was no way out. Win or lose, live or die, he was doomed. The light dimmed in the cell. Just for an instant Bee appeared, her hair throwing off sparks of brilliance. She, too, faded out. Neither Bee the child, whom he did not love, nor Bee the woman, who did not love him, could save him. Before him gaped the bottomless pit of shame and penance. He had unloosed a monster on the world. He had to pay for that.

      But first Grant had another debt to pay. He tried to throw off the depression, imagining as he did so a sob of joy in the disembodied Bee. He wrested the sweeping ball from Slag, even from the opposite end of the court. He spun it in wild orbits and compensated for the other’s furious thrusts. Faster and faster he circled it. Slag’s mind could not keep up the pace. The even swings acquired a jogging pattern, edged farther out—to within ten feet of Slag. A quick break lanced behind the man, out again, and then the sphere fell into helical loops, thrice differentiated by harmonic variations, and swept wide around the court.

      Somehow Slag’s distress gave Grant no pleasure. Defeat seemed to face him everywhere; he read it in his opponent’s twisted features, even in the futile effort to withdraw attention from the ball. It’s no good, he thought. I have failed all along.

      Savagely he worked the sphere. He would do it quickly. There was no use expecting Tony’s fate. The ball darted again for Slag and this time there could be no interference. It became pure mathematics, the motion, complicated far beyond Tony’s simple corondo, a flashing three-dimensional blur of color. He could not keep it up. The concentration brought an invading blackness to his mind. Somewhere there was a dull roar, and he felt as if his own mind were cracking. His nerves quivered to put an end to it, to touch Slag with the ball. Slowly, cautiously, he brought the sphere down....

      Slag was not there!

      He gaped. His eyes suddenly found the crumpled heap across the court, and relief swept ever him. The man was beaten, in a state of collapse, and there was nothing more Grant could do.

      “Grant!” Bee screamed. “Oh, no! Grant darling, look up!”

      Her radiance was almost blinding. He half-twisted to reach her, and then his eyes caught it—the ugly sheen of the fast-growing ball. Desperately he turned, and it shifted in unison. Then she shrieked once more, despairingly, and he threw himself flat, arms outstretched, toward her.

      The ball’s speed was so great that it shattered to pieces against the shield behind him.

      From back of the barrier ran Bee. She crouched beside him, and her enveloping warmth lifted the evil spell from his mind. The loud confusion of the crowd burst upon him, he saw the referee’s swiftly lowering bubble. He was in control of himself, thanks to Bee’s interference, and could act on the knowledge so dangerously gained.

      “The murderer!” Grant pulled Bee up with him. “We’ve got him!”

      Opposite them, Slag still lay on the court.

      “I don’t see how he did it,” Grant said bewilderedly.

      “Not Slag—him!” She pointed out the small, running figure.

      Teagle battered vainly at a gate. The still-active screen held him back, and the man’s face was a despairing white grimace. Then Grant was upon him, and took him by the throat.

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