“But you've never been even this far into the Wildlands,” Jask persisted. “How can you be sure what lies ahead?”
Tedesco stood and slapped his meaty hands together. “Let's go, my friend. It's time to give you a little training in the martial arts. I think tonight we'll try teaching you the fundamentals of wrestling.”
Despite the fact that Tedesco was half-starving himself, he pinned Jask Zinn with little trouble, repeatedly, laughing loudly every time he triumphed, immensely pleased with himself.
As the days passed, the soft flesh in Jask's arms and legs became stringy, then tough and taut, with balls of hard muscles where — Tedesco said — a man should have them. He had put on twenty pounds for those the bruin had lost, without adding any fat. His stomach was flat. A few thin bands of muscle tissue had begun to cross his stomach, creasing it in tight ripples. He was still no match for many of the men who existed outside the Pure enclaves, but he was at least adequate to the challenge that lay ahead. And he had come to take pride in his fitness, something he would have thought impossible. He liked the look of his new arms and was not the least disgusted by this reversion to primitiveness.
Because his afternoon exercise sessions were strenuous and caused him to perspire rather heavily, Jask had taken to going nude during those times, and he had been steadily baked by the sun to a healthy golden brown, which did as much as all his newfound muscles to improve his looks.
Thirty-four days after they entered the jewel sea in flight from the Pure soldiers, they stepped from the end of a light-splashed corridor and found that they had walked the breadth of the blazing ocean and were now standing on its far shore, coruscating aureoles of light cascading down their backs. Before them lay a long, broad meadow carpeted in tall grass and buttercups, ringed in by dark, broad-leafed trees. The scene was so placid and common they might not have been in the middle of the Chen Valley Blight at all. As they walked forward, glad for the refreshing softness of the damp grasses, it seemed to Jask as if the jewel sea had been more than the first leg of their journey, had been a spiritual obstacle, the stage for a strange rite of passage that was to indicate whether either of them deserved to go on and, especially, to decide on the value and degree of his own manhood.
At several points the meadow was broken by thrusting limestone rocks, which, worn by wind and rain, curved and hollowed to look like folded gray cloth, provided excellent campsites for the travelers. Tedesco chose a three-peaked formation two-thirds of the way down the meadow, and here they dropped all their supplies.
“The first order of business,'' the bruin said, “is to replenish our food supply. Let's investigate these woods for fruit trees.”
Within a hundred yards of the forest's edge they found wild pears, huge raspberries and a species of apple that was purple instead of red and oval rather than round. They filled two sacks with these fruits, determined not to become paranoid about the possibilities of organic poisoning, anxious to enjoy the change in diet they had both desired for some long days now.
As they were carting their spoils back to their camp in the limestone, they flushed a herd of rabbitlike animals. The fat, furry creatures made noise like birds, chittering to each other as they skittered away on six firm legs, breaking from the cover of the trees into the meadow grass.
“Protein,” Tedesco said.
“The power rifles?” Jask whispered.
Tedesco thought a moment. “They didn't run very far before they stopped; they're apparently stupid animals. I'd prefer if we could sneak up on them and use throwing knives. We'd not be wasting meat like we would firing power bolts.”
They circled away from the place where they thought the rabbit herd was cowering in the thickness of green grass, returned to the camp, retrieved their throwing knives, and made their way back again by an altogether circuitous route.
“Quietly, now,” Tedesco said.
But Jask needed no warning. They crept toward the slightly angled patch of grass and, shortly, were able to see a dozen of the animals nibbling at the roots of the buttercups.
“Choose one,” Tedesco said.
Jask pointed.
“Good enough. Don't miss.”
Neither of them missed.
The herd thundered away, chittering.
They gutted the dead animals on the spot, skinned them and carried them back to the camp, where they roasted them over a fire of dry branches and brittle blue moss. They ate slowly, relishing the greasy meat, and they followed the main course with fruits and berries, eating until they were quite uncomfortable.
In the past two days they had both gone hungry, for the last of their food had had to be fiercely rationed and few birds had flown over their camps to provide them with extra meat.
“You gutted and skinned like a genuine primitive.'' Tedesco said, speaking cautiously, watching Jask for a reaction.
“I only followed your directions,” Jask said, picking at his teeth with a stiff grass stalk.
“A couple of weeks ago,” the mutant said, “I wouldn't have thought you were capable of even that.”
“I wasn't, then.”
Tedesco nodded and dropped the subject. An hour later, Jask cursing him all the while, he called the exercise session to order.
The meadow was silent, except for the punctuation of cricket songs and the occasional howl of some beast that lived in the nearby woods.
A cool breeze shushed through the broad leaves on all sides and made the grasses bend and dance as if in worship of the night sky.
Many stars shone, and half a moon.
In the distance the bacteria jewels cast out lances of light to jab back the night. Most of the meadow was tinted with thin colors, though it was more dark than not. This was the first time in more than a month that Jask and Tedesco had been far enough away from the jewel sea to experience anything resembling darkness, and the absence of all those dazzling colors, so close at hand, was a decided blessing. Moments after they stretched out on the grass beside the limestone boulders, they were already beginning to drift into sleep…
Here was peace, a place they could trust…
Out of nowhere, with no warning, a voice twenty times as powerful as any a man could own, bellowed: “GAMES TO BEGIN!”
Jask and Tedesco leaped to their feet, sleep banished in the instant, turning this way and that in search of the enormous creature that had so much vocal power.
“NIGHT GAMES ON SITUATION KK.” The voice spoke in flawless English, a language that had survived almost intact from prewar days, thanks to the Pures' dedication to the preservation of prewar artifacts and ideas.
“What is this?” Jask wanted to know.
Tedesco waited, peering into the shadowy land around them.
“PARTICIPANT MECHANICALS PREPARED.”
“Something's moving out there,” Tedesco said, pointing into the vaguely colored darkness.
“GENERAL PROGRAM INDICATED, INDIVIDUAL MECHANICAL INITIATIVE TO INDUCE CHANCE FACTORS.”
Jask peered in the direction Tedesco was pointing, but he could not see anything there. “That's a machine talking,” he told Tedesco. “We have talking machines in the fortress, but none with voices so loud. Still, the very careful intonation is proof it's a machine.”
“BLUE FOR OFFENSIVE. RED FOR DEFENSIVE.”
“What's it babbling about?” Tedesco asked.
“I can't guess.”
The bruin grunted and pointed again, “Out there, toward the back of the meadow. See them?”
Jask saw them: fifty men advancing toward them, spread across the width of the open land.