There was a flash of movement to my right and a sharp pain in that side. Adam had leaped into view, and he had just struck me.
"What gives?" I called, more in surprise than pain.
Another movement, to my left. Another pain, left side this time.
I jumped upward then, drawing up my knees, tucking, spinning through several somersaults as I broke the ceiling's odd grav-field. I could tell that I would not return to it, so when my feet pointed toward the floor I shot them down to it, falling into a low crouch. Partway down I threw a backfist in either direction. My left connected and I heard a soft grunt. I rode the reaction to my right, turning; then I saw a foot coming toward me. I caught it and twisted hard.
I saw the surprised look on Adam's face. I'm sure he hadn't expected me to catch it, but if I did I think he'd anticipated my jamming it and throwing him away. Instead, I pretended it was a steering wheel I was cutting sharply to the left. He extended his right arm then, throwing himself over backward, made contact with the floor with his right hand, and rode the torque I was applying, rotating his entire body along its vertical axis. I switched hands and did it again. This time his left arm went out. ... I took him in several complete circles in this fashion. I didn't care where he'd picked up these moves—or if he'd been good enough simply to manufacture them on the spot. I knew them by dozens of different names from scores of times and places.
He grinned at me. I straightened my legs, and he stopped grinning as I increased my momentum. Soon he was my unwilling satellite at about shoulder height.
"Why'd you jump me, Adam?" I called.
"You know why—now," he said.
"Nope," I replied. "I've a suspicion, but I'm not sure. Say it."
"Fuck you. I'm the one who toys with his prey."
I let go, continuing to spin several times as I braked.
He tucked and converted his momentum from linear to rotational, presumably ready to meet any surface with hands or feet, rebound, and come at me again. But I'd thrown him amid the hanging clones. When he struck, they fell about him in a heap. I didn't feel like going after him and digging him out. I just stood there and called, "I admit you're tough and beautifully coordinated. Let's call it a draw. We've a lot to talk about."
I heard him spitting. Then he rose from the heap, holding one of the clones—the Vandal, I believe. Suddenly a crew of sexual organs, human and otherwise, appeared, to dance in a ring about him. "Come away, come away, Death," they sang.
Adam tore off the Vandal's right arm and hurled it at me. I caught it and threw it back. By then, he'd twisted off the head, and it was coming my way. Somewhat disconcerting, that, seeing your own features—caput decapitatum—flying toward you. Adam ducked the arm and tore at the body again, as the dancing line around him was joined by a staggering line of Lilliputian men and women, zombie-like, each bearing evidence of its death—protruding knives, dangling ropes, rows of bullet holes, the bloated, pale puffiness of drowning victims. They walked the circle in the opposite direction to the dancers and provided a bass line. Adam tore out a handful of intestines and threw them at me as it began to rain blood.
I sidestepped. "Come on! It's not even my clone! What do I care what you do to it?"
He threw what was left of it back over his shoulder, down the passageway toward the singularity, where it vanished. "Why such a dumb lie?" he asked.
"Unfortunately for you, it's the truth. Why such a dumb fight?"
"I wanted to kill you coming into full possession of your memories, so you'd understand exactly why it had to be done."
"Sort of like the guy in Kafka's 'In the Penal Colony'?"
"Exactly. I was sure you'd appreciate it, Alf."
"I don't. You're wrong."
"... And back in full possession of your fighting prowess—Kaleideion against colosodian. We're both supposed to be the best, you know? Haven't you wondered who really is?"
"Not particularly, Adam. How's about I just yield, you win, and then we talk?"
He spat again and bounded toward me. He did have the advantage, though he didn't know it. He could do anything he wanted because he was trying to kill me. I couldn't because I wanted to keep him alive.
Throwing techniques were about as effective on him as on a basketball. And I knew we could both take a hell of a beating. I wondered who could take the worse one. Then I realized that it didn't matter.
I ducked his first punch and caught him in the armpit with my first one. "A hit! A hit! A very palpable hit!" he announced.
Spinning, he caught me on the side with a hard elbow strike. I tried for the back of his neck, his temple, his nose, his jaw, the side of his neck with five near-invisible strikes while he was low, but he avoided them all. Then he rushed me, arms extended, and I let him catch me about the waist. As I retreated through hanging daisy chains of Lilliputians, I slammed both of my elbows into his temples with sufficient force to kill almost anybody else. Then I did a backward roll and he went away.
I rose quickly and turned, ready to block, evade, parry. But he'd been a little slow in recovering. He grinned as he shook his head, however. "You're better than my colosodian practice units," he said.
"I should hope so," I responded, avoiding or sweeping away a few desultory low kicks he threw just to keep the action going. "We made a bundle marketing the things, but it would be too depressing if they were for real."
I made as if to catch at his foot. As he snapped it back I was already moving in, throwing rapid strikes at every possible target. He dodged and parried and blocked, but that was all right. They were only meant to be annoyances. I had decided on a tradeoff.
I landed a rock-shattering blow against his right rib cage. As I did, I felt a similar one against my own. I let him push me away after that, and I caught him on the right thigh with my heel, hard, as I went. "That smarts, Alf. That does smart," Adam remarked, leaning for a moment against the wall and touching his side, shifting his weight to his left leg.
If I had to wear him down with tradeoffs, that was fine with me. I made as if to move in again and watched him wince as he shifted his weight. "I just wanted that sense impression in your files," I said, backing off again.
"I can block it."
"But you won't, any more than I will mine. We've got to keep track of these things to know how the structure's holding up."
"Nailing me would be a big feather in your cap, wouldn't it?"
"Not really. I've nothing to prove."
"I'd always heard you guys were terribly arrogant. It's true."
"Look who's talking: 'Kaleideion against colosodian.'"
Three corpses drifted between us—one dismembered, one with her throat slashed, the other torn almost in half.
"I don't deny it," he said. "There is something glorious about a pair of champions of different persuasions facing each other at the heights of their powers, battling toward that final moment of defeat or triumph."
"If you think this is the fucking Iliad you've wandered into the wrong story," I said. "Be a sport. Give me five minutes and I can clear everything up between us."
"I don't want to," he said as he pounced.
He caught me a blow to the side of the head that might have blacked me out for a moment. I remember getting him twice in the abdomen as he did so, though.
Then he had me by the shoulders and slammed me back into a work area. As my head struck against something very hard, I decided, "Okay. Alf's had enough."