Harsh laughter, faint and distant, carried towards them from the other tractor. Corso clenched his fists tightly, anger reasserting itself under a black tide of adrenalin.
‘Lucas. Listen to me. Remember what I suggested? Just walk in there, accept the challenge, and surrender without fighting. Then you can walk away with honour-and with your life. According to the code of conduct he has to accept that or he loses his honour, right?’
‘No, Sal, I need to kill him. If I don’t, they don’t get the message. They’ll go on thinking we’ll never fight back.’
Sal then lost his temper. ‘For God’s sake, even if you won, that doesn’t make you a Citizen! Challenges are illegal.’
‘I’ll present it to the Senate as a fait accompli. They’ll arrest me, sure, but I’ll go on fighting from inside prison until they take notice. Things have got to change here. Arbenz himself wants to re-legalize challenges. If I win and he still refuses to recognize me as a Citizen, he’d be committing political suicide.’
Sal snorted. ‘Yeah, and either way, you’re committing real suicide.’
The Freehold was based on ancient ideals. To become a Citizen-to enjoy certain privileges, to be able to vote -you had to be prepared to fight on its behalf. This inherently warlike philosophy had seen the Freehold forced out of colony after colony until the Consortium had relented and granted them a development contract for Redstone. With no actual enemies to fight, at least until the arrival of the Uchidans, and comfortably far from Sol and the bulk of the Consortium, the system of challenges had developed there.
But times were changing and, increasingly, only extremists like Arbenz and his gang of followers held up the old principles. The fact they were losing the war with the Uchidans, a constant tit-for-tat exchange of guerrilla fighting along a constantly fluctuating border, made the ground on which the old guard stood even less sure.
Six bright flares shone around a circle demarcated by stones carefully selected from the nearby shore. In the flickering light, Corso noted the same faces he’d seen that day outside the hydro tents when he had issued his challenge. Drunken cheers went up as he and Sal approached the base of the two-storey transport Northcutt and his cronies had arrived in earlier.
‘All right,’ Sal said, exhaling long and slow, as if he’d just come to a momentous decision. ‘So you’re really doing this.’
Corso nodded, without even glancing at his friend. ‘I’m doing this.’
Eduardo Jones was Bull’s right-hand man, and the last of Northcutt’s crew to swing himself down from the lofty transport’s cabin, agilely stepping down the ladder with practised ease. From the lake, a warm breeze blew over them, tinged with sulphur from the hot springs a couple of kilometres further along the shore.
‘Hey!’ he shouted as Corso and Sal drew closer. Jones began playing the hard man, pushing his breather mask up on top of his head and briefly sucking in the raw, nitrogen-heavy air like there was no tomorrow. ‘What’s this shit about you challenging a real man, Corso?’ he yelled, after dropping his mask back down, so his voice emerged as a metallic rattle. ‘Don’t you know the rules-don’t pee in your own bed, don’t screw your sister, and don’t get into a fight you know you can’t win?’
One or two others chuckled. Bull Northcutt laughed the loudest. His face was twisted in an arrogant sneer above his powerful shoulders, eyes bright from heavy military-grade neurochem abuse.
‘This is bullshit,’ Sal yelled back to Corso’s amazement. ‘This isn’t a fair challenge. There’s not one of you,’ he shouted, anger emerging from him in waves as his voice rose, ‘that doesn’t know it.’
Northcutt burst out laughing. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ he spat, in a voice filled with ugly derision. ‘Corso, right after you’re dead, I’ve got a date with that sister of yours. Figure she could entertain me, and all my friends here, yeah? How’d you like that, you fucking piece of shit!’
A few of Northcutt’s crew cheered, passing a bottle around and yanking their masks down to take quick pulls like they were celebrating a winning bet. Corso had no doubt every one of them had participated in Cara’s murder. And, before Cara, others too.
And now they were gathered to watch him die.
Sal, as Corso had realized some time earlier, was deep in denial. He believed he could appeal to Northcutt’s basic humanity, but Corso had seen Cara’s body lying in the morgue and wasn’t under any illusion he was dealing with normal human beings here.
If he was going to die, he’d rather go out fighting and do his damnedest to take Northcutt with him. Northcutt, who stood waiting, his eyes bright with enhancement drugs that ate away at his brain and nervous system, year after year after year.
Corso noticed the way Bull Northcutt’s hands trembled uncontrollably, the fingers jerking slightly, the slight tremble in the muscles under his chin. Fighting Bull would be dangerous, very dangerous, but Corso’s opponent wasn’t as young as he had been.
Men like Bull rarely survived to grow old, because they got called out again and again, till they made mistakes, got slow.
Feeling momentarily light-headed, Corso closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he stared out over the shores of the lake, thinking, If this is the day I die, then fine.
Two long, double-edged knives with carbon steel blades already lay crossed in the centre of the circle where the challenge would take place. Corso watched as Senator Northcutt’s son began to strip off his outer layers of protective gear, revealing a physique that was tall, lean and muscled. He stared slack-jawed as Northcutt continued to strip right down until he was bare-chested, though his skin was slathered in some kind of insulating grease. One of his crew threw a heated blanket around his shoulders, holding it in place.
‘He’s trying to psych you out,’ Sal whispered, one arm resting on Corso’s shoulder. ‘It’s his way of saying the fight’s going to be over long before he’ll freeze to death.’
Which would usually take no more than a minute or two, so if Corso could draw things out, Bull would get dramatically weaker. But clearly Bull was assuming his opponent would be an easy kill.
Corso had kept his inner insulating layers on, suddenly aware how much they restricted his mobility compared to that of his opponent. He kept himself in shape, but Northcutt resembled some kind of barely human predator, sleek, wiry and feral.