Jesus! Cosmic Traveler shrilled. He’s serious!
The Krauts don’t do joker kid gangs the way we do back in New York, J. J. Flash responded: They got no Killer Geeks or Twisted Sisters. Last German joker to get any sound bite was that twisted little freak who got waxed at the Democratic Convention in Atlanta back in ’86. This boy figures he’s got to show some real fiendish class to keep up.
Moonchild was not used to the sort of kibitzing Mark increasingly had to put up with. She tried to put it from her mind and concentrate on summing up her opponent. He looked as if he massed two hundred kilograms, heavy gray folds of hide hanging on a squat frame. He clearly had meta-human strength, to move that bulk so quickly, and he had to be agile to come so close to tagging Moonchild on his charge. On the other hand, the tiny eyes glaring at her from the blunt-muzzled face seemed to be having trouble focusing on her six meters away, and the joker’s sides were heaving as if he were winded.
Yes. I can run from him, and I can hide from him. A sidestep, a sprint, and I become one with shadow. It was what her strict code called for, flight over fight if at all possible.
Even as Cosmic Traveler weighed in with enthusiastic approval, she knew she couldn’t do it. She had a responsibility to Mark and the others. The new recruits seemed to take her existence as a challenge. Unless she proved herself formidable, they’d just keep trying their luck with her — or with mark, who in his own persona had no ace powers and was far from robust, even for a nat.
I must best him without hurting him, she thought. Beat without humiliating him. No one ever said being an ace would be easy.
“Leave off,” she said. “Are we not comrades?”
The pig eyes flicked right and left, assessing the crowd. No mistake: it wanted blood. “You’re a nat,” he said. “I’m a joker. We fight.”
“Is not that the attitude we are supposed to fight against?”
This time Rhino looked square at Spoiler, who stood at the front of the crowd with his hands on his hips. Glancing that way herself, Moonchild saw that Brew and Luce had arrived as well and were hanging out at the rear. As was the badly disfigured young joker, Eric the dreamer.
“It’s come down evolution time,” Spoiler said. “Prove yourself or die, nat.”
Brew and Luce held obvious if not formalized rank; they could stop this if they chose. They made no move.
While she was looking toward them, Rhino charged. Moonchild leapt high, somersaulted over his head.
Built low to the ground, he recovered quickly, spun to face her again. With a falling-away sensation she realized she had not made much impression on the onlookers. They had all seen that move in a dozen kung fu movies. They didn’t realize that in most cases it was a special effect.
“Think you’re clever,” Rhino rumbled. He brought his blocky three-fingered fists up to either side of his lowered horn in a pose reminiscent of a muay Thai stance and began to circle her clockwise. She doubted he could manage the freewheeling kick-boxer’s shin-kicks, but if she got inside the comfort zone of his horn, he could give her a rib-crushing knee.
The onlookers began to jeer, disappointed by the lack of action, the lack of blood. Predictably Rhino was goaded into an advance, spiraling toward her in that mincing Thai step.
As he got near, he tossed his head and that wicked horn. Her guard came up. He whipped a roundhouse shin-kick up and into her ribs and sent her flying.
She tucked a shoulder, rolled, came up to one knee as he charged. She whipped her right arm up and out in a forearm block that connected with his horn with a sound like a pistol shot. As momentum sent him thundering past, she fired a punch into his side.
He staggered, stumbled, went to a knee. Then he stood up, hunched over with an elbow pressed to his side. She wondered if in her anger at being caught unawares she had failed to pull the blow enough, had really done him harm.
“We can quit now, before someone gets hurt.” Instantly she realized it was the wrong thing to say; to quit now would make him look as if he feared her. Why cannot I be better at this? Why is it so hard to talk to people?
He came at her with two quick punches. She blocked them easily, so easily that when the knee-shot they’d been intended to set up came, she hopped half a step away, out of the way of the short-ranged attack, and spun a back-kick into his broad belly.
All two hundred kilograms of Rhino sailed into the air. Spectators scattered. He landed on his butt with a mighty thud ten feet away.
The crowd made impressed noises. She had flashed her own power and speed. He had weight on her and probably strength. Speed and skill were all hers.
Rhino picked himself up, moving as if it pained him. “We’ve done enough and more,” she said. “Why should we hurt each other, to excite these others?”
He shook his heavy head as if her words were water he wished to shed. Surrender was no option to the proud joker youth. I hope this boy has the sense to take a dive, she felt J. J. Flash say in her head.
She was surprised. Her image of J. J. was all combative cockiness, not compassion. Rhino rushed her then, lashing out with a roundhouse swipe of his fist.
She ducked, wheeled, caught the horny wrist. She pulled the arm out straight, helping Rhino along the way he was going, put her palm against his suddenly-locked elbow, and levered his horned snout into the mud.
He struggled briefly, but he could not fight without dislocating his shoulder — or breaking his elbow. His nostrils dilated, a vast sigh blew furrows in the mud, and he went dormant.
“Waste him!” the crowd was yelling. “Rip his arm off!” She released him and stepped back.
“So brave, all of you!” she flared at the crowd. “He had the courage to fight. If you have the courage to do more than jeer, step forward and prove it!”
The crowd seemed to be held back by an invisible cordon. Spoiler had mysteriously vanished from the front rank. That spinning back-kick would have stove in the chest of just about any man in camp.
She reached a hand to Rhino. He took her hand, pulled himself upright. Then he stared at her.
“I could have stuck my horn right through you, just now,” he said, thick-tongued.
“I know.”
Soundlessly he began to cry. Then Brew and Luce were shoving their way through. “Hey,” Brew said, in that quiet, laidback way of his, “do all of you really have nothing better to do than hang here and gawk? And is there anything here you really need to see?”
Luce glared the jokers back. “If you don’t have anything better to do,” he snarled, “maybe we should schedule extra kiem thao for everybody, huh?”
The crowd became one with the night almost as readily as Moonchild might have. “All right, suckers,” Croyd announced in his best carny-barker voice, lighting up one of his death-wick cigars, “step right up and take your best shot at the Queen of the Night!”
Moonchild gave him a dirty look. Brew and Luce had Rhino under the arms now and were helping the sobbing youth to his feet. Moonchild fired a final contemptuous glance at the rapidly dwindling crowd.
She found her eyes locked with Eric’s. In them she read a compassion and understanding so profound, they staggered her.
She felt the end of her hour approaching and hurried into the bunker. Some moments were too private to share, even with comrades.
Chapter Twenty-five
J. Bob Belew was sleeping in when they came knocking on his door with a Soviet RGD-5 hand grenade.