"Smith, E E 'Doc' - SubSpace Vol 2 - Subspace Encounter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

"I don't know who yet; I'm signed to fight the survivor of the eliminations now going on for
female finalists at the next Most Magnificent Eagle-Feeding-a week from Saturday night,
you know, in Games Hall One. On form, it'll be Daughtmargann Loygann of Gloane and
she'll be a summer breeze."

He nodded. "On form, yes-but just remember to probe her hard and plenty, because any
bladesman who has lasted very long has got to be more or less psionic. But to get back
to money-I hope you brought along a bale."

"I did. I fine-toothed both Orm and Skane. Over a hundred thousand junex."

He whistled. A hundred thousand Justician Units of Exchange was a lot of cash; much
more than he had expected from the underground psionic groups of those two compara-

tively young, comparatively underdeveloped planets. "That's the kind of talk I like to hear,
girl. Just for that I'll cash this here check, take you up top to the Eyrie, and ply you with
drink and with prime-orkst steak."

"And that, man," she laughed, "is the kind of talk I like to hear."

Games Hall One was a subterranean amphitheater, so designed that every seat in the
whole vast cavern afforded a perfect view of what was going on in the small central
arena; a view that could at will be reinforced by individual tri-di viewers at each of all
seats except "ringside." The whole splendidly-decorated Hall was illuminated by an
apparently sourceless light of just the right quality and intensity for maximum viewing
pleasure. Its atmosphere was pure, briskly circulating air, at a temperature of
seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit and a relative humidity of twenty-nine percent.

Every seat of the Hall's many thousands was occupied. The spectators were fairly evenly
divided as to sex, and were of all ages from babies in arms up to white-haired oldsters.
All the people except the infants were keyed up and tense, all were reveling vicariously in
the mayhem, carnage, and sheer slaughter of the Games.

The eagles had been fed. That is, brutish executioners, after breaking convicts' arms and
legs with their mauls, had thrown their helpless but still living bodies into great cages of
steel bars; there they had been torn to grisly bits and devoured by deliberately-starved,
forty-pound Mountain King eagles.

The five preliminary bouts, in ascending order of skill and of savagery, were over; two
women and three men had died. Bloodily. Now Games-master Sonfayand Baylor
stepped up onto the "table"-the circular platform twenty-five feet in diameter and twelve
inches above the arena's floor-that was the site of action. Unlike the squared rings of
Tellus, this site had no ropes or guards, any games man leaving the table during combat,
for any reason whatever; became eaglemeat then and there.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" Baylor bellowed happily. Like so many sports announcers,
he liked to bellow and always stood ten feet away from the nearest microphone so that
he could bellow. "On my right, the champion professional bladesman of Meetyl! The one
and only-the world-renowned Masked Marvel . . . ."