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The next day Xavier and the whole household
rose very early and made their way to where the Games were held. There would
be no heats that day, only the opening ceremonies and official business.
Xavier and his droid friends had loaded all their equipment into an old
truck, which they drove slowly through the empty streets. They passed through
the site of the fair, which was set up on a broad old street so as to leave
a clear passageway down the middle. Noel could see the fair people sitting
around their caravans drinking coffee or kass. They waved at the truck and
Xavier waved back.
The Games were held in a sprawling complex of auditoriums and arenas. Xavier
had been allotted a lock-up store room under the largest arena, an oval
bowl. The store was a large dimly-lit space which sloped down underneath
the curved track above. Noel helped unload Xavier's equipment and supplies;
four of Xavier's droids would keep continual guard over the precious equipment
throughout the Games.
Competitors had to enter a variety of events if they wanted to reach any
kind of status in the Games; a system of points was used and the competitors
were ranked overall. Xavier had come third the previous year, and also in
the year two previous to that. The first events were single unarmed combat,
and served as a warm-up to the more spectacular events. These took place
on the day after the opening ceremony.
Xavier did well in the first heats, despite Prunella's worries over some
of his opponents. Noel was fascinated to see the large droid fight with
other droids and humans; these included some women. Xavier had worked tremendously
hard to overcome the natural disadvantage of the droid; a slight slowness
and clumsiness. He was hardest pressed by one of the women, an extraordinarily
agile creature. However, Xavier emerged from the heats with a reasonable
scoring and he expected to do even better with one of the first major events,
the two-wheeled races. These races, using two-wheeled motorised vehicles,
were held on a track in the shape of a long oval bowl, with the sides at
the periphery nearly vertical. The surface of the track was littered with
obstacles and ramps. Five riders would compete at one time. Xavier was entered
in the third heat, against another droid, two men, and one woman. The riders
wore heavy protective armour made from synthetic materials. These suits
had not been manufactured for decades, and much money and influence was
needed to acquire one. Similarly, the machines they rode were scarce, especially
as several could be destroyed in one race.
There was a gap of a few days before Xavier's heat was held, so they decided
to spend some time at the fair which was now in full swing, catering for
the hundreds of visitors to the Games. Prunella loved the different stalls
and shows and rides. As they walked through the fair, Xavier pointed to
a boxing booth where young men were encouraged by their friends to try their
strength.
"That's where I started," he said. "I came to the Quarter
at this time of year." He grimaced as if remembering something unpleasant
and said nothing more.
Prunella wanted to go on one of the sky-rides; for her, like for most citizens
on the Continent, anything resembling flight held a fascination. Xavier
however was not interested, so Noel paid for her fare and soon the two of
them were buckled into their seats in a small cabin, whirling around high
above the fair. The motion of the machine was wild and unpredictable, shooting
them up and keeping them spinning in a circle before plunging them down
without warning. Prunella screamed as they went down, clutching on to the
metal bar in front of them. At the bottom of its travel the machine spun
them round, slowed down to a crawl, did a little shimmy to Prunella's amused
laughter, and then shot them up like a rocket. She gasped, unable to breathe
for a second. As if playing to an audience, the machine stopped the cabin
suddenly at the apex of its motion. Prunella jumped up and down in her seat
as far as the belt would allow, and shook the bar. The cabin made a little
rocking motion, fell suddenly a few feet and stopped again. Prunella looked
at Noel, her features lit up with excitement.
"It's playing with us!" she cried, and as if on cue the machine
dropped the little cabin again and then danced around in a small circle
above their companions below. Noel laughed with her. He loved the view of
the fair and the arenas and the rest of the Quarter spreading out around
them. In the distance he could see the Fusodrome with its bulbous towers
and watchful antennae.
The ride finished and they stumbled out of the cabin. Prunella took Xavier's
hands and jumped up and down.
"You old stick-in-the-mud," she cried. "It was great, really
great!"
Xavier rolled his eyes upwards, a little grin on his white-painted face.
Suddenly he bent down, grabbed her by the waist, and picked her up and spun
her round. People scattered to avoid her flying feet.
"Stop it, stop it!" she screamed. He obliged the tall woman and
put her on his shoulders, where she sat happily trying to get her long hair
out of her face. Noel shook his head in amusement.
After walking on for a while they stopped in a small canopied enclosure
for refreshments. Xavier put money in a machine for drinks, and it asked
them in a surprisingly melodious voice for their requirements. The machinery
seemed very old and they could hear brewing and sloshing sounds coming from
it and the hiss of steam.
"The drinks take a while, I am afraid," said the machine mournfully.
"Would you like me to sing you a song in the meantime?"
"Er, no thanks," said Xavier.
"I used to compose and perform music you know, for one of the roundabouts.
Then they went out of fashion, and my owners stripped me down and connected
me to this drinks machine."
Xavier rolled his eyes heavenwards and began to play an imaginary violin.
The drinks machine took no notice and carried on:
"I have carried on composing of course. In my memory I have seventeen
major works, and any number of smaller ones. It is quite possible however
that these works will never be heard."
"Quite possible," said Xavier. "How are the drinks coming
on?"
"Any moment, any moment," said the machine without the slightest
trace of urgency. It continued:
"Naturally one turns to philosophy in a situation like this. You would
be surprised to know how much classical philosophy is discussed while people
drink coffee here."
"Very surprised," said Xavier. "And talking of coffee, perhaps
you could take time out from your life work to hurry the process up a little."
"It will be absolutely right with you." The machine lowered its
voice and continued in more urgent tones:
"If you could secure a recording contract for me, you would become
a rich man."
"Android, actually," corrected Xavier, becoming impatient. "Look;
drinks now, or I'll have a word with your owner. He could get good money
for your voice unit."
The drinks appeared.
"You were a bit hard on it, weren't you?" said Prunella later.
"If you give them an inch they'll take a mile." said Xavier with
a grin. He was quiet for a moment and then said:
"They are part of our history that I would like to forget."
Xavier, like most droids, felt uncomfortable with remnants of the early
evolution of their type. It had been discovered that a compromise mixture
of intelligence and immobility led to a form of depression, and such machines
had disappeared as a result in more law-abiding parts of the Continent.
They wandered on through the crowd and passed a temporary construction with
heavy security outside, and a man at the entrance looking shiftily at them.
He held up a card to Prunella, but noticing her droid escort he hid it again
and looked the other way.
"What's in there?" asked Noel curiously.
"Hardcore NuSense machines." said Xavier disgustedly.
"I thought they had all been destroyed ages ago," said Noel.
Xavier shook his head.
"You have to take the rough with the smooth here," he said, "we
can't object to them any more than we can to coffee-machines that compose
sonatas. Rich young kids get in here every year and destroy themselves,
but we can't do a thing. We've got more important battles to fight, but
by God, if I could destroy every one of those pox-infested things I would
do it right now."
Further on Xavier spotted a booth with a combat game. It was an electronic
simulation on something like a television screen, but unlike NS had simple
controls and was harmless fun. Noel saw something similar in the next booth
and sat himself in the control console. It turned out to be a simulation
of a high-speed chase across water. The player of the game was in a kind
of power-boat, chasing and firing at similar vessels. For a while Noel played
the game in innocent abandon, egged on by Prunella who would alternately
look over his shoulder and Xavier's. After the chase had progressed through
narrow channels and sea-caverns, Noel began to lose his sense of game-playing.
The images on the screens around him drew him into the imaginary world of
the game, and at the same time seemed to blend into the images he experienced
in his dreams. Noel lost consciousness and the next thing he knew was that
he was at home in his bed with Xavier and Prunella looking over him. His
vision seemed impaired; his friends seemed strangely coarse-grained in appearance,
and luridly coloured. He complained of this to them. Prunella was relieved
to hear him talk and Xavier said:
"Early-model droids used to have a very primitive vision, like you
describe. Maybe the game interfered with your vision capabilities."
Noel blinked and normal vision returned briefly. After a while it came back
fully and Noel felt more like his usual self.
"How odd," said Prunella. "I'm glad you are better though."
The next morning they went to watch the remaining heats of the two-wheeled
races. A droid led the field, with a woman rider close behind him.
"The woman is good," said Prunella.
"She is," agreed Xavier, watching the riders closely. No weapons
were allowed in these races, though any tactics of obstruction were permitted.
The woman had cut in below one of the droids on a steeply banked section,
her machine banked over to the extent that a trail of sparks flew from its
belly pan. She flicked the machine briefly to a more upright position so
that it veered towards the droid above her on the curve. Unnerved by her
action the droid lost his concentration for a brief second and as he recovered
found himself heading straight for a concrete post. The proximity of the
other machine forced him to steer around the post, straight onto one of
the many ramps. The ramp was just long enough for the droid to reduce some
of his speed before flying through the air. The audience howled with delight.
The droid shot upwards to the perimeter of the track and landed, compressing
fully the suspension on the vehicle. By some miracle his speed was slow
enough for him to keep his balance and to turn the machine away from the
edge of the track. Unable now to make up the lost speed quickly enough,
he turned the machine down the banking towards the centre of the oval. The
woman meanwhile had overtaken him and was ahead of the field. The droid
lost another place to a man coming up on the outside and the race finished
with the woman first, a man in second place, followed by the two droids
and the other man last.
"Looks like that woman might give me some trouble," said Xavier,
grinning at Prunella.
"That's what we are here for," she replied sharply.
Noel smiled, he was getting used to their playful bickering. Xavier left
them to prepare himself for his first race that afternoon. He won the first
heat easily and found himself in the next one racing against the woman rider.
From the start she did indeed give him a difficult time and they found themselves
out front for most of the race. Their speeds were very high as they completed
the penultimate lap, the woman being just in front of Xavier. He tried to
overtake her on the outside, very close to the perimeter. Both machines
were banked very steeply, and combined with the banking of the track they
were nearly horizontal. The woman caught sight of Xavier on her outside,
and straightened up slightly, trying to repeat her previous tactics. It
was enough to force Xavier very close to the edge. They raced for some time
like this, pitting their nerves against each other. The audience watched
intently. They approached a crumbling section of perimeter where the woman
coolly steered a line to the last few sound centimetres. At the very last
moment Xavier was forced to brake and dip behind her. The audience roared
its appreciation; Xavier accelerated on her inside. A ramp approached the
pair at high speed, and Xavier decided to take it; the woman went round
above it. With full power Xavier shot up the ramp, making a last minute
twist, so that his trajectory would not take him outside the perimeter.
He judged it perfectly, and landed a few machine-lengths in front of the
woman. Quite thrown by his sudden appearance she over-reacted and steered
up and away from him, straight onto the next ramp. The audience screamed,
and then as one, held its breath: Xavier's opponent was travelling too fast
for the ramp. She attempted to set the right course as she rode the last
few metres of it, but as she flew through the air it was clear that her
course would take her out of the arena. The rider and machine sailed straight
over the barrier into a dry concrete moat set around the track. As she crashed,
her machine burst into flames. Special vehicles roared around the perimeter
and droid workers dragged her from the burning wreckage. Xavier was now
clear of the field and although the others caught up a little he shot through
the finishing section almost a quarter lap ahead. Xavier won the race to
tumultuous applause.
Noel was sickened by the accident. As Xavier rejoined Noel and Prunella,
the news came over the speakers that the woman had died.
"That was damn bad luck for that woman die," muttered Xavier.
Prunella put her arms round him. Noel shook his head.
"How can you ride like that? How could you put her in such danger?"
Noel's voice shook. He had never witnessed anything like it before. All
his training was based around the sanctity of human life. He was conditioned
to do anything, at any risk to himself, to save a human from injury or death.
To deliberately endanger another was unthinkable. Xavier turned grim-faced
to Noel. His eyes were cold.
"I've told you," he hissed. "Its dog eat dog here. This is
nothing. Listen. Don't think I regret that woman's death for her sake. She
would have driven me of the track earlier if she could."
"But...," said Noel.
"She's a human?" sneered Xavier. "You've got to understand,
Noel, that it makes no difference. No damned difference at all."
Noel looked into Xavier's fierce eyes.
"I regret her death for another reason. She was sponsored by the A.D.
League."
Noel shook his head and looked away.
"No!" cried Xavier. He reached out and turned Noel's head forcefully
towards his own.
"They are our enemies!" he said angrily, his face a few inches
from Noel's. "They want to destroy everything that has been created
on the Continent. They want to destroy you and me. It's no good shrugging
it off as the fate of the droids. We have so much to contribute to life
here."
Lowering his voice he twisted his features into a grimace of rage.
"I don't want to die! At least not for those idiots. I hate them all!"
The party left the Games that day in a sombre mood. Prunella and Xavier
were walking arm in arm, silent, ahead of Noel. Noel was feeling dizzy and
the dark feelings that had overcome him in the past loomed in his mind.
He could see nothing in his mind but the image of the woman and her machine
crashing in flames, and Xavier's anger and hatred of the League. He could
feel that his own features were fixed in a hard grimace like Xavier's. For
some reason the little phrase recurred to him again, "The only way
out is up." Noel felt confused and exhausted, and it seemed to him
that the familiar streets between the arenas and their home were a little
blurred, as though his vision was about to play tricks on him again. In
his dreams that night he saw a figure crashing in flames, only it turned
out to be an android, not a human.
The following days at the Games saw a steady increase in violence and injury.
Xavier himself nearly had his hand severed in combat, and they spent a whole
night with specialists that Xavier hired to fix him up. Prunella fussed
round him and snapped at everybody. Xavier was doing very well though, and
he confided in Noel that a large amount of money had already been made for
their organisation.
A new event was coming up the next day, a kind of water-race. Large pools
of water were arranged in many overlapping layers over the centre of an
enclosed pitch, encircled with stacked-up seating for the spectators. The
pools were laid out in a course with waterfalls, slides and helter-skelters,
and the competitors used jet-powered machines held in both hands to propel
them at great speed through the water. By travelling fast from the bottom
of one pool one could shoot up into the air and land in a higher pool.
"Meet Xavier the fish!" said Xavier, appearing from his dressing-room
in a wet-suit and goggles. Prunella went up to him and made fish-eyes at
him through his goggles, holding him round the waist.
"This should be a laugh," said Xavier, putting his hands on her
shoulders and steering her backwards round the room making engine noises.
They landed up laughing in a heap in the corner.
"Shit," said Xavier.
"Your hand," said Prunella anxiously.
"Its okay," he said, shaking it. He looked up at Prunella with
a smile and put his hands up as if holding the jet-machine.
"Brrrm," he said, making as if to shoot up into the air.
"You old silly," said Prunella.
The actual event proved as tough and dangerous as any of the others. Although
one really needed both hands to control the water-jet properly, it was possible
to hold on with one hand for a short period and use the other to inflict
some damage on an opponent.
The race started with the competitors in the lowest and largest of the pools.
They had fuel tanks on their backs and held the water-jets under their chests
with both hands. The jets were running, and to prevent them moving off,
their feet were held. The starting pistol went off and they were released.
They had a short straight section ahead of them and then the first jump.
At much the same moment they all dived to the bottom of the pool to give
themselves a run up to the jump. It was not easy to see under the water,
but Xavier could dimly make out two of the competitors who had come close
to each other. One seemed to be pulling something on the other's back. Noel
and Prunella sat together watching from high above as the contestants shot
out of the water in a series of graceful arcs and landed in the next pool
up. They were well across the next pool when an individual came to the surface
of the first pool in a milky cloud of jet fuel. He shook his fist at the
rest of the competitors, now completely out of his sight. The audience laughed.
"He's had his fuel line cut," said one of the droids sitting next
to Noel.
Prunella looked worried.
"They can do worse than that," she muttered, biting her lip.
The competitors had jumped two more levels without incident and were racing
down a narrow semicircular section. They were half out of the water, holding
their machines at an angle to turn into the curve. The section finished
in a waterfall. Some went down with the water, using its speed to help them
along, while others shot out ahead. Xavier surprised and delighted the crowd
by disappearing just before the waterfall, to reappear a few moments later.
He shot into the air following a nearly vertical path, holding onto his
machine with one hand and waving to the crowd with the other. The audience
clapped and whistled. In mid air he twisted his body round with his arm
outstretched and then plunged into the pool below, tucking the machine in
under him at the last moment. They could see him make a long curve, travelling
underneath his competitors. His dive took him very close to the bottom.
Prunella gripped Noel's hand anxiously. Again Xavier surprised the crowd,
this time by using his depth to give him extra upwards momentum. In a spectacular
leap he shot up into the air.
"What's he doing?" said Prunella.
In the next moment they saw his aim: to jump clear of the next pool and
land in the one above. Neatly, he twisted his body as he curved through
the air, and landed in the higher pool. He had missed out a whole section
in this way and was now well clear of the field. The audience went wild.
"This is why he is so popular here," said Prunella to Noel. "They
wouldn't forgive him that he was a droid if it weren't for the show he puts
on."
Xavier was near the top of the water-course now. The rest of the competitors
were catching up, as Xavier was now indulging in little fancy displays of
water-sportsmanship. He could have been some kind of dolphin the way he
made his machine propel him on, nearly standing out of the water, first
with one hand and then with the other. He held the crowd first with daring,
then with his skill, and then by clowning his way down a water-chute, pretending
to tumble and go under, and choke and gasp for air.
Prunella was not so worried, now that he was ahead of the others, and laughed
with the crowd at Xavier's antics. Some of the other competitors had already
retired, due to foul play. One was bleeding from the arm, and sat on the
edge of a pool while his back-up team scrambled up the scaffolding to reach
him. Another of them had tried Xavier's double jump, but had come to grief
in the scaffolding just below the pool he was aiming for. The crowd always
reacted to injuries amongst the sportsmen with a brief hushed silence and
applause for pulling through. The man was fortunately not badly injured
and spent the rest of the event making his painful way down to the exits.
Xavier reached the last jump well ahead of the others and shot out triumphantly
over the finishing pool. In mid-air he let go of his machine and put his
hands to his mouth to blow the crowd a kiss. He and his machine tumbled
back into the water, where the machine went to the bottom like a stone.
To tumultuous applause he swam to the finish, making a great show of the
effort needed now he had lost his water-jet. He jumped out on to the side,
in front of the judges, tore his goggles off, and threw them into the crowd
with an extravagant gesture. The whole audience jumped to its feet and clapped
and shouted and whistled.
Prunella jumped up and down and hugged Noel. The other competitors arrived
shortly after Xavier and sprang out of the water, one by one to his side.
One of them went straight for him and started to shout angrily.
"You cheated! You cheated! You missed out a whole section. You should
be disqualified."
The others gathered round, along with the judges and there was a heated
debate. Xavier got angrier and angrier and finally made a lunge at his accuser.
The others shrank back and made a little circle around them. Noel noticed
some of Xavier's droids slip discretely into the circle. The two protagonists
stared at each other and Xavier made another threatening lunge. The whole
audience was paying rapt attention; something like this was always bound
to happen in the Games.
As Xavier lunged at the man again, he shrank back alarmed. Xavier advanced
on him. The man snarled and drew a knife. Xavier suddenly sprang back and
pointed to the man's weapon for all to see.
"I suppose cutting fuel lines is in the rules then?" hissed Xavier.
"Curse you," said the man, angry at having been tricked into showing
his knife.
One of the judges settled it. He took a microphone and shouted at the crowd
in the brassy tones of the Games announcers:
"We have a little disagreement here, nothing to worry about. They say
that Xavier should be disqualified for jumping one of the sections. Now
I don't know anything that says that in the rules, you know it being a new
event here. So," he waved to the crowd, "I'll let you decide.
Does Xavier win?"
"Clever, clever," said Prunella. While the crowd made it known
that they wanted Xavier to win she whispered to Noel:
"That guy with the knife is A.D. League. The judge would be risking
a lot to find in Xavier's favour. This way the League just have to accept
the crowd's verdict."
The judges pompously accepted the crowd's opinion and Xavier's name duly
came up on the vast electronic notice-boards as winner of the event. The
points he gained now put him ahead of the competition by a narrow margin.
It would be hard for Xavier to hold on to this lead though, as the rest
of the events were mainly without vehicles or machinery of any kind. Xavier
rejoined Noel and Prunella as he had no more events that day. Prunella hugged
him in silence, swinging him slightly from side to side. They looked at
each other.
"The League are not going to like this," she said. He nodded.
"I've got to win," he said. "Too much depends on it."
She nodded in turn.
Next day, as they entered the competitor's section of the arena, several
men came over in the company of three strange looking droids. Noel looked
at them. The droids had an unusually dull look in their eyes.
"They are drugged," whispered Prunella to Noel. The largest of
the men stopped in front of Xavier.
"We have a message for you," he said, scowling. "Its very
simple."
The man paused for effect. Lowering his voice he continued:
"Win today, and we smash you."
He turned to Prunella.
"Get him to see the point. It could save your life."
He raised his hat insolently to her.
"On the other hand it might not."
With an exaggerated air of indifference he turned and strolled off with
his bodyguards. Noel, for the first time, felt an anger rise in him. The
man's threat to Xavier did not bother him so much, but the insolence and
threat to Prunella really upset him. Noel made to move after him, but Xavier
grabbed him by the wrist.
"No point," he said. "The time will come for that."
Xavier looked hard at Noel for a moment, then turned.
"Bastards," said Prunella, tossing her hair to one side. She took
Xavier and Noel by the hand, one on either side of her, and they entered
the competitor's enclosure together.
Xavier managed to keep his lead over the next few days, though others were
close behind him. In the end there was only one event left; it would be
the deciding game for him.
On the last day of the Games the events were held on ice. Droids usually
did not do so well as humans on skates; their advantage was with machines.
However Xavier had been working very hard with Noel on a small rink near
the cafe, in order to reduce his disadvantage. The game was played in heats
like many of the others, and consisted of wielding a long heavy stick against
a single opponent, similarly armed. The momentum of the stick and the speed
and agility of movement on ice made it one of the most spectacular games.
Originally three 'contacts' were sufficient to win the game, that is touching
the opponent's breast-plate with the stick. Now one had to bring one's opponent
to the floor three times; it happened on occasions that the defeated player
would not rise again.
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