Read Online Steel Beach by John Varley - Free Book Online

had also come in the second round. It was a gash, half a meter long, from his left hip to his right nipple. Ribs were visible at the top, while the middle was held together with half a dozen hasty stitches of a rawhide-like material. He had sustained it while scoring his only effective attack on the Dervish, bringing his knife in toward the neck, achieving instead a ghastly but minimally disabling wound to the Dervish’s face—only to find the Dervish’s knife thrust deep into his gut. The upward jerk of that knife had spilled viscera all over the ring and produced the first yellow flag of the match, howls of victory from Dirty Dan’s pit, and chants of “Dervish! Dervish! Dervish!” from the crowd.
    The Cyclone’s handlers had hacked away the torn tangle of organs under the caution flag, repaired the neck artery during the second pit stop and retired glumly to their corner to watch their man walk into the meat grinder again.
    The Dervish was sitting erect while his crew did more work to the facial wound. One eyeball was split open and useless. Blood had temporarily blinded him during the second round, rendering him unable to fully exploit the terrible wound he’d inflicted on his opponent. Brenda had expressed concern during the lull that the Dervish might not employ his famous spin now that his depth perception had been destroyed. But the Dervish was not about to disappoint his fans, one eye or not.
    A red light went on over the Cyclone’s corner. It made the crowd murmur excitedly.
    “Why do they call it a corner?” I asked.
    “Huh?”
    “It’s a round ring. It doesn’t have any corners.”
    She shrugged. “It’s traditional, I guess.” Then she smiled maliciously. “You can research it before you write this up for Walter.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “Why the hell not? ‘Sports, Then and Now.’ It’s a natural.”
    She was right, of course, but that didn’t make it any harder to swallow. I wasn’t particularly enjoying this role reversal. She was supposed to be the ignorant one.
    “What about that red light? What’s it mean?”
    “Each of the fighters gets ten liters of blood for transfusions. See that gauge on the scoreboard? The Cyclone just used his last liter. Dervish has seven liters left.”
    “So it’s just about over.”
    “He’ll never last another round.”
    And he didn’t.
    The last round was an artless affair. No more fancy spins, no flying leaps. The crowd shouted a little at first, then settled down to watch the kill. People began drifting out of the arena to get refreshments before the main bout of the evening. The Dervish moved constantly away as the dazed Cyclone lumbered after him, striking out from time to time, opening more wounds. Bleeding his opponent to death. Soon the Cyclone could only stand there, dumb and inert with loss of blood. A few people in the crowd were booing. The Dervish slashed the Cyclone’s throat. Arterial blood spurted into the air, and the Cyclone crashed to the mat. The Dervish bent over his fallen foe, worked briefly, and then held the head high. There was sporadic applause and the handlers moved in, hustling the Dervish down to the locker rooms and hauling away both pieces of the Cyclone. The zamboni appeared and began mopping up the blood.
    “You want some popcorn?” Brenda asked me.
    “Just something to drink,” I told her. She joined the throngs moving toward the refreshment center.
    I turned back toward the ring, savoring a feeling that had been all too rare of late: the urge to write. I raised my left hand and snapped my fingers. I snapped them again before I remembered the damn handwriter was not working. It hadn’t been working for five days, since Brenda’s visit to Texas. The problem seemed to be in the readout skin. I could type on the keyboard on the heel of my hand, but nothing appeared on the readout. The data was going into the memory and could later be downloaded, but I can’t work that way. I have to see the words