The howling, slavering mob in the blood-spattered arena
hated the half-breed Moljar—prayed gibberingly for his
death. But Moljar looked coldly up at the Princess and
licked dry lips. He would not die—while she lived!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Moljar planted his columnar legs wide apart beside the dying saurianand blinked blood and sweat from his eyes. Only slightly strainedafter three hours of the Red Moon Games, his seven foot height ofTerran-Martian muscles gleamed damply in the blazing arc lights of theColosseum. His lungs sucked hungrily at the dense Venusian air as hewaited for whatever would next be sent against him, the champion ofthem all.
Through sweat-blurred vision he watched the climbing tiers of eagerspectators, a high curvature outlined against the crimson mist. RedMoon Games! Bi-monthly slaughter, ordered by the Princess Alhone whenthe unnatural filtering of the reflected sun's rays spread a carmineglow through the fog.
The grey sands of the arena were daubed with sprawled forms of monstersand men alike. Out of the shambles, Moljar's black barbarian eyes shoneas they swung up to fix on the Princess Alhone where she sat with aretinue in her private observation box. Her grey-furred, semi-humanbody glimmered softly beneath the blue-glowing effulgence that alwaysbathed her in its royal cold light.
Her heavily jeweled paw raised, dropped. The signal.
A roar of sadistic anticipation swelled, echoing from the misty rangeof hills, beyond Venus Port, out across the Sea of Mort that washed itsmarble walls.
Moljar shifted toward the gates. His hands flexed about the alloy bar.At Princess Alhone's gesture, the gates across the arena lifted. Themonstrous beast, somewhat resembling a Mesozoic saber-tooth tiger ofTerra, charged out straight for Moljar in a blinding burst of speed andpower.
The half-breed swung the pitiful weapon which had jokingly been grantedhim, a five-foot length of compressed alloy. It cracked against thegiant cat's skull. Moljar leaped aside as the beast plunked on itsface, rolled in a flurry of sand and blood. Tendrils of gore oozed fromits shattered skull as it lumbered erect and charged again, erraticallynow, circling and leaping down toward the arena's far end, blinded androaring in pain.
A sigh of ecstasy rose up in a long drone from the spectators—apolyglot of Solarians who had paid eighty credits for this night ofvicarious blood-lust. Wealthy interplanetary aristocrats and cartelmagnates, Mercurian and Martian speculators, Terran monopolists,adventurers and adventuresses from many worlds, muckers from theasteroid mines. All imagining themselves to be Moljar tonight. Allhating him because he was a half-breed.
Of the half-thousand prisoners who had been marched into theamphitheatre—a few Terran mutants, many half-breeds, and space pirateswho couldn't pay enough hush-hush credits—only three remainedstanding. The Terran girl mutant, Mahra, who had helped him slay thesaurian and who had rare courage. Himself. And Gasdon, the Martianpirate, who, barehanded, was still battling the giant squid in thearena's synthetic quagmire. His yellow body was a panting, strainingbulk beyond the tendrils of sulphur dioxide that bubbled up through thebog.
Moljar felt the Terran girl's hot breath on his neck as he waited forthe pain-maddened cat to scent him down. His glittering eyes turned andmet hers. Her silver mutant's hair glowed beneath the merciless glareof the flood lights. Her f