Before we started sparring and working out our performances, Doc checked us all out. “You’re all healthy as horses (one of my so-called Ghee-isms),” he announced. He managed to get Cherish, Ravish, and Buster to allow him to make virtual copies of them for his studies, and took actual samples, too. He was one happy Doc.
We began meeting on the Trakennad Dor to have access to the mat rooms and fight coaches and medics, and our sessions were top secret, closed-door affairs. Klon posted guards every time we practiced; he would not let anyone see what we were up to. Even our guards were convinced not to peak in at us. No one was allowed to watch. I put all my work aside; Buster, Cherish, and Ravish extended their vacations. Well, they were paying us, so “vacation” didn’t exactly apply. It was hard work, but also really fun.
Ravish, Cherish, Buster, and I conditioned and sparred for weeks. All our old reflexes sharpened up. We began to function as a team.
The other three reminisced about the old days, which was enlightening to me. I focused on the job at hand and taught them a few of the things I’d learned in the arena. I hadn’t realized how much of a showman I’d become. Plenty of the moves, though designed to protect myself and inflict various degrees of damage, also had an element in them of playing to the crowd, of getting the cheers and making the spectators drop their drinks and stand and yell.
We worked on a two hour long program; we didn’t just brawl. I recalled many lengthy fights I’d endured in when my opponent just wouldn’t die. This performance had a lot of what we called vignettes, periods of intense fighting where we paired off and beat the crap out of each other, but also lots of periods of rest where one or two of us would pretend we’d been hurt. One or more of the others would become protective and shield the “injured” fighter, hurling insults and blows at the other or others who were pretending to want to finish off the damaged one. The alliances and enmities were ever-shifting.
We threw plenty of alien insults at each other. The roaring of spectators would drown our shouts out, so I recalled many demeaning hand, arm and body gestures. We restricted most of our taunts to the ones that meant about the same thing as the middle finger salute. No reason to ridicule anyone’s mother, or sporing mass, or, whatever.
The aspersions we cast came from a variety of different cultures, and the Mek would know them all. They would inform the spectators, composed of many different species, of their meanings. The bulkheads behind and the audience had been turned into view screens, and the Ring Master’s vocalizations would be translated into many languages.
We had planned for as much spectator participation as the situation would allow.
We choreographed our movements so that we each acted as individuals, not as teams, but to incorporate the simulated insults and feigned injuries, we would double or occasionally triple up and attack the others or the poor lone sucker who had to face three of us. We practiced scenarios in case one of us got injured bad enough to need to tap out, so we had a variety of ideas and routines for three combatants as well.
In the beginning, we did a lot of hard work. We were bruised, strained, and sprained, though our carbon fiber skeletons, of course, didn’t break. We injected pain meds and padded and flagged the injured areas with red bandanas to avoid injuring ourselves any further. We continued on, and on.
After a while, we got good at anticipating each other and reacting to the others’ moves, and we started having fun. We were really very much alike.
Our wind increased and we stopped having to take so many breaks to catch our breath. It took increasing amounts of time to break a sweat. We started to move so smoothly, we had to make sure to remember to fake injuries. Otherwise we sparred continuously, and that would have been boring for the audience.
We even faked blood, although some real blood spilled as well, and we were all aware that we were most likely going to actually hurt each other in the arena. Once the excitement of the audience got into us, our adrenaline would flow, and what we thought would be a regular meaty punch could become destructive.
We’d decided to wear light mocha colored, skin-tight, easy-breath, tank and knee-length unitards. We glued thin dye packs into them in various places and practiced breaking them with punches and kicks. Buster even bit one of Cherish’s hidden packs open, but she said the gunk tasted like shit smells. We had a lot of fun with the stuff but decided to limit using it because by the end of practices we were starting to look all bled out. Our unitards went from mocha latte to darkly blotched. The blood looked fake, because who would still be standing after losing that much blood? We laughed too much using them, and we didn’t seem to be able to modify our usage. We ditched the blood packs.
I’m not sure I’ve ever had so much fun.
We hit the weight room frequently as well, but the fight practice took care of the cardio--all this equipment was now available on the Trakennad Dor. We were looking like real fighters when Klon invited us to dinner.
A week before the main event, and after our workout, we showered, endured the anti-bacterial steam booth, dried and dressed, and walked together toward Klon’s suite. I’d never been there before.
The fighters and ship crew in the corridors stood to the side as we passed. They all smiled and made encouraging comments, some were lewd, but said in a joking manner. We didn’t take offense at their fun, and everyone knew we each were able to destroy any one of and possibly all of them if we chose to.
Klon had installed a beautifully carved, real wooden door at the end of a hallway. The wood was finely grained, sanded, stained and polished. I couldn’t determine what the carving was about, though I thought I saw likenesses in there, things much like Klon. As I stared, trying to pick out individual figures, or determine what the scene depicted, it would become unrecognizably abstract again. The design didn’t actually move, but was simply a masterful carving.
Klon opened the door himself and smiled at each of us in turn, inviting us in with a sweep of his big, hairy arm. His eyes lingered on mine, in mine, for a moment.
“Come,” he said in English, and he walked back into the room, tempering his enormous stride. “I will treat my favorite warriors tonight.”
The food smelled delicious and I didn’t recognize anything.
“Treats from my home,” Klon said.
“You found your world?” I asked.
Klon switched to his language. “Yes. It wasn’t easy getting into the records, but we managed to, and my home is far away. We went there once about…” here he switched to English for my benefit “…five years ago.” Back to Klon-ese. “I purchased that door…”
“It’s gorgeous, Klon,” I said, and I took a moment to translate for the others. Klon continued.
“…and I traded for food, and I have a transport coming here now with more. It is crewed by…” he named a species. They were not his people, who didn’t go into space. My mouth was unable to pronounce the name. “They will enjoy our little enterprise.”
I translated most of that for the others.
“Your species seem cultured, Klon,” I gestured toward the door, “I thought they were somewhat warlike.”
“You thought that because of me. I was somewhat warlike. That’s why they sold me to Spauch. I disrupted the sanctity of my culture. They thought me mad.”
“And were you?” I asked.
“I wanted more than just culture,” he answered. “I wanted action.”
“And now you have it.”
“Yes.”
He gestured and we all sat down on fabulous colorful cushions. A low table stood between us. It had cushioned fabric bumpers. The colorful fabrics reminded me of what I remembered of Middle Eastern cultures on Earth.
Decorating the table, many carved wooden ladels and spoons languished in a variety of fired clay tureens filled with all sorts of goodies, and Klon invited us to fill our deep, wooden bowls. Even though we’d been on strict high carbohydrate, moderate protein diets, complemented with electrolytes and other minerals, food hadn?
??t been limited, because we easily burned up the fuel. However, this night, we would eat like we’d been starved for weeks. This was a feast.
Klon is a giant hairy beast, there’s no way around that, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t eat like an aristocrat. He didn’t spit food or dribble, nothing ended up in his hair. Astonished, I stared at him, smiling as I interpreted his occasional words for the others. He explained what we were eating.
I couldn’t believe this scene! Everyone busily attacked every dish and said nothing for a while. Once in a while I looked around and chuckled. After a time, Klon started laughing quietly back at me.
When we’d slowed down, Klon himself rose and removed the earthenware tureens and wooden bowls, now empty or nearly so, and easily lifted the entire thick wood table and put it in another room. Carrying a tray with a thick, cut glass decanter and squat tumblers, he rejoined us, and placed this in the middle of the floor. He brought more pillows to us from the corners of the room.
Then he poured us some kind of dark, wood-smoke tasting liquor, and called it ‘brandy’. It looked so dark I thought it might be bathtub brandy. He plunked some type of berries into our glasses.
“Is this from your planet, Klon?’ Buster asked, rolling the dark liquid around in the glass.
“Yes.”
“It’s delicious,” Cherish raved. “The berry gives off just the right amount of sweetness to offset the… “
“… potency. I don’t suppose we could buy some from you to take home with us?” Ravish asked.
Cherish gave her ‘twin’ the stink eye and elbowed her in the ribs.
“Ow,” Ravish moaned, bending over to protect her bruises.
I finished my first drink and ate the berry. Immediately the stupid started intensifying in my brain. I giggled and couldn’t stop. Pretty soon we were all giggling, diaphragms spasming. Even Klon lost control, his giggle a deep, hiccupy growl.
None of us could breathe normally. We started panting and, for me, the colors in the room had all become intensely bright, pulsating slightly. I pointed.
Everyone looked around. Klon grunted as he slowly fell over on his side and lay staring at the decorations.
At one point, I realized I’d seated myself propped up against his middle. I watched his spall crawl up his thick chest, pause on top of his massive upper arm, and migrate down to his barrel of a neck, to rest here. Klon settled a pillow under his head and began to whisper-growl to the spall as he slowly rolled on to his back. It moved to lie across his throat. Sweet nothings? I scooted back more firmly against him.
Cherish and Ravish stood up and explored the room, staring at the decorations, which also pulsated now. Even the wall, ceiling, and floor seemed to be bowing and rolling. Every once in a while one of the sexers would pirouette, then brace herself and look slowly around, eyes wide open. Our pupils had grown enormous. Klon had drugged us with his damn berries and alcohol, or was it the combination that has us spinning?
The big guy plucked one of the berries out of the small bowl he’d brought them to the table in and held it out to the spall. She migrated over until she covered up his entire hand, and when she migrated back to her perch on his throat, the berry had disappeared. She seemed to relax, that is, she flattened out a bit against him. He exhaled and closed his eyes.
I followed his example and closed my eyes, too. The colors continued to pulse inside my mind, and began to slowly swirl. The feeling was similar to having the spins, though I didn’t feel sick. I felt Buster crawl over Klon and lay down behind him, her back to his back. She groped around and grumbled for a pillow. I opened my eyes, grabbed the nearest one, and lobbed the cushion over him toward the general vicinity of her head.
One of the twins fell over. She began hugging pillows, making a big pile around and on top of herself. Then the other tripped on one of the overstuffed cushions and fell gracefully onto the pile. This appeared to me to be happening in slow motion. Cherish and Ravish spent what seemed like an hour burrowing over, under, and between the pillows. I sat and enjoyed the little spectacle.
“Ghee,” I heard my name growled quietly beside me, nearly inside me.
I turned my head. Klon was staring at me. His head was propped up on an oversized pillow. His head was propped up HHHHiFluid-rimmed, puppy dog eyes, somewhat hardened by Klon’s innate intelligence, stared out at me.
“Will you put on a good show?” he asked me.
I smiled. Klon, always the businessman these days.
“A great one.”
“I am glad. I’m greedy to watch you fight again.”
“You and everyone else.”
“Yes.”
“There’s a reason for that.’
“For our greed?”
“Yes. It’s my super-special attractiveness.”
“Yes,” he grunted in agreement.
“It made me a better soldier, better able to deal with the aliens we encountered when we explored space.”
“Yes.”
“But it could have been an accident.”
“Yes?”
“I was designed and built, Klon, not born. These others, too.”
“No.”
“Yes. The combination of species used to create us somehow synergized into the attractiveness everyone detects in us.”
“Yes?”
“It’s been useful.”
“Yes.”
He reached over and moved some of my hair out of my face with one giant, black finger.
“I always knew,” he said quietly.
“You did not.”
“I did, too.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
We both laughed. We laughed and laughed, his a deep bass, mine a bit of an alto-soprano. We turned this into a song. We harmonized for a moment. Buster chimed in with a clear soprano. Cherish rolled onto her back, scattered pillows and began beating the floor in rhythm with us. Ravish affected a falsetto, but that cracked us all up and our impromptu quintet collapsed. After another bout of laughter, we all became silent. The murmur of the ship gently vibrated in the material of the floor, lulling us.
Klon’s spall began to snore. For a moment, we all grew silent and focused, trying to locate the sound. Then we all cracked up again. She woke with a snort, and bunched up. Klon grumbled a laugh and stroked her gently until she flattened out again.