“Four,” Giskard said easily. “And might I remind you, I need only one to win.” He leaned forward and slid two more purple beads across the free-standing abacus on the low table in front of him. “Connrad, I await your answer.”
“You can wait on it,” Connrad growled. “It’s my secret.”
LeMarck flicked his eyes toward the pit, searching the valleys cut through the shadows by the strings of neon lights. He got only a glimpse of the boys in their green body armor, then they faded under the tree coverage. It was no great feat of intellect that they were on their way to the Mirage. He smiled to himself, knowing they would find plenty of surprises in the building. Connrad, who was the only baron among them who hadn’t had to shift a bead yet, would be doing that in short order. Perhaps it would be a lot of beads. LeMarck waited in anticipation.
“Usually the mortality rate runs much higher at this point of the game,” Dettwyler said. “Perhaps we didn’t include enough beasts and muties this year.”
“There’s plenty,” Hardcoe replied. “People we’ve got out there, they’re better chillers than most.”
All the barons nodded, then Dettwyler yelled out for more pitchers of beer to be brought.
“Something I want to ask you, Giskard,” Connrad said.
“Ask away, my friend.”
“Assuming that you by some freak of accident manage to win, what do you plan on doing with the seven villes?”
“I plan on living a life of luxury for a year,” Giskard replied. “I’m painfully overdue, as you’re well aware.”
“Wasn’t talking about that,” Connrad said. “I was talking about the construction that Hardcoe’s managed this year.”
LeMarck felt a tremor of anxiety thrill through him. The statement confirmed that Connrad did have spies among their people at the seven villes. And he hadn’t found all of them. He cursed silently.
“An intelligent man would take what I’ve started,” Hardcoe said in a soft voice, “and keep on building.”
Connrad whipped his head around. “That’s what you think?”
“Yeah.”
“You saying I’m not an intelligent man?” Connrad demanded.
LeMarck shifted in response to the new stances assumed by the sec men behind Connrad. His hand closed hard around the butt of the Glock.
“Didn’t say that,” Hardcoe said flatly.
“I think you did.”
Hardcoe shrugged. His pistol was in his lap, LeMarck knew, barely covered by a red cloth napkin with white dice showing black pips on the faces. “Up to you what you think.”
Connrad showed wolfs teeth, a rictus devoid of anything near human emotion, showing only cold calculation. Then he laughed raucously. “Better hope you win, Sparning, because I’m going to burn you out if you don’t. And that’s a promise.”
Out on the wall, a sec man raised a flash with a red lens. It blinked on and off.
LeMarck surprised himself by holding his breath, waiting for the lens to flash again. But it was only the once. Hardcoe leaned forward and slid over another red bead on the abacus on the table in front of him.
“Your second casualty,” Connrad stated.
“Only my first in this Mars Arena,” Hardcoe acknowledged. “It’s sure a fit place for that old god of war. But the Big Game is young yet. Don’t count your victims before you see them stretched cold on the slabs in the morning.”
Connrad laughed loudly, sure of himself.
LeMarck hated the sound, but his thoughts turned instantly to the red team out in the pit, wondering which among them had been lost. He hoped it wasn’t the one-eyed man.
RYAN WENT TO GROUND, rolling over twice to put more yardage between himself and the big mutie cat.
The huge animal’s shoulders stood almost as tall as Ryan’s armpit. The eyes spit green fire, rolling in the weak moonlight, threaded with brilliant crimson blood lines burning in the yellowed whites. Its fur was night black, and white fangs stabbed free of purple-gray lips, drooling crystal-clear strings.
The cat landed with a loose thump in the area where Ryan had stood. Spitting out a wicked, irritated cough, the animal sprang after him.
J.B.’s Uzi ripped a spray of bullets against the trees and through the brush where it had been standing, but the mutie cat gave no pause at all.