“Get out of my way.”
“Suppose you knock me out of it, Terran!”
“Okay,” said Larry between his teeth, “you asked for it, fat guy.”
Quickly, with one hard punch, he drove his fist into the big boy’s chin. The youngster let out a surprised “Ugh!” of pain, but his own fists came up, driving a low, foul blow into Larry’s stomach. Larry, shocked as well as hurt, was taken aback. He staggered to recover his balance, gasping for breath.
The big boy kicked him. Then, in a rush, the whole gang was on him, shoving and jostling him rudely, yelling words Larry did not understand. They shouldered him back, hustling him, forming a circle around him, pushing him off balance every time he recovered it, closing in to shove and jeer. Larry’s breath came in sobs of rage.
“One of you fight me, you cowards, and you’ll see—”
A kick landed in his shins; someone drove an elbow into his stomach. He slid to his knees. A fist jammed into his face, and he felt blood break from his lip. Cold terror suddenly gripped through him as he realized that no one in the Terran Zone so much as knew where he was; that he could be not only mauled but killed.
“Get away from him, you filthy gutter rabbits!”
It was a new voice, clear and contemptuous, striking through the rude jeers and yells. With little gulps and gasps of consternation, the street urchins jostled back, and Larry, coming up slowly to his knees wiping at his bloody face in the respite, blinked in the sudden light of torches.
Two tall men, green-clad, stood there carrying lights; but the lights, and all eyes, were focused on the young man who stood between the torches.
He was tall and red-haired, dressed in an embroidered leather jacket and a short fur cloak; his hand was on the hilt of a knife. His eyes, cold gray, were blazing as he whipped them with stinging words:
“Nine—ten against one, and he was still giving a good account of himself to you! So this proves that Terrans are cowards, eh?”
His eyes swung to Larry, and he gestured. “Get up.”
The fat bully-boy was literally shaking. He bowed his head, whining, “Lord Alton—”
The newcomer silenced him with a gesture. The smaller roughnecks looked sullen or overawed. The youngster in the fur cloak took a step toward Larry, and a cold, bleak smile touched his lips.
“I might have known it would be you,” he said. “Well, we’re under bond to keep peace in the city, but it seems to me you were asking for trouble. What were you doing here?”
“Walking,” Larry said. “I got lost.” Suddenly he resented the cool, arrogant air of authority in the newcomer’s voice. He flung his head back, set his chin and looked the strange boy straight in the eye. “Is that a crime?”
The fur-cloaked boy laughed briefly, and suddenly Larry recognized the laugh and the face. It was the same insolent redhead he had seen his first day on Darkover; the youngster who’d spoken to him at the spaceport gate.
The Darkovan boy looked around at the little knot of roughs, who had drawn back and were shouldering one another restlessly. “Not so brave now, eh? Don’t worry, I didn’t come to stop your fight,” he said, and his voice was contemptuous and clear. “But you might as well make it mean something.” He looked back at Larry, then back to the gang. “Pick out someone of your number—someone his own size—and one of you will take him on.” His eyes raked Larry’s and he added, consideringly, “Unless you’re afraid to fight, Terran? Then I can send you home with my bodyguards.”
Larry bristled at the suggestion. “I’ll fight any five of them, if they fight fair,” he said angrily, and the Darkovan threw back his head with a sharp laugh.
“One’s plenty. All right, you bully boys,” he snarled suddenly at the gang, “pick out your champion. Or isn’t any one of you willing to stand up to a Terran without the whole rat-pack behind you?”
The street boys crowded together, looking warily at Larry, and the two looming guards, at the young Darkovan aristocrat. There was a long moment of silence. The Darkovan laughed, very softly.