An armada of reporters surrounded Aubry as he stepped out of the shuttle. They trailed him from the gantry to the waiting skimmer, and they followed him as he sailed back in toward the great carnival.
How did it feel to beat an ex-champion? Would he go on to try to get a match with the current champ? Why had he suddenly changed his fighting style? Where had he learned those moves, and why hadn’t he ever used them before? Curiosity burned in their eyes, and Aubry found his mouth speaking a language that he barely understood, saying things he didn’t believe in, but that seemed to satisfy them. And that was all he cared about.
Jacobs stripped him out of his combat uniform and helped him on with his street clothes. Adrenaline still flamed in his blood. He had done it! He had finally ridden the big rocket, had done his thing up in the stars.…
It would have been the proudest moment of his life, save for the realization of what lay ahead. Save for the knowledge that it had all been a sham, and that his victory was in the service of murder.
Cold-blooded murder.
(But the man you will kill tried to kill you.…)
And where had he heard that before? Was it eight years before that he had escaped from Death Valley Maximum Security Prison, swearing to kill Luis Ortega? And how long after that had he realized the entire thing had been orchestrated, that he had been used as guided muscle?
And yet … he had killed this man’s son. He had disrupted Swarna’s vengeance. And it was reasonable, perhaps even inevitable that, although they lived on opposite sides of the planet, one of them would have to kill the other.
Mira was dead. Her death should be avenged. And his family had been threatened.
The aircade approached the fair’s central plaza. His manager had finished all last-minute preparations. Aubry felt something pressed into his right palm. It was just a moment of pressure, but Aubry knew what it was, what it would be: a machine so thin as to be almost invisible. A few millimeters of clear plastic.
Aubry stepped down out of the vehicle, and a security man came up smiling. The man was half Japanese and half Zulu, a strange mixture that created a shorter, muscular man with epicanthic folds and a disconcerting habit of looking through you.
His hand was extended. “You were superb,” he said. His hand remained suspended in air, awaiting Aubry’s shake. His smile faltered.
Shit.
The Afjap’s fingers began to curl, the gesture of greeting withering.
Aubry bowed stiffly and said, “Hai.”
The Afjap grinned. “This way, please.”
Aubry turned to look back over his shoulder. Jacobs was swallowed in the crowd as Aubry was hustled forward. A security shield surrounded him, protected him. Trapped him. The mood of the crowd was expectant and almost hushed. The other athletes were parading up, along with musicians, and poets. It had been a day to remember, the Nullboxing match merely another of its events.
Ahead of him was the platform. Narrowing his eyes, he distinguished a shimmering distortion field. And behind it was Phillipe Swarna.
Aubry looked at the faces around him. They weren’t watching the parade of notables, the parade of athletes, poets, and dancers who moved up to receive the PanAfrican ribbon. They were watching Swarna himself, and in their faces lived myriad emotions.
Who was this man? Was he a messiah? A madman? A Hitler? A Gandhi?
In every face there was a different answer, a different dizzying perspective.
Aubry passed through a gateway—