How easily is defeat snatched from the jaws of victory?

Fiben wondered about that as he stripped out of his formal robe and allowed two of the chims to rub oil into his shoulders. He stretched and tried to hope that he would remember enough from his old wrestling days to make a difference.

I’m too old for this, he thought. And it’s been a long, hard day.

The Gubru hadn’t been kidding when they gleefully announced that they had found an out. Gailet tried to explain it to him while he got ready. As usual, it all seemed to have to do with an abstraction,

“As I see it, Fiben, the Galactics don’t reject the idea of evolution itself, just evolution of intelligence. They believe in something like what we used to call “Darwinism” for creatures all the way up to pre-sentients. What’s more, it’s assumed that nature is wise in the way she forces every species to demonstrate its fitness in the wild.”

Fiben sighed. “Please get to the point, Gailet. Just tell me why I have to go face to face against that momzer. Isn’t trial-by-combat pretty silly, even by Eatee standards?”

She shook her head. For a little while she had seemed to suffer from speechlock. But that had disappeared as her mind slipped into the familiar pedantic mode.

“No, it isn’t. Not if you look at it carefully. You see, one of the risks a patron race runs in uplifting a new client species all the way to starfaring intelligence is that by meddling too much it may deprive the client of its essence, of the very fitness that made it a candidate for Uplift in the first place.”

“You mean—”

“I mean that the Gubru can accuse humans of doing this to chims, and the only way to disprove it is by showing that we can still be passionate, and tough, and physically strong.”

“But I thought all those tests—”

Gailet shook her head. “They showed that everyone on this plateau meets the criteria for Stage Three. Even” — Gailet grimaced as she seemed to have to fight for the words — “even those Probies are superior, at least in most of the ways Institute regulations test for. They’re only deficient by our own, quaint, Earth standards.”

“Such as decency and body odor. Yeah. But I still don’t get—”

“Fiben, the Institute really doesn’t care who actually steps into the shunt, not once we’ve passed all its tests. If the Gubru want our male race-representative to prove he’s better by one more criterion — that of ‘fitness’ — well it’s precedented all right. In fact, it’s been done more often than voting.”

Across the small clearing, Irongrip flexed and grinned back at Fiben, backed up by his two confederates. Weasel and Steelbar joked with the powerful Probationer chief, laughing confidently over this sudden swerve in their favor.

Now it was Fiben’s turn to shake his head and mutter lowly. “Goodall, what a way to run a galaxy. Maybe Pratha-chulthorn was right after all.”

“What was that, Fiben?”

“Nothin’,” he said as he saw the referee, a Pila Institute official, approach the center of the ring. Fiben turned to meet Gailet’s eyes. “Just tell me you’ll marry me if I win.”

“But — ” She blinked, then nodded. Gailet seemed about to say something else, but that look came over her again, as if she simply could not find the phrases. She shivered, and in a strange, distant voice she managed to choke out five words.

“Kill — him — for — me, Fiben.”

It was not feral bloodlust, that look in her eyes, but something much deeper. Desperation.

Fiben nodded- He suffered no illusions over what Irongrip intended for him.

The referee called them forward. There would be no weapons. There would be no rules. Underground the rumbling had turned into a hard, angry growl, and the zone of “nonspace overhead flickered at the edges, as if with deadly lightning.

It began with a slow circling as Fiben and his opponent faced each other warily, sidestepping a complete circuit of the arena. Nine of the other chims stood on the upslope side, alongside Uthacalthing and Kault and Robert Oneagle. Opposite them, the Gubru and Irongrip’s two compatriots watched. The various Galactic observers and officials of the Uplift Institute took up the intervening arcs.

Weasel and Steelbar made fist signs to their leader and bared their teeth. “Go get ’im, Fiben,” one of the other chims urged. All of the ornate ritual, all of the arcane and ancient tradition and science had come to this, then. This was the way Mother Nature finally got to cast the tie-breaking vote.

“Be-gin!” The Pila referee’s sudden shout struck Fiben’s ears as an ultrasonic squeal an instant before the vodor boomed.

Irongrip was quick. He charged straight ahead, and Fiben almost decided too late that the maneuver was a feint. He started to dodge to the left, and at barely the last moment changed directions, striking out with his trailing foot.

The blow did not finish in the satisfying crunch he’d hoped for, but Irongrip did cry out and reel away, holding his ribs. Unfortunately, Fiben was thrown off balance and could not follow up his brief opportunity. In seconds it was gone as Irongrip moved forward again, more warily this time, with murder written in his eyes.

Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed, Fiben thought as they resumed circling.

Actually, today had begun when he awoke in the notch of a tree, a few miles outside the walls of Port Helenia, where plate ivy parachutes festooned the stripped branches of a winter-barren orchard…

Irongrip jabbed, then punched out with a hard right. Fiben ducked under his opponent’s arm and riposted with a backhand blow. It was blocked, and the bones of their forearms made a loud crack as they met.

… The Talon Soldiers had shown grudging courtesy, so he rode Tycho hard until he arrived at the old prison…

A fist whistled past Fiben’s ear like a cannonball. Fiben stepped inside the outstretched arm and swiveled to plant his elbow into his enemy’s exposed stomach.

… Staring at the abandoned room, he had known that there was very little time left. Tycho had galloped through the deserted streets, a flower dangling from his mouth…

The jab wasn’t hard enough. Worse, he was too slow to duck aside as Irongrip’s arm folded fast to come around to cross his throat.

… and the docks had been filled with chims — they lined the wharves, the buildings, the streets, staring…

A crushing constriction threatened to cut off his breath. Fiben crouched, dropping his right foot backward between his opponent’s legs. He tensed in one direction until Irongrip counterbalanced, then Fiben whirled and threw his weight the other way while he kicked out. Irongrip’s right leg slipped out from under him, and his own straining overbalance threw Fiben up and over. The Probationer’s incredible grasp held for an astonishing instant, tearing loose only along with shreds of Fiben’s flesh.

… He traded his horse for a boat, and headed across the bay, toward the barrier buoys…

Blood streamed from Fiben’s torn throat. The gash had missed his jugular vein by half an inch. He backed away when he saw how quickly Irongrip found his feet again. It was downright intimidating how fast the chen could move.

… He fought a mental battle with the buoys, earning — through reason — the right to pass through…

Irongrip bared his teeth, spread his long arms, and let out a blood-curdling shriek. The sight and sound seemed to pierce Fiben like a memory of battles fought long, long before chims ever flew starships, when intimidation had been half of any victory.

“You can do it, Fiben!” Robert Oneagle cried, countering Irongrip’s threat magic. “Come on, guy! Do it for Simon.”

Shit, Fiben thought. Typical human trick, guilt-tripping me!

Still, he managed to wipe away the momentary wave of doubt and grinned back at his enemy. “Sure, you can scream, but can you do this?”