"What other way can it be?" Vernajean shrugged. "Men without money, without hope, growing more and more desperate. An abscess ready to burst and spread infection all over the city. It has to be drained."
By using men like Yuli to rule and bleed malcontents into the mines. A ready source of cheap labor for the installations which provided the wealth of the planet. But, for Yuli, the price of cooperation was the death of those who had killed his brother.
"The monks have spoken for you," said the inspector. "We have no wish to antagonize the Church but-" His gesture completed the sentence. "And there is another thing. Without a job or funds you are not allowed within the city during curfew. If you should be picked up by a patrol and found to be deficient then you can be fined or sentenced to the mines. I tell you this so as to make you aware of your position."
"Thank you," said Dumarest.
"Position?" Angado was less gracious. "What position? If it hadn't been for your damned men we wouldn't be here now!"
"If it hadn't been for them we could be dead." Dumarest rose to his feet, facing the inspector. "Can we go now?"
"Yes. Your property will be returned at the desk outside." Vernajean rose in turn. "A last word to the pair of you-do not stay on Yuanka too long."
Outside Angado swore with savage bitterness.
"They robbed us! The bastards took half our cash!"
"But left half."
"We should complain. Go back and make a formal accusation."
Dumarest said, "You heard what the inspector said. He was warning us. Leave Yuanka or wind up in the mines or dead. Maybe some of those officers in there want to see us that way."
"So they robbed us to force us to the brink and over." Angado looked bleak. "How do we get out of this hell-hole? Steal? Gamble? Try our luck at the wheel? Put all of our money on a single turn?" His laugh was brittle. "What have we to lose?"
Everything, but that was the nature of a true gamble. To risk life itself on the throw of dice or the flip of a coin and yet, as Dumarest knew, the need to win was often the surest way to lose.
Yet there was more than one way to gamble.
* * *
The place had the familiarity of home; the smell, the sounds, the sight of the ring, the tiered seats, the cubicles in which men sat with blank faces or sported with artificial gaiety. The environs of the arena in which men faced each other with naked steel to maim and kill for the sake of gain.
The promoter was curt. "It's fifty for show, as much if he lasts five minutes, a hundred more if he wins." He looked at Dumarest standing black-faced, vacuous, a seeming moron. "Does he know what it's all about?"
"He knows." Angado primed, acted the part of an entrepreneur eager for a profit, uncaring how he got it. A cynic who shrugged as he added, "You won't be disappointed. He's good and has scars to prove it. Fifty, you said?"
"When he's due to climb into the ring." The promoter ignored the outstretched hand. "Gives you a chance to place your bet," he explained. "Of course, if your man doesn't make good, you do."
"Medicals?"
"We've a doctor but you pay his fees." The promoter glanced at his watch. "The prelims are all arranged; first and third blood stuff. Your man'll feed a main event."
"For fifty?"
"You can double it if you bet right." The promoter sharpened his tone. "You want it or not?"
"I'll take it." Angado obeyed Dumarest's signal. "Doubled, eh?"
"Sure, if he makes a good entry. That's settled then. He'll face a prime contender."
To be hacked, slashed, maimed and slaughtered to provide a bloody spectacle. Dumarest had seen such too often; men driven to the ring by desperation, unskilled, untrained, trusting to luck and the mercy of their opponents. Ending as things of carmined horror, dying to the frenzied yelling of the crowd.
Dumarest could hear them from where he sat, imagine their faces, avid, feral, features taut with sadistic pleasure. Men and women converted by their blood-lust into mindless, reactive beasts. Thrilling to the sight of blood, of pain, the stink of fear.
"Earl?" Angado had heard the shouts and seen some of the men coming from the ring. Youngsters, mostly, many with gaping wounds. Some having to be supported, others making their own way to where the doctor worked on a bench covered by a stained, plastic sheet. "Earl, are you sure you want to go through with this?"
"We've no choice."
"To hell with the money. We can work in the mines, try hunting, anything. This is butchery."
Sport seen from a different angle and he no longer felt the vicarious pleasure he had when seated in a place close to the ring. Enjoying the combat, the near misses, the cuts, the hits and scores, the deaths while comforted by the knowledge that he would remain unharmed.
Dumarest said, "Make sure the odds are right. I'll stumble when entering the ring, look vague, act stupid. Easy meat to anyone who knows his stuff. I might even take a cut. Give me a couple of minutes to decide then make the bets."
"You're good," said Angado. "You have to be. And fast, I know that. But I still don't like it."
"Do your part and I'll do mine."
"Yes, but-" Angado broke off as someone screamed from the medical bench. A hoarse, animal-like sound of sheer agony. "God!"
The scream came again, the doctor's voice rising above it, harsh, commanding.
"Help me, someone! Hold this man still! Hold him, damn you!"
Angado gripped sweat-slimed shoulders, fighting the explosion of muscles as he forced them back on the bench as others gripped threshing arms and legs. The man was young, face contorted with pain, intestines bulging through the slit abdomen. Blueish, greasy coils stained with blood and lymph, one slashed to show a gaping mouth.
"Keep him still!" Air blasted as the doctor used a hypogun to drive anesthetic into the bloodstream directly through the skin. He'd aimed at the throat and the effect was immediate. As the patient slumped into merciful unconsciousness the doctor sewed the slashed intestine, coated it, sprayed it, thrust it and the others back into place. More sewing, spraying and sealing and the job was done. "Next?"
"Will he live?" Angado lingered as a couple of porters carried the man away.
"He should." The doctor was middle-aged, hard, coldly proficient. "Thanks for your help. You running a contender?"
"Yes."
"Tell him not to be heroic. It's better to drop and grandstand than to end up cut all to hell. Cheaper too." The doctor raised his voice. "Who's next?"
A man with a slashed face, an eye gone, the nose and lips slit. He was followed by another clutching at the ripped fabric of his shorts, thick streams of blood running between his fingers and staining his thighs. A third had a small hole on his torso and coughed and spat blood from a punctured lung.
A winner-in the clash and flurry of edged and pointed steel the one who stayed longest on his feet gained the prize. But even winners could be hurt.
Angado moved back to Dumarest, his facade cracking, sweat dewing his face. The smells were making him gag and the cold indifference of others to pain made him feel alien and vulnerable. In this madness Dumarest was a consolation. A rock of security.
One who seemed asleep.
He leaned back against the wall, muscles relaxed, eyes closed, his breathing deep and even. A man devoid of tension, sitting easily, resting so as to conserve his energy. To Angado it seemed incredible, then he realized that Dumarest was not asleep at all but had deliberately thrown himself into a trance-like state of detachment. One which suited the pose he had adopted, that of a moronic intelligence unable to imagine the consequences of failure and willing to be guided by a sharper mind.