FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 1

You ever get the feeling that maybe your life's gone completely out of your control? You feel all clammy somewhere in the region of where your heart's supposed to be, breathing suddenly becomes a struggle, and your muscles turn to an extra-wobbly sort of jelly. Right now that feeling's pretty strong for me as I look around the mostly-empty waiting room of the Circus recruitment office, smelling the stink of sweat and urine that's soaked into the puke green walls. With fusion power so cheap these days, you'd think they'd have figured out how to make something better than stark white lights that alternate between flickering and buzzing, but I guess it's a universal, time-spanning rule that if you gotta go to an office, you gotta be annoyed by the faulty light fixtures.

There's a whole sheaf of paperwork on my lap right now. That and a pencil. I wish I'd brought a book or something, because once I finished up all the forms, I haven't had anything else to do, and the boredom is starting to get to me. Of course, if I'd brought a book there's the danger that somebody around the neighborhood might've seen me, and then word would get around that I'm a nerd.

The absurdity hits me pretty quick, of course: I'm about to sign up for the opportunity - nay, the privilege - to go and get killed in front of a pan-galactic audience, and here I am, worried that people might think I'm an egghead!

Yeah, I shoulda brought a book. Something written by an Earth author would've been best, especially if the author was British. If you're gonna read in English, nothing beats an oldschool British author. Kinda a shame that Great Britain's been depopulated for years now. Same thing with most of Earth, actually. But, like old Thomas Wolfe said, "You can't go home again." Us Humans have a way bigger playground to mess up now anyway.

Nothing left to do but peoplewatch, I fixate on the one guy still left in the waiting room, besides me of course. He's the pudgy sort, no chin to speak of, still wearing glasses in this day and age, where surgery to fix your peepers is so cheap, you'd have to be something deeper than dead broke to still be wearing traditional lenses. That, or exactly the sort of bookworm that I'm worried my friends will think I am if they ever caught me with my nose between pages: so obsessed with literature that you'd rather buy books than food or shelter or basic surgical upgrades.

Then the receptionist up at the front is calling out the guy's name - something so nondescript it doesn't even register for me - and it's just me in that awful room, all alone with my thoughts.

Oh well, at least there's still a window.

Actually, the view's not so bad here. It's not an especially nice part of town, all the better to be available to the lower classes that usually sign up for the Circus, but it's pretty high up, away from the grime and stench down below. And I mean high up, like, tilt your head a little and you can see clouds brushing around the next couple floors above. A little more and I'd need oxygen gear! Up here I can watch the flying cars: toys for the rich, since they're the only ones who can afford the auto-navigation equipment that makes it possible to use one of those things without crashing into stuff in the chaos of the city. You never see a flying car down where I live, just three stories up from the deadbeats at Rock Bottom. Sometimes you can hear 'em when the weather's just right and the wind's not blowing too hard down the canyon of buildings, and you tilt your head out of Dad's bakery at _just_the right angle.

Then I look down. Guess I'm not gonna get the chance again, so I might as well. After I sign up, my chances of ever seeing home again are firmly wedged somewhere between the general vicinities of slim and none, so why not live a little, take stock of where I've been, right before I get on with going to whatever's next? Looking down, I can't help but be grateful I'm not afraid of heights, or I might have had some serious problems right then. Seriously: nosebleeds for everyone! There's all the city laid out, building on building, built up to the heavens like natural rock formations. From what I've heard in school (what little you get down where I live), the cities on our planet are built like animal preserves, except with people instead of critters, cramming everybody all in one place so the rest of the world's ecosystem doesn't get overtaxed like it always did in the days before we all got organized properly. Seeing how I'm so far up right now I can't even see the streets at Rock Bottom, I'm willing to believe it.

The whole place is an artificial mountain, erected to honor its builders. And there are piles of dead bodies down at the bottom, at least in my mind's eyes. Sacrifices to the people who pretend to be the gods of this...

"MaKayla!"

_That_is a commanding voice! I'm at schoolroom attention before I even realize I'm doing it, turning and walking toward the receptionist's desk, paperwork in hand. The receptionist is a sharp-faced Blid, her hawklike eyes boring a hole right through my head as she snatches the papers away. At least she takes her eyes off me when she starts to scan through the documents, which lets me break out of the spell of authoritarian command she'd cast with her presence. Blid are like that: they're these little, yellow-scaled guys with birdlike heads. They're not all that strong, physically, so they make up for it with a whole lot of moxie. From what I've heard, they're also cowards, and the reason they founded the Pan-Galactic Republic was because politics are a great way to avoid having to do anything for yourself. Not that I wanna find out if it's true right now, not with ol' beakface already glaring at me again.

"Third door on the right," she snaps, slapping a nearby big red button as though it'd insulted her firstborn, before she got to work shoving the papers I'd handed her into a big envelope, not really paying me any more attention. Off to one side of the desk, a door slid soundlessly open. Not wanting to have that gaze on me again, which carried the uncomfortable feeling of being back in gradeschool and getting called on by all the teachers 'cause they wanted to embarrass me in front of everybody, I hurried on through, and ducked into the door she'd indicated before the big door behind me had even fully closed.

Huh, guess examination rooms look the same no matter where you go. The place is roughly square, and has lots of cabinets, and a few weird machines I don't even begin to understand, and a padded examination table with a sheet of clean white paper stretched out over its surface. There's a couple chairs too, but I ignore them, preferring to look at the various posters on the wall, detailing the anatomy of six different species of alien (and Humans too!) in the most intimate detail, no clothes, no skin. Given the option, I'd always rather be on my feet, doing something, than sitting down, itching for action. Guess that's why I never did get that scholarship Mom and Dad wanted me to net, the one that woulda meant I'd get a shot at escaping the dead end that is Third Level: not enough patience.

Not enough patience to just wait around and try to live down there either, apparently. No, Mac, you didn't wanna do the safe, smart thing, did you? You had to ride the 'vators up here, and sign up for...

There it is: the Poster. It's the same one that first caught my eye down on Third Level, a big, bright-colored deal complete with three-dimensional effects. There's the Ringmaster, with his big hat and strange makeup. The makeup's got some sort of nanotechnology in it, they say, which is why it keeps changing while it's still on his face. There's a Vrorbeast, tentacles flailing - those are always popular attractions. There's a small army of the robots they use as cannon fodder, a plethora of strange and ominous shapes, every one filled with the portents of death. And, of course, there's a collection of the latest celebrities in the background of the poster, all of them made famous by surviving the challenges of the Arena, and then demonstrating that they had talents besides luck. Nobody in the whole wide Republic gets to be a celebrity these days, not anywhere from movies to music, unless they've survived the rigors of the Arena. That's just how important the Circus is for gaining recognition, for obtaining fame.

Me, I'm not aiming to be a celebrity or anything like that; I'm way too boring. I just wanna make some cash so my family can get off of Third Level and move someplace that doesn't smell bad whenever you step outside of Dad's bakery.

Turns out, for once, I didn't actually have that long to wait. Guess if you make it past the tedium of the waiting room, then you've proven you're serious. Huh, now that I think about it, maybe that's why that room was so awful in pretty much every way: they were weeding out the ones who weren't _into_it. Well, me, I'm _into_whatever it takes to get ahead. Anything that doesn't make me feel too dirty about myself, that is: I may not be a goody-two-shoes, but I've got some self-respect.

When the door opens, turns out the doctor is not an especially welcome sight at all: it's a Vlok, her white labcoat doing nothing to conceal the bruise-purple skin of her vulturelike head and disturbingly long hands, clasped before her like a praying mantis' forelegs. She's taller than me, but it's pretty obvious that she's trying not to be intimidating. At least that's what I guess, based on the smile on her face, an expression that's halfway between reassuring and nightmare-inducing.

"MaKayla Carlscrown?" she asks me with that strange accent all Vlok have, probably a result of having a fleshy beak instead of proper lips, glancing down at the touchpad clutched by the fingertips of those freakishly long hands of hers.

"Just Mac, if that's all right."

She looks me up and down, and the look isn't at all what I expected. I mean, if you're looking at something that might as well be a humanoid vulture, evolved from a race that really were scavengers back in their ancient past, you'd probably guess that the creature in question would have this sort of predatory, half-starved way of approaching the whole universe, and you in particular. Not so with my new Vlok buddy, though: she gives off this impression of being friendly, but cautiously so, as though she's perfectly well-aware of how the other sapients in the Republic view her kind of people, and has to fight the stereotype. I guess I can respect that kind of attitude, actually. After all, being Human for too long in the wrong parts of the galaxy can be enough to get you lynched.

"Mac, then," she says, nodding agreeably as she taps the pad with her thumb. "I'm...well, you can call me Doctor Salvee," she states with a nod. "It's simpler for your mouth, I think. Now, if you please," she motions to the examination table, and I hop up, taking a deep breath as I brace myself for the standard pad-down to come.

"If I might ask, Mac," Doc Salvee begins while she's setting up the scanning machines right behind me, "what made you choose to sign up to join the Circus?"

"The Arena," I answer right off, no hesitation; I was only going to go through with this if I made sure not to have any second thoughts until it was well and truly too late to turn back. "They pay out really good money to survivors. And to the families of those who, well...you know."

"Ah," the Vlok woman states knowingly, and there's whole worlds of expression in that simple word. "So you aren't an actor? A singer? A dancer? Perhaps an aspirant to literature or poetry?"

"Nope," I reply, tensing slightly as I feel those oversized hands on my back, feeling her feeling me (and Vlok can find out stuff about you that you wouldn't believe just by touch). "I'm just planning on fighting it out until I can't compete anymore. Or until I make it through my first Season, whichever comes first."

"You do realize," Doc Salvee asked, withdrawing her hands to make some notations on her pad, "that casualty rates for the Arena regularly run into the high eightieth percentile?" Then she looked at me,really_looked at me, and her face showed all the sorrow in the universe. "Of course you do." She sighed, her shoulders slumping. "Of course you do. You're smarter than most of the people I sign off as fit for the Circus. I can tell that just from looking at you. I'll bet you know how to read _books, too, not just the basics of literacy like most." Her smirk was wry when she saw my expression at her observation. "No, I won't tell anyone. I know the stigma attached to being smarter than the people with whom you associate. The giveaway was how you were looking at the posters when I came in: they weren't just a source of bored observation for you; you were _reading_them, absorbing the information on them with a certain...eagerness," her sharp, pointed tongue flicked out, and I had to suppress a shudder, "that only a creature like myself might properly understand."

Turning once more, Doc Salvee went to the machine and glanced at the screen on its front. Nodding after only a few moments, she turned back to me.

"What if I told you that you couldn't go?" she asked me suddenly, eyes intent on mine. "What if I said that you were unfit, unwell? What would you do then?" She took a step closer to where I was sitting on the exam table, crossing just a little too much into the boundaries of personal space for my comfort. "The Circus is a death sentence, Mac. People die in the Arena, eaten by monsters. They die in the dressing rooms, stabbed or bludgeoned or poisoned by the jealous. And even if they survive all of that, they die inside after what they have to do in order to get ahead. Their souls die, even if their bodies keep walking around, going through the motions of life and love and laughter."

"That last one won't happen to me, Doc," I told her, and I didn't flinch when I said it. "Like I said, I'm just here for my family. Baby Wok's just turned six, and he needs real schooling, not that public stuff that barely gets you anything. Mom needs out of that dead-end job where she has to tap data into machines for twelve hours a day, my big brother Alonzo just a few stalls over, checking her work for the errors that could get her fired, or him fired if he doesn't catch them in time. I'm the only girl, the only one that gets a room all to herself, and I'm tired of being the 'special' one, always put on a pedestal like I'm something I'm not. I wanna help my people get ahead, and I don't see any other way to do it but this one. I blew my last shot at a scholarship just yesterday, and if you're down on Third Level, and there's nobody willing to pay your way, there's no way to get out and go up unless it's big." Then I smirked, a smirk she returned as the tension that had been building in the room suddenly dissipated. "So I'm gonna go big, or go bust."

"You know how to fight?" she asked me, cocking her head in a way that was so very birdlike, I had to work not to smile and maybe show off how condescending we Humans can be sometimes. Instead I nodded.

"Dad taught me," is what I said instead of smiling. "He taught all of us. When he wasn't busy in the bakery, he spent all the time he could training us, just like he'd learned from his dad, and his dad before him. Kinda important to know how to fight when you're so close to Rock Bottom, after all."

"Ah, an ancestral style," Doc Salvee stated with a nod of approval. "My people do not tend toward such martial matters - a very real reason why there are so few of us who ever join the Circus - but I can respect them in others. And I do." She shook her head, then tapped the pad one more time. "You are cleared, Mac. A clean bill of health. Here," she turned the pad around and held it out to me, and this time I didn't feel the need to suppress a flinch at the nearness of those freakishly long hands of hers. "Sign at the bottom with your finger, please. If you're sure about this, the door at the end of the hall opens out onto a landing pad. The ship waiting there has all the applicants who passed the physical. Just get on board, and the grand adventure begins." Hope still on her face, she cocked her head to the other side as she peered at me over the pad while I signed it. "Or not. You could take the door marked 'Exit' instead, and live a nice, safe, boring life on Third Level instead. After all, where there's life, there's hope, as we doctors often say."

"I appreciate it, Doc," I replied, and meant it, as I got to my feet. "But sometimes there's things you've just gotta do."

Leaving Doc Salvee in my wake, I strode down the hall with all the teenage confidence I could pretend to muster. Of course I didn't actually_feel_any of it, but it's appearances that matter most in these things.

Beyond the door was a landing strip, stretching out away from the city, far enough away from where its takeoffs and landings might cause damage. While I'm not afraid of heights, all the same, I didn't look over the edge of the strip. I mean, no sense tempting fate, right? Instead, I focused on the big old spaceship squatting like a toad in a hole at the end of the strip, its engines already glowing with the power needed to propel it past the blue-grey sky above, and into the inky black beyond.

At the base of the still-lowered entry ramp was a skinny Wisp, his small body actually clothed (a rarity for Wisps, who were furry enough that nobody really noticed if they went naked) in the uniform of an official of the Circus, red and black and gold. When I got close, the Wisp gave me a wink of one of his massive, dark eyes.

"Welcome aboard!" he called out to me over the roar of the engines as they began to reach launch readiness. "Now get in, or get left behind!"

What else could I do after a speech like I'd given Doc Salvee?

I got aboard.

Chapter 2

My name is Nephele. Nephele Cerveau. Honestly, I hate my name: it's a girl's name, and it's froofy even if I _were_a girl, which I'm not. All the same, it's the name I was given at birth, and if I'm going to die, I want my name to be remembered.

The transport shuttle made several stops after picking me up, hopping around the city, going from flitpad to flitpad to collect all the various dregs and wannabes that somehow passed the physical and psych exams required to get into the Circus.

All the tests to make sure you're healthy enough to die.

Right then, before I can start to dwell any deeper on the subject, my gloomy thoughts are interrupted when this girl sits next to me - the last vacant seat, really, after she got on at the last stop before stellar launch - and gives me an apologetic look when she jostles me while sitting down.

"Sorry," she apologizes, hesitates a moment, then sticks out her hand. "I'm MaKayla, but everybody calls me Mac."

For just a moment I consider the outstretched, brown-skinned hand before me. Seeing red hair and dark skin like hers is a bit odd, even in the melting pot mélange of races that humanity has become since taking to the stars, but the main reason I hesitate is because I'm not the friendly type by nature. I'm an introvert, and I like to keep myself to myself. At least I do normally. But then again, I'm heading off to death, so I guess all my self-preconceptions don't matter that much anymore.

I take the offered hand and give it a gentle squeeze. She returns the squeeze with a lot more vigor. Contractual obligations of basic sociality aside, I resign myself to having someone to talk to for the rest of the flight. Considering how much fun I was having being alone with my thoughts of death in the Arena, likely the painful sort, maybe it's just as well.

"Neph," I tell her, leaving off the rest of it, trying to make it sound a little more masculine. "It's supposed to mean 'clouds,' or something like that."

"You're from Highside," she remarks, eyebrows raised in obvious surprise, though she lowers them almost as fast, trying not to make me feel uncomfortable. It's nice of her to try, I guess. "I mean...well...I guess I just didn't think..."

"It's okay," I reassure her, and then lean back, letting my eyes play over the rest of the passenger cabin. The whole place is set up with two long rows of seats, four seats to each column, separated by a walking aisle down the middle. A setup not much unlike a planet-based aeroplane, actually. The seats are padded and surprisingly pretty comfortable, and there's plenty of space between Mac, me, and the seats across the way, filled by a pair of shark-fanged Cobldp, probably mates judging from their closeness, paying way more attention to each other than anything else. There's enough distance on all sides that I can be pretty sure we won't be overheard talking, at least as long as we don't raise our voices too much. "You wanna hear mine, then I hear yours?"

There's a beat as Mac figures out what I mean, before she shrugs. Backstories is what I mean, of course; what brought us both here, on a one-way flight to certain doom and potential wealth...for our beneficiaries, of course.

"Sounds fair," she admits. "I mean, what else are we gonna do? It's a long trip, and I don't see any signs of an in-flight movie."

"To get why I'm here, you've got to understand the economics of the Trans-Galactic Republic," I begin, doing my best to get comfortable. "You probably know most of it already, but bear with me: it helps to know the whole story before you get to my part in it.

"We call our government a republic because everybody gets a vote. In theory. On all the tens of thousands of inhabited worlds within the Republic, every single one of the hundreds of billions of people, from hundreds of different sapient species, gets one vote to use as they like every galactic standard year."

"That's the part everybody knows," Mac agrees with a nod for me to go on.

"Here's the next part, though, and everybody knows it, but not everybody wants to admit it: the Republic's not really a republic. It's a plutocratic oligarchy."

"Huh?"

"A plutocracy is a government ruled by the rich," I explain. "An oligarchy is a government ruled by a small elite group up at the top. So a plutocratic oligarchy is a government ruled by a tiny number of super-rich people." Mac's incredulous expression gives me pause, so I answer her expression with one of my own, silently asking her to hear me out. She does, and I continue. "In the Republic, everybody is allowed to sell their vote, and most people do."

"My family never did," Mac declares, but all I need to do is shrug a little to get her back into listening mode.

"That as may be, but as I said, most people do, from the lowest dregs all the way up to the middle class, and even some of the richest people as well when they can't be bothered to use it themselves. In exchange, they all get the necessities of life, courtesy of the private individuals and companies that bought their votes: food, shelter, medical treatment, and entertainment. _Lots_of entertainment, of the highest quality. Probably because it's the best, cheapest way to help people forget how subpar the other stuff they get can be. Seriously, if you can get a virtual reality feed that makes you experience a steak dinner, even though all you're eating is nutrition blocks, or travel anywhere in the galaxy with a thought without ever leaving your vermin-infested living room, it's not hard to see how important entertainment is in keeping the typical Republic citizen happy.

"The people who can afford to buy those votes know it, too. And they know that they _need_those votes, or else bad stuff starts to happen. See, the rich know that they only get to stay rich because the laws in place allow it. And those laws get decided by the votes of Republic citizens. Laws like who gets taxed, and by how much; the rules of property ownership; regulations of business practices; and, of course, inheritance laws."

"You're here because of that last one, aren't you?" Mac asks, though I can tell it's more a statement than a real question.

"That obvious, huh?" I chuckle, and see her sheepish nod. "Yeah, that sums it up pretty well. Times were tough all over when the last holdouts of the Human Empire caved and joined the Republic. I was six when that happened, and Dad died suddenly from the strain on his nerves from trying to navigate our money over into the new economy. Mother didn't know any of the things I just reviewed for you, and isn't any good at money games anyway, and so it was only a matter of time before our savings started to dwindle, despite all of Dad's forethought and financial planning before his collapse."

"Things weren't so good for us either," Mac recalls, looking at the window just past me, even though all it showed was an image of a starscape flitting by (an artificial projection, since faster-than-light travel is really just a big boring blur). "I was six, too, and we all had to move into the big city, even though there was plenty of room everywhere else. They said it was to protect our planet's ecology. Maybe they were right, looking back on it now, but I still hated the move, and the ugly little apartment where we all had to somehow fit."

"Dad's death got Mom to start drinking," I continued, looking down, not really knowing what to say in response to hearing from someone who's life had been a lot tougher than mine. "Me and my kid brother, we had to make due. Mostly I ended up in charge of getting us both educated, and I think I did all right, considering the circumstances. Weird how you hate school when you're forced to do it, but when it's so hard to get, you move the planetary alignment to seize what fate denies you."

"Maybe not in such extreme terms," laughed Mac. "But...yeah, that's how I always felt about it. Getting books, real books, was always tough after the move. I never loved libraries more than when I had to fight for a place in line to visit them, figuratively, and then the literal kind of fight to make sure the yobos around my neighborhood wouldn't go picking on me or my brothers just because I liked to read. Eventually I had to hide my reading just so I didn't have to go home with bloody knuckles every day; it kind of made Dad upset seeing the stuff he'd taught me used so much."

"I never had to fight much," I admitted. "Not the literal sort you mean, anyway. But I learned how all the same. Fencing, mostly, because it seemed like the sort of style a noble should practice, along with a little soft-style self-defense. The romantic in me, I guess," I add, rubbing the back of my head self-consciously. "We had tutors, and we also had a nice school that we attended, and we grew to prefer to spend as much time out of the house and away from Mom as possible. From her, and her swift descent into full-fledged alcoholism.

"Last year, Mom finally got cleaned up, mostly, but of course it was far too late by then: we were on the verge of total bankruptcy. No offense, but when I saw the vast gulf yawning before me when I looked down from our ivory towers, and realized that I might have to descend into those Tartarean depths in the all-too-near future...well, the thought chilled me. Then it chilled me even more badly when I thought of my younger brother having to cope with life at Rock Bottom. Or my mother. They're both delicate souls, artistic and gentle and easily damaged by the vagaries of life. Given my options, death seemed almost welcoming, rather than having to see my loved ones broken on fortune's rack. But I suppose I've never been the strictly suicidal type, gloomy moods notwithstanding. Ah, but selling my life in exchange for the continued fortunes of my family, now that...that seems worth it, at least to me."

"My story's not too far off from yours," Mac said, her expression having grown softer at the mention of my brother. "I've got seven brothers, and I'm the only girl. They told me I was the smartest of us all, and maybe that's true, at least as far as grades went. Not smart enough to get into a school on the upper levels, though, one of those places that makes sure you get a job as soon as you graduate, the sort of job that gets you set for life with one of the big money players. No, I got my chance, and I flubbed it."

She looked down at her spread hands, sighing and shaking her head at regrets over the might-have-beens of her past. It was a feeling I knew well enough myself; regret is the most bitter of vintages, but at least it's not so vile when you can share it with someone who knows its taste as well as yourself.

"Guess I just took a look down, like you did, and saw how close to Rock Bottom we already were. Sure, Dad and Mom were still healthy and working hard, and my oldest brother, Alonzo, was fresh into the workforce, doing computer work at the same place Mom does her job, but..."

"Just one step away from the edge," I supply. "Just one little nudge."

"Yeah," she agrees, scowling at her past. "All it would take was one big disaster, or a couple smaller ones, and we'd have to start selling our votes just to stay alive, or starve to death in the gutters of Rock Bottom. I could see the possibility pretty clearly, and I didn't like it one bit. My family's proud, in our way. We've never sold our votes, not ever, no matter how tough times got. If we ever started, well, it would be like giving in, surrendering, telling the rest of the universe that we weren't as tough or smart or _good_as we thought we were. And once you do that, even if you somehow claw your way back up from Rock Bottom, it'll always stick to you, always be there in the back of your mind: that one nasty moment when you just couldn't cut it."

The ice broken, our fears shared, it wasn't so hard to keep talking, neither of us quite so concerned with keeping our voices down anymore. After all, it's just chatter, nothing too personal. I think the conversation was about some books we'd both read when we were younger and not so world-weary, though it wasn't especially memorable, except by the way the talk made us both feel.

Somehow, on my way to Hell, I'd stumbled upon a twin to my own soul. A fellow sufferer in these times of harshest trial and near-certain demise.

More importantly, I'd found a friend.

I think the feeling was mutual.

Chapter 3

Huh, guess there's an in-flight movie after all.

Because I wanted to test out the limits of Neph's book learning, I just started talking about how much I hated reading Ernest Hemmingway's turkey, "The Old Man and the Sea." He'd immediately hopped on that train, proving his literacy when he agreed that the thoughtless pursuit of a pointless quest for sake of masculine identity or just "proving something" seemed pretty silly to him.

"Sort of like our present circumstances," he added with a light chuckle, which I answered with an arched eyebrow.

"Maybe, but not quite: for us, hunting our big fish means our families get to eat, not some sharks. That, and I'm a girl."

I could tell he was about to come back with something depressing - seriously, this kid was as bad as Lovecraft or Poe sometimes, with the way he piled on the metaphors and the gloom with a side of doom. Except, right when we were about to get into some serious literary discussion, all those thoughts got tossed out the window as the lights started to dim, and a crackle came over the speakers, loud enough to make it pretty clear that we should shut up and listen.

Turning our heads at a movement from above, we saw flat screens lower from the ceiling, one every couple seats for each side of the cabin, to ensure that everybody could see what was on them. There was a brief flicker, and then the screens all came to life at the same time, showing the company logo for the Circus, along with its catchy little jingle. Watching that many screens all at once got kinda dizzying, though, so I quickly just stuck to staring at the one closest to me and Neph's seat, the one that required the least amount of neckstrain to watch.

Guess the Circus song-and-dance was just a last wakeup call, to make sure they had your attention, 'cause a moment later the screen blipped again, and then there was this Foselle guy, big as life on the display. Foselle look like black-skinned humanoid salamanders, though like a lot of sapient races, they're not really strictly what they look like: a real amphibian's brain simply couldn't handle all the thought processing needed for true sapience, after all, or at least that's what all the books on xenobiology I ever read told me. This one was old, though - I mean _really_old. Like, the little orange splotches that peppered his head like birthmarks were turning grey around the edges, and his skin was actually almost as dry as a typical human's, which is really unhealthy for a Foselle, who kinda need their skin to be glistening wet for them to respirate properly.

One look into those sharp, fire-colored eyes, though, and you knew that age hadn't dulled this guy's brains any. If anything, he'd gotten sharper, more keen-minded, until you could cut yourself on his wits. When he opened his mouth to talk, the reedy, sardonic tones under every word made it pretty clear that this was not somebody you wanted to get into an argument with.

"Everybody comfortable?" the guy on the screen began. "I hope so, because I'm required to give you some pretty important information, and it's going to take a whole lot of time to get through it all. So sit back, relax, and try not to fall asleep while I talk about the stuff that will probably determine whether you get to live or die in the very near future.

"Got your attention? Good! What this is, is your next-to-last warning before you get dumped out onto the Circus, the big communications satellite orbiting the Arena. I'm the Arena Master, the guy who makes sure the place is properly maintained and stocked with the stuff meant to kill you, so I'm probably the best qualified person to tell you how stupid you are for wanting to go down onto the Arena in the first place.

"Before I say anything else, here's the way to get out if you don't wanna go through with the rest of this mess: as soon as you step off the ship, follow the big flashing lights on the floor. You do that, and you'll be taken to get a hot meal, and then a free flight to pretty much anywhere you might wanna go. I'm serious: lots of people sign up for the Arena just so they can go someplace with a better economy. You can only pull the trick once every four Standard years, of course, but hey, it's an option. I mean, things can't be rotten_everywhere_in the Pan-Galactic Republic all at once, right?

"That's the first rule, by the way: you back out, at any time, for any reason, and you don't get to come back to the Arena for four Standard years. Since most of you are Humans on this flight, that's...let's see...about five-and-a-half of your Earth years, to give you a point of reference. The reason for the wait is because that's how long it takes for the whole Arena to reset itself, so there's no chance of you getting any unfair advantages the next time you show up.

"Which leads us to the second rule of the Arena: once you're in the Arena, there are no guarantees. Being honest, we like to play up the eighty-percent casualty rate in the Arena, but that's not the real number of fatalities. The number of people who actually _die_somewhere on the planet of the Arena, or end up getting killed by rivals up on the Circus satellite between episodes, is around thirty to thirty-five percent. High, sure, but not a guaranteed death sentence. The eighty percent number is how many people drop out somewhere along the line, for whatever reason, and includes everybody from the losers who walk into a recruiting office and don't finish filling out the paperwork, up to the rare individuals who get so maimed in the Arena, without getting actually killed, that they have to be extracted. Oh, and the dead people, of course.

"You're probably outraged right now at getting lied to, even if it's not technically a lie - casualties, after all, aren't necessarily deaths - but it's for a good cause: we don't want anybody who's not absolutely determined to pit themselves against the Arena, and who's going to stick it out to the end, bitter or sweet. Turns out, most viewers don't like watching people die; they'd rather watch rags-to-riches stories of success and overcoming adversity. But if the threats of the Arena weren't real, then it would show, and _our_show would fall apart. Bearing that in mind, though, viewers also don't like to watch people groveling in the dirt, crying for their mommies, or just sitting in one place doing nothing. If you wanna really bring home money for whatever cause you think is important enough to risk your lives for, then at least try to put on a good show.

"Now, the third rule of the Arena: you can quit anytime you're on the Circus satellite. More than that, you can use a panic button that'll be installed in your stat suit to call for a pickup anytime you like. But see rule number two: it's hard to reach you down in the Arena, especially if you're underground, so don't expect an instant escape. That's why we prefer the ones not willing to die for what they want to back out before they get to the Arena in the first place. Well, that and the stat suit we'll be making for you is kind of expensive, but you don't need to worry about that just yet.

"Oh yeah, there's a fourth rule you really oughta know: you're being watched. I mean that: everywhere you go, everything you do, you're being recorded. The Arena's an artificial planet, after all, and the whole place is wired down to its core with recording equipment. The planet's big, though, and there's only so much staff available to operate the machines that manage all that equipment, so there's no guarantee that there's somebody literally watching everything you do at the moment you do it. All the same, by signing up for the Arena, you've legally given up your right to privacy for the duration of your stay, and anything and everything you say and do can and will probably end up on one of the edited broadcasts we air for general consumption, or on the uncut versions available for private consumption.

"Now I'm sure a lot of you are feeling a bit uncomfortable about at least one of the big four rules I just listed off. If so, good! You don't need to be here, and we're happy to give you a hot meal and a flight to wherever you wanna go next. Like I said before, there's lit up routes right off the ship to take you to safety, and even a door installed in the sides of the booths where you get measured for a stat suit, if you don't want people seeing you taking the safe road: just step through, and you'll be escorted off to freedom.

"If you're not feeling like backing out, just let me repeat myself, to make it clear what you need to know from this vid: first, if you back out, you have to wait four Standard years before you can go back into the Arena. Second, once you're in the Arena, all bets are off, and even if you use a panic button call for one of our crash teams, your chances of getting out unmaimed, or even alive, aren't so great; death happens, and worse stuff too, so if you're sensible, you'll back out as soon as you step off the ship, before it's effectively too late. Third, you can theoretically quit at any time, and that's the smart thing to do; a lot of people drop out once they're done risking their necks for cash, and want out with whatever they've earned up to that point, and that's just fine by us, as long as you put on a good show in the process. Fourth and finally, the moment the stat suit goes on, you get no privacy. At all.

"There, you've been warned," the Arena Master ended, folding his strange, forearm-heavy arms before his chest. "Some of you brain-dead idiots probably didn't get all the subtext I'm trying to get across to you, though. However, since I'm used to dealing with slow thinkers, I've got a fun little highlight reel to take up the rest of your flight over here to the Circus. Trust me, you'll like it: it's my favorite scenes from the Arena where contestants end up as casualties. This is the best part of this little vid, so strap yourselves down and tune in, 'cause this...is gonna be fun."

"Fun for whom?" Neph asked, arching one of those pale eyebrows of his, before his eyes widened at what he saw taking place on the screen after just a few minutes. I could hear the screaming, and the liquid burbling of something big and horrible, and then the sounds of...well,crunching. We won't go into what was doing the crunching.

"Ooh, now _that_was a good one!" exclaimed the Arena Master enthusiastically. "Tore it clean off! Just for you viewers keeping track, that contestant made it through the Arena alive. You can just imagine what it had to be like for the guy, though, going through the rest of his life without...well, you can just imagine. And now for another of my favorites..."

Nope! Not looking! Not me!

Picture, if you can, the sounds. I didn't look up...all right, I did, but only once! There wasn't much need to look, though, to get a pretty good idea of what was happening up on the screen. Neph actually watched for almost ten minutes, and looked up a few times after that, but every time he did, his pale-skinned face got even paler, and sometimes even looked more green than pinkish. And between every clip, there was the voice of the Arena Master, eager, gleeful, and so very helpfully informative, like a tour guide to Hell itself. He was _loving_this!

This went on for almost two hours. I know that 'cause there was a set of clocks on the far cabin wall, showing times for where we'd come from and where we were going. Two. Hours. Imagine the worst sounds you've ever heard, the kind that literally make your stomach churn. Then multiply that by two whole hours. The only bright note was that it was only a two-dimensional projection, with audio and visual; if it had been wired to target our other senses as well...I don't even wanna think about what some of those scenes would have _smelled_like.

I think the Arena Master got his point across just fine.

"We're...we're back in real space," Neph suddenly said, giving me a welcome respite as I turned my head, catching my first sight of the Circus as I leaned past Neph, who moved to let me peek out the window. "We're almost there!"

Just like the Arena Master had said, the Circus was a satellite orbiting a cloud-covered world, but it was like no satellite I'd ever seen on the vids: it was huge! The place looked about the size of a city like the one I'd left behind, a flat disc with all sorts of buildings and antennae and dishes and domes and stuff sticking out on either side. What was most awesome about the Circus, though, was how it glowed in the endless stars of space, sitting in the middle of an aurora borealis of lights and colors that dazzled my eyes, a combination of the lights used by its inhabitants merging with the crackling energy signals that beamed its constant streams of vid to the entire Pan-Galactic Republic. These lights, in turn, clashed against the strange advertisement holograms put up by the countless sponsors who paid for the entertainment the Circus presented to everyone, everywhere, all the time.

If anywhere in this infinite universe could be said to literally never sleep, it was the Circus.

"Well...I guess I'll have to end it here, since the timer next to the camera says that you're probably almost to the Circus by this point," the Arena Master's voice suddenly broke into the noises of bloody dismemberment. "Pity, you just missed what a full-grown Vrorbeast can do to a team of healthy contestants. Now _that's_something you don't ever forget! Anyway, follow the light trail, and you'll be out of this mess, safe and sound. Or if you wanna save face, just step into the measurement booth, and then follow the clearly-marked exit sign. Or not, if that's what tickles your fancy. Just remember: I warned you."

Did he ever!

Though I didn't mean to, I kind of lost track of Neph in the shuffle of people. Besides the Cobldp couple and a smattering of other races, most of the passengers on the flight were Humans like me. Probably just as well, since I didn't really want a Cobldp rubbing against my back: those fishy people secrete a light sheen of mucus to keep their bodies moist when they're out of water, and to improve their swim speed when they're in it, and while I can completely get how important it is for them, I really didn't want to have my clothes smelling of fish snot the rest of the day. So I hurried a bit, and ended up leaving Neph somewhere behind me.

Stepping out of the softly-glowing disembarkation gates, I was almost overwhelmed for a moment by the display of lights up above. The top of the entry area was transparent, and you could see everything that had been visible from out the transport window, except now it was all_right there_, and you could hear the sounds that went with all the lightshow. People passed around me to either side, like I was a rock in a river, and all I could do, like some hillbilly in the city for the first time, was gawp up at the nightlife, utterly and completely spellbound.

Then I got control of myself, and looked down instead. There they were: the lights marking the path to safety. And there, right next to them, the clearly-marked circus-colored line that led...well, somewhere that wasn't safe, that was for sure.

Letting my eyes lead the way, first following the line down below, and then the signs up above (thankfully some of them were in English), I looked toward a long row of booths. I'd seen booths like these in old pictures and films. Back in the day, when there hadn't been very good sensors to pick up stuff like illegal weapons carried by passengers, they'd have you walk through a curtained booth so the staff at a transport terminal could frisk you and manually make sure you weren't carrying something you shouldn't. Of course, modern transport terminals don't bother with crude methods like that (though I've heard that it still happens way out in the boonies of space, and in places that haven't joined the Pan-Galactic Republic yet), but if that wasn't the purpose for these booths, what could it be?

Then I remembered the Arena Master mentioning something about being measured for a "stat suit," whatever that was. Guess these were where you'd get your costume for going into the Arena. I remembered that the contestants pictured on posters wore a bunch of weird-looking clothes, so that was probably what a stat suit was.

Let's just hope mine doesn't look _too_silly.

Getting close to the row of booths, I could see that a crowd of people had gathered around them, and were forming up into lines at the urging of a bunch of smiling non-Human women, all of them dressed in the same mildly pleasant-looking uniform. Stewardesses, I guessed, or at least the Circus equivalent. They had translators on their necks, that much I could see from a pretty long way off, so I walked up to one who didn't seem too busy, a purple-skinned humanoid with a bald head and long eyestalks, and decided to find out what was what.

"What're these?" I asked her, motioning to the booths.

"Measuring booths," she responded, the answer slightly delayed as her words went through the translator taped to her neck first, cancelling out the noise of her actual voice so that I only heard the answer in English. The effect was a little weird to watch, though, because her lips didn't synch up with the words I was hearing. "You get in line, you walk inside, you take off your clothes, you get measured and fitted, then you get dressed again. Simple."

"Yeah, simple," I muttered, sighing. "Thanks."

"You are welcome, Human," the lady replied with a big smile, which might have been more reassuring if she'd had something besides these weird pulsing suckers instead of teeth and gums. "Our entire jobs are to help you around, so do feel free to ask any of us for assistance at any time."

Now that I thought about it, while getting into line, most of those "stewardesses" were of the same race as the lady I'd talked to first. I wanted to ask if there was a reason for this species preference, but in a matter of minutes the line I'd stepped into swept me along, until I was almost right before the door to the booth. Wow, whatever this whole fitting process entailed, it went_fast_!

Then I was stepping through the big dark door on the front of the booth, and the moment I closed it behind me, all sound was cut off. Going from the clamor of the crowds to utter and total silence was...well, it was eerie, honestly.

Wanting to distract myself, I checked out the booth. Actually, the place was pretty roomy on the inside. Over on the left wall there were some pictorial instructions that used a rough stick-type figure to demonstrate pretty much what the stewardess lady had told me. To the right, I saw a short stairway with a hatch at the bottom, with pictorial instructions indicating that this was the way out that the Arena Master had talked about in the video back on the transport. Then, straight ahead, I saw an area with a glowing purple mist, with another black door on the opposite side of the booth.

Don't think I didn't consider the escape hatch. After hearing all the "fun" the Arena Master had shared on the transport, I'd have to be a special sort of psychopathic not to consider that alternative. But even if I did go someplace else, how would that help my family? I'd just be a drifter, a teenage girl with minimal marketable skills, so even if I had some idea of where I should go, and managed to get some sort of job that paid well enough for me to send money back home, there's no way even a year's work at minimum wage could come close to matching ten days' worth of money just surviving in the Arena. And that was just for surviving: if I actually did well, the money racked up exponentially!

No, for the sake of my family, even if it meant I'd die in the process, forward was the only rational answer to my need.

The moment I stepped fully into the purple mist, it glowed a little bit brighter, and then I saw a series of crisscrossing laser lines rake over my body, up and down, then side to side, from every angle. My clothes were in my hands at that point (thank goodness the room wasn't chilly), but the lasers didn't touch them, only me, painting my skin in a rainbow of colors with every passing. Then a set of nozzles extended from the walls, attached to long metal arms, and rotated slowly around me, making a weird hissing noise as they spat out this fine black mist. In seconds, I was covered in this black, tarry stuff, every bit of naked skin below my neck coated in a layer of it, except for my hands, which were completely missed by the sprayed mist, right along with the clothes I held in them.

At first I was disgusted, and instinctually brushed at the gunk, whatever it was, still holding my clothes away from my body as though that would somehow keep them from getting stained by the black stuff. A second later I blinked, then rubbed my shirt against my chest experimentally. Nope, no staining. Actually, the stuff had dried almost immediately, forming a very supportive bodysuit. I tested the black suit with a fingernail, and discovered that it clung to me like a second skin. I mean that: literally like skin, it was that tightly connected to me.

Huh. Guess this is what they meant by the stat suit.

Hastily tugging my jeans and t-shirt back on, I started toward the final door and pushed ahead, holding my head up high. I'd made my final decision now; there was no turning back.

Even as people kept moving forward all around (though quite a few less than had been on the starting side of the booths, I couldn't help but notice), the first person I saw upon stepping out of the booth was Neph, leaning against a thick support pillar. He hadn't bothered putting his nice slacks and white button-up shirt back an, or even his shoes, instead opting to stick to the basic black of the stat suit now encasing his lean, pale body. Seeing me, the boy straightened up from leaning, and smiled as I approached him.

"I was worried you wouldn't make it, Mac," he commented casually as we fell into step, heading toward the obvious exit at the far end of the wide hallway beyond the booths.

"I wouldn't miss this for the whole Earth, Neph," I replied.

Chapter 4

While the room was dimly-lit, it didn't feel gloomy. Actually, the lowered light level seemed to have a generally calming effect on the people in the room. This was just as well, since the work in which they were engaged was perhaps the most stressful job in the Pan-Galactic Republic: planning out the events of the new season of the Arena.

"Those two," the Ringmaster said in his sonorous baritone, pointing to a screen over the shoulder of one of the technicians. "The mated Cobldp pair. Make arrangements to have them sent planetside together. Also place them along one of the coasts. I think the..."

"The Ragged Edge," supplied the Arena Master, bulbous-looking forearms crossed across his bare, glistening black chest; after all, the Foselle seldom ever bothered with more clothing than was absolutely required.

"The Ragged Edge sounds perfect," the Ringmaster continued without missing a beat, data flashing visibly on the surfaces of his eyes as he called up all the information he needed to make informed decisions. "Plenty of monsters all over, and lots of opportunities for them to rack up points. And there's nothing the more bloodthirsty members of the audience enjoy more than seeing a Cobldp in the throes of a full frenzy."

"Not to mention how easy it'll be to play them up as protagonists," the Arena Master added with a light clicking noise in his throat, his species' equivalent of a chuckle. "After all, they're here to give their offspring a head start in life."

"All the elements of fine drama," agreed the Ringmaster.

At the long table behind the massive array of computer banks and glowing screens, Birdcry felt horribly out of place. Before her, the Ringmaster did his work, using the technicians at the controls like additional limbs to enact his will, and the Arena Master as a second brain and sounding board for ideas. Somewhere else, sometimes visible on the many screens, the Beast Master and the Show Master did their work as an extension of the will of the control center, making final preparations for the opening of the Arena to contestants once again, and the new season of entertainment about to start everywhere all across the vast reaches of the Republic's governed space. Around her at the long table, Birdsong was surrounded by professionals, politicians and business magnates and other people of high office and great importance. None of them seemed uncomfortable at all the talk of violence and death and...worse things. None of them batted an eye no matter how awful the things the Ringmaster might propose. They simply watched with an air of contentment, as though all were right in the universe. Didn't they understand? People were about to die!

As a Liptani, Birdcry was used to the caring, loving arms of her tribe-family, to caring about others at least as much as she cared for herself. Her homeworld, the home from which her people had originated, was a deadly one, more than any world so far discovered to have sapient life, and so it came as a surprise to most to discover how gentle and sweet-natured the Liptani were. To them, though, such kindness made sense: when your entire world was out to kill you, surely life at home should be an opportunity for peace. Their gentle natures, as well as the overwhelming hostility of their homeworld, had caused the Liptani to be adopted by some of the greatest families of the Pan-Galactic Republic, accepted wholesale into high society, and allowed to finally escape from the world that had very nearly made them go extinct before their fortuitous discovery by advanced scouts of the Survey Service. Now they were the most recent addition to the sapient people accepted by the PGR as citizens, and perhaps one of the most universally beloved.

Birdcry herself had been adopted into the family of the L'Drey politician and businessbeing without compare, Scintillant Camor. Like far too many of her people, she'd been orphaned by the ravages of her homeworld, and when the charming, vulpine-like humanoid had offered her a place in his house, as the surrogate youngest sister to his three sons, and an opportunity to fill the emotional void left by the recent death of his wife, she had naturally accepted. After all, Scintillant (her father, as she was already starting to think of him) needed her, and so did her new brothers, and she needed them just as badly, each of them leaning on the others for support in a universe that could be so cold and cruel.

If only her dear father's business didn't have to deal with this...this..._event_known as the Circus!

Scintillant Camor, like most of the truly wealthy in the PGR, was closely involved in the workings of the Circus. After all, the entertainment produced by the Circus was what kept the masses of vote-selling citizens happy, content, and most importantly willing to keep selling their votes to people like him, keeping him on the top of the heap. Believing that his new daughter could use some experience in all aspects of the family business, Scintillant had insisted that Birdcry attend one of the planning meetings for the Arena, the most popular event produced by the Circus, so that she could see what entertainment in the PGR was all about.

Birdcry couldn't have been more horrified!

"Those two," the Ringmaster suddenly declared, pointing to a screen showing a live feed from the interior of the Circus' cafeteria, where those who were about to become contestants were getting their last hot meal before they were sent down to the surface of the Arena's artificial world. "Pan in close."

Looking past the Ringmaster and the Arena Master as they huddled close, Birdcry blinked at what now dominated the screen. It was a pair of Humans, a race that hadn't been as lucky as the Liptani: their empire had collapsed from financial strain within the last decade, forcing them to join the Pan-Galactic Republic on unfavorable terms, leaving far too many of their number destitute and desperate. A group of other contestants, veterans by the look of them, had closed in on one member of the pair, a male with pale hair and skin and a slender build. There wasn't any audio feed, so Birdcry couldn't hear what was being said, but she could guess, based on what she'd seen in some entertainment videos her father had shown her: the other contestants were bullies, and they were being mean to the boy on the screen.

Then, as Birdcry watched, the girl who'd been sitting opposite the boy rounded the table, sticking her face as close to the towering brute who was leading the bullies as their disparate heights allowed. The situation looked tense, and Birdcry lifted a hand to her muzzle in worry.

"They're perfect," declared the Ringmaster with a satisfied nod, and the artful billow and swell of his coattails obscured Birdcry's view of how the rest of the scene played out when he turned to the Arena Master, who was already tapping on a datapad with his stubby fingers.

"Assigned together," the Foselle said with a nod. "Scratch Plains?"

"An ideal location," the Ringmaster agreed with an enthusiastic nod. "Surrounded on all sides by terrible monsters, forced to rely on each other to survive even a single day, and with the mystery of several dungeons right there to tempt and destroy them in ways terrible and arcane. Perfect!" Then the Ringmaster paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Have the first scheduled pickup for break and recovery skip those two. Call it a glitch in our scheduling systems."

"Wait!" exclaimed Birdcry, having finally heard too much to be endured. "You can't _do_that!"

Rather than replying to this outburst, the Ringmaster only glanced at Birdcry, arching a painted eyebrow, before he turned back to the many viewscreens, already starting that incessant patter that was a natural part of his speech, as though he were a snake oil salesbeing performing before a crowd of rubes.

"Mostly random chance for the rest...ah, that one has some promise. Wasn't he the one that wrote those books about the thing and the stuff? I thought they were fairly good."

"Nobody would buy his books unless he went into the Arena," answered the Arena Master with a shrug. "Same old story in entertainment today: you gotta be willing to bleed for the art."

"Have him assigned to..."

"You don't understand," Birdsong interrupted, actually getting out of her seat as righteous indignation filled her voice. "That will leave them out in a killing zone for over twenty days! They won't stand a chance!"

"Of course," the Ringmaster replied with an air of surprise on his face, his painted eyebrows raising as he glanced at the young Liptani.

"Twenty-two planetary days, plus some hours, actually," the Arena Master helpfully added. "What about Knife Ridge? Great place for authors, I think; not likely to be bothered much by other contestants up there, so plenty of time to think. Well, between the monster attacks and regular blizzards, anyway."

"Excellent," agreed the Ringmaster, once again turning his focus back to his job. "I'm not seeing any immediate chemistry in most of the rest of these...though those three might fit the bill for a love triangle, with just a little nudging in the right direction..."

"But they're just children!" Birdsong almost screamed. "How can you be so cruel? Aren't you any better than the monsters out in your Arena?"

Suddenly, the Ringmaster's back stiffened, and he held out a hand. Immediately, all the noise and bustle of the many technicians at their workstations came to a complete halt. Drawing in a long, deep breath, the tall, angular human who was the Ringmaster turned, and then walked over to Birdsong. Even with her standing at her highest height, she barely came up to his waist. All the same, she glared up at him, determined not to be intimidated, even if being this close let her see the tiny seams in his facial makeup, the places where he'd had his flesh replaced with cybernetics, and the brief flashes of light across his eyes when he received information feeds from the rest of the Circus' many computer systems.

"Your father has been kind to me on many occasions," said the Ringmaster, his voice finally losing its brassy quality, his face no longer showing its eager showbeing's cheer. "And I believe you are a decent person. Because of these reasons, I am going to take time out from one of the most hectic parts of this entire operation, wasting countless gobs of money in the process, to explain to you what I do, and why I do it.

"First of all," he continued, his face reminding Birdcry so much of a skinny, sad clown, "I'm not a monster: I just play the part. I'm paid to be the villain of the Circus, the face of success, but also of death and failure. I don't even sleep anymore: I had that feature taken out during the last rewiring I had to tweak my optics. It was the only way to stop the nightmares.

"Those two children, as you call them," he gestured toward the viewscreen where the pair could be seen eating alongside another contestant, this one a L'Drey like Birdcry's surrogate father, the bullies from before now gone from view, "are here because they _want_to be here. They've been given many opportunities to leave, and shown all the reasons why they shouldn't come here, and yet here they are, and I am going to make them suffer, because it's what they _want_me to do to them. They both come from families on the edge of economic collapse, and they both have members of their families listed as their beneficiaries. I've reviewed the video feed of them talking on the flight over, and they have a natural chemistry. Neither of them expect to survive the Arena, and both of them are here for one purpose: to make as much money as they can for their families before they die.

"Tragic heroes," the Ringmaster concluded. "And they're obviously friends, not lovers, so I don't have to worry about any romantic subplots getting in the way of the real drama. That drama is their self-sacrifice, wading into the depths of Hell for the sake of their dearest loved ones. The longer they're in the field, the more opportunities they'll have to earn the points that will convert directly to cash. The more danger they face, the more popular they'll become to audiences all over the Republic. I can see already that they have courage and ingenuity, so I think they'll last a long time, enough that most of the audience might think that they'll survive. And then they'll be missed by the pickup, and the public outcry will be immense.

"I expect these two to make some of the most popular viewing we've had in years," the strange mechanical clown said with a slight smile. "And as for their families? They'll have money from the sales of video rights, offers from employers, and outright donations from various interested parties from all across the Republic. I and my people will take a slight dip in popularity for dooming such beloved characters, but what I do is hardly unexpected, and the dip is not likely to last. But in exchange for a temporary loss of ratings - money right out of my own pocket, you understand - I provide these two young people with exactly what they wanted from me: a better life for their loved ones, at the cost of their own lives."

"And it's not like they're guaranteed to bite it out there," the Arena Master added as his boss finished. "Seriously, when your number's up, it's up, but if it's not, then there's no telling what might happen. Sure, we're tweaking the system a little up here, but there's nothing certain once you hit the Arena. Up here, we can maybe shift things up to four percent, one way or the other. Mostly we just do our best to stick our contestants where they get a chance to show off their best side for the cameras, and leave the rest up to fate and chance."

"When your number is up, it's up," the Ringmaster echoed the words of his friend. "All we can do in the meantime is try to make the most of what time we are allotted." He turned back to the screens, a nearly beatific smile returning to his face. "And their time left will be glorious!"

Gaping in horror, Birdcry slumped back into her chair. This...this madman, this man-monster...he really believed he was doing those children a favor!

The worst part of all, however, was an undeniable truth that wiggled its way to the fore of Birdcry's consciousness: he was probably right.

"Are there any more objections, dear Miss Camor?" asked the Ringmaster, turning his head slightly, the dim lighting of the room gleaming off his ghostly greasepainted face.

"No more objections," said Birdcry, looking down at her small, furry hands as she folded them on her lap. It was the only way she could keep them from trembling.

Chapter 5

While it hadn't really hit me before, now that I'm finally starting to look around and think about it, I can't help but notice: Mac and me are probably some of the youngest people here. The cafeteria _is_pretty huge, of course, a brightly-lit hall with smooth floors, long tables, and a few alcoves scattered here and there along the walls for the privacy of the less social diners, so I'm sure I'm not getting a complete picture, but from what I can see, two teenagers really stand out, age-wise. Obviously most people consider this kind of thing to be adults-only. Honestly, I don't really blame them.

They promised us a hot meal, and I can't complain about them not meeting that part of the deal, but...well, I'm not really sure what it is that the server at the long counter just put on my plate, aside from the fact that it's steaming with heat. The stuff isn't really unappetizing, per se, but it looks a little like a pink gelatin paste with "bits" floating in it. With that stuff resting next to a green mush with black speckles, and a long yellow thing with bumps all over, I'd guess I have what must be a pretty balanced meal.

"Oh well," I mutter once me and Mac step away from the serving counter. "At least nothing seems to still be moving."

"You got lucky," Mac laughed, giving the magenta-colored coils on her plate a light nudge with a fingertip; it jiggled unencouragingly. "I'm pretty sure this stuff just winked at me. So much for thinking it was pasta!"

"Let's go over there," I suggested, pointing toward a booth. "That looks unoccupied, and I think I'd like at least a little privacy while I figure out how to eat this stuff."

Well...it_was_unoccupied, anyway. Right up until we started to settle down into our seats. We'd just gotten our places and were just starting to screw up enough courage to try the food (which actually didn't smell all that bad now that I was paying attention to it), when I became aware of a shadow looming over my tray.

Being honest, I probably wouldn't have noticed the intruders, except that I was looking at Mac's face at the time, studying her. She's got a "tough girl" exterior, and she talks like she's right in off the mean streets, but anybody that can talk about old Earth literature with as much facility as Mac has a lot more depth than they're letting on. Of course, while I was considering these details, I also came to the gradual realization that Mac wasn't studying me in turn; instead, she was looking past me, and the look on her face was one that expected trouble.

"Huu-man!" came a booming voice, and I had just barely enough time to scoot my tray closer to the wall, right out from under the ham-sized hand that came slamming down on the table in front of me. "Hah! You Huu-mans are tiny! Everybody talks about you as the hot new thing on the vids, but you look pathetic to me!"

Finally looking up, I saw that we were in some pretty serious trouble. For starters there were five of them, and every one of them was a lot bigger than any of us. Besides that, like I'd been noticing before, the five were all adult members of their respective species, while we were still kids for all practical purposes. I'm sure that Mac could give a good accounting of herself, and I like to think I'm no slouch in a fight, even if I only have a lot of training and academic study of the subject, but even so, two kids against five full-grown and _very_dangerous-looking beings like these didn't strike me as good odds.

The guy in front was a Krad. Krad have these squashed-in faces, which ends up making them look something like a humanoid bulldog. This Krad, though, had obviously been through some pretty tough situations, because his face was a scarred-up wreck; honestly, I think the battle damage actually improved his looks.

Behind the beefy Krad was a grab-bag assortment of PGR species. There was a Dixl flanking him, the one race actually composed of two: a tiny six-legged weasel-thing riding on top of a hulking slab of bipedal meat, acting as the brains of the operation while the big-nosed hulk was the brawn. Then there was the floating gasbag, a Barakind, a one-eyed being which evolved in zero gravity, and hence lacked legs, their lower abdomens instead filled with lighter-than-air gasses, letting them achieve some hovering ability in a proper gravity. Finally, rounding out the quintet was a Xoranx, one of the few trilaterally symmetrical species in the Pan-Galactic Republic, its head a round-topped dome, all six of its chitinous limbs, arms and legs, ending in nasty-looking claws. They were all dressed in stat suits, but not ones like ours; these were the stat suits of people who'd earned modifications to them, or so I guessed, because they had colors and interesting designs, armor plates, and some of them even sported company logos, indicating some serious money from sponsorship. Compared to the basic black I was wearing openly, and Mac had decided to cover up with her street clothes, we just didn't rate: these guys were veterans of the Arena, the most hostile locale in the Pan-Galactic Republic, and if the stat suits didn't automatically deactivate their weapons functions when on the Circus satellite, I'd guess that these guys could have splattered us from across the room.

In still other words, we were pretty definitely boned.

"You Huu-mans get all over," snorted the Krad, bending a little, letting his hot breath steam up my face as his ugly, toothy mouth curled back in an even uglier sneer. "You worse than gremlins! Nasty, sneaking, self-righteous fame stealers! We work hard for what we got, right boys?" He waited for the ominous rumbles of agreement from his posse before continuing, making sure they really were on board with whatever it was he planned to do to us, starting with me, as the obviously weaker member of our pair. "I think you Huu-mans need a lesson. Teach you some humility, remind you who's better!"

Those ham-hands were just starting to curl up, and I saw Mac rest her hands on her tray, ready to use it as the next best weaponlike object we had available, when a sixth figure stepped up behind the five beings already crowded around the table and cleared her throat.

"Excuse me," said the slim, black-furred woman, the four thugs behind the Krad moving to the sides without protest as she walked forward, then tapped our scarfaced visitor on the shoulder, "but are you planning to eat here? Because if not, I'd like to sit down and enjoy my meal with my two guests." Her long, slender muzzle turned to indicate both Mac and me, before she turned it back to the Krad, her blue eyes shining in startling brilliance in the midst of that midnight black fur. "I don't think there's room for all of us around this table, Blaag."

"No," Blaag grumbled sullenly. "Guess not." Then he glared death and daggers at me. "You are lucky this time, Huu-man. We meet you out in the Arena, your luck gonna run out fast!"

He made a motion of his head to his posse, and they cleared out pretty much at the same time Mac moved over to let the L'Dray woman slide in next to her, tray and all.

Huh, wonder where she found the meat and vegetables. What she's got on her plate actually looked, well, normal.

"Different menu for us veterans," the L'Dray answered before I'd even had time to formulate the question. "You first-timers get the cheap processed foods until you start to earn money for the Circus. Once you've been out for the first ten days planetside, then they're willing to be a lot more accommodating."

"Thanks for saving us," I just sort of blurted out, feeling the heat rush to my cheeks when I said it. "I mean, well, mostly me, since I guess they were going to rough me up first, but..."

"I wouldn't've let them do that, Neph," said Mac with an intensity that startled me. "Not without them going through me first."

"Blaag and his bunch meant it," the L'Dray interjected before Mac's words could lead into a long, awkward silence (because, really, how do you react to a statement like that?). "About meeting you in the Arena. Starting placement is pretty random at the beginning of a season, though you do get set back where you left off between ten day sorties, and it's a really big planet. What that means is that you've got pretty good odds of being able to avoid running back into those five bruisers down where they can hurt you directly. But if luck doesn't work your way, I recommend you start thinking strategies for facing off against your fellow contestants, just in case."

"Why're you helping us?" Mac asked, trying her first bite of the stuff on her plate, her face openly suspicious at first, but soon turning to a pleased acceptance as she continued to chew: apparently it wasn't that bad. "I mean, don't we hurt your bottom line? Being 'the hot new thing' and all that."

Mac's got this direct way about her, and while I like it on the one hand, because it means I know where I stand with her, on the other, it means she's not exactly the diplomatic sort. For a moment I worry that we've just lost our one obvious ally in this strange place, but all the black-furred foxy woman does is smirk, her blue eyes looking strangely sad.

"I remember what it was like when I first got here, the only L'Drey on the circuit," she explained, taking a few dainty bites every so often, chewing her food carefully. "My kind have a reputation for diplomacy, since we're natural empaths, but not for violence, so of course having a L'Drey show up in the Arena made for pretty hot viewing. Everybody wanted a piece of Frayd Luce, even if I was only ever a pretty average player. Too average to save the lives of the friends I made down there," she added, those beautiful eyes turning away from us in silent shame.

"You're Frayd Luce?" Mac asked, the name obviously meaning something to her, though I had to admit that, while it was a little familiar, I simply couldn't place it; I'd never been much for following the Arena, or any sports for that matter, at least not until now that my life hung in its balance.

"For all it's worth, yeah," affirmed Frayd. "I just like the basic black of the starting stat suit: it goes with my fur."

"It's certainly fetching," I tell her, and mean it.

"Thanks," Frayd responds with a bright smile, and I can't stop the fierceness of my blush when she leans over and gives my cheek a light kiss, her whiskers tickling my cheek. "Nice to know I've still got it. But what about you? What're your names? Tell me a little about you, if it's not too much to ask. Maybe it won't matter, but then again, maybe I'll be asking you for an autograph in a couple years, if you make it big in the real world, or decide to stick around and become Arena superstars like me and Blaag. Better safe than sorry, you get me?"

"Mac," says Mac immediately, her expression fixed for a moment, but soon cracking under that blue-eyed gaze. "MaKayla Carlscrown," she finally admits. "Only girl in a big family with a lot of boys. I was supposed to be the smart one, get this scholarship, bring in lots of money after graduating from some big-name school, but it all fell through. So I figured I'd bring in money the next way I could think of."

"Nephele Cerveau," I answer immediately when it's my turn to endure those piercing blue eyes. "It's...it's a girl's name," I can't stop myself from admitting out loud, not looking at Mac. "My mother picked out my name before I was born because she liked the sound of it, and nobody could convince her to change her mind. It means clouds or thoughts or something like that. I'm from a family that started out rich, but lost most of it when the last holdouts of humanity finally joined the Pan-Galactic Republic, and the inheritance laws weren't kind when my father died."

"Thank goodness you're not aspiring artists," Frayd said with a laugh. "They're nice enough, I suppose, but they can get so emo, if you take my meaning." She waited for us both to nod before continuing with a question: "Would you both like some advice?"

Once again we nodded - after all, who wouldn't want a few tips from someone who obviously knew their way around the deathtrap where we'd soon be spending our days and nights for the foreseeable future? - trading glances as we did so, making sure we were both together in this. There's this natural feeling you sometimes get with some rare and special people, the feeling that you understand each other, even if you aren't saying anything. I got that feeling with Mac, and I was pretty sure she got it with me. While it was still unpolished, since we'd only just met on the flight over, it was there, and I knew that if we lived long enough, that connection could grow into a mighty force.

"Maybe strong enough to keep you both alive," Frayd said, breaking into our thoughts, making both me and Mac start (which just served as a confirmation that Mac had indeed been thinking the same as me right then). "Sorry, the empathy kicks in sometimes. And that's my first piece of advice: stick together down there. Blaag and his bunch might be jerks, but they've got a winning strategy, and the people in charge of manipulating the random number generators that run so much about life in the Arena like to keep winning teams together whenever possible. Unless I'm completely off, I'd guess that the two of you are already slated to be put down in the same place, so you can try and survive together: the Ringmaster loves interpersonal drama, and that kind of thing sounds just like what he'd do.

"Second piece of advice: everything that isn't decided by the Ringmaster at the start, like who you go down with, or maybe where you're put, is random. Every day, the computers up here in the Circus decide what the weather will be like in a given locale of the Arena. The monsters get random impulses to migrate or stay settled somewhere. Same with what sort of loot you get, since the treasure chests are all placed randomly too, though at least they don't usually move around.

"Faced with a world of random chance, the best you can do is get good, fast. Keep an active, survival-oriented mindset, so when bad stuff happens, you'll be ready to push through the mess and start over from scratch, instead of surrendering to despair. Learn from your mistakes, but don't dwell on them, and always keep moving forward.Don't stay still. Any activity is positive activity, and if you stop doing stuff, then the creeping heebie jeebies start to get into you, and once that happens, it's just a matter of time before it's all over.

"Third piece of advice: take things at a steady, safe pace. Always have a few places where you can get shelter. Keep sources of fire handy whenever possible. Be on the lookout for food and clean water. Since it's not much fun to watch contestants die of dysentery, the Arena's got plenty of local flora and fauna that's safe to eat, and even the starting stat suits come with filters to clean the water the moment you drink it, as long as it's not _too_tainted, but you'll still need to actually _have_the food and water if you want to eat and drink, so keep notes on where you found interesting stuff that might be useful later. There's a feature in the stat suit to let you do just that, and I suggest you use it lots.

"Once you've got some base camps where you can fall back, you can take the rest of the Arena at your own pace, as fast as you think you can manage without dying. The more places you go, and the more exciting things you do, the higher your score will be, and that's money in your pockets, as well as credits to spend on upgrading your stat suits between episodes, but you'll still get a decent score if you just survive long enough, however boring that survival might be. So, even if it won't earn you super-stardom, staying alive needs to be your first priority, not being a glory hound. That's especially true if you plan on getting into the entertainment scene after this, doing music or writing or acting or whatever: when you're an entertainer, most people don't care much about what you did in the Arena, only that you were there, willing to risk it all for your art. That's all the cred you need to succeed, whatever you might decide to do after you retire. Doing more might give you a nice boost in popularity, sure, but that's all short-term stuff, and it fades pretty fast with time and real success.

"What I've just said about earning points counts extra for dungeons, by the way. Dungeons are pretty obvious, believe me, because they're almost always indoors, in artificial structures, most of them made up to look like ancient ruins or something similar, from the past history of various cultures in the PGR, or from archaeology on the fringes. They're also crammed to the brim with robots made to look like scary monsters...and also a few _real_scary monsters, ogres they're called, that are big, strong, cunning, and _really_dangerous. Just entering a dungeon and staying there for a little while makes your score skyrocket, besides your chances of finding extra loot just lying around. But it also makes your chances of survival drop like your homeworld's stock market once it got bought out by the PGR. If you wanna get noticed, maybe win yourself some sponsors like Blaag has, or you wanna risk big to earn big, and you're feeling pretty confident in your base camps and being able to handle the local dangers, then you might try a shorter dungeon or two, but I really don't recommend it if you plan on playing the long game, instead of the get-rich-quick route."

Then Frayd's eyes grew hard, making their deep blue turn to ice.

"Last piece of advice, and then I've gotta dash: I've got an interview coming up before I head back down," she said, popping the last piece of her meal into her muzzle, then taking her time to chew it before she continued. "In the fight up here on the Circus, if you survive the Arena, be ready to sacrifice anything or anyone for success. What matters most is making it, and in the world of the Circus, with its glam and glitz, that means you should be ready for backstabs, treachery, and betrayal, and be just as ready to dish it out. Blaag's been through two teams like his present one already, and believe me, he's done pretty well for himself. It's a pattern I've seen a lot, especially in the people who make the most money, accrue the most fame. If you really want to succeed in the fight outside the Arena, then you'd do well to learn from those examples. And with that, I've gotta break for it: good luck, and catch you on the flipside."

Standing, leaving me and Mac stunned into silence, Frayd started to carry her tray toward the exit of the cafeteria, and the trash receptacles right by the doors.

"Hey!" Mac suddenly called out, stopping the foxy lady in her tracks. "Do you really believe what you just said? About...that last bit."

I can see the shoulders slump, the head tilting down as Frayd looks at her feet.

"No," she admits. "But it's still good advice."

Chapter 6

All the stuff Frayd Luce said is still churning around in my brain when me'n Neph leave the cafeteria. What she said about being willing to betray people for fame and fortune, especially, was really bothering me. Could I do something like that to anybody I knew, if I knew that I'd get lots of money in return? Could I do that to Neph? That was why I was there at the Circus, ready to go down to the Arena, after all: to earn money for my family. But could I look my parents or any of my brothers in the eyes if I knew I'd earned that money doing something dirty?

There were lines of light on the ground, complete with big letters providing directions, and the auto-translator in the stat suit made them blur for just a moment before they turned into plain Earth lingo. There were still some directions for how to get out of there, to quit the Arena and go someplace safe instead (and some of those took pains to insult anybody who'd ignore the good advice they offered), but both me and Neph ignored those, opting instead to follow the line, bright and glowing gold, that led to this massive auditorium. That was where we were going to get our final orientation, the directions on the various signs around here said, before we went down to the Arena. Our last chance to back out, or to pick up those last few little pointers that might keep us alive a little longer. Long enough to cash in for the folks back home.

You'd probably have thought that there'd be this real press for seats in a packed room like this auditorium was, but whatever else you might say about the Pan-Galactic Republic, they've got some pretty incredible but simple ways of handling life's little problems. In this case, they handled crowd control by having short rows of chairs that popped out of the floor near the auditorium's entrance, and when you sat on them, they took you to the next available sitting area, just rolling along until you were where you were supposed to be. They even had some basic controls, so you could program the chairs to let you sit next to somebody specific, provided you did the request before the chairs of both you and your friend had gotten settled into place.

While Neph went off, being a gentleman ('cause I felt like letting him play the part, I guess: sometimes I have my moods), getting us some chairs, and while I was still churning all that stuff Frayd had said around and around in my head, trying to figure out what I'd do if money, fame, and glory were on the line, I saw this old guy standing off to one side of the incoming crowds. He was a Ganhammen, one of these huge, buff lizard dudes, except this one had obviously started that trek over the hill. I mean, you could see how his once-broad shoulders were now all slumped, and while you could still see how muscular he'd been back in his day through the skintight black stat suit he was sporting, even I could tell that this was one lizard that was well past his prime.

Normally I don't really like dealing with aliens much. Guess I'm just used to Humans, having been around them all my life, not having many dealings with things that didn't come from Earth, except when they showed up to make life inconvenient. Right now, though, I guess I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't going to be a selfish, greedy, power-hungry monster like Frayd had said we should be. That I was going to show everybody how great us Humans could be, like some sort of cultural ambassador, or something stupid like that. So I walked up to the old guy, stepping out of the main flow of traffic in the process, and tried to start up a conversation.

"They kinda ride up, don't they?" I asked him, and he blinked, tilting his head questioningly, and though the natural expression of his people was kind of fierce, with this big crest and sharp eye ridges, I didn't get the impression that he was hostile or anything, just curious. "The stat suits, I mean."

"Ah," he said after a pause to process what I'd said, nodding his understanding a moment later. "Yes. But you do get used to it after a while. Actually, you come to appreciate the suits very quickly, after they save your life a few times."

"Not your first time in the Arena, huh?" I ask, offering my hand, which he takes after a moment's hesitation (I'd forgotten that not everybody shakes hands as a greeting), his fingers almost engulfing my own, though I still manage to give him a pretty good squeeze and shake before letting go. "I'm Mac, by the way."

"You may call me," he searches for the right word for a moment, "Sarge. Most of my friends use that nickname, and you can as well."

"Thanks, Sarge," I say with a light grin, glad that he's not the mean sort, at least. "I guess you've been through enough orientation meetings to know the drill. It's my first, though. Maybe you'd like to come and sit with me and my friend?"

"That is all right, Mac," he said, his scaly lips curling into a pretty close approximation of a smile. "I have...prior arrangements. But I do thank you for the thought. So," he regarded me quizzically, "you have come for fame and fortune, yes? The bright dreams of youth. What plans do you have for the future?"

That made me blink, and then give a short laugh.

"There's not much point planning for the future now, is there?" I ask, still chuckling. "I mean, the Arena's random, mostly. There's no way to tell if I'll even live to see the end of today, let alone the ten days it'll take before my first pickup."

"This is true," Sarge admits with a sage nod. "But, really, you shouldn't worry so much. After all, when your number is up, it is up. Until then, it is best to just carry on as though you will keep going forever, and have to live with every choice you made along the way, good as well as bad. Every friendship, and every betrayal; every joy, and every regret. The good choices are not necessarily to keep you alive longer, but rather to let you enjoy what life you get to its fullest."

"So you're an epicurean?" I laugh, amused, but the old guy just gave me this quizzical, tilted-head look again, so I gave him a quick summary about what epicureans were all about.

"Ah," he nodded, the crest on his head curling up slightly, while his eyes widened a little, movements I started to figure out were his kind's equivalent of a smile, since he'd done the same thing when he was trying to mimic the Human expression earlier. "Yes, that does sound like me. At least, it is how I like to think of myself. I do have few regrets because of my choices. I hope you can live similarly, for when you reach your sunset years and have little but time to reflect on what passed before." Then he blinked, looking behind me, and I followed his gaze, which led straight to Neph, who was resting both his hands on a pair of the moving chairs, waiting patiently for me to come and sit with him. "You had better go with your friend," he said with a gentle smile, the expression strange on his hard-featured reptile's face, but somehow pleasant as well, obviously one that he'd practiced quite a bit, since smiling was a pretty widely used facial expression among the sapients of the PGR. "Everyone else is settled now, and the last orientation will start soon."

We said our goodbyes, and I hurried over to Neph, before we both hopped in the chairs. Riding them was actually kind of fun, really smooth across the floor and up the incline to the places where we were going to sit. It was near the back, of course, since I'd taken so long talking to the old guy, and there had to have been at least two hundred people packed in all around us, separated only by the little dividers that spaced out each of the moving seats.

The moment our chairs locked into place, and before I even had a chance to tell Neph about the neat old guy I'd met, the lights dimmed everywhere except for the big stage at the front of the auditorium. A big screen lowered, and immediately an image of the stage appeared on it, blown up to allow everybody to see clearly as the guy who was supposed to address us walked out onto the stage, tall and slow and stately as he strode confidently to the podium.

It was the old guy, the Ganhammen geezer I'd just been talking to! Behind him, on the screen, I saw his name spelled out, something with a few too many syllables for my mouth to wrap around without some serious linguistic gymnastics, as well as his title: Circus Armsmaster.

"Oh crap," I muttered softly.

"Wasn't that the guy...?" Neph started to ask, and I gave him a quick nod. "Oh crap," he agreed.

The Armsmaster was probably the third most important guy in the Circus, the one responsible for providing equipment and assistance to contestants. He was also responsible for getting contestants out of the Arena when they had an emergency. If I'd made him upset somehow, and me or Neph needed a pickup to stay alive, I might have just shot our collective chances of survival in the foot.

We didn't get much time for this to sink in, though: the final orientation started pretty much as soon as the Armsmaster got to the podium.

Chapter 7

"Greetings, my noble friends," said the Armsmaster, gripping the podium in both his large hands, the sharp-looking black claws sinking into well-worn holes gouged into its underside from much use. "I am glad to see so many of you this time around. I also see that a great many of you are Humans. Not surprising, considering that you are some of the newest members of the PGR: the Arena is one of the fastest ways to rise from humble origins, after all. With the economic downturn you suffered, which forced your planets and population centers to join the Pan-Galactic Republic or starve in bankruptcy, I am glad to welcome those of you who have come to regain the fortunes that you have lost."

There were a few murmurs from the crowd, but the Armsmaster raised a clawed hand, and something in the way he carried himself, in his sheer, commanding _presence_just made the noises from the audience dry up, letting him continue without interruption.

"I was very young when my own people were absorbed by the PGR, and so I know how it is," he explained. "We also tried to wage war with the PGR, though our fight was with weapons rather than economics. We lost, just as you Humans lost, for like you we were the aggressors, and like you we did not realize how completely outmatched we were until it was far too late. The Arena wasn't an option until later, but I was able to save my family from poverty and starvation by joining one of the state-licensed mercenary companies that serve the Republic. The same company that caused my people so much grief, if I must be honest, for though they had fought against my people, the Ganhammen, they were also honorable, and we had learned to respect them. I was not a poor loser, and was not so proud that I would turn down an opportunity when I saw it.

"When the Circus became more popular, almost three standard centuries ago, I gained great fortune as one of the Arena's second wave of contestants. There are some, if you will forgive a moment of prideful recollection, who have said that I was the most successful contestant of my day. These are all matters of public record, readily available to anyone with a connection to the Republic's information network, should you care to test the truth of my words.

"When our present Ringmaster came to his position, almost two centuries ago, back when he was made of more flesh and less machine, one of the first Humans to voluntarily join the Republic, he put some of your Human showmanship techniques to work on what he found. He turned the Circus from a mere gladiatorial show into an event like none other, and so it has remained ever since. He brought me out of retirement to serve as the Armsmaster, and others to serve as Arena Master, Showmaster, Beastmaster, and so on, all working together to bring his vision to pass. That vision has created the greatest show in the Republic. A show in which all of you will now take part."

He spread his arms wide, the gesture encompassing all of us, drawing us in, making us all a part of something far greater than any one of us could ever hope to become by ourselves.

"You are the brave ones," he said, and though his tone was soft, gentle, it was captivating as well. "The ones who will risk all for your dreams. That is why you are the only ones who deserve to have those dreams come to pass: because of what you are willing to sacrifice for what you believe is important. Your lives, your limbs, your very souls. For this willingness, you will reap great rewards. And no matter what you suffer, or even if you die, your loved ones will not be left wanting. In that way, you will live on, a legacy unending."

Growing up on Third Level, I'd learned a cynicism that belied my tender years, or something like that. At least that's what I'd thought right up until that moment, as the Armsmaster, "Sarge," paused, letting the full impact of what he'd said sink into his audience.

This guy was good!

With an effort, I turned my head to look at Neph, my movement enough to get his attention in turn, breaking the spell this charismatic lizard had cast over us both...well, lessening it, anyway: he really was_a good speaker. Probably just as good at leading soldiers into battle, too, yelling out orders from the front while certain death waited just ahead, and getting his troops to follow him, not just willingly, but _happily.

"Now we get to the practicalities of this final briefing," the Armsmaster finally continued, lowering his hands back to their grip-points on the podium. "Each of us in the staff of the Circus has an appointed task. The purpose of the Arena Master and the Beastmaster is to arrange appropriate challenges for you, dangerous, but exciting for viewers as well, which means they probably won't immediately kill you. At least not without giving you a chance. The Showmaster's job is to ensure that you achieve fame and fortune outside of the Arena, acting as your contact point and publicist for finding agents, sponsors, and those who will help produce whatever works you create after you have proven your willingness to risk everything for your art or craft.

"My job," he continued, pride evident in his tone, the crest on his head swelling up, its faded colors brightened by his sheer earnestness, "is to keep you alive. The Armsmaster is given the duty to ensure that your stat suits work properly, that your equipment in the field is functional, and, if all else fails, to be ready to pick you up at a moment's notice, whisking you from harm and back here, to the safety of the Circus."

He motioned behind him, and the great viewscreen there flickered, then showed a diagram of the stat suits we were all wearing, though in a generic bipedal format, empty of its wearer. That he thought pretty highly of that piece of clothing was obvious from the way he thrust out his chest at the sight of it.

"Here is an example diagram of the stat suit you are all wearing," the Armsmaster explained, walking out from behind the podium to gesture more expansively toward the display. "It's a work of art and engineering merged seamlessly. The entire suit is filled with nanotech - made out of it, actually - microscopic robots that cling together like fabric, but are fully adaptive. The PGR's authorized mercenary units, and other personnel in dangerous straits, all make use of such technology, which is military grade. It's designed to be adaptive, to adjust its makeup depending on what programs are fed into the weave of the suit, and that's what most of the 'treasure chests,' or 'loot crates' as some call them, contain: programs that tell your stat suits to change into something more powerful, more useful, and more able to provide you with survivability.

"Ah, but that is all for later," the Armsmaster said dismissively, waving one hand as though brushing this hint of future wonders aside like so much stardust. "What you need to know are the things that will keep you alive for your first twenty days. That's how long the stat suit is rated for use, incidentally, the maximum length of time before the bio-converters in each tiny robotic strand start to wear down and require servicing before they can be used properly again. Go longer than twenty Standard days, and you start to experience glitches, and then errors, and finally the suit starts to fall apart.

"Naturally, to avoid such dangers, we space all pickups for ten standard days apart, ensuring plenty of opportunities for both you and your suits to recover. The stat suits have numerous heads-up displays, or HUDs, and I strongly recommend you quickly find the one that tells you the time and place of your next pickup from the Arena, and then make sure you are there early. Do trust me: you do not want to take chances with your stat suit, because it is often the only thing that keeps you alive down there."

Letting this information sink in, the Armsmaster nodded at the display behind him, and it immediately shifted to a closeup of the inner screens of the stat suit: apparently, even though there wasn't any visible visor, it automatically projected its HUDs right onto our optic nerves, and the same with its sounds onto the nerve endings that made our ears work.

"I won't spend much time telling you how to make use of all the many features of the stat suit," the Armsmaster told us with a light shrug. "Part of the experience of the Arena is discovering these things for yourself, and I personally believe in hands-on training anyway. All I will tell you is how to access the HUDs, which will allow you to begin your exploration. We've been very thorough, and made the process as accessible as possible, so you'll find many ways to access the stat suit's internal systems. You can just ask it to show you what you want, which is the simplest way for most of you here. You can use your hands, or the manipulators of your choice, to interact with the holographic displays. You can even use micro-vocalizations and the movements of your eyes alone, once you've had a little practice. And here," he gestured to the display behind him, which suddenly showed a massive red button, "is the single most important feature of the stat suit: the panic button."

Now he turned back to us, fixing us with his full attention, his voice easily carrying to each and every one of us, even though I didn't see any sort of microphone taped to his head (was it the stat suits, beaming his words straight to our ears?), his tone earnest, intense.

"Don't tamper with the stat suits," he said, enunciating each word clearly and precisely. "As long as you wear the suit, the countless micro-cameras all over the Arena are able to follow you, and beam your activities to our central computers. Wearing the suit, without meddling with its workings, is considered a legally binding acceptance of the Circus' right to film you and broadcast everything you do in the Arena in exchange for the very generous monetary rewards we give to our contestants.

"You could make changes, or even take off the suit if you put some effort into finding a way, but if you do, that will be considered an immediate forfeiture, a sign to us that you no longer want to be a contestant, and we will cease to award you points. It is also a sign that you are terminally foolish, because the bio-converters in the stat suit not only whisk away sweat, hair, and dermal tissue as you shed it, they also absorb your body's heavier solid and liquid wastes as well, so that you should never have a need for a 'pit stop' while in the Arena. The suit even makes use of the waste heat given off by most ectotherms, such as you Humans in the audience, or hot-blooded reptiles like myself, turning all of it into power for the suit's functions. Without the stat suit properly in place, these waste products from your body, from sweat to sebaceous oils to feces to heat, all give the creatures in the Arena a clear spoor to follow. And once they catch your scent, you will never be rid of them...not until they have you."

The big lizard fixed us all in the gaze of those piercing eyes.

"If you really want to leave the Arena," he said, pointing to the big red button, "use the panic button. I have crash teams waiting on standby at all times for the panic button's signals, wherever they might be, and in ideal conditions, we can respond within ten to fifteen Standard minutes. Ten minutes is an eternity when your lives are in danger, however, so I strongly recommend that you use it either right before or right after you have encountered a crisis. If that isn't possible, and you truly want to stop being a contestant, then I recommend that you hit the button, and then run, and keep running until my crash team can catch up with you. While you'll have a penalty to your final score for leaving the Arena early, perhaps that's better than ending up dead." Then he shrugged, a light smirk on his scaly lips. "Or not: the Circus pays a rather nice bonus toward the beneficiaries of contestants who don't survive the rigors of the Arena. I leave the choice up to you."

The display behind Sarge went blank, and he returned to his place at the podium, his manner like that of an earnest grandfather giving his last advice to his loved ones, young, inexperienced, and about to try and make a place in the world for themselves at last.

"For any of you to have made it this far," he observed, "you must have something you feel is worth dying for. I only hope that it is also worth living for as well. If you survive your first ten days, I will be waiting with further briefings, each with more information that I hope will improve your chances of survival." As he said this, his voice sounded so tired, and so sad, as though he knew far too many of us wouldn't be able to hear him again. "Until then, I wish you the blessings of whatever gods you worship, and that the prayers of your loved ones will fall on merciful ears. Finally, I wish you luck." The old lizard paused a moment. "But more than that: I wish that you will not need luck."

Giving us all a slight bow, the Armsmaster turned and started to walk from the stage, heavy tail dragging behind him. We didn't get to see him actually step off the stage, though, because by that time the chairs we were sitting in were already starting to make their way out into the aisles, trundling toward the exits...and the transports eagerly waiting to take us down to the Arena.