CHAPTER XI
Og stood in our little doorway, talking to Nona. He was a young man about my own age. I have since learned he was not full-blooded Marinoid—but that can come later. He was somewhat taller than Nona, but shorter than myself. His legs, with their connecting membrane, were bare to slightly above the knee. From there to his shoulders, he was dressed in the characteristic Marinoid fashion—a single-piece garment of green woven grass. On his bulging chest he wore an ornament—a flat, circular affair of many tiny shells linked together. His four, tentacle-like arms waved before him. The hair on his head was thick and matted, but short. With one of his pincers he would occasionally brush it—a gesture evidently intended to impress Nona with his grace.
Og’s face—with features not much different from my own except that his mouth was larger and his eyes slightly protruding—was nevertheless most unpleasant. His chin was weak, his expression egotistical; and more than that, I never liked the way he looked at Nona.
A queer sort of being—this Marinoid—for me to be jealous of! If you are thinking that, you are wholly wrong. We were living in a Marinoid world, and in all that world only Nona and I were queer-looking! It was we who were abnormal, not they!
Nona, with her flowing hair and her short grey-green Marinoid jacket, was to me the most beautiful creature in the world. But, as Caan pointed out, our eyes—Nona’s and mine—were set too deep in our head to be of real use in seeing sidewise. Our mouths were too small to admit the water comfortably, and our chests too small and immobile to handle it properly. Two arms, which could bend in only one direction, were surely not so advantageous as the four Marinoid arms; and our legs, without the connecting membrane, would keep us always very indifferent swimmers. This was before I demonstrated my muscular strength; Caan changed his opinion a little after that.
I have wandered from Og. Nona unwittingly attracted him, in spite of her physical handicaps. I know why now. He was a half-breed; the blood in his veins which was not Marinoid barred him from finding a mate among the Marinoid women. And when Nona came he wanted her.
I did not know this at the time, but I sensed it. And Nona too was afraid of Og, though she had not shown it outwardly.
I was in the other room this time when Og came to our new home. He stood there talking to Nona; and suddenly I heard her scream. I launched myself in a dive through the inner doorway. They were up near the ceiling and Nona was struggling with him. He was laughing; he dropped her, and came swimming down to face me, still grinning insolently.
“She is tempting,” he said. “She has learned the ways of the Marinoid women very quickly.”
I swam at him, but he avoided me; and before I could seize him, Caan appeared in the doorway and stopped me.
Nona was crying. Caan would let me do nothing. Physical altercations were a dire offense in Rax. I could report Og for trial and punishment, but I could not personally attack him.
In his insolent confidence, however, Og did the one thing I would have wanted. He swam at me and struck me lightly in the face with the side of his left-front arm. It was not so different from one of your old customs here on Earth. He had challenged me to public combat. A duel? Call it that, if you wish.
Caan made all the arrangements. We were to fight after the next time of sleep, in the open cube before the King’s palace, with the King, Queen and young Prince on the palace roof to judge us.
Nona was frightened; she cried all that day. At Caan’s suggestion we slept that next time in his home, where his wife (I use the term wife, although it is inapplicable) could care for Nona.
The combat was to be without artificial weapons—and in spite of Nona’s feminine fear—I could not take it seriously. I was only twenty, you will remember, and youth is absurdly confident in itself.
Caan, however, was very grave. I did not know it at the time, but the combat was intended to be to the death. Og understood it so—and the whole city was stirred by it. As for the King, it would be an interesting sport for him as spectator; a thousand times of sleep had passed since such a sight had been offered.
Caan was very kindly to me that evening, solicitous and perturbed. Once he started to question me about my methods of fighting. Youth is so foolish! I laughed at him.
“I shall twist him in my hands before he can touch me,” I said boastfully. “We will not talk of it now, my friend, Caan. It frightens my Nona.”
At once he subsided. He had indeed something important to tell me. But my words chanced to make him think I knew it. The Marinoid is by nature reticent; he will force nothing upon you—offer no advice that you do not solicit. I was as it happened entirely ignorant of this thing he feared; had I not been I should have looked forward to the combat with alarm and probably terror.
Nona would not go to the scene. But Caan went to represent me, and lay on the palace roof beside the King.
The cube of water was a brilliant, gay arena. Illuminated air bladders were hanging from the palace balconies and from the foliage above its roof-garden. Everywhere about the cube, top, bottom and all four sides, these lanterns were banked in rows, so that the open water in which we were to fight was a bright, greenish glare of light.
On the roof-top there were perhaps ten Marinoids in addition to the Royal Family. They were reclining behind the row of lamps; and these lamps were shaded like the footlights of one of your theatres.
Across the cube, facing the palace, were a few balconied houses of the more important inhabitants of the city. Their lights, too, were shaded to throw the beams outward toward the open water. These balconies were all crowded with Marinoid men and women.
At every street entrance to the cube other Marinoids were crowded; a hundred or more of them lay prone on the lower surface, their gaze directed upward. And above, a swarm of others clung to the roof of the arena, or hovered in the foliage, staring downward.
The King’s sleigh was gone from its platform; a group of his guards stood there instead. Occasionally one would swim out to warn back a trespasser.
When Caan and I arrived, the figure of Og, nude save for a loin-cloth, was hovering alone near the center of the open water; his legs were moving very slowly, his four arms waving as he sustained himself. Every eye in the crowd was upon him. His face bore a confident, leering smile—the challenger waiting for his opponent.
Shouts arose as Caan and I pushed forward through the crowd. Caan took my outer garment, and with a grave word of encouragement, left me. My gaze followed him as he swam upward to join the King’s party.
A hush fell upon the crowd. The water now was soundless; then suddenly Og called to me—a sneering shout of defiance. I was not afraid; I was sorry Nona was not here to see me fight.
Slowly I mounted upward through the empty water to meet Og. And then the Queen did a curious thing. Her soft but commanding voice rang out over the stillness; she ordered me up to the roof-top.
I obeyed, hovering respectfully before her.
“I hope that you will win,” she said softly, yet loud enough so that all might hear. “You are badly equipped to fight—but you are in the right.”
There was some applause, for Og was not popular in Rax; but she silenced it.
“Go—do your best.” She dismissed me with a gesture.
As I was turning away, my heart swelling with pride at the incident, the young Prince—he was about my own age, and had already shown some liking for me—called out softly but vehemently:
“Nemo, do not let him touch your head and feet at the same time.”
“No,” I said, “and I thank you both.”
I swam slowly back to meet Og. I had no idea what the Prince meant; but I followed his warning as well as I could, until in the heat of the fight, as you shall see, I forgot it.
Og was waiting, facing me alertly. His arms and legs had ceased waving; his body was tense; he was sinking slowly downward. I followed him down with no more than ten feet separating us. I wondered when he would come at me. I would wait; then grip him around his chest and crush him with my superior strength.
The silence in that bright, glaring water was oppressive; we were sinking nearly to the bottom of the arena. Without warning, I doubled my body and dove forward—rushing at Og with all the strength I could put into my swimming strokes.