It gave me a breathing spell. They piled on one another until I thought that the meet would end then and there. A Venusian spiderman bent to pick up the emerald and had five of his limbs and his head cut off before he could straighten again. A Gadaboot grabbed it and tried to dart out of the crush but ran into the darting rapier of a Uranian. Rising dust swirled up and enveloped the rest.
In moments, the fight had settled down into a series of individual combats all over the field.
I could see the slow moving Slaber from Jupiter stalking about weaponless, seizing and crushing all with whom he came in contact. I could see the Mercurian Bouncers dying like flies, but killing their share and more of opponents with the razor sharp spurs attached to their feet. They would fling themselves high into the air and come down from above, heels slashing death.
I had no more time to observe. Five remaining Calypso Dwoorfs disengaged themselves from a fight centering about two Venusians, spied me, and dashed in my direction.
Ordinarily, the Calypso gladiators would be even weaker than we Terrans, but they have the advantage of a universal mind. That is, they think together. Each knows what every other Dwoorf is thinking; it goes beyond mere mental telepathy. They act as though they were a single individual. Talk about team work! You get three or four of them about you, all working in complete and perfect harmony, and you're sunk.
I groaned for my manager's advice again and resigned myself. When they got within fifteen feet of me they opened their mouths and cried in unison. "Prepare to die, Terran makron."
For a second that did it. I raised my short sword and started toward them. They spread out like a fan to encircle me. Once again I didn't consciously figure it out. The idea came spontaneously with my acting upon it. I just suddenly turned on my heel and started to run. They followed me like a pack.
I'd gotten halfway across the arena and could hear the thousands in the arena seats booing me like thunder, before it came back to me what I'd read. It was a trick some gladiator from Rome or Greece had pulled once. I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, they were still coming, but now they were strung out in a line. The fastest runner of them all was only a short distance behind me, the slowest, quite a ways back. The other three were in between at varying distances.