Pandora's Box. Страница 6
Low wooden partitions with smooth handrails divided the rows, giving them something comfortable to lean on. The seating encircled the fenced central ring like a Roman amphitheater.
Kane fell silent, lost in thought as he tried to make sense of his feelings – there was something indescribable about this place, something peculiar to it alone, that made him feel almost… comfortable.
On the brightly lit ring clearly visible from where the friends sat the first gladiator appeared: a massive brute named Oth. The crowd erupted in a frenzy of cheers and thunderous applause. Oth looked truly menacing and was even larger than Draam – a mountain of muscle with no real neck to speak of, his massive head with its small, vicious eyes seeming to flow directly into his torso.
A few seconds later, movement stirred in the passageway. Swiftly, with a running start, the second fighter leapt over the high protective fence with effortless precision. The roar of the crowd grew even louder. There was no doubt – the fighter was a Rionian. He was nearly half Oth’s size, yet no one here seemed to care about the difference in weight classes.
«Tarion!» Kane shouted, startled and unable to believe his eyes as he caught sight of the Rionian. He climbed over the railing of the box and ran up to the ring. «Tarion, my friend, what are you doing there?!»
The Rionian, like many others, turned toward him, studying him with puzzled curiosity. It was unmistakably Tarion, yet the reaction Kane had expected – the joy of reunion, the warm clasp of hands between old friends long separated, never came. Instead, Tarion calmly approached the edge of the ring and looked straight at him.
«Do we know each other?» Tarion asked politely, watching Kane with measured curiosity.
«Tarion, my friend, have you hit your head or something?» Kane said anxiously, realizing from the Rionian’s eyes that he truly didn’t recognize him. «We’ve been looking for you for a damn long time, and here you are, lounging around in the ring!»
«So, my name is Tarion», the Rionian murmured quietly. «All right then. I suggest we meet after the fight, at my place. Since you’re seated in the grand box, the little robot should be able to show you the way.»
«After the fight?» Kane repeated, glancing uneasily at the arena. «Are you sure you’ll survive a brawl with that giant? We didn’t spend all this time searching for you just to scrape you off the ring!»
Tarion smiled in his familiar way. «That’s unlikely. It won’t take long.»
Kane had barely returned to the box when the fight began.
«It looks like he’s suffering from amnesia – he didn’t recognize me! And I don’t think he remembers much of anything at all!» Kane said to Draam and Smorg. «But it’s him, no question about it – that’s Tarion!»
«That would explain a lot», Draam replied. «Otherwise, why would he be hanging around this place?»
Despite Oth’s enormous size, the fight was brief, just like all of the Rionian’s previous bouts. Tarion was far faster, and the ancient combat techniques of the Rionian warriors were beyond comparison. Within a minute, after a flurry of blinding strikes, Oth was down, motionless on the floor, while Tarion, to the roaring ovation of the crowd, vanished from the Arena as swiftly as he had appeared.
Before long, the small robot led them into the residential section of the Arena, where the gladiators and service staff lived. The place was quiet and orderly – a pleasant and striking contrast to the chaotic quarters they had passed through on their way.
At last, the robot stopped and knocked on one of the doors. There was a soft click from a magnetic relay; the door slid inward, and the robot politely gestured for them to enter.
The friends stepped into a modest yet cozy dwelling with a small corridor branching into several rooms. Long shelves were crammed with books and buried under piles of manuscripts. More books lay scattered across the floor and the table as well.
«At least he’s true to form», said Draam. «Unless, of course, he’s started eating them now.»
«I’ve already devoured more than one book lately», came a voice from the dark corner. The Rionian stepped forward, dressed in a black fighter’s robe with a hood. «Well then, since you’re finally here, I suppose you have something to tell me, and I have something to hear.»
«Logic has always been your strong side», Kane said with a happy smile. «But for some reason, you don’t remember a thing! The last time we saw you, you were heading to the Galactic Council on Ilion – right when it was attacked, and that terrible explosion took countless lives! Since then, we’ve been searching for you, refusing to believe you were gone, and, as you see, we were right!»
«And may I ask», Tarion said with a puzzled frown, scratching his head, «why I went to the Galactic Council in the first place? Who are you, and what exactly connects us?»
«Yeah…» Kane muttered, scratching his own head in turn. «We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. And who do you think you are – some back-alley thug? You’re one of Ilion’s councillors, and our greatest friend! The real problem now», he went on, «is that you’re the smartest of us all, and no one can tell you enough to make up for what you’ve lost.»
«In short, we’d better get back to the Armaon», said Draam. «Maybe Maarv and Smorg can help restore your memory… Because otherwise… damn it, Kane’s right – this really is a problem.»
Chapter 6
Stepping out of the regeneration capsule, Tarion looked around the Armaon’s interior with astonishment, a perfectly natural reaction for anyone seeing it for the first time, or for the first time in a very long while. Yet in his case, things were far more complicated. Maarv and Smorg, assisted by Arma, had run a full scan and found no trace of physical damage.
«His memory will return», Smorg stated matter-of-factly. «Sooner or later. It depends on the circumstances… and on us. Each of us should, in turn, tell him something that might draw his mind out of the cage it’s trapped in.»
«Before we leave this planet, there’s someone I need to see and a few of my belongings I must retrieve», Tarion said, unsettled by the lingering tension around him and the unusual attention he seemed to attract. «A respectable Bajjaran who brought me here some time ago.»
«Your belongings?» Maarv asked. «And how many did you have?»
Tarion shrugged, pulled from his robe a small piece of thick fabric folded several times, and carefully unfolded it.
«This is all I had», he said, showing it to his friends.
On the fabric, drawn with a remarkably skilled hand, was the image of the Ticket rendered with extraordinary precision, down to the tiniest details, as if copied from its holographic projection.
«I’ve been trying to remember what it is», he continued. «Perhaps it was my only link to the past… something I needed to understand and restore.»
«My dear Tarion», Maarv smiled, «by irony of fate, that very object is one of the least studied and least understood in our universe known only to a small circle of the chosen. And you happen to be one of the leading experts in that field!»
«So, I’ve been wasting my winnings on local books and manuals, trying to dig up at least some information», Tarion said with a grin. «Still, there wasn’t much else to do around here anyway.»
«Still, it’s not that easy to get rid of brains and curiosity», Kane remarked. «Imagine, spending all your free time reading books… when you could be lying on the grass, knocking around the locals between rounds!»
Tarion laughed and for a moment, he was more like his old self than ever before.
«When I first arrived on Bajjar, I had no idea what I would do», Tarion began. «I left the ship that very day, and no one tried to stop me. Half the passengers had come hoping to strike it rich at the pearl fields, so I joined them. I wanted to see what it was all about – ever since I’d regained consciousness, everyone around me kept talking about the pink pearls. And, I must admit, I never once regretted it!»