Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction; Venus (Planet) -- Fiction
As a boy, the earth-man had often seen larger boys point to their cheek
or shoulder, with the words: “There is an electric button there. Touch
it and something will fly out and hit you.” But never as a boy had he
dared to press the magic button, for he could well imagine the result.
Such a result now occurred to Jud; for, the instant his fingers touched
Cabot’s cheek, out flew Cabot’s clenched fist smack to the point of
Jud’s jaw, and tumbled him in the dust.
Jud picked himself up snarling, shook himself, and then rushed bull-like
at the earth-man, who stood his ground, ducked the flying arms of his
antagonist, and tackled him as in the old football days at college. Jud
was thrown for a four-yard loss with much of the breath knocked out of
his body.
Theoph the Grim, with a worried frown, and Arkilu the Beautiful, with an
entranced smile, stood by and watched the contest.
The Vairking noble lay motionless on his back as Myles scrambled to his
knees astride the other’s body and placed his hands on the other’s
shoulders. But suddenly, the underdog threw up his left leg, caught
Myles on the right shoulder and pushed him backward. In an instant both
men were on their feet again, glaring at each other.
Then they clinched and went down once more, this time with Jud on top.
Theoph’s look changed to a smile, and Arkilu became worried. But before
Jud had time to follow up his advantage, Cabot secured a hammerlock
around his neck and shoulders, and then slowly forced him to one side
until their positions were reversed, and the shoulders and hips of the
furry one were squarely touching the ground.
In a wrestling match, this would have constituted a victory for Myles
Cabot, but this was a fight and not a mere wrestling match; so the
earth-man secured a hammerlock again and turned Jud the Excuse-Maker
over until he lay prone, whereupon the victor rubbed the nose of the
vanquished back and forth in the dirt, until he heard a muffled sound
which he took to be the Vairkingian equivalent of the “’nuff” so
familiar to every pugnacious American schoolboy.
His honor satisfied, Cabot arose, brushed himself off, and bowed to the
two spectators. Jud sheepishly got to his feet as well, all the fight
knocked out of him. Theoph stared at the victor with displeasure and at
his own countryman with disgust, but Arkilu rushed over to Cabot with a
little cry, flung her arms around him, and drew him within the tent.
As they passed through the curtains, Myles heard Jud the Excuse-Maker
explaining to the king: “I decided to let him beat me, so that thereby I
might give pleasure to her whom I love.”
Inside the tent, Arkilu bathed the scratches and bruises of the
earth-man, and hovered around him and fussed over him as though he had
accomplished something much more wonderful than merely to have come out
on top in a schoolboy rough-and-tumble fight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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