Shirley put her arm around me. “I’m sorry. This is my fault. I pushed a little too quickly. Let’s take it a little slower. Computer, circle targets please.”
The silhouettes disappeared, replaced by a simple red spot.
She picked up the pistol and put it back in my hand. “Give it another try, Challers.”
I shook my head, too confused and scared to even speak.
“Challers.” She turned me around and looked into my eyes. “If you let this get a hold on you, you’re going to have a much harder time breaking it. Now hold up that weapon and shoot the circle. Just a test of coordination. Nothing more than that, not even symbolically. Now deep breaths. Remember your training. Remember your meditation.”
She turned me around, took my wrist, and pointed it at the dot. “Shoot, Challers.”
I felt queasy and my head hurt. Anywhere but there, I wanted to be anywhere but there with a death-spitting weapon at the end of my arm and no good purpose for it. I could imagine its orgone collector lurking inside it, eating my fear and pain.
Shirley persisted. “Come on. Deep breaths. Calm your mind. Squeeze the trigger.”
I squeezed. The weapon bucked in my hand and a blue spot appeared on the wall, about a meter away from the circle.
“Good! Now this time, open your eyes, and aim.”
I opened my eyes, again, just then realizing that I had closed them. My hands trembled too much to hold the pistol straight. “I can’t do it.”
“Nonsense,” said Shirley. “You just did. Now try it again.”
Deep breaths. Calm mind. Squeeze.
Dead center.
“Excellent!” She took her hand from my arm and stepped back. “Now again, on your own.”
Another deep breath.
Crack
!
Crack
!
Deep breath.
Crack
!
Crack
!
Swallow.
Crack
!
Crack
!
One by one, lights appeared in the red circle, showing where I had hit.
“Nice grouping, Challers. You really are good at this, when you let yourself.”
“Shirley, believe me. I don’t think I could ever use one of these things on a human being.”
“Whether that’s true or not, you won’t know unless the time comes to test it. And if it does, you’ll be in much better shape to handle the situation if you have the skills to use this weapon effectively. Keep shooting. Empty it.”
I held it on target and fired, thirty times or so, until the lights on the back turned red and it wouldn’t fire again.
“Good.” Shirley handed me a small block of metal and used her own weapon to demonstrate. “Here’s how you reload. The port here opens when you’ve fired the last flechette. Slide the ammo in, close the port. That simple.” She took up a new firing stance, this time down on one knee. “This stance gives you more stability, but it’s not as quick if you have to dodge out of the way or engage hand to hand. Use this for ranges of twenty meters or so. Computer, reduce target circles by ten percent.”
I looked at the “ammunition” in my hand. It was a flat block of metal, no bigger than the palm of my hand. I copied what she had done and the weapon accepted it.
In the new stance, after Shirley positioned me correctly, I squeezed off another thirty shots. It was getting easier. I was getting used to the feel of the weapon, but the shock of my first reaction remained, waiting for me. I could feel my nerves unraveling and I wanted to be done with this, to put these terrible machines away.
We practiced one more firing stance, on our bellies, and when that was done, I stood up and walked to the cabinet to put the pistol back where it had come from.
“Challers?”
“I’m done for today. I can come back tomorrow, but I’m getting jumpy. I feel sick. I need to move, to work some of this off.”
“That’s fair. Let’s do some stretches, warm up, and then we’ll check out your wrestling moves. Let’s see if Grecca taught you anything while I was away.”
I smiled, glad that she was agreeing, but still dreading the next time I would have to pick up a gun. “Same penalty for losing? You know I fight harder when something is at stake.”
“Mmm, you do. All right. Same penalty.”
The anticipation built while we did some calisthenics. I still didn’t feel entirely well, and I needed the activity to burn it off. Once we got our blood moving, Shirley stepped to the edge of the wrestling circle.
“Ready?”
Shirley waited until the moment I spoke to rush across the circle, forcing me to either dodge her or immediately accept her grapple. Ten days before, this tactic was enough to throw me off balance and give her the upper hand. I had picked up a trick from Grecca, however, and I was ready. I spun and grabbed her arm, pulling it across my back. Her momentum carried her around in a tight arc. She tried to shift and catch me, but she was going too fast and landed on the mat with her arm twisted in my grip.
She blinked, stunned momentarily by the impact, then smiled up at me. “Nice throw, but you haven’t got me yet.” She lifted one leg up onto my shoulder and shoved with a grunt, yanking her arm out of my grasp.
I leapt on top of her before she could roll back to her feet, but she caught my ankle between her legs and scissored me onto my back with a powerful wrench of her legs. It was my turn to see stars. She wrapped herself around my body, pinning one arm under her chest and gripping my thighs between her legs. With only one hand free my options were limited, and I could feel her maneuvering to put me in the double arm-lock that would put me at her mercy.
I growled and strained, resisting the slow progress of her hold. In spite of my twenty kilos of mass advantage, our strength was equal and she had the advantage.
Power wasn’t going to do it for me, so I reached down to where her knee crossed in front of my thigh and gripped the area just above her knee between my thumb and fingers. I squeezed, hard, and felt spasms loosen her grip. I kicked my legs and got them free of her encircling thighs. I let my captive arm go limp and rolled up onto my knees, pulling Shirley up with me. She was strong, but not terribly heavy. Before I could reverse the hold on her, she let go and sprang away.
“Did Grecca teach you that knee trick?”
“Yep.”
“That girl really loves to—
wowf!
”
Without warning, I’d lunged and grabbed for her wrist. She pulled away, but I had placed my foot behind her ankle where I knew she would move and she stumbled. I hooked another foot while she tried to recover and we both went down, legs tangled. I was ready, though, and as she tried to recover, I grabbed her arm and pulled her in, maneuvering her into the same behind-the-neck arm lock that was her favorite hold. Kneeling astride her hips, with one arm pinning her raised arms to my shoulder, I had her helpless.
“And she knows a few moves you don’t know.”
Shirley grunted, trying to pull free, but she was caught. Unfortunately, bent over her the way I was, I couldn’t reach her very ticklish feet. I pulled her shirt up over her tits and tickled her ribs and the parts of her belly I could reach, but I couldn’t get much more than a twitch here and there.
“Hmm, I seem to be in a bit of a predicament.”
“Forgive me if I withhold my sympathy,” Shirley growled between struggles.
“I think I’m just going to have to hunt around for someplace else.”
I explored the parts of her body within reach, letting my touch go soft or heavy as the mood struck me, carefully monitoring her reactions for any sign of ticklishness. The only tension at all seemed to come when I moved over her breasts, and I knew it wasn’t laughter she was holding in.
It wasn’t working. She just wasn’t ticklish anywhere but her feet. If I was going to get hold of them, I would have to let her out of the shoulder lock, and she was struggling too hard to make that easy. I paused to consider my options.
Something came to mind, but it would definitely be taking this exercise to a new level.
“How dirty are we fighting?” I asked.
“Try not to do anything that’ll put me in a gentank,” she said. “But aside from that . . .”
“Good.” I reached around in front of her and tweaked one of her nipples as hard as I could.
She shrieked in pain, and when I let go of her arms, her hands immediately moved to cradle her breast. In the moment her hands were occupied, I spun around and sat on her thighs, gripping her hips between my knees. I took her slender ankles in one hand and pressed them to the mat. With my weight on her legs, she couldn’t move much except to thrash her arms; she had no leverage to throw me off or twist out of my hold.
“You’re going to pay for that next time, Challers.”
“Next time isn’t this time.”
I went to work on her feet, and her threats disappeared in a wave of laughter. The little cruelty of the pinched nipple felt good and I tickled her mercilessly. The last time I had done this, I gave her breaks to catch her breath, but something made me make the most of this opportunity. Even when she started gasping, “No,” “Stop,” “Please,” in between desperate gulps of air, I kept it up.
And then I smelled something.
I released her and stood up.
She curled up, gasping for breath. Her shorts were soaking wet and there was a puddle on the mat beneath her.
“Shirley, I’m sorry. Oh, vack . . .”
Still panting, Shirley got to her feet. The front of her shorts was soaked too. “End of lesson.”
If her expression left any doubt about her annoyance, her clipped speech removed it.
I had never made Shirley angry with me before. I didn’t know how she would react, what she would do.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. My stomach started up with its twists and grinds.
“Enough,” she said, and turned towards the showers.
I had gone too far, way too far.
“I never wanted this to happen.”
“Of course not,” she said, stripping off her fouled clothes and dumping them into the recycler.
I stood, nervously watching, until she waved her hand at the nozzles. “Go on, you probably need it too.”
I undressed and got under the spray. I faced the wall, ashamed.
Shirley took a deep breath. “If we’re going to play like this, we need to establish a rule. If either of us is in pain, or otherwise in real distress, then we have to stop right there. We need a signal we can give when it really, really has to stop immediately and completely. Struggling is half the fun, but an accident like this is not, and a real injury would be even worse.”
“Um, yeah. I see what you mean.”
“Each of us needs one. Don’t choose a signal like ‘no’ or ‘stop’ or ‘vack’ or anything like that. You make it a word you wouldn’t ordinarily say.”
I considered. I would want my word to be something easy to say, but distinctive.
“For me, it’ll be ‘tablet,’” she said.
“Any reason it can’t be the same for me?”
“Oh, show some creativity.”
I had a sudden impulse to say Valka’s name, but it seemed silly and I held back. “How about ‘oxygen?’”
“Good.”
We finished our showers, dried off, put on fresh clothes, and headed out to the mess hall a little early for breakfast.
And then, as we came around a corner, I was face to face with Valka.
“Challers!” she said. A tentative half-smile came to her lips. “You’re looking good.”
“You too,” I said, but it was a lie. Even though she had continued to fill out, the haunted look I had seen in our last encounter was worse. It hurt to see her like this.
Masters came up behind her. “We have a class to get to, Valka.”
“I’ll catch up, if it’s all right?”
“Don’t be too long.” He gave us both a stern look before continuing down the hall.
Shirley patted me on the shoulder. “I’ll get a tray for you. See you inside.”
“Thanks.”
Valka stood nervously, her arms wrapped around her middle. “I wonder if it would be all right with you if I sent you a message, once in a while?”