Asodo Hatch entered Forum Three with a sack in his hand. The
sack was of synth, and waterproof, which was just as well, for
there was liquid within as well as something weighty.
        "Ho!" said Shona, bellowing her approval. "Ho, Hatch!"
        Hatch raised the sack in salute.
        Others roared applause. Above all, they loved the way the
victory had been won. This was not a cheating stunt like the
fractional win Hatch had earlier achieved by ejecting from his
singlefighter, with the machine destroying itself and his enemy
moments later. Instead, he had closed for an honest kill, a meat-
cleaving sword-kill, a work of bloody butchery. He had won with a
bright-daring stratagem worthy of a hero - and there were few in
that room who did not wish themselves heroes.
        But no Frangoni Combat Cadet or Startrooper in Forum Three
would look Hatch in the eye. For Hatch had disowned the Frangoni
nation, had disowned the Frangoni god.
        Hatch glanced at Talanta. That glance was sufficient to tell
him that his wife had not understood his shipboard dialog with
Sen Kaladan, couched as it had been in the Nexus Commonspeech, of
which she was entirely ignorant.
        But soon, doubtless, someone would tell her.
        Soon, doubtless, he would know.
        Asodo Hatch had renounced his god.
        Asodo Hatch had renounced the Great God Mokaragash, and he
had declared himself for Nu-chala-nuth.
        A thing said is a thing said wherever it is said. Written by
handscript or written in water, that which is said cannot be
unsaid. Too many Frangoni had witnessed the saying for the thing
to be kept secret. Hatch would be unwelcome hereafter on the
Frangoni rock. His name would be given to a dog, and then that dog
would be burnt alive in token of the community's displeasure.
        He had lost his people, he had lost his nation, and there was
no recovering them. He was an exile now, or would be soon, an
outcast stranger in his own city, a man without tribe, a man
without family, a man without a people.
        But Hatch was a warrior, and though he acknowledged what
he had done he nevertheless went on regardless, just as - in
battle - he would have stepped over the fresh-dead body of his
best friend to lead an attack which would win him victory.
        "Lupus!" shouted Hatch.
        Challenging.
        Looking around for his rival, for Lupus Lon Oliver.
        Where was he? Where was he?
        As Hatch was searching for him, Lupus came stumbling into
Forum Three, gray with shock. Lupus had just lived through the
trauma of having his head hacked off, and Hatch - Hatch was not
about to let him forget it.
        "Lupus," said Hatch.
        Lupus Lon Oliver turned to face his enemy, the man who had
outwitted him, who had outfeinted and outfought him, and had then
dealt him a grievous punishment.
        "Lupus," said Hatch, grinning. "A present for you."
        Then Hatch upended his sack, and out bounced Lupus Lon
Oliver's head, and rolled across the floor in a spew of blood, and
blood still splurged from the sack, pumping out in gouting
orgasms. Hatch grinned like a lunatic, grinned - then laughed
ferociously. As Hatch laughed, Lupus doubled up and vomited.
        "The Season!" said Hatch. "I live for the Season!"
        "Enough," said Paraban Senk, speaking from Forum Three's
display screen. "Hatch, you've won. Lon Oliver, you've lost. To
the victor, the spoils."
        Forum Three erupted. The audience howled, cheered, jeered,
stamped, and threw things.
        As Hatch stood firm to receive this mixed derision and
applause, a free-floating machine entered Forum Three, drifted
toward the simulcrum-head of Lon Oliver, swallowed it, vacuumed up
the artificial blood and was gone, satisfied with the competence
of its performance - though some stains of pseudoblood remained as
token of the outrage Hatch had just perpetrated.
        Hatch was startled by the advent of the machine. He had seen
such devices before, of course - many times. But he had presumed,
on the basis of the evidence of the steadily mounting litter which
had lately degraded the Combat College's environment, that all
such cleaning machines were permanently disabled.
        "The meeting will settle," said Paraban Senk.
        It took more than saying it to make it happen, but eventually
Forum Three came to order in obedience to Senk's commands. Hatch
took a seat next to Talanta, who took his arm.
        "You were brave," she said. "You were very brave."
        She was still trying to give to him.
        All through their marriage she had done her best, giving him
her body, giving him her services, and now, in extremis, in pain
and dying slowly, giving him her praise when she had nothing else
to give. Hatch experienced a crushing guilt, knowing himself to be
an adulterer, a blaspheming apostate. His name would soon be
scandal on the lips of every Frangoni in Dalar ken Halvar, and how
would Talanta cope with that?
        Hatch had already done the unforgivable, and was sure that
he would do far worse before the year was out. He believed, now,
that he could only survive the enmity of the Free Corps by linking
himself with the revolutionaries who thought of themselves as
practitioners of Nu-chala-nuth. And what then would be Talanta's
fate? Surely as the wife of an apostate she would find herself
ostracized by the Frangoni community, would find herself an exile
on the very Frangoni rock itself.
        Thinking of this, Hatch felt an enormous pity for the woman
and her sufferings. But he knew that two cannot be made one by
pity: and that, in a way, his pity was a measure of his
estrangement from his wife.
        Then Hatch thought of his wife no more, for Paraban Senk was
addressing Forum Three.
        "The graduating class has come to the end of its combat
studies," said Paraban Senk. "I am pleased to say that we have a
one hundred per cent pass rate. Those who have been unable to take
their final examinations have been passed on the basis of an
assessment of their work through the year and their performance in
past examinations. We have of course one promotion to formally
announce: Asodo Hatch is promoted to the post of resident
instructor."
        Again there were mingled shouts of acclamation and derision,
but the shouts were not as forceful as before. This drama had
played itself out, and those in Forum Three were now starting to
worry about the greater drama: the battle taking place for the
control of Dalar ken Halvar.
        "Members of the graduating class," said Paraban Senk, "should
clear their rooms and exit from Cap Foz Para Lash."
        "And if we don't?" yelled someone.
        "That needs no answer," said Paraban Senk. Then, urgently:
"Scorpio Fax! What are you doing? Put down that knife!"
        That gave Gan Oliver the moment's warning he needed. He
turned as Fax struck. Gan Oliver knocked the knife aside, elbowed
Fax to the floor, then brought his bodyweight slamming down on top
of Fax. Gan Oliver grabbed Fax by the hair and started slamming
his head against the plax of the floor.
        With that, Forum Three abrupted into violence, as Free Corps
supporters and Frangoni began to fight each other. A clutch of
Free Corps loyalists slammed into Asodo Hatch.
        Taken by Dog Java, by Lupus Lon Oliver and by Jeltisketh
Echo, Hatch went down hard. Lupus got hands to his throat and
started to strangle him.
        "I," said Lupus, tightening his grip, "am going to kill you."
        This was for real, death for real, no lyrical illusion tank
dream, no simulated fakery staged on the Eye of Delusions, but the
terminus, the breath-fight, the lynch-note panic of flesh against
flesh.
        And Hatch was losing, was going under, sliding under the
blackness as the ceiling -
        The ceiling of kaleidoscope abruptly came crashing down,
breaking in huge gobs of slob as it collapsed. The slob was COLD!
Lupus Lon Oliver broke from the slob, gasping for air, and Shona
kicked him in the head, elbowed Echo, spat in Dog Java's face,
then reached into the slob and rescued Hatch, dragged him free and
hauled him out of Forum Three.
        In the corridor outside, Onica was screaming, clutching tight
to her mother, who was herself being supported by the Lady Iro
Murasaki.
        "I hate this place!" sobbed Onica. "I hate it! I hate it! I
want to leave!"
        Hatch comforted and calmed her as best he could, knowing that
leaving was the last thing they could do with Dalar ken Halvar in
the grip of riot.
        "Enough of that!" said Shona, thinking this was no time for
comforting. "Let's get out of here!"
        And she led them one and all to the shelter of her own room,
into which security they packed themselves, until Paraban Senk
accessed the room via its communications screen, and assured them
that the Combat College was once more safe and orderly.