I handed the Martie a kopek and put the yellow envelope in my pocket, as though I was used to getting spacegrams.
Sure, I'm a gladiator, but I've always been strictly a second rater; in fact, some of the sports writers call me a third rater. Anyway, I've always worked in the smaller meets where the gladiators, even when they lose, usually get off with their lives. In the small town stuff, they don't kill expensive gladiators, if they can help it.
I wouldn't have been on Mars in the first place if it hadn't been for an argument I had with Suzi back on Terra just before she was scheduled to blast off for Mars to cover the Interplanetary Games. Suzi is a sports reporter, see. She covers the meets from the woman's angle. What she really wanted to do was write books about primitive culture; and what I wanted her to do was spend the rest of her life being my wife. Neither of us seemed to have much of a chance of making good.
Well, three days after getting the telegram, I met the other two gladiators from Terra in our dressing room at the arena. They weren't much happier about the meet than I was.
It's one of the occupational hazards of our trade. If you get too good, you'll probably be chosen as Terra representative to the Interplanetary Meet and your chances of surviving are almost nil. Of course, the pay is high and your survivors get a big chunk of credits but it's a chilly prospect at best.
The other two were pretty well armored and had chosen spears as weapons, but I left off all armor and took a short sword. I planned on moving fast and the less weight I carried the better.
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