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âHow well can you take a punch?â asked Deputy Ambassador Schmidt.

Lieutenant Harry Wilson blinked and set down his drink. âYou know, there are a number of places a conversation can go after a question like that,â he said. âNone of them end well.â

âI donât mean it like that,â Schmidt said. He drummed the glass of his own drink with his fingers. Harry noted the drumming, which was a favorite nervous tell of Hart Schmidtâs. It made poker games with him fun. âI have a very specific reason to ask you.â

âI would hope so,â Harry said. âBecause as conversational ice breakers go, itâs not in the top ten.â

Schmidt looked around the Clarkeâs officer lounge. âMaybe this isnât the best place to talk about it,â he said.

Harry glanced around the lounge. It was singularly unappealing; a bunch of magnetized folding chairs and equally magnetized card tables, and single porthole from which the yellowish green limb of Korba-Aty was glowing, dully. The drinks they were having came from the rack of vending machines built into the wall. The only other person in the lounge was Lieutenant Grant, the Clarkeâs quartermaster; she was looking at her PDA and wearing headphones.

âItâs fine, Hart,â Harry said. âEnough with the melodrama. Spit it out already.â

âFine,â Schmidt said, and then drummed on his drink some more. Harry waited. âLook, this mission isnât going well,â he finally said.

âReally,â Harry said, dryly.

âWhatâs that supposed to mean?â Schmidt said.

âDonât get defensive, Hart,â Harry said. âIâm not blaming you.â

âI just want to know how you came to that conclusion,â Schmidt said.

âYou mean, how did I come to that conclusion despite the fact Iâm this missionâs mushroom,â Harry said.

Schmidt frowned. âI donât know what that means,â he said.

âIt means that you keep me in the dark and feed me shit,â Harry said.

âAh,â Schmidt said. âSorry.â

âItâs fine,â Harry said. âThis is a Colonial Union diplomatic mission, and Iâm Colonial Defense Forces, and you donât want me seen by the Korba because you donât want my presence to be interpreted as provocation. So while the rest of you head down to the planet, and get to breathe real air and see actual sunlight, I stay up here in this latrine of a spaceship, training your technicians to use the field generator and catching up on my reading. Which is going well, incidentally. I just finished Anna Karenina.â

âHow was it?â Schmidt said.

âNot bad,â Harry said. âThe moral is to stay away from trains. The point is, I know why Iâm kept in the dark. Fine. Fair enough. But Iâm not stupid, Hart. Even if none of you tell me anything about the mission, I can tell itâs not going well. All of you deputies and assistants come back to the Clarke looking like youâve had the crap beat out of you all day long. Itâs a subtle hint.â He picked up his drink and slugged some back.

âHmm. Anyway, yes,â Schmidt said. âThe mission isnât going well. The Korba havenât been nearly as receptive to our negotiations as we thought they might be. We want to try something new. A new direction. A new diplomatic tack.â

âA new tack that is somehow focused on me getting punched,â Harry said, setting his drink back down.

âMaybe,â Schmidt said.

âOnce or repeatedly?â Harry asked.

âI think that would depend on your definition,â Schmidt said.

âOf âonceâ?â Harry asked.

âOf âpunched,â actually,â Schmidt said.

âI already have very deep reservations about this plan,â Harry said.

âWell, let me give you some context,â Schmidt said.

âPlease do,â Harry said.

Schmidt produced his PDA and began to slide it over to Harry, then stopped midway through the motion. âYou know that everything Iâm about to tell you is classified.â

âGood lord, Hart,â Harry said. âIâm the only person on the Clarke who doesnât know whatâs going on.â Harry reached over and took the PDA. On its screen was the image of a battle cruiser of some sort, floating near a skyscraper. Or more accurately, what was left of a skyscraper; it had been substantially destroyed, likely by the battle cruiser. In the foreground of the picture, small, vaguely-humanoid blotches seemed to be running from the ruined skyscraper. âNice picture,â Harry said.

âWhat do you think youâre seeing there?â Schmidt said.

âA strong case for not letting trainees drive a battle cruiser,â Harry said.

âItâs an image taken during the recent Korban coup,â Schmidt said. âThere was a disagreement between the head of the military and the Korban civilian leadership. That skyscraper isâwell, wasâthe Korban administrative headquarters.â

âSo the civilians lost that particular argument,â Harry said.

âPretty much,â Schmidt said.

âWhere do we come in?â Harry asked, handing back the PDA. âAre we trying to restore the civilian government? Because, to be honest about it, that doesnât really sound like something the CU would care about.â

âWe donât,â Schmidt said, taking back the PDA. âBefore the coup, the Korba were barely on our radar at all. They had a non-expansionist policy. They had their few worlds and theyâd stood pat on them for centuries. We had no conflict with them, so we didnât care about them. After the coup, the Korba are very interested in expanding again.â

âThis worries us,â Harry said.

âNot if we can point them toward expanding in the direction of some of our enemies,â Schmidt said. âThere are some races in this area who are pushing in on us. If they had to worry about someone else, theyâd have fewer resources to hit us with.â

âSee, thatâs the Colonial Union I know,â Harry said. âAlways happy to stick a knife in someone elseâs face. But none of this has anything to do with me getting punched in the face.â

âActually, it does,â Schmidt said. âWe made a tactical error. This mission is a diplomatic one, but the new leaders of Korba are military. Theyâre curious about our military, and theyâre especially curious about our CDF soldiers, whom theyâve never encountered because our races have never fought. Weâre civilians; we donât have any of our military on hand, and very little in terms of military capability to show them. We brought them that field generator youâve been training our technicians on, but thatâs defensive technology. Theyâre much more interested in our offensive capabilities. And theyâre especially interested in seeing our soldiers in action. Negotiations up to this point have been going poorly because weâre not equipped to give them what they want. But then we let it slip that we have a CDF member on the Clarke.â

âWe let it slip,â Harry said.

âWell, I let it slip, actually,â Schmidt said. âCome on, Harry, donât look at me like that. This mission is failing. Some of us need this mission to succeed. My careerâs not exactly on fire, you know. If this mission goes into the crapper, Iâm going to get reassigned to an archive basement.â

âIâd be more sympathetic if saving your career didnât require blunt force trauma for me,â Harry said.

Schmidt nodded, and then ducked his head a little, which Harry took as something akin to an apology. âWhen we told them about you, they got very excited, and we were asked by the Korbansâ new leaderâa direct request from the head of state, Harryâif we would be willing to pit you against one of their soldiers in a contest of skills,â Schmidt said. âIt was strongly implied it would make a real difference in the tenor of the negotiations.â

âSo of course you said yes,â Harry said.

âLet me remind you of the part where I said the mission was going into the crapper,â Schmidt said.

âThere is a small flaw in this plan,â Harry said. âBesides the part where I get the crap kicked out of me, I mean. Hart, Iâm CDF, but Iâm not a soldier. Iâm a technician. Iâve spent the last several years working in the military science division of the Forces. Thatâs why Iâm here, for Godâs sake. Iâm training your people to use technology we developed. Iâm not training them to fight, Iâm training them to twirl knobs.â

âYouâve still got the CDF genetic engineering,â Schmidt said, and pointed to Harryâs sitting form. âYour body is still in top physical shape, whether you use it or not. Your reflexes are still fast as ever. Youâre still as strong as ever. Look at you, Harry. Thereâs nothing flabby or squishy about you. Youâre in as good a shape as any soldier on the line.â

âThat doesnât mean anything,â Harry said.

âDoesnât it?â Schmidt said. âTell me, Harry. Everyone else on this mission is an unmodified human. Is there any one of us that you couldnât take in hand to hand combat?â

âWell, no. But youâre all soft,â Harry said.

âThanks for that,â Schmidt said. He took a sip of his drink.

âMy point is whether or not Iâm engineered for combat, I havenât been a soldier for a very long time,â Harry said. âFighting isnât like riding a bicycle, Hart. You canât just pick it up without practice. If these guys are so hot to see CDF in action, send a skip drone back to Phoenix and request a squad. They could be here in a couple of days if you make it a priority request.â

âThereâs no time, Harry,â Schmidt said. âThe Korba want a combat exhibition tonight. Actually,ââSchmidt checked the chronometer on his PDAââin about four and a half hours.â

âOh, come on,â Harry said.

âThey made the request this morning, Harry,â Schmidt said. âItâs not like Iâve been keeping it from you. We told them about you, they made the request and ten minutes later I was being hustled off to the shuttle back to the Clarke to tell you. And here we are.â

âWhat is this âskill contestâ they want me to have?â Harry asked.

âItâs a ritualized combat thing,â Schmidt said. âItâs physical combat, but itâs done as a sport. Like karate or fencing or wrestling. There are three rounds. You get scored on points. There are judges. From what I understand itâs mostly harmless. Youâre not going to be in any real danger.â

âExcept for being punched,â Harry said.

âYouâll heal,â Schmidt said. âAnd anyway, you can punch back.â

âI donât suppose I can pass,â Harry said.

âSure, you can pass,â Schmidt said. âAnd then when the mission fails and everyone on the mission is demoted into shit jobs and the Korba ally themselves with our enemies and start looking at human colonies they can pick off, you can bask in the knowledge that at least you came out of this all unbruised.â

Harry sighed and drained his drink. âYou owe me, Hart,â he said. âNot the Colonial Union. You.â

âI can live with that,â Schmidt said.

âFine,â Harry said. âSo the plan is to go down there, fight with one of their guys, get beat up a little, and everyone walks away happy.â

âMostly,â Schmidt said.

âMostly,â Harry said.

âI have two requests for you from Ambassador Abumwe,â Schmidt said. âAnd she said for me to say to that by ârequest,â she means that if you donât do them both she will find a way to make the rest of your natural existence one of unceasing woe and misery.â

âReally,â Harry said.

âShe was very precise about her word use,â Schmidt said.

âLovely,â Harry said. âWhat are the requests?â

âThe first is that you keep the contest close,â Schmidt said. âWe need to show the Korba from the start that the reputation the CDF has is not undeserved.â

âNot knowing what the rules of the contest are, how itâs played or whether Iâm even physically capable of keeping up with it, sure, why not, Iâll keep it close,â Harry said. âWhatâs the other request.â

âThat you lose,â Schmidt said.

*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *

âThe rules are simple,â Schmidt said, translating for the Korban who stood in front of them. Normally Harry would use his BrainPalâthe computer in his headâto do a translation, but he didnât have access to the Clarkeâs network to access the language. âThere are three rounds: One round with Bongkaâthose are like quarterstaffs, Harryâone round of hand-to-hand combat, and one round of water combat. There are no set times for any round; they continue until all three judges have selected a victor, or until one of the combatants is knocked unconscious. The chief judge here wants to make sure you understand this.â

âI understand,â said Harry, staring at the Korban, who came up, roughly, to his waist. The Korba were squat, bilaterally symmetrical, apparently muscular, and covered by what appeared to be an infinite amount of overlapping plates and scales. What little information Harry could uncover about the Korban physiology suggested that they were of some sort of amphibious stock, and that they lived some of their lives in water. This would at least explain the âwater combatâ round. The gathering hall they were in held no obvious water sources, however. Harry wondered if something might not have been lost in translation.

The Korban began speaking again, and as he spoke and breathed, the plates around his neck and chest moved in a motion that was indefinably strange and unsettling; it was almost like they didnât quite go back in the same place they started off at. Harry found them unintentionally hypnotic.

âHarry,â Schmidt said.

âYes?â Harry said.

âYouâre all right with the nudity?â Schmidt asked.

âYes,â Harry said. âWait. What?â

Schmidt sighed. âPay attention, Harry,â he said. âThe contest is performed in the nude so that itâs purely a test of skill, no tricks. Youâre okay with that?â

Harry glanced around the gymnasium-like room they were in, filling up with Korban spectators, human diplomats and Clarke crew members on shore leave. In the crowd of humans he located Ambassador Abumwe, who gave him a look that reinforced her earlier threat of unending misery. âSo everyone gets to see my bits,â Harry said.

âAfraid so,â Schmidt said. âAll right, then?â

âDo I have a choice?â Harry asked.

âNot really,â Schmidt said.

âThen I guess Iâm all right with it,â Harry said. âSee if you can get them to crank up the thermostat.â

âIâll look into it.â Schmidt said something to the Korban, who replied at length. Harry doubted they were actually speaking about the thermostat. The Korban turned and uttered a surprisingly loud blast, his neck and chest plates spiking out as he did so. Harry was suddenly reminded of a horny toad back on Earth.

From across the room another Korban approached, holding a staff just under two meters in length, with the ends coated in what appeared to be red paint. The Korban presented it to Harry, who took it. âThanks,â he said. The Korban ran off.

The judge started speaking. âHe says that they apologize that they are unable to give you a more attractive Bongka,â Schmidt translated, âbut that your height meant they had to craft one for you specially, and they did not have time to hand it over to an artisan. He wants you to know, however, that it is fully functional and you should not be at any disadvantage. He says you may strike your opponent at will with the bongka, and on any part of the body, but only with the tips; using the unmarked part of the bongka to strike your opponent will result in lost points. You can block with the unmarked part, however.â

âGot it,â Harry said. âI can hit anywhere? Arenât they worried about someone losing an eye?â

Schmidt asked. âHe says that if you manage to take an eye, then it counts. Every hit or attack with a tip is fair.â Schmidt was quiet for a moment as the judge spoke at length. âApparently the Korba can regenerate lost limbs and some organs, eventually. They donât see losing one as a huge problem.â

âI thought you said there were rules, Hart,â Harry said.

âMy mistake,â Schmidt said.

âYou and I are going to have a talk after all of this is done,â Harry said.

Schmidt didnât answer this because the judge had started speaking again. âThe judge wants to know if you have a second. If you donât have one he will be happy to provide you one.â

âDo I have a second?â Harry said.

âI didnât know you needed one,â Schmidt said.

âHart, please make an effort to be useful to me,â Harry asked.

âWell, Iâm translating,â Schmidt said.

âI only have your word for that,â Harry said. âTell the judge that youâre my second.â

âWhat? Harry, I canât,â Schmidt said. âIâm supposed to be sitting with the Ambassador.â

âAnd Iâm supposed to be in a bunk on the Clarke reading the first part of The Brothers Karamazov,â Harry said. âClearly this is a disappointing day for both of us. Suck it up, Hart. Tell him.â

Schmidt told him; the judge started speaking at length to Schmidt, chest and neck plates shifting as he did so. Harry glanced back over to the seating area provided the Colonial Union diplomats and Clarke crew, who shifted in their rows. The stands were half-sized for humans; they sat with their knees bunched into their chests like parents at a pre-school open house. They didnât look in the least bit comfortable.

Good, thought Harry.

The judge stopped speaking, turned toward Harry, and did something with his scales that caused a wave-like ripple to go around his head. Harry shuddered involuntarily; the judge seemed to take that as a response. He left.

âWeâre going to start in just a minute,â Schmidt said. âNow might be a good time for you to strip.â

Harry set down his bongka and took off his jacket. âI donât suppose youâre going to strip,â he said. âBeing my second and all.â

âThe judge didnât say anything about it in the job description,â Schmidt said. He took the jacket from Harry.

âWhat is your job description?â Harry asked.

âIâm supposed to research your opponent and give you tips on how to beat him,â Schmidt said.

âWhat do you know about my opponent?â Harry asked. He was out of his shirt and was slipping off his trousers.

âMy guess is that he will be short,â Schmidt said.

âHow do I beat him?â Harry said. He slipped off his shoes and let his toes test the spongy flooring.

âYouâre not supposed to beat him,â Schmidt said. âYouâre supposed to tie and then take a fall.â

Harry grunted and handed Schmidt his pants, socks and shoes. âAm I correct in assuming that there are several species of legume that would do a better job being my second than you, Hart?â

âSorry, Harry,â Schmidt said. âIâm flying by the seat of my pants here.â

âAnd my pants,â Harry said.

âI guess thatâs true,â Schmidt said. He looked at the nude Harry and counted the number of apparel he was holding. âWhereâs your underwear?â he asked.

âToday was laundry day,â Harry said.

âYou went commando to a diplomatic function?â Schmidt asked. The horror in his voice was unmistakable.

âYes, Hart, I went commando to a diplomatic function,â Harry said, and then motioned to his body. âAnd now, as you can see, Iâm going Spartan so a midget can whack me with a stick.â He bent and picked up his Bongka. âHonestly, Hart. Help me out here. Focus a little.â

âAll right,â Hart said, and glanced at the pile of clothes he was holding. âLet me just put these somewhere.â He started off toward the human seating area.

As Hart did this, three Korba approached Harry. One was the judge from earlier. Another Korban was carrying his own bongka, proportional to his own height; Harryâs opponent. The third was a step behind Harryâs opponent; Harry guessed it was the other second.

The three Korba stopped directly in front of Harry. The one holding the bongka handed it to his second, looked up at Harry, and then thrust out his hands, palms forward, making a grunting noise as he did so. Harry hadnât the slightest idea what to do with this. So he handed his bongka to Schmidt, who had just come running up, thrust his own hands forward, and returned the motion. âJazz hands,â Harry said.

The Korban seemed satisfied, took back his bongka, and headed toward the other side of the gym. The judge spoke, and held up something in his hand. âHe says that theyâre ready to begin,â Schmidt said. âHe will signal the start of the round with his horn, and will use it again at the end of the round. When the round ends, there will be a few minutes while they set up for the next round. You can use that time to rest and to confer with your second. Do you understand?â

âYes, fine,â Harry said. âLetâs get to it, already.â Schmidt responded; the judge walked off. Harry began working with the bongka, testing its balance and warp. It felt like it was made of a hard wood of some sort; he wondered if it would splinter or break.

âHarry,â Schmidt said, and pointed to where the judge stood, horn raised high. âWeâre starting.â

Harry held his bongka in both hands, chest high, horizontal to the ground. âAny last pieces of advice?â he asked.

âAim low,â Schmidt said, and backed off the floor.

âGreat,â Harry said. The judge blasted his horn and moved to the side of the gym. Harry stepped forward with his bongka, keeping his eye on his opponent.

His opponent raised his bongka, expanded his chest and neck by an alarming amount, emitted a deafening noise somewhere between a belch and a roar, and launched himself at Harry as fast as his little feet could carry him. The Korba in the stands, ringing the gym save for the small section for the humans, cheered mightily in a similar chest-inflating, burping fashion.

Three seconds later Harry was confronted by the fact that he had absolutely no clue what he was doing. The Korban had set on him with a slashing, dizzying array of bongka maneuvers; Harry blocked about a third of them and avoided the rest by stumbling backward as the Korban pressed his advantage. The Korban was whirling his bongka like a rotor blade. Harry realized that having the longer bongka was not an advantage here; it took longer to swing, block and attack. The little Korban had the upper hand, as it were.

The Korban lunged at Harry and appeared to overextend; Harry swung his bongka overhead to try to tap him on the backside. As he did the Korban twisted inside the arc of Harryâs attack; Harry realized heâd been played just as the Korban viciously whacked both of his ankles. Harry went down; the Korban jumped back just far enough to begin enthusiastically tenderizing Harryâs midsection as he fell. Harry rolled and blindly thrust his bongka at the Korban; somewhat improbably, it connected, poking the Korban in its snout. The poke fazed the Korban into stopping its attack and taking a step back. Harry poked it back a couple more steps and then stood up, testing his ankles. They complained but held.

âKeep poking him!â Schmidt yelled. Harry glanced over to snap something back, giving the Korban an opening. He took it, whacked Harry hard upside the head, then reapplied himself to Harryâs ankles. Harry stumbled but kept upright, wheeling in a drunken fashion toward the center of the gym. The Korban followed, swinging merrily at Harryâs already bruised ankle bones. Harry got the distinct feeling he was being toyed with.

Screw this, Harry thought, and stopped, planted his bongka firmly into the gym mat and hurled himself up the staff. A second later he was doing a handstand at the top of it, balanced by dint of his finely calibrated if disused motor control, courtesy of the Colonial Defense Forces genetic engineering.

The Korban, clearly not expecting this tactic, stopped and openly gawked.

âThatâs right,â Harry said. âCome whack on my ankles now, you little prick.â

Harry continued to feel smug about his plan right until the moment the Korban crouched and launched itself into the air with a push of its powerful legs. The Korban didnât make it as high as Harryâs ankles. He did, however, get right on level with Harryâs face.

Oh, crap, Harry thought, before the blinding crack of a bongka smashed across the bridge of his nose and robbed him of any further capacity for reaction, commentary or thought. All those things came back to him with blinding pain as Harryâs spinal column compressed into the gym mat as he fell. After that there were a few moments of curiously distant sensation as the Korbanâs bongka dug into various parts of his body, followed by an even more distant blast of a horn. The first round was over. The Korba strutted off to the sound of belching applause; Harry propped himself up on his bongka and staggered over to Schmidt, who had found him a water bottle.

âAre you okay?â Schmidt said.

âAre you dumb?â Harry said. He took the water bottle and squirted some of the water on his face.

âIâm kind of wondering what the thinking was on that handstand,â Schmidt said.

âThe thinking was that if I didnât do something my ankle bones would be a fine powder,â Harry said.

âWhat were you going to do then?â Schmidt asked.

âI donât know,â Harry said. âI was in a rush, Hart. I was making it up as I went along.â

âI donât think it worked the way you wanted it to,â Schmidt said.

âWell, maybe if I had a second who told me these little bastards could high jump two meters straight up from a squat, I would have tried something else,â Harry said.

âFair point,â Schmidt said.

âAnyway, you want me to lose, remember?â Harry said.

âYes, but we want you to lose by just a little,â Schmidt said. âYou need to keep it closer than this. Ambassador Abumwe is glaring a hole through the back of your head right now. No, donât look.â

âHart, if I could have made it closer I would have,â Harry said. He drank some water and then stretched, trying to find a place on his body that didnât hurt. His left instep seemed the most likely candidate. Harry glanced down and was glad the Korban had not seemed aware that human testicles were especially painful when struck; his had managed to escape injury.

âLooks like theyâre ready for the second round,â Schmidt said, and pointed at the judge, who was standing with his horn. On the other end of the gym the Korban was hopping from foot to foot, loosening himself up for the hand-to-hand combat.

âSwell,â Harry said, and handed the water bottle back to Schmidt. âWords of wisdom for this round?â

âMind your ankles,â Schmidt said.

âYouâre a big help,â Harry said. The horn blew and he stepped back onto the gym floor.

The Korban wasted no time fronting an offensive, charging Harry almost as soon as he was on the floor. A few meters out the Korban kicked and launched himself into the air, claws out; he was aiming for Harryâs head.

Not this time, you son of a bitch, Harry thought, and pushed himself back and toward the gym floor. The Korban slid just over Harryâs head, slashing as he did so; Harry responded by bringing up a leg and delivering to the Korbanâs posterior a truly excellent bicycle kick. The Korban suddenly accelerated head first into the stands, colliding violently into several other Korba, whose refreshments went flying. Harry arched his head from a lying position to see the carnage, then glanced over to Schmidt, who gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up. Harry grinned and picked himself off the floor.

The Korban burst out of the stands, enraged and refreshment-coated, and launched himself once more and incautiously at Harry. Being suddenly and humiliatingly launched into the stands had apparently simplified the Korbanâs attack strategy down to tear the human a new one. Harry didnât mind.

The Korban approached and wheeled back to deliver a mighty blow, either to Harryâs midsection or genital region, whichever was closer. Harry responded by holding steady until the last second and then shot out his arm. The Korbanâs forward motion smacked to standstill as Harryâs left palm met the little alienâs forehead. It was like stopping a particularly aggressive eight year old. Harry smirked.

The Korban was not amused at what it registered as a condescending defense maneuver on Harryâs part; it burp-snarled its rage and prepared to shred Harryâs forearm. Harry reared back his right arm to slug the Korban, distracting it, and then quickly retracted his left palm, made a loose fist, and popped the Korban in the face. The Korban snorted in alarm; Harry took that moment to bring his right hook square into the Korbanâs snout.

The scales and plates of the Korbanâs face puffed out as if the alienâs head was a flower traumatized into blossom; they settled back as the Korban collapsed onto the ground. Harry kept him on the ground by kicking it viciously every time it so much as puffed a plate. Eventually the judges got bored with this and blew their horn. Harry walked off the floor; the Korbanâs second came and dragged him off.

âI think you might have overdone the kicking,â Schmidt said, handing Harry his refilled water bottle.

âYouâre not the one whose kidneys were mashed into pÃ¢tÃ© in the first round,â Harry said. âI was just giving him what he gave me. He was still breathing at the end of the round. Heâs fine. And now the contest is closer, which is what you wanted.â He drank.

A door opened on the side of the gymnasium and a forklift-like contraption drove in, carrying what appeared to be a large kiddie pool full of water. The pool was set down near Harry; the forklift then retreated, to reappear a minute later with another pool, which it set down near Harryâs Korban competitor.

Harry looked over at Schmidt, who shrugged. âFor the water combat round?â He ventured.

âWhat are we going to do, splash each other?â Harry asked.

âLook,â Schmidt said, and pointed. The Korban competitor, now somewhat recovered, had stepped into his pool. The judge, standing again in the middle of the gym, motioned at Harry to step into his pool. Harry looked at Schmidt, who shrugged again. âDonât ask me,â he said.

Harry sighed and stepped into his own pool; the water, very warm, came up to his mid-thigh. Harry fought back the temptation to sit down in it and have a nice soak. He looked over again to Schmidt. âNow what do I do?â he asked.

Schmidt didnât respond. Harry waved his hand in front of Schmidt. âHart. Hello?â he said.

Schmidt looked over to Harry. âYouâre going to want to turn around, Harry,â he said.

Harry turned around, and looked at his Korban competitor, who was suddenly about a foot taller than he had been, and growing.

What the hell? Harry thought. And then he saw it. The level of the water in the Korbanâs pool was almost slowly falling; as it did, the scales and plates on the Korban were shifting, sliding against each other and separating out. Harry watched as the scales on the Korbanâs mid-section appeared to stretch apart and the join, as the plates that used to be underneath locked into place with the plates that used to be above, expanded by the water flooding into the Korbanâs body from the pool. Harry eyes shifted from the Korbanâs midsection to its hands, where its digits were expanding by rotating the overlapping scales, locking them together into a previously unknown dance of Fibonacci sequences.

Harryâs mind thought of several things at once.

First, he marveled at the absolutely stunning physiology of the Korbans on display here; the scales and plates covering their bodies were not simply integumentary but had to be structural as well, holding the shape of the Korban body in both states; Harry doubted there was an internal skeleton, at least as it was understood in a human body, and the earlier puffing and expanding suggested that the Korbansâ structural system used both air and water to do certain and specific things; this species was clearly the anatomical find of the decade.

Second, he shuddered at the thought of whatever evolutionary pressure had caused the Korbanâor its distant amphiboid ancestorsâto develop such a dramatic defense mechanism. Whatever was out there in the early seas of this planet, it had to have been pretty damn terrifying.

Third, as the Korban forced water into its body, growing to a size now a square of the size and some terrifying cube of the mass of Harryâs own dimensions, he realized he was about to get his ass well and truly kicked.

Harry wheeled on Schmidt. âYou canât tell me you didnât know about this,â he said.

âI swear to you, Harry,â Schmidt said. âThis is new to me.â

âHow can you miss something like this?â Harry said. âWhat the hell do you people do all day?â

âWeâre diplomats, Harry, not xenobiologists,â Schmidt said. âDonât you think I would have told you?â

The judgeâs horn sounded. The towering Korban stepped out of his pool with a hammering thud.

âOh, shit,â Harry said. He splashed as he tried to get out of his own pool.

âI have no advice for you,â Schmidt said.

âNo kidding,â Harry said.

âOh, God, here he comes,â Schmidt said, and then stumbled off the floor. Harry looked up just in time to see an immense fist of flesh, water and fluid dynamics pummel into his midsection and send him flying across the room. Some part of Harryâs brain remarked on the mass and acceleration required to lift him like that, even as another part of Harryâs brain remarked that at least a couple of ribs had just gone with that punch.

The crowd roared its approval.

Harry groggily took stock of his surroundings just as the Korban stomped up, lifted up its immense foot, and brought it down square on Harryâs chest, giving him the sensation of involuntary defibrillation. Harry watched as the foot lifted up again and noted two large hexagonal depressions in them. The part of his brain that had earlier marveled at the physiology of the Korba recognized these as the places where the body would take in water; they would have to be at least that large to grow the body as quickly as it did.

The rest of Harryâs brain told that part to shut the hell up and move, because that foot was coming down again. Harry groaned and rolled, and bounced a little as the impact of the foot on the floor where Harry had just been caused everything to vibrate. Harry crawled away and then scrambled to his feet, narrowly missing a kick that would have sent him into a wall.

The Korban lumbered after Harry, swinging at him as the crowd cheered. The alien was quick because its size allowed it to cover distance quickly, but as it swung at Harry, he realized that its attacks were slower than they were before. There was too much inertia going on here for the Korban to turn on a dime or make quick strikes. Harry suspected that when two Korba fought in this round, they basically stood in the middle of the gym and beat the hell out of each other until one of them collapsed. That strategy wouldnât work here. Harry thought back on the first round, where the smaller Korbaâs size was an advantageâsize and the fact it knew its way around a bongka. Now the situations were reversed; Harryâs smaller size could work to his advantage, and the Korban, in this size, wouldnât know how to fight something smaller.

Letâs test that, Harry thought, and suddenly ran at the Korba. The Korba took a mighty swing at Harry; Harry ducked it, got in close, and jammed an elbow into the Korbanâs midsection. Whereupon he discovered to his dismay that thanks to their engorgement, hitting the Korbanâs plates was just like punching concrete.

Oops, Harry thought, and then screamed as the Korban grabbed him by his hair and lifted him. Harry caught hold of the arm lifting him so his scalp wouldnât tear off. The Korban commenced punching him in the ribs, cracking a few more. Through the pain, Harry levered himself on the Korbanâs arm and kicked upward, jamming his big toe into the Korbanâs snout; clearly it was the one body part of the Korbanâs that Harry was having luck with today. The Korban howled and dropped Harry; he flopped down and thudded to the floor on his back. Before he could roll away the Korban stamped on his chest like a piston, once, twice, three times.

Harry felt a sickening stab. He was reasonably sure he had a punctured lung. The Korban stamped again, forcing fluid out of Harryâs mouth. Definitely a punctured lung, he thought.

The Korban raised his foot again and this time aimed for Harryâs head, taking a moment to perfect his aim.

Harry reached up and grabbed the top of the Korbanâs foot with his left hand; with his right he formed his fingers into a point and jammed them into one of the hexagonal depressions as hard as he could. As he did, Harry could feel something tear: the fleshy valve that closed to keep the water inside the Korban. It tore, and a spray of warm water pushed out of the Korbanâs foot and splashed over Harry.

The Korban offered an unspeakably horrible scream as the unexpected pain obliterated any other focus and tried to shake Harry off. Harry hung on, jamming his fingers further into the valve. He wrapped his left arm around the Korbanâs lower leg and squeezed, juicing the Korban. Water sprayed on the floor. The Korban hopped, frantically attempting to dislodge Harry, and slipped on the disgorged liquid. It fell backward, causing the entire floor to quake. Harry switched positions and now started pushing on the leg from the bottom, forcing even more water out of it; he could actually see the leg deflating. The Korban howled and writhed; he clearly wasnât going anywhere. Harry figured that if the judges had any brains at all, they would have to call the round any second now.

Harry looked over to Schmidt. Schmidt looked at him with something akin to raw terror on his face. It took Harry a minute to figure out why.

Oh, right, Harry thought to himself. Iâm supposed to lose.

Harry sighed and stopped juicing the Korban, letting the leg go. The Korban, still in pain, eventually sat up and looked at Harry, with a look that Harry could only imagine was complete confusion. Harry walked over and knelt down into the Korbanâs face.

âYou have no idea how much it kills me to do this,â Harry said, reached out to the Korbanâs face and made a grabbing motion. Then he stuck his thumb out from between his index and middle fingers and showed it to the Korban. The Korban stared at him, non-comprehending.

âLook,â Harry said. âI got your nose.â

The Korban swung a haymaker straight into Harryâs temple, and the lights went out.

*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *

âThatâs really not the way we expected you to do that,â Schmidt said.

From his bunk, Harry tried very hard not to grimace. Facial expressions hurt. âYou asked me to keep it close, and you asked me to lose,â he said, moving his jaw as little as humanly possible.

âYes,â Schmidt said. âBut we didnât think youâd make it so obvious.â

âSurprise,â Harry said.

âThe good news is, it actually worked for us,â Schmidt said. âThe Korban leaderâwho, incidentally, you caused to get drenched in fruit juice when you kicked your competitor into the standsâwanted to know why you let your competition win. We had to admit we told you to lose. He was delighted to hear it.â

âHe had money on the other guy,â Harry said.

âNo,â Schmidt said. âWell, probably, but thatâs not the point. The point was he said that your willingness to follow orders even when winning was in your grasp showed that you could make short-term sacrifices for long-term goals. He saw you almost winning as making a point about CDF strength, and then losing as making a point about the value of discipline. And since he seemed quite impressed with both, we said those were indeed exactly the points we had wanted to make.â

âSo you have brains after all,â Harry said.

âWe rolled with the changes,â Schmidt said. âAnd it looks like weâll come out of this with an agreement after all. You saved the negotiations, Harry. Thank you.â

âYouâre welcome,â Harry said. âAnd Iâll bill you.â

âI have a message for you from Ambassador Abumwe,â Schmidt said.

âI canât wait,â Harry said.

âShe thanks you for your service and wants you to know sheâs recommended you for commendation. She also says that she never wants to see you again. Your stunt worked this time but it could just as easily have backfired. All things considered, youâre not worth the trouble.â

âSheâs welcome,â Harry said.

âItâs nothing personal,â Schmidt said.

âOf course not,â Harry said. âBut I like the idea that I had choreographed having the crap kicked out of me down to that level of detail. Makes me feel like a genius, it does.â

âHow do you feel?â Schmidt said. âAre you okay?â

âYou keep asking that same very dumb question,â Harry said. âPlease, stop asking it.â

âSorry,â Schmidt said. He turned to go, and then stopped. âIt does occur to me that we know the answer to another question, though.â

âWhatâs that?â Harry said.

âHow well you can take a punch,â Schmidt said.

Harry smiled, and then grimaced. âGod, Hart, donât make me smile,â he said.

âSorry,â Schmidt said again.

âHow well do you take a punch, Hart?â Harry asked.

âIf this is what it takes to find out, Harry,â Schmidt said, âI donât want to know.â

âSee,â Harry said. âI told you you were soft.â

Schmidt grinned and left.

Copyright Â© 2008 by John Scalzi

Cover art Â© 2008 by John Harris

Tor Books by John Scalzi

Note: Within series, books are best read in listed order.

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THE OLD MANâS WAR SERIES

Humanity has finally made it into interstellar space. But the planets fit to live on are scarceâand alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. And they donât want young people for fighters.

Old Manâs War
The Ghost Brigades
The Last Colony
Zoeâs Tale
The Human Division

Short Fiction in the series: âAfter the Coupâ

STAND-ALONE FICTION
The Androidâs Dream: Earth is on the verge of war with a vastly superior alien race. A lone man races to find the one object that can save our planet and our people from alien enslavementâa sheep. Yes, a sheep. And just wait until you read Chapter One.

Agent to the Stars: Thomas Stein, one of Hollywoodâs hottest young agents, knows a thing or two about closing deals. But negotiating for an entire alien raceâa hideous and smelly oneâis going to require all the smarts, skills, and wits he can muster.

Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: Some of the best and most popular Whatever entries from the first ten years of the blogâa decade of Whatever, presented in delightfully random form, just as it should be.

METAtropolis: Five original tales set in a shared urban futureâfrom some of the hottest young writers in modern SF.

Fuzzy Nation: ZaraCorp holds the right to extract unlimited resources from the planet Zarathustra as long as itâs certifiably free of native sentients. When the planetâs native Fuzzies turn out to be intelligent, language-using beings, well, ZaraCorp has a problem.

Redshirts: Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel!
The starship ensigns were expendableâ¦until they started comparing notes.

Lock In: Fifteen years from now, a new virus sweeps the globe. Most experience nothing worse than fever and headaches, but 1%âthatâs 1.7 million people in the United Statesâfind themselves fully awake and aware yet âlocked inâ in this novel of our near future.

STAND-ALONE SHORT FICTION

âThe Presidentâs Brain is Missingâ
âThe Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City: Prologueâ

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