Public-domain ebook
The Cosmic Bluff
Language: en469 downloads on Project Gutenberg
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In: Science-Fiction & Fantasy·Humour·Novels
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #65938.
The opening · free to read
By Mack Reynolds
As Earth's Champion, Jak had challenged the Invaders to a duel in the Arena. It was a grand bluff, but they called it--with one of their own!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy October 1952 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
To everyone in the Solar System I was a big shot, understand? Everyone but two--the two that counted most. One of the two was Suzi, and the other was me. The difference was that Suzi made no bones about telling me I was a fake; in my own mind the knowledge was there but more or less subconscious.
On this particular occasion Suzi was standing in the center of the half acre living room of my new penthouse on top the two hundred story Spacenter Building in Neuve Los Angeles. She had her hands on her hips and was glaring around at the furniture, the pictures, the statuary.
She said bitingly, "Jak, you're a phony."
"A what?" I complained. "Listen, Suzi, don't start calling me those prehistoric names again."
"A phony," she said, "a humbug, a four flusher, a quack, a faker...."
She'd finally got to a word I knew. "Hey," I protested, "what's this all about?"
She indicated the portraits of me hanging on the wall. She pointed out the statuettes. She picked up a magazine and showed me the ad on the back page--me, endorsing a boomerang. I'd got a thousand credits for that.
She went over to the bookcase and pulled out a copy of "How I Became Champ" and the first volume of "Gladiator Technique". Both by me. That is, ghost written for me; but my name was on the cover. She indicated two or three other books I was cashing in on.
"You're a phony, Jak," she repeated. "You used to be a nice quiet fellow, actually more shy and retiring than was good for you. Now your head is swollen beyond bearing."
I was getting a little hot about this. For the past few months I'd been acquiring the habit of having people look up to me, admiring me, asking for my autograph, that sort of thing.
"Look here," I said. "Just because you've known me for years and just because for most of that time I've been chasing you, doesn't mean that the Gladiator Champion of the Solar System is a nobody." I finished with what I thought would be the clincher. "Let me tell you, there isn't one girl in a billion who wouldn't be glad to be in your shoes--engaged to Jak Dempsi."
It was the clincher all right. She took her hands from her hips and folded them over her breasts and glared. "Oh yes there is," she told me. "There's exactly one girl who isn't interested in being engaged to you Gladiator Jak Dempsi. Me," she snapped.
I glared back at her. "Are you crazy?" I asked. "We're going to be married the day after tomorrow."
"That's where you're wrong," she snapped again. "I became engaged to a nice, quiet, thoughtful, second-rate gladiator. A mistake happened and he wound up Solar System Champion--and a stuffed shirt. The engagement is off."
"Second-rate gladiator...." I blurted indignantly, but she was already on her way, stamping across the Venusian Chameleon rug to the door.
I was so surprised I stood there, letting her go. It took me a full minute to understand that Suzi had just run out on me. Me! The victor at the Interplanetary Meet. The sole survivor of the scores of gladiators who fought it out once every ten years to see which planet of the System would dominate interplanetary affairs.
I went over to the bookcase and wrenched out one of the many books on prehistoric times that Suzi was always insisting I read. That's Suzi's bug, if you didn't know. Prehistoric times, customs, history, language, legends--all of a period that most people don't even know ever existed, and don't care.
The book was "Glossary of Ancient Terminology." I thumbed through it and finally found my words.
"Stuffed shirt!" I yelped indignantly. "A stuffed shirt! Me?"
Ten minutes later I was in the Gladiator Room of the Spacenter Building and already had three or four slugs of woji under my belt.
"A stuffed shirt, yet. Me! Solar System Champ." I grunted sarcastically and made with a curt flip of my hand to the bartender. He was a Venusian spiderman, who of course, make the best barkeeps in the System.
"Another woji," I ordered.
A guy drifted down to me from the other end of the bar. "Hanging one on, Champ?" he asked. "You must be out of training."
I looked him up and down. I'd never seen him before. However, in my position you have to be nice to the fans.
I said, "Woji doesn't bother me. I train on it." Suzi's words were still burning. I added, out of the side of my mouth, "If you really got it, you got it, and if you haven't you haven't and all the training in the world won't give it to you."
I flexed my muscles. "Woji isn't going to hurt a man like me."
He blinked in admiration. "Guess you're right at that, Champ," he said. "It's the second-raters that have to be watching everything they eat, everything they drink, everything they do."
"Right," I told him, condescendingly.
He climbed up on the stool next to me.
"Have a woji?" I asked him. I was glad to have his company; at least it'd keep my mind off Suzi.
"No thanks," he said, shuddering. "But I wouldn't mind a bloor."
So I ordered him a bloor and another double woji for me.
My new friend said hesitantly, "Champ, what'd 'ya think of these visitors, explorers, or whatever you want to call them, from Centaurus?"
How is it that when you become a celebrity--no matter in what field--your opinions on every subject seem noteworthy to everybody else? I'd read a little about the Centaurians, seen an item or two on the viziscreen, but I didn't know anything about them worth mentioning. I was too busy with my own rapidly developing affairs to spend much time keeping up with Solar System news.
"What about them?" I asked, noticing that my tongue was at last beginning to get a bit thick. I ordered another drink. The bartender started to protest, but then shrugged six of his shoulders and began mixing it.
"Didn't you hear the latest?" the guy asked. "They're looking for room for colonization and the Solar System attracts them."
It was shortly after this that the fog rolled in, and it didn't roll out again until the following morning when my manager gave me a dealcoholizer.
He was hopping mad. And when I say hopping mad I mean just that since Mari Nown, my manager, is a chicken-headed Mercurian Bouncer. A nationalized citizen of Terra, of course, but a Mercurian with all their characteristic excitability.
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