roper spirit
of--"

He was interrupted by the arrival of a detachment of guards. It was time
for the occupants of Barrent's cell to enter the Arena.

"No reprieve," Barrent said.

"Well, that's how it goes," Joe said.

They were marched out under heavy guard and lined up at the iron door
that separated the cell block from the main Arena. Just before the
captain of the guards opened the door, a fat, well-dressed man came
hurrying down a side corridor waving a paper.

"What's this?" the captain of the guards asked.

"A writ of recognizance," the fat man said, handing his paper to
the captain. "On the other side, you'll find a cease-and-desist
order." He pulled more papers out of his pockets. "And here is a
bankruptcy-transferral notice, a chattel mortgage, a writ of habeas
corpus, and a salary attachment."

The captain pushed back his helmet and scratched his narrow forehead. "I
can never understand what you lawyers are talking about. What does it
mean?"

"It releases him," the fat man said, pointing to Joe.

The captain took the papers, gave them a single puzzled glance, and
handed them to an aide. "All right," he said, "take him with you. But it
wasn't like this in the old days. _Nothing_ stopped the orderly
progression of the Games."

Grinning triumphantly, Joe stepped through the ranks of guards and
joined the fat lawyer. He asked him, "Do you have any papers for Will
Barrent?"

"None," the lawyer said. "His case is in different hands. I'm afraid it
might not be completely processed until after the Games are over."

"But I'll probably be dead then," Barrent said.

"That, I can assure you, won't stop the papers from being properly
served," the fat lawyer said proudly. "Dead or alive, you will retain
all your rights."

The captain of the guards said, "All right, let's go."

"Luck," Joe called out. And then the line of prisoners had passed
through the iron door into the glaring light of the Arena.

* * * * *

Barrent lived through the hand-to-hand duels in which a quarter of the
prisoners were killed. After that, men armed with swords were matched
against the deadlier Omegan fauna. The beasts they fought included the
hintolyte and the hintosced--big-jawed, heavily armored monsters whose
natural habitat was the desert region far to the south of Tetrahyde.
Fifteen men later, these beasts were dead. Barrent was matched with a
Saunus, a flying black reptile from the weste