Arena Read Online Free PDF

homeworld?
    Gravitational forces, day-night cycles, and atmosphere have been tailored to meet your biological needs. In addition to many of your homeworld species, a number of innovative bioforms have been engineered to add excitement and interest to your journey .
    The light, fluttery feeling returned. Innovative bioforms? Like that thing that screamed?
    For your comfort and safety, please stay on the path and follow all instructions .
    She skimmed ahead. The section closed with— We appreciate your participation in our project and hope you’ll have an entertaining adventure .
    “Entertaining adventure?” she squeaked. “Give me a break!”
    The next page reiterated the “initial objective” Alex had given her: Follow the white road to its end, and there pass through the First Gate, pictured on the title page . The manual said nothing about splits in the road.
    She turned the page, reviewed the five rules, and launched into the paragraphs of elaboration that followed. As Alex had said, the white road was a safe zone, undulating through a treacherous countryside whose engineered bioforms could be downright deadly. The plant that attacked her would have eaten her if given the opportunity, and its spines carried a mild poison that would produce discomfort for at least a day. The scream she’d heard was probably the territorial call of a rock dragon—six-foot-long lizards said to frequent canyons such as this. An unarmed woman would make easy pickings for a big female, but the path supposedly repelled them, so she’d be safe as long as she didn’t leave it.
    The material accompanying rule number two, “Proceed immediately to the nearest gate,” was informative but not reassuring.
    To encourage forward momentum, portions of the track have been engineered to disappear after an elapsed interval of time .
    “Which you neglect to specify,” she noted sourly.
    It is wise, therefore, not to linger, especially at the beginning. Should the worst happen and you do stray off the road, we have provided fourteen identical gates located at equidistant intervals around the Arena. No matter where you are, there will always be a safe road in the vicinity that will take you to one of them .
    “So long as the ‘innovative bioforms’ don’t get you first,” she muttered.
    Safehavens have been provided for your comfort along the roads. You may stay in each up to twenty-four hours. Food, water, energy cubes — whatever they were— and first-aid supplies are available there for your convenience .
    She skipped ahead to rule three, “Avoid distractions.” Antagonists within the Arena are at work to prevent you from attaining your—
    Something moved at the corner of her eye, and Callie looked up.
    At the mouth of the boulder-choked cleft, a patch of gray weeds quivered in the quiet air. Silence pressed around her, deep and anticipatory, and a sense of being watched crawled up her back. She coughed, but the creepy feeling did not wane.
    With one eye on her surroundings, she stuffed the Snak-Pak and water bottle back into her pack. Standing, she reshouldered the bag, then flipped through the manual’s thin pages one last time, hoping something might catch her eye. No luck. No index, either. She was on her own.
    Pushing her glasses back up, she surveyed her two choices again. Surely most “participants” were not as stubborn as she and had eagerly received the orientation she’d disdained. No doubt the prescribed method of path selection was part of their counsel. Since the lower road looked the more traveled, it seemed the logical choice—and the easiest. There was no point in confronting her fear of heights unless she had no other options.
    She slid the manual into the right rear pocket of her jumpsuit and was just starting forward when a sibilant hissing issued from the cleft. She froze, her heart once more pounding against her rib cage.
    The silence returned.
    Mottled red-brown to blend with their surroundings, rock dragons