Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds Read Online Free PDF

caught up with the boy when he was alone. Floyt, the youngest, hadn't done much of the stomping and rib-kicking, sick with it even while it was going on. He'd quit the troupe and the corridors, turning inward.
    Then the memory passed, and Mote was coming at him. But the revivicist had made a mistake; by unconscious identification with his idol or by natural disposition, he'd drunk far too much for a man in a boxing match.
    Floyt had managed to block or evade most of Mote's punches and even land a few of his own. The gloves were thumbless, pillowlike, the only sort Earthservice would approve; little damage had been done on either side.
    Then Mote must have remembered a little something from Hemingway's life; using his greater weight, he bulldozed Floyt into a corner and scraped the eyelets and laces of his glove across the smaller man's face, trying for his eyes.
    Floyt barely saved himself by burrowing his head against Mote's slick, gray-haired chest. The eyelets had abraded and lacerated his cheek and temple, but he scarcely felt the pain or heard the screaming, shrieking workers. He did recall, later, hearing Balensa crying out to Mote, begging him to stop.
    Now Floyt fingered the wounds; with accelerated healing treatments, the scabs were already peeling away.
    It would've been poetic justice to beat Mote at his own game somehow, like one of the ancients in the pugilistic fantasies of the motion picture era. But there'd been no poetry that day, and Floyt had only a limited notion as to how to go about such a feat. Suddenly furious, he'd flung his arms around the barrel torso and brought his knee up sharply.
    Onlookers went berserk, some in an almost sexual frenzy, others looking ill. A few had only seen Floyt break the rules, though most knew that Mote had done so first. One or two thought that what they'd seen were the rules.
    But it was to the groaning, curled-up Arlo Mote that Balensa rushed. Floyt recognized then that he'd brought an end to his spousal contract in the most atavistic and inane way he could possibly have imagined.
    The sun was westering beautifully, a red ball among glorious orange and purple clouds, as he came to a stop at the crest of the hill, drawing deep breaths and watching.
    He glanced for a moment to his bare wrist. He'd left his accessor at home so that no one could contact him. That act of omission might result in his being charged with a misdemeanor if Earthservice became aware of it and decided that he had no viable excuse for taking himself out of communication. He didn't care; he didn't want to receive Balensa's contract termination decree over an accessor.
    He soon had his wind back, and the evening breeze began to feel chilly. Earthservice Functionary 3rd Class Hobart Floyt pushed off, cruising downhill toward the Atlantic Urbanplex and home. Where beforetimes the click-song of the coasting bicycle had lifted his heart and charged his spirit with a wild yet serene freedom, that day it gave him no joy; Balensa would be waiting at home with the decree.
    He asked himself repeatedly what the point of living was.
    Floyt reluctantly handed in the beautiful bicycle. Dawdling, he took a leisurely cleanup at the Rec Bureau substation before changing into rec-day attire. Though Balensa was—had been—after him constantly to dress as Benvenuto Cellini, he preferred a comfortable old Edwardian suit.
    The passenger transways and chuteshafts were unusually empty; he supposed that postgame celebrations were still in progress. Truk had trounced Antarctica.
    For the first time he wondered who'd be required to move out of the apt. Maybe the Housing Division would require both spouses to vacate; the apt was large for the quarters allotment of unattached functionary thirds. The prospect of once again commuting between a bachelor's cubicle and his workplace was so depressing that Floyt began thinking about applying for implant medication.
    The media-environment dwellings of Earth's golden age were gone