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He heard the quarra growl, heard the growl rising as he grew closer to the pit.

His daughter and brother walked a bare few steps behind him. Malloc recalled he had once had a wife; he wondered why she was not there.

Perhaps she had died.

A dozen quarra in the pit, lean and hungry, leaping up toward the spot where Malloc’s guards brought him to a halt.

Devaronians are not creatures of ceremony; a herald cried out, “The Butcher of Montellian Serat!”—and the screams of the crowd raised up and surrounded Malloc, an immense roar that drowned out the noise of the snarling quarra; the bonds that held him were released and strong young hands shoved him forward, and into the pit where the starving quarra waited.

The quarra leapt, and had their teeth in him before he reached the ground.

He could see the Blue Mountains from where he fell.

He had almost forgotten the mountains, the forests, all those years on that desert world.

Oh, but the trees were beautiful.

Arch your head back.

They made Han buy the speeder—Jubilar wasn’t big on rentals. Too frequently the rentals, and/or the renters, didn’t come back.

In early twilight Han pulled the speeder to a stop at the address they’d given him, and got out to look around.

Almost thirty years.

He felt so odd: everything had changed. Places that he remembered as well-kept buildings had grown run-down, places that used to be run-down had been torn down and new buildings built in their steads. Slums had spread everywhere—the planet’s never-ending battles had razed entire neighborhoods.

The neighborhood surrounding the Victory Forum, where Han had fought in Regional Sector Number Four’s All-Human Free-For-All extravaganza, was a blasted ruin. It looked like the remains of some ancient civilization, worn down by the eons. The small buildings surrounding the Forum had their windows broken out and boarded up; flame and shells and blaster fire had scored them.

All that remained of the Forum itself was broken rubble strewn across a huge empty lot. Han stepped off the sidewalk, into the lot. Glass and gravel crunched beneath his feet as he walked across it, toward the main entrance.

He stood in the empty lot, staring at the desolation, with a cool wind tugging at him—and suddenly it struck him as though he were there, that moment, all those years ago:

… standing in the ring. Facing the opponents, with the screams and cheers and taunts of the crowd in his ears. His heart pounding and his breath coming short, as the match flag fluttered down toward the ground, and the other three fighters came at him.

Han took a running leap at the nearest. He got up two meters off the ground and landed a flying kick into the face of the onrushing first fighter. The man’s nose broke, his head snapped back—

To this day Han had no clear memory of the next several minutes. They’d recorded the fights, and he’d seen the recording; but the knowledge of what had happened did not connect to his blurred memories of the events themselves. The boy had been hurt, and hurt badly, walking off the mat with a broken arm and a broken jaw, two broken ribs and a concussion and bruises across half his body; the bruises turned purple the next day. The woman who’d cared for Han the next several days, he couldn’t even remember what she’d looked like, she was a strange one and he did remember her running her fingers over the bruises, plainly fascinated—

Here. Here. Right about … here.

Han stood on the spot. This empty place … this was the spot. The ring. And when all was done, he’d been the last one left on his feet—

Thirty years. Over half his life had passed since that day.

Han took a slow step … stopped and took one last look around at the devastation, a ruin stretching to the horizon; and turned away and walked back to the speeder, and sat motionlessly in the speeder, leaning back with his hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the sky as darkness fell around him, remembering.

“Mayor Baker,” Han said. “A real pleasure.”

He’d met her in a brightly lit hydroponics warehouse, in a complex of warehouses at the