Free Odd Girl Out by Timothy Zahn Page B

actioners, with their fondness for fist-to-the-jaw punches that in real life usually wrecked the attacker’s knuckles. But he hadn’t learned his technique from an actual combat instructor either. Pivoting on my left foot, I swiveled out of his way, catching his fist in my left hand and helping it along a little. As he continued to lunge forward off-balance I bent his arm back at the elbow, pushing his fist over his shoulder and dropping him flat on his back on the walkway.
    “I’m guessing it’s the opportunity for fresh air and good healthy exercise,” I continued, taking a step away from him. “That’s probably enough of both for one day, don’t you think?”
    Apparently, he didn’t. Scrambling to his feet, he squared his shoulders and came at me again.
    Not in a mad-bull rush this time, but with the slower, warier approach I recognized from the better class of martial-arts dit rec actioners. I held my ground, ignoring the insistent tingling of the kwi in my pocket as Bayta kept activating it. Obviously, considering the four-to-one odds I was facing, she thought I should haul out the artillery and put the whole lot of them down for the count.
    Under other circumstances, I would probably have agreed with her. But my old Westali combat senses were buzzing with the nagging feeling that something was wrong here. With the casual humiliation of their leader, the other three teens should have waded into the fray, hoping to overwhelm me with sheer numbers.
    But they were still standing there in their line, watching the show but making no move to join in the fun. I flicked a glance at the bar, wondering if the crowd there was still watching.
    And in that moment of apparent distraction, my attacker struck. Rotating on his right foot, he threw a side kick toward my stomach with his left.
    Unfortunately for him, my distraction was indeed only apparent. Even more unfortunately, his kick had enthusiasm going for it but not much more. Again I slid out of the way with relative ease, capturing his leg and locking my arm around it at waist height.
    And with that, we suddenly went from a dit rec actioner to a dit rec comedy. There he stood on one leg, making small hops with his remaining foot as he fought desperately to maintain his balance. He swung a couple of times at me, but I was well out of punching range. “Are we finished yet?” I asked mildly, watching the rest of his group out of the corner of my eye.
    Again, none of them was making the slightest attempt to back up their leader. There would likely be some unpleasant words passing between them later.
    “Enough.”
    I turned my head. While I’d been preoccupied elsewhere, the white-haired man had left the tavern doorway and come up behind the three teens. Like them, he was watching me, an intent look on his face. “Yes?” I asked, keeping my grip on the teen’s leg.
    “You armed, friend?” he asked.
    “I carry the sword of truth and the shield of virtue,” I told him.
    His expression didn’t even flicker. “I was talking about the gun under your jacket,” he said.
    “Oh—that,” I said. “So why bother to ask?”
    “Just wondering how honest you were,” he said. “Why didn’t you draw it?”
    “What, against these ?” I asked, waving at the line of teens. My gesture shifted the leg I was still holding, forcing its owner to hop a little more if he didn’t want to fall over. “Hardly necessary. Besides, guns are dangerous.”
    “True,” he agreed. “That was aikido, wasn’t it?”
    “There was some of that in the mix,” I confirmed, eyeing the old man with new interest. Average citizens, despite the glut of hand-to-hand fighting in dit rec actioners, were generally pretty tone-deaf when it came to distinguishing one martial-arts style from another. The fact that he’d picked my aikido move out of the crowd lifted him somewhere above the average. “My instructors had a kind of grab-bag style.”
    I dropped the teen’s leg, allowing him back