Free The Vastalimi Gambit by Steve Perry

on Singh’s wrist. The follow-through turned him to his left, and the impact knocked the knife loose from his grip. She slid her left foot behind him, caught his shoulders with both hands, and dropped into a squat. The move jerked him off-balance backward to land on his butt, then his back. She scooped up the fallen knife and laid the edge onto his throat—
    “Ow,
fuck
—!”
    Game over.
    She stood, extended a hand to Singh, helped him to his feet.
    He shook his head. “That won’t work a second time,” he said.
    “Ah should hope not. But it doesn’t have to; it only needs to work
once
. Real knife, Ah’d have a six-centimeter-long slice on my arm, no major bleeders, wiped clean and glued shut in a couple of minutes. You, on the other hand, would have a cut throat and would be pretty dead in another couple of minutes.”
    He nodded. “I’d like to learn that move.”
    “No, not really, you wouldn’t. What you need to learn are simple motions, general patterns that will happen automatically when you track what is incoming. A specific defense set up in advance almost never works. If you think, ‘Well, Ah’ll block this way, then counter like so,’ you’ll find yourself skewered more often than not. Bare-handed defense against a knife is a last-ditch and desperate action, Oh, shit! moves. Conscious thought is too slow. Good chance you’ll get cut or stabbed as part of it, and if you know that going in and are willing to take it to win, you can win. If you fall apart at the sight of your own blood, you will lose and maybe die.
    “What Ah’ll show you are some patterns. Covers and responses. You drill them until they become part of you, and if you have them when the turd hits the turbine, maybe you’ll use one that works.”
    “‘Maybe’?”
    Gunny nodded. “Yep. Old sayin’ is ‘You’re not an ape, use a tool!’ Your bare hands are for when your knife breaks; your knife is for when your pistol runs out of ammo; your pistol is for when your carbine is dead. Carbine is for when you can’t be somewhere else.
    “More tool than you need is better than less. Bare-handed stuff is a low-percentage game, for when you can’t run and can’t get a better weapon. But it only needs to work once to pay for itself. In our biz, sooner or later, you might find yourself up to your ass in enemies with nothing to wave at them but your own biological tools. We started into this back on Ananda, but it’s a never-ending game. Better to know what you can do and do it than to roll over and die.”
    “Yes. I see.”
    “Good. Here, take the knife and try again . . .”
    _ _ _ _ _ _
    It was late when Kay and Wink left the medical facility, headed for their quarters. Another long day without anything much useful to show for it.
    It was only a couple klicks to the cube, and as long as she didn’t want to run, he didn’t mind the walk. Loosen some of the tension he’d built up.
    They weren’t any closer to a solution. It was frustrating. You’d think with all that civilization had to offer in such situations, you could find answers.
    It was a little warmer today, still not hot. Never really got tropical, Kay had told him, but it did get a lot colder. The season was summer; come winter, it would drop below freezing and stay there for weeks. Not surprising, given the double-coat thickness of Vastalimi fur—they did better in the cold than in the tropics.
    As they crossed the road, the streetlights offered only a faint, yellowish gleam. They were dim because Vastalimi didn’t need as much illumination as humans did. Made Wink realize that a nightsight aug might not be a bad idea though the chances of getting one here were way below slim. Vastalimi
really
didn’t like such things. When Kay had found out that Formentara had sneaked a tracker into her, back on Ananda? She’d nearly blown an artery, according to what he’d heard. Vastalimi didn’t do augs.
    Well. He wouldn’t be here that long. He could get used to