My shoulder knocked him spinning away from the car, and I heard a metal tick. He got up fast, empty-handed. No gun. He’d dropped it. I turned to look in the car, fully expecting to find it on the floor or on the seat. It was nowhere to be seen. I looked back in time to duck, and his other hand caught me and knocked me away. I rolled with it and came to my feet.

He was standing in a relaxed boxer stance between me and the car.

“I’m going to break you, Bey.”

“So you can’t find the gun, either.”

“I don’t need it. Any normal ten-year-old could break you in two.”

“Then come on.” I dropped into boxer stance, thanking Finagle that he didn’t know karate or ju-whatsis or any of the other illegal killing methods. Hundreds of years had passed since the usual laws against carrying a concealed weapon were extended to cover special fighting methods, but Bellamy had had hundreds of years to learn. I’d come up lucky.

He came toward me, moving lightly and confidently, a flatlander in prime condition. He must have felt perfectly safe. What could he have to fear from an attenuated weakling, a man born and raised in We Made It’s point six gee? He grinned when he was almost in range, and I hit him in the mouth.

My range was longer than his.

He danced back, and I danced forward and hit him in the nose before he got his guard up. He’d have to get used to the extra reach of my arms. But his guard was up now, and I saw no point in punching his forearms.

“You’re a praying mantis,” he said. “An insect. Overspecialized.” And he moved in.

I moved back, punching lightly, staying out of his reach. He’d have to get used to that, too. His legs were too short. If he tried to move forward as fast as I could backpedal, he wouldn’t be able to keep his guard up.

He tried anyway. I caught him one below the ribs, and his head jerked up in surprise. I wasn’t hurting him much…but he’d been expecting love pats. Four years in Earth’s one point oh gee had put muscle on me, muscle that didn’t show along my long bones. He tried crowding me, and I caught him twice in the right eye. He tried keeping his guard intact, and that was suicide because he couldn’t reach me at all.

I caught that eye a third time. He bellowed, lowered his head, and charged.

I ran like a thief.

I’d led him in a half circle. He never had a chance to catch me. He reached the car just as I slammed the door in his face and locked it.

By the time he reached the left-hand door, I had that locked, too, and all the windows up. He was banging a rock on a window when I turned on the lift units and departed the field of battle.