"Why do they call it a corner?" I asked.

"Huh?"

"It's a round ring. It doesn't have any corners."

She shrugged. "It's traditional, I guess." Then she smiled maliciously. "You can research it before you write this up for Walter."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Why the hell not? 'Sports, Then and Now.' It's a natural."

She was right, of course, but that didn't make it any harder to swallow. I wasn't particularly enjoying this role reversal. She was supposed to be the ignorant one.

"What about that red light? What's it mean?"

"Each of the fighters gets ten liters of blood for transfusions. See that gauge on the scoreboard? The Cyclone just used his last liter. Dervish has seven liters left."

"So it's just about over."

"He'll never last another round."

And he didn't.

The last round was an artless affair. No more fancy spins, no flying leaps. The crowd shouted a little at first, then settled down to watch the kill. People began drifting out of the arena to get refreshments before the main bout of the evening. The Dervish moved constantly away as the dazed Cyclone lumbered after him, striking out from time to time, opening more wounds. Bleeding his opponent to death. Soon the Cyclone could only stand there, dumb and inert with loss of blood. A few people in the crowd were booing. The Dervish slashed the Cyclone's throat. Arterial blood spurted into the air, and the Cyclone crashed to the mat. The Dervish bent over his fallen foe, worked briefly, and then held the head high. There was sporadic applause and the handlers moved in, hustling the Dervish down to the locker rooms and hauling away both pieces of the Cyclone. The zamboni appeared and began mopping up the blood.

"You want some popcorn?" Brenda asked me.

"Just something to drink," I told her. She joined the throngs moving toward the refreshment center.

I turned back toward the ring, savoring a feeling that had been all too rare of late: the urge to write. I raised my left hand and snapped my fingers. I snapped them again before I remembered the damn handwriter was not working. It hadn't been working for five days, since Brenda's visit to Texas. The problem seemed to be in the readout skin. I could type on the keyboard on the heel of my hand, but nothing appeared on the readout. The data was going into the memory and could later be downloaded, but I can't work that way. I have to see the words as they're being formed.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I slipped through the program book Brenda had left on her chair, found a blank page. Then I rummaged through my purse and found a blue pen I kept for hand corrections to hard copy.

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(File Hildy*next avail.*)(code Bloodsport)

(headline to come)

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There may be no evidence of it, but you can bet cave men had sporting events. We still have them today, and if we ever reach the stars, we'll have sports out there, too.