Part 29

For the next nine days, the Green Band's schedules were almost completely the ones they would come to consider to be normal for them. None of them worked on hunting or fighting any harder than most Tiger people did. Pina cut back to five hours of work on her physics projects per day, to allow her to spend five on her hunting and fighting, as most of their Adolescent friends did.

The remaining exceptions were Raz and Davdan. Davdan was still training with the staff for five hours per day to prepare for the Elder's Tournament. Raz was still busy with three major construction projects as well as various minor projects. The rest spent much of their time visiting around the Northern Zone and the White Elf Region.

Raz finally was relieved of most of his stress on the twenty-eighth of June. On that day, a quadruple grand opening was held.

Tika knew they would be holding it for her own house, for the multi-purpose stadium beside the Lakeside Zone's trading post, for the Academy of the Prodigies, and for the subsurface village of residential, commercial, agricultural, and industrial complexes for the first few thousand Elf-Mothers who were techs. She was flabbergasted with surprise to find that Raz, with the help of Naz and his magic money genie bottle, had completed a small city for all twenty-nine thousand, four hundred and eighty three Elf-kin techs, as well as individual homes on the territories of over four hundred Elf hunters. All were connected by the transit and mail tube systems, and some by corridors as well. Hills and hillocks with large windows, and huge skylights in the ground, had sprouted almost overnight all over the region.

After eating a leisurely breakfast at Davdan's, the Green Band took the tube to the Tika Multi-Purpose Stadium, (the name of which was another surprise to Tika), where the grand opening ceremony was held.

Though they were becoming inured to large gatherings and to their celebrity, that was an overwhelming day for all of them. The great room was nowhere near full when all the attendees were gathered, but still, there were over thirty thousand Elf-Mothers and their families, over six hundred Tiger People, many of whom were from the Northern Zone, eleven thousand Prodigies and new students of their Academy and their families, and another four hundred guests from various other walks of life. All of them wanted to meet or talk to the members of the Green Band. Though they were all very polite and courteous, Tika and her family found it to be a draining experience, especially Pina because of her fear of crowds.

Since there was plenty of extra seating available in the stadium, it had been fitted on one side with an absolutely colossal video display that covered almost a fifth of the seats, and a podium had been placed on the floor beneath it. The seats that were in use were placed and angled to face the podium.

The Green Band took their seats, and at the designated time Raz mounted the podium. He greeted those present and welcomed them to the grand opening, then made a presentation on the newly finished buildings, using the gigantic display to show three-dimensional maps, fly-throughs, and virtual tours of the freshly completed facilities, as he provided commentary.

At Tika's insistence no speeches were made, since it was her opinion that enough speeches had been made at the ground breaking to last for the entire service life of the buildings!

After Raz's presentation on Tika's constructions was done, he proudly announced the granting of the last permits for his freight launcher project. A live feed from the foothills of the Himalayas was then shown on the gigantic display so that they could watch ground being broken for the launcher by a great excavating machine. Raz then made a presentation about the launcher. After showing graphics of its layout and operation, Raz explained that the launcher would launch freight containers to one spot in orbit, where they would build a space station. The station would then send the freight containers to where they were ultimately going, whether it was another space station, the moon, or Mars. Raz had many impressive and realistic graphics of that part of the operation to show as well.

When he was finished, there was a snack and beverage period, and then everyone spread out to tour the open and public areas of the town and the Academy of the Prodigies.

When they returned, the stadium had been transformed into an amphitheatre-in-the-round configuration, similar to Nehru Coliseum when the Grande Tournament had been held there.

Soon the house lights faded and jaunty music played, and they were treated to a performance by The Kiev Traditional Ukrainian Dancers.

That troupe was followed by Scalding Sludge, a crash band from Calcutta. They were one of Tika's favorite bands, though few others there truly appreciated them.

The last act of the day's entertainment was The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, accompanied by The Winnipeg Philharmonic Orchestra, from North America. They delivered a brilliant performance, an interpretive piece based on the music of Nicolo Paganinni. As the dancers and musicians took their second set of bows, Tika and the rest of the Green Band clapped and cheered along with the rest of the audience until their hands and throats were sore.

After the dancers and musicians had returned to their dressing rooms, Tika mounted the platform to another huge round of applause. When that had died down she brought the occasion to a close, thanking the attendees for coming and bidding them a good night.

Tika then led her family up to her office in the largest of the private suites in the waistline of the stadium, taking a moment to admire the sign on the door that read:

Tika

Leader of the Council

Of The White Elves

They waited there, relaxing with hot beverages and chatting until most of the guests had left, the tech Elf-kin had gone to see to their housing assignments in their new apartments and clan homes, and the Prodigies and their new students had gone to finalize class schedules and dormitory billeting.

When a check on the cameras in the tube station below the stadium showed that the platform was almost clear, the Green Band took a tube car to Tika's new home, which she would share with Pina and Slin. The ride lasted less than half a minute before the car's doors were opening for the first time in the small tube station beneath the house.

"I have chosen a Polynesian theme for my house's grand opening." Tika revealed. "I have hired a Hawaiian company named Luau International, and they provide everything, including the traditional feast prepared on site, an ensemble of twelve traditional musicians and drummers, six female hula dancers, and six male fire dancers, as well as enough grass skirts and flowered necklaces and crowns for everyone. The cleverest items they provide are dozens of temporary fire pits and tall traditional torch stands whose fire is not real, but the illusion is so perfect that you have to actually put your hand into the cool flames to be convinced!"

"That sounds like it will be fun!" Tira laughed.

"It will be!" Tika laughed.

And it was.

When all the guests had finally left, and Luau International had packed up and departed on their long tube journey home, everyone in the Green Band accepted Tika's invitation to sleep over at her new house. It was almost the same design as Davdan's house, except for being much smaller, having been designed for only four permanent residents and up to six guests. She laughingly asked all the adults to have vigorous sex there that night, to 'break this house in right!', as she put it. None failed her in that regard, though her request may have had little to do with it.

The next day was a short return to normalcy.

Raz took the day completely off. It was another heavy rain day, and he spent most of it in Tika's hot pool, reading science and technical magazines whose content had nothing to do with anything he was working on. He did have a few moments of extreme stress when he dropped his screen into the pool, and he grabbed it from the water and hurriedly dried it with a handy towel, cursing all the while. His waterproofing had remained intact though, and it was the only blip in an otherwise perfect day. He was so loath to go out in the rain that he took the tube from Tika's house to Davdan's where the group was meeting for supper. Since the two houses were less than two territories apart, his tube car was only in motion for eleven seconds on the journey.

Davdan received a message as they were eating supper in her living room, and watching an action movie about a criminally insane killer who was stalking the residents of a moon base, and the detectives who pursued him.

Tira paused the movie when she saw from Davdan's happy expression that the message was a significant one.

"Aha! As I fully expected, I am in the Tournament of Elders." she grinned. "What I did not expect is that I am ranked third! Not bad, eh? Sixty-seven years since I was in a fight, and I am ranked third! Shan Len is ranked first!"

"You just found out your rank?" Raz asked in surprise.

"A constant rank is not kept among elders. Every year, those who wish to compete in the Tournament of Elder Staff Fighters submit the best of their recent recordings, one week before the tournament. I submitted my best practice fight with Pabano. The best thirty-two are picked and ranked. No one knows who will compete or where they stand until the day before. Only on these two days are elders formally ranked, and even then only the thirty-two are assigned one."

"And only thirty-two compete, I did not know that! I had assumed that it was run the same way as the rest of the tournaments!"

"The elders' tournament is different in many ways. All the fights in each of the five rounds happen at the same time, and there is only an hour between each round rather than a day, so the entire tournament is finished in about five hours. Endurance plays a much bigger part, since the breaks are so short, and because staff fights tend to last longer than blade fights. On the other hand, serious injuries are rare.

"We are not watched on screen much, and none of us are prepared to commit more than one day to a tournament anymore. The differences in our tournament stem from those, the nature of elders, and the use of the staff rather than blades."

"Yes, the format is logical, when those are considered." Raz nodded.

"So, tomorrow we are off to Innsbruck, in Europe, and of course you are all invited." Davdan smiled. "But now we watch the rest of the movie! It was just getting good!"

Davdan spent the two and a half hour tube ride studying her thirty-one potential opponents on screen with Tika. Davdan's talent gave her the finishing move or sequence of moves she needed to defeat each of them, but she often had to maneuver her opponent into position before she could do the move, so study of her opponents was still necessary. And as she pointed out to Slin when he asked about it as they were passing under Pakistan, there were the very rare occasions when the move her talent gave her did not work, for various reasons. She had still won most of those matches because she did not assume her talent would give her the win, and trained to be the best all-around fighter she could be.

The rest of the group spent most of the journey enjoying the beautiful scenery along their route, as reproduced on the tube car's holographic 'window' displays. They disembarked from a local tube beneath a small village that had remained largely unchanged for centuries, as it was preserved in its entirety as a historical site. It and a few estates around it were surrounded by the ecocultured zones over the city of Innsbruck, which looked completely natural except for being peppered with huge windows and skylights. The Austrian Alps towered beyond the forest.

When they emerged from the top level of the transit station onto a quaint street, they were met by a blond fourteen-year-old female named Maria who was a volunteer staff member of the elder's tournament, and she explained that she would escort them there, and that they would be conveyed in two open horse-drawn carriages. Although it was a novel experience, it was jarring and uncomfortable as they clattered over the cobblestones.

It was a warm, sunny day, and the ride was more pleasant when they left the village and traveled a narrow tree-lined road for a quarter mile. Jela questioned their driver about horses in the front carriage, and Tika questioned Maria about the historical park in the one behind, while the rest were content to listen to these two conversations as they enjoyed the unique experience and scenery.

The tournament was held at an estate that had been built four hundred and eighty years before, yet was so well restored that it looked like it had been built a year ago. They passed under an arch in a stone wall, between two huge and ornate wrought iron gates, down a long drive and around a massive stone building.

"Is that a mansion, a palace, or a castle?" Tika asked.

"Its more correctly referred to as a mansion or manor in English, I believe." Maria told her. "Though its larger than some that were considered palaces, its owners were nobles, and not royalty, so I don't think the term palace applies. And it lacks the fortified nature and size of a castle."

"It is beautiful and ugly at the same time." Tika said, craning her neck to see to the tallest tower.

"I could build one." Raz said absently as he noted its engineering details. "Though it could not have been a lot of fun to build it without power tools or mechanized transportation."

"It took seventeen years to build it." Maria supplied.

"Gods, to think that if they had started that when I was born, it would only be half finished by now!" Tika marveled.

"Even back then, they could have finished it in a year if they had the resources to hire enough workers and animals." Raz said.

"It was the wars." their driver said over his shoulder.

"Pardon me?" Raz asked.

"They had a lot of wars around here in those days." The driver stated, raising his voice a bit to be heard over the clopping of the horses' hooves. "Big wars and small ones, and feuds that went on for generations. That's why it took so long to build the manor house. There wasn't much fighting right here while they built it, but the wars messed up the economy all around here. And when the armies came close, workers put down their tools and went home to see to their families.

"People were damn irrational back then." he finished, and had no more to say.

They passed rows of stables and outbuildings behind the mansion, and descended from the carriages in a huge grassy field. It was immediately obvious that the elder's tournament was a very informal affair. Only about four thousand people were in attendance, most of them elders, all slowly milling about as they greeted each other and talked. It looked strange to see almost every person in such a large group carrying a staff, moreso since most were brightly colored fighting staffs made from advanced composite materials, rather than the polished wooden staffs most elders usually carried.

There were no grandstands, and spectators would sit on the ground to watch the fights, many with blankets, cushions, or backrests.

"It is ten fourteen here." Davdan said, checking the time on her screen. "Sixteen minutes to the draw. Then thirty to the first round.

"I wonder where Loral is? He said he would be early, as he is on the organizing committee."

"He is over there." Tika said, pointing into the crowd without looking in that direction. "I recognize his voice."

They joined Loral and two other elders from their home zone, and Davdan introduced them to Pabano.

"It is an honor to meet you, Pabano." Loral told him as they clasped forearms. "Though I enjoyed life more before you arrived at Davdan's house. She has not called me since then!"

"Perhaps you should come by some night." Pabano told him easily. "If you feel uncomfortable about a trio, you could bring a few of the beautiful and well-matured females I have seen around the zone."

"Perhaps I will!"

Though their voices were friendly, there was a certain tension between them.

"Why Davdan!" Tika laughed. "I do believe that these two fine males are establishing some sort of rivalry for your affections!"

"Yes! Delightful of them, really!" Davdan smirked. They sat on the grass and speculated about the upcoming matches until the draw.

The draw itself was another impromptu affair. A three foot high platform, only large enough for six to stand on, had been placed at one edge of the field, with a large loudspeaker on a tripod stand to either side, a podium, and a ten foot screen mounted behind it.

At ten-thirty Kimagme ascended the platform, carrying a small black silk bag.

"Greetings, and welcome to the Tournament of Elder Staff Fighters. I am Kimagme, most senior of active fighting judges. Here are the tokens for the draw for the first round." she said, holding the bag up.

With no more preliminary, she reached into the bag without looking in it, and withdrew two transparent disks an inch wide, with gold numbers cast in the center of them. She set them on a saucer on the podium, where they were viewed by a small camera, and displayed on the video monitor behind her. They bore number twenty-three and number seventeen.

"In the first ring, Sartir versus Jimal." Kimagme stated.

She set the two tokens aside on the podium, and drew two more from the bag. They were numbers nine and twenty. "In the second ring, Bertrin versus Zefca." she stated, and proceeded quickly through the sixteen drawings.

Davdan's number three was drawn with number eleven, representing an elder named Jones, and they would fight in the seventh ring. Davdan nodded with satisfaction.

Loral was ranked at number six, and his token was drawn with number twenty-nine immediately after Davdan's was.

They waited until the draw was finished, then those two led the rest of their parties to the two adjacent rings. They wished each other well before separating to use the remaining time to study their opponents, and to warm up for their matches.

Each ring was only a thirty-foot wide circle of white ribbon pinned to the turf, with a small sign beside it bearing it's number. A volunteer waited with a camera to record the bout. Two groups of Meds were set up on opposite sides of the ring. They sat in the grass while Davdan reviewed recordings of her opponent, and conferred in low voices with Tika and Pabano.

Thirty seconds before the match the judge who would officiate the bout took her place in the center of the ring. Davdan and Jones assumed their stances to either side of her, their staffs held level before them, as the spectators hurried to settle in their places.