The premise is
this: a highly-advance alien entity observes humans and another species--called
the Outsiders by the humans-- on the brink of a war that would devastate both
civilizations. The entity’s solution is
to pit one human against one Outsider and whoever kills the other will ensure
the safety of their own people and the complete annihilation of their foes. Carson is the man who is chosen for this
battle and he wakes up in a dome-shaped enclosure with a force field separating
him from an Outsider. He must find a way
through that force field and kill his enemy before the Outsider finds a way to
dispatch him.
There are some
flaws in the story. For one, the entity
doesn’t seem to have exhausted all options before deciding to kill off an
entire species. “It is in my power to
stop the war, to send the Outsiders back to their galaxy,” it claims. “But,” it continues, “they would return, or
your race would sooner or later follow them there. Only by remaining in this space and time to
intervene constantly could I prevent them from destroying one another, and I
cannot remain.”
And is a
to-the-death match between two randomly chosen individuals really fair? Carter may be a fine pilot but his
hand-to-hand training may be non-existent.
He could be abnormally weak--or strong--for a human. The same goes for the Outsider.
Another flaw is the mechanism by
which Carson is able to pass through the force field. It hardly seems logical or reasonable for the
smarter of the combatants, the one who figured out how to get through, to have
to brain himself with a rock and be exposed to attack in order to have a chance
at winning. One would think that the
entity would reward the more intelligent/resourceful combatant by ensuring him
victory rather than making it, in the end, a physical struggle between the two.
But these are
quibbles. The main strength lies in the story-telling
and the wonderful alienness of the Outsider.
This is no man-in-a-rubber-suit type of alien. This is a spherical organism that utilizes
rotating locomotion. Carter calls it a “Roller.”
Still, as much as
I like this story, that issue of killing off an entire intelligent species
keeps me from loving it. For Carter, the
choice is obvious: he wants to win and preserve his own species. But suppose the entity decided to choose one
to preserve and one to destroy based on criteria less arbitrary than a
one-on-one cage match? Do we humans
really have much going for us, from a Universal perspective? Are we any better or any worse than the other
intelligent species that are out there? We haven't encountered anyone else, so who knows?
True, in Brown’s story the
Outsiders are the aggressors and, based on Carter’s experience, we learn that
they lack any recognizable form of compassion.
But we know from history that it doesn't take much for humans to take
this same hateful, uncompassionate attitude. So, would we be the best species to save? Maybe we’d be better off letting a champion
decide our fate after all.
