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Amid escalating conflict between Earth and mysterious alien Outsiders, massive armadas from both sides are set to meet in what looks to be an evenly matched battle. Bob Carson, the pilot of a small one-man scout ship blacks out while engaging with an Outsider counterpart. When he awakens, he finds himself naked in a small enclosed, circular area about 250 yards (230 m) across. In the distance is an Outsider, which Carson labels a “Roller” because its form is that of a red sphere about 1 yard in diameter with several dozen tentacles.
Carson hears a voice in his mind that identifies itself as an evolved intelligence that has decided to intervene because the upcoming war would utterly destroy one side and hurt the other so badly that it would not be able to one day advance into an evolved intelligence like itself. This Entity therefore chose one individual from each species to fight in single combat. The loser will doom its kind to instant extinction. Carson and his opponent discover through trial and error that there is an invisible barrier between them, and that only inanimate objects can cross it. Carson tries to communicate with the Roller, to see if a compromise is possible, but receives a mental message of unremitting hatred. The battle is joined.
Welcome to the Sanctum Secorum podcast. Tonight we look to the past while we discuss Fredric Brown’s classic story, Arena.
William Blackhorse Singer is the Star Tracker — an expert in the pursuit and capture of exotic life forms. The last warrior of the Navajo people, he is a man out of time and place, adrift in an uncertain future. And now he must join forces with an enemy shapeshifter called Cat — the lone surviving member of an extinct alien race — to track down and eliminate a dangerous extraterrestrial assassin. For Singer, it is a costly collaboration. For once the killer is disposed of, the true hunt is to begin: a relentless and deadly chase across worlds and into the heart of ancient mysteries…with the hunter as prey.