Of all the stories on the Retro Hugo ballot, “Arena”  by Fredric Brown is probably the most familiar to readers, for no reason other than it was adapted as an episode of the original Star Trek series.  (They changed the ending.)  Published in the June 1944 issue of Astounding, the story is currently available in The Fredric Brown Megapack. The price as of this writing is 99 cents.  Plus tax, of course.

The plot is pretty straight forward. Mankind has begun to spread out into the galaxy.  Before too long, it encounters another sentient species. At first, the Outsiders commit a few raids. No one survives, so the appearance of the Outsiders is a mystery.

The two species seem fairly evenly matched. The Outsiders’s ships are a little faster and more maneuverable. The humans are slightly better armed. A showdown is inevitable, and mankind builds a fleet in preparation. At last the day comes.

Carson is piloting a scout ship and sees an Outsider scout. He goes on the attack, and when he turns to follow the enemy scout, there’s a planet in front of him. A planet where there wasn’t a planet a few minutes before. A planet that isn’t showing up on his instruments. He tries to avoid the planet and passes out from the gee forces.

When he wakes up, he is naked and lying on blue sand. He appears to be in the middle of a blue dome. It’s hot. There are a variety of blue bushes around him and some lizard-like creatures with more than four legs.

Carson hears a voice in his head.  it explains that it is an advanced race that has evolved into a single entity over a vast span of time.  Both humanity and the other race have the potential to do the same.  But only if one of them is destroyed. If they fight, one will wipe out the other and then degenerate because the effort of winning will drain them.

The entity tells Carson that he and the other scout will fight to the death.  The winner’s species will be allowed to live.  the loser’s race will be wiped out.

Carson sees a red sphere on the other side of the dome.  The sphere rolls towards him but hits a barrier.  The barrier runs the length of the dome, cutting it in two.

The red sphere is telepathic, and Carson tries to communicate with it, wanting to make peace. He is overwhelmed by a sense of hate that literally nauseates him. There can be no peace between the two races. One of them must die.

Fredric Brown

Brown does an excellent job of creating a problem and having his protagonist solve it.  There is no food or water. The temperature is exceedingly hot. Carson has to figure out how to kill the sphere from his side of the barrier or get past the barrier and kill the sphere. And he has to do it before the sphere solves the same problem and kills him.

Brown sets up the situation so that the solution works out logically. He manages to take what could have been a short story and flesh it out to novelette length without any unnecessary padding.

“Arena” is deservedly a classic in the field, one that has been reprinted many times and for good reason.  It shows some of Campbell’s prejudices, namely that humanity can’t be beaten by an alien race. In this story at least, that’s a feature, not a bug. Still, the story was included in Volume 1 of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

If you haven’t read “Arena” yet, give it a try.  It’s better than the Star Trek episode that was based on it. It’s the first story in The Best of Fredric Brown.  I read it in high school in the SFBC edition.  Unlike some of the other Best of volumes in Ballantine series, that one is not available electronically.

Brown was an inventive author, one who has fallen into neglect these days. I’m glad to see he’s getting some exposure on the Retro Hugo ballot.