Horatio walks over to where the track stewards, four men in tuxes and three women dressed almost as well as Miss Priscilla, hold a quick conference, and then he speaks into the mike again and announces that Slim Sandy and Mealtime McGuire are both disqualified, though for different reasons. The wrestlers drag McGuire's body off to the dressing room, and come back to do the same to Slim Sandy, but he eludes them and actually outruns them to the nearest exit.

  The next course is leviathan, basted in gargoyle blood, and Hogpen Harvey, Maury the Mooch, Pizza Pete, and Really Big Fred all concede defeat before the course is finished, Really Big Fred by announcing he isn't hungry anymore and the other three by sliding or falling to the floor with a minimum of grace.

  "Hot damn!" exalts Benny Fifth Street. "Only Three-Ton Tony to go and we've won!"

  "What about the defending champion?" I ask.

  "She's already eaten more than half her body weight, and they're just getting to the main course," he says, "How much longer can she last, a petite little old lady like that?"

  "They probably asked that the last six times," I mutter.

  "The next course," announces Horatio, "is broiled behemoth basted with creamed innards of tree-dwelling wooly mammoth."

  The waiters lug out the next course. Three-Ton Tony takes one good look at it, sniffs at it twice, and then gets to his feet.

  "I concede," he announces. He looks at his wristwatch. "Thanks for the meal. If I hurry, I can just make Bubbles La Tour's Dance of Sublime Surrender at the Rialto."

  He heads for an exit, and about half the men in the audience, after checking their own timepieces, follow him out.

  So now it is just down to Miss Priscilla and Dawkins. They each dig in, and I look for a sign that either of them is slowing down, but the food is vanishing before our very eyes, and after another ten minutes the last of it is gone.

  "Let's give the remaining players—well, contestants—a hand!" says Horatio. "There will now be a five-minute break before the first of the dessert courses."

  I wander down to ringside to see how Dawkins is doing.

  "Hi, Harry," he says, but without his usual sparkle.

  "Hi, Dawkins," I say. "How are you holding up?"

  "I don't know if I can make it through one more course," he admits very softly, so that only I can hear him.

  "But you jammed that behemoth into your mouth like you were starving!" I say.

  "That was to fool my stomach into thinking it hadn't already eaten forty or fifty pounds of beautifully-prepared delicacies." He looks like he is on the verge of tears. "I hate to let you down, Harry."

  "All you can do is your best," I say, and add mentally Until I get Milton to cast a spell to help you.

  I return to my seat and whisper the situation to Milton, who listens and nods sagely.

  "Can you do anything to help him?" I conclude.

  "Let me give it a shot," he says, and starts mumbling in incomprehensible languages again. In half a minute he stops and turns to me. "Okay, he's got five minutes of voracious appetite left."

  "Only five?" I ask.

  "Harry, the man's eaten the equivalent of a small automobile."

  "Okay, how about Miss Priscilla. Can you magic her appetite away?"

  "I can but try," he says with false modesty. A few seconds later he is muttering in English, and they are not words I can repeat in a story which might be read by any youngsters under the age of forty-five.

  "What is it?" I ask.

  "She's protected."

  "So?" I say. "You've broken through Morris the Mage's spells before."

  He shakes his head. "This isn't Morris's. This is a lot more powerful, and has been building for thirty-six years."

  I am about to say something else, but Horatio starts speaking into the microphone again.

  "Ladies and gents!" he hollers. "The dishwashers are working overtime, but they're still having trouble cleaning the creamed wooly mammoth innards off the plates, so our first few desserts are going to be finger foods until the state inspector assures us that the contestants can't catch more than two or three hideous diseases from the plates and silverware." He pauses, waiting for the applause that trickles in.

  "If you're going to do something," I tell Milton, "you'd better do it quick!"

  "Normal spells aren't working," he says. "I think I'd better come at this from the other side."

  "The other side of what?" I demand.

  "There's no sense trying to magic away her appetite," he says. "Like I told you, it's protected."

  "So give Dawkins an even bigger appetite," I say.

  "He'll burst right in front of everyone," answers Milton. "No, I think the only way to approach this is from the left side."

  I am about to ask: the left side of what—but Horatio interrupts me.

  "For our first dessert course," he continues after a moment, "we present miniature éclairs. Our judges have examined them, and not one of these baby éclairs is more than an inch and one-half in length."

  The waiters bring out a huge bowl filled with maybe 500 little eclairs.

  "We're washing all the plates, just to be on the safe side, so we urge you to sit next to each other since we have only the one bowl." Dawkins tries to get up and finds that he can't budge. Miss Priscilla thoughtfully gets up, carries her chair with her, and sets it down right next to Dawkins. "And now, since we're capturing this on video for re-runs all over the country, I ask the two finalists to shake hands and come out eating!"

  They shake, and then each is grabbing handfuls of baby eclairs and stuffing them into their mouths. But an expert eye—and I have one on each side of my face—could tell that Dawkins is slowing down, that he isn't grabbing éclairs as fast as his opponent is. I am totaling up all the bets I'd have to pay off on her, and subtracting the five large that we weren't going to win, and deciding that I wish I'd never heard of the damned contest when suddenly we were deafened by an agonized scream—and when I looked around the arena, I realize that the scream has come from Dawkins, who has wrapped his left hand in a bloody napkin.

  "Time out!" cries Horatio, and then "Medic!"

  A doctor comes out from behind the grandstand. "I was watching the ballgame," he says. "What seems to be the problem?"

  Dawkins waves his hand and bloody napkin at the doctor.

  "She bit off half my index finger!" he whines.

  Miss Priscilla Nibbles frowns. "I knew one of those éclairs didn't taste quite right."

  "I suppose we could pump your stomach and get it back if it's not digested yet," says the doctor.

  "No!" yells Dawkins. "I don't want anything that's been there"—he points to her stomach, realizes he has nothing to point with, and uses his other hand—"attached to me!"

  I can see Morris the Mage and Spellsinger Solly and the others glaring at Milton, who smiles triumphantly. "It'll be our secret, okay?"

  I agree, of course, and turn my attention back to the proceedings.

  Well, the judges put their heads together for maybe a minute, and the upshot is that Miss Priscilla Nibbles has been disqualified and placed second, and that Gently Gently Dawkins, who goes to the post as a 453-to-1 outsider, is awarded first prize in the seventh running Great Manhattan Eat-Off.

  We wait for the medics to stop the bleeding and bandage what's left of his finger, and then we all return to Joey Chicago's to celebrate.

  "So you're the defending champion now!" says Longshot Lamont. "They're gonna be training for the next five years to dethrone you."

  "Not me," says Dawkins. "I retire undefeated."

  "What kind of talk is that?" says Lamont.

  Dawkins holds up his bandaged hand. "I only got one forefinger left. I might want to point it at something sometime."

  "So who else can we enter?" asked Benny.

  I look around the tavern, and in its farthest, darkest corner I see a lone figure staring off into space.

  "Maybe we'll run Dead End Dugan," I say. "After all, look at all the bullet holes in his chest. I'm thinking that he won't care if they eat three or four of his fingers."

  "You know," says Benny, "that just might work."

  "Hey, Dugan!" I holler.

  "Yes, Harry?"

  "What's your favorite food?"

  "You mean, back when I used to eat?" he asks.

  "We'll work on that," I mutter.

  I go back to the conversation at the bar, which mostly concerns whether he should remain Gently Gently Dawkins or change his name to Nine-Finger Dawkins to celebrate the first thing he has ever won.

  Mike Resnick is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. He is the winner of 5 Hugos (from a record 37 nominations), plus other major awards in the USA, France, Poland, Croatia, Catalonia, Spain, and China. Mike is the author of 76 novels, 10 books of non-fiction, and 3 screenplays, plus 284 short stories. He is also the editor of Galaxy's Edge magazine, and was Guest of Honor at the 2012 Worldcon.

  An Evil Opportunity Employer

  Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Read the contract. I tell everyone that—everyone. You know how many people actually do it?

  Okay, I don't know either, but it isn't enough of them, I can tell you that. I swear half my business and ninety percent of my losses come from people who didn't do it. I don't suppose I should complain, since that's also at least half my income, but I get so fed up with clients who have no idea what they've signed that I just want to punch someone, even if I have to do it in my civilian identity.

  Yeah, I admit it, I'm one of those dual-identity vigilantes—I hesitate to say "superheroes," because quite aside from any trademark issues, it sounds so boastful. It's not for me to say whether I'm a hero, let alone "super." I'm not going to tell you my nom d'aventure, but you'd probably recognize it; I'm not one of the really big names, not one of the aliens or demigods or anything, but I have certain special abilities and I've earned a few headlines.

  What I haven't earned from crime-fighting is a living, so I have a day job as a contracts attorney.

  And I know what you're thinking—contracts? Not criminal law? Yes, contracts, because unlike some attorneys I could name, I understand the concept of conflict of interest. I also understand how difficult it is to keep from being recognized in court by someone with whom you've just had an epic two-hour brawl. Masks can slip and tear, and people do recognize voices and body language.

  Most thieves and thugs don't sign any contracts before robbing a bank or taking a busload of commuters hostage, though, so I can put my law degree to use without worrying about constantly confronting people from my other work.

  But there are exceptions, and I'm here to tell you about one of them.

  This big guy with a battered old briefcase walked in wanting advice on whether he should sue his employer. Nothing out of the ordinary there. I was nodding and getting some papers ready and only half-listening at first, because I get these all the time. He'd been asked to do stuff he thought was outside his job description and pretty clearly illegal, and he had agreed because his boss has a mean streak, but now he was having second thoughts, and he wanted to know what I thought he should do.

  But then I asked who he worked for, and he answered, and I sat up straight and stared at him.

  "Say that again," I told him.

  "I work for Dr. Catastrophe," he repeated.

  "Dr. Alice Catastrophe?" I asked, just to be sure, because yes, Catastrophe is an unusual name, but you never know.

  "Yeah. The Doctor of Disaster. Her."

  I sucked in my lips and considered this. I don't really like to call people "supervillains" any more than I like to call myself a superhero, but I have to admit the term fits Dr. Catastrophe better than any other description I can think of. I'd never gone up against her myself, at least not directly, but several people I knew had, and they all spoke of her with respect. I had the impression that if they weren't all professionally fearless, they'd speak of her with abject terror.

  The guy—I'll call him John Doe—had my full attention now. The possibility of getting a lead on Dr. Catastrophe's current whereabouts definitely caught my interest, not so much as a lawyer as for my other line of work. "Tell me more," I said. "What exactly is it you do for Dr. Catastrophe?"

  "I'm a henchman."

  "What kind?"

  "Non-specific."

  "So you're not a lawyer or engineer or scientist or lab assistant or experimental subject?"

  "No. I'm just a henchman. I run errands, operate equipment, do some security work, some light construction and maintenance, occasionally chauffeur the boss or her friends around."

  "And you think she's asking you to do something outside your duties?"

  He nodded.

  I drummed my fingers on my desk. I knew something about the hireling business, albeit only from the outside, so I had a pretty good idea what henchmen and minions and serfs and underlings and the other categories did, but the exact lines were often vague. "Mr. Doe," I said, "I don't quite see how that's possible; are your duties defined anywhere?"

  "Yes, they are," he said, lifting his briefcase onto my desk. "I'll show you."

  I had a moment of alarm there, thinking that maybe this was all a setup of some kind and he had one of Dr. Catastrophe's diabolical devices in there, that someone had found out about my other identity and decided to take me out, but then he flopped a sheaf of ordinary paper from the case onto my desk. He shoved it toward me.

  "That's my employment contract," he said.

  I just stared at it for a moment, then pulled it over and began reading.

  It was indeed an employment contract, but not quite like any I had ever seen before. Parts of it were standard modern boilerplate, but other parts were strangely archaic, even more so than ordinary legalese, such as a clause giving the party of the first part—that is, Dr. Catastrophe— "full power under such circumstances to do with the party of the second part at her pleasure, be it either body, flesh, blood, or goods."

  It also defined half a dozen different jobs, including henchman, but when I got to the signature page I noticed something odd.

  "So all of Dr. Catastrophe's people sign this?" I asked.

  "That's right. Apparently she's had some problems in the past with her employees double-crossing her, so she had this drawn up."

  I knew something about that—Dr. Catastrophe spent eight years in prison after some of my crime-fighting compatriots convinced several of her flunkies to turn on her. Two full pages of this contract had been written specifically to prevent a recurrence, providing elaborate but carefully legal-sounding penalties for disobedience or betrayal. I had doubts about whether these provisions would hold up in court, given the various whistle-blower laws—in fact, since her entire operation was probably a criminal enterprise the whole contract should be unenforceable—but they certainly looked good enough to deter most hirelings.

  But that wasn't what I had been looking at. I turned the contract back around to show him the signature page. "This is you?" I said. "You signed this?"

  "Yeah, that's me. I'm not claiming I didn't sign, but paragraph 36 . . ."

  I interrupted him, still holding it open to the signature page. "Paragraph 36 doesn't apply," I said. "Look here." I pointed to a list at the top of the page where one box was checked, and only one.

  "What did . . . I don't . . ."

  "You aren't a henchman," I said. "You're a minion. It says so right there."

  He leaned back, shocked. "But I applied to be a henchman!"

  "Doesn't matter. What matters is what you signed, and it says right there that your employment category is entirely at the discretion of your employer, and cannot be changed once the contract is signed. You're a minion."

  "The doctor said I was her henchman!"

  I shook my head again. Hirelings are always surprised when they find out their bosses have lied to them. I used to be surprised when they were; what do they expect from criminal masterminds? But I'd gotten used to it. "Doesn't matter," I said again. I flipped pages. "Paragraph 83—the party of the first part shall have full authority to lie to the party of the second part, to mislead, deceive, or defraud in service of her goals and purposes. She can call you anything she wants, but the contract says you're a minion."

  He glared at the contract, his face going red. After a moment he said, "So how does that change things?"

  "Well, the rules are different for minions; I'm sure you know that. Minions swear total obedience—to fetch and carry, to serve without question. See Paragraph 38? You're required to obey any order she gives you, no matter how stupid, if it doesn't directly endanger your life—or if you're in her presence, even if it does directly endanger your life. Henchmen get more latitude on what orders to obey, and how much they can argue. But there's a trade-off there—see Paragraph 44, reasons for termination and methods of termination? She can't just shoot you if she's angry, the way she can a henchman. Henchmen are responsible for their screw-ups, and minions aren't, because henchmen are assumed to be using their judgment and minions are supposed to be mindlessly obedient."

  "So she thinks I'm a moron."

  I managed to resist pointing out that he had signed the contract without noticing the big black check-mark in the "Minion" box at the top of the page, which did not speak well of his intelligence. Instead I tried to be conciliatory. "She may not have had any henchman openings left. It's hard to find good minions."

  "So does this affect my case?"

  "I'm afraid it pretty much destroys your case," I said. "Paragraph 38. Nothing she tells you to do is outside your job description. As for it being illegal, come on, Mr. Doe—you're working for Dr. Catastrophe! Everything she does is illegal, pretty much."

  "So I really need to go steal all those kittens?"

  I did a double-take. "Kittens?"

  "Yeah. She wants . . . well, never mind." He picked up the contract and dropped it back in his briefcase.

  "Kittens?" I said again.

  I admit it, I have a soft spot for kittens. My two cats at home, Bruiser and Caliban, are both grown and both fixed, but . . . kittens. I love kittens.