“Don’t forget to assign an officer to Dr. Leoh,” the commander muttered to his aide. Then he turned and watched the unmatchable beauty of an Earthly sunset.
The aide did not forget the assignment. That night, as Sir Harold’s ship spiraled out to a rendezvous with a starship, the aide dictated the necessary order into an autodispatcher that immediately beamed it to the Star Watch’s nearest communications center, on Mars.
The order was scanned and routed automatically and finally beamed to the Star Watch unit commandant in charge of the area closest to the Acquataine Cluster, on the sixth planet circling the star Perseus Alpha. Here again, the order was processed automatically and routed through the local headquarters to the personnel files. The automated files selected three microcard dossiers that matched the requirements of the order.
The three microcards and the order itself appeared simultaneously on the desktop viewer of the Star Watch personnel officer. He looked at the order, then read the dossiers. He flicked a button that gave him an updated status report on each of the three men in question. One was due for leave after an extensive period of duty. The second was the son of a personal friend of the local commandant. The third had just arrived a few weeks ago, fresh from the Star Watch Academy on Mars.
The personnel officer selected the third man, routed his dossier and Sir Harold’s order back into the automatic processing system, and returned to the film of primitive dancing girls he had been watching before this matter of decision had arrived at his desk.
The space station orbiting around Acquatainia—the capital planet of the Acquataine Cluster—served simultaneously as a transfer point from starships to planetships, a tourist resort, meteorological station, communications center, scientific laboratory, astronomical observatory, medical haven for allergy and cardiac patients, and military base. It was, in reality, a good-sized city with its own markets, its own local government, and its own way of life.
Dr. Leoh had just stepped off the debarking ramp of the starship from Szarno. The trip there had been pointless and fruitless. But he had gone anyway, in the slim hope that he might find something wrong with the dueling machine that had been used to murder a man.
A shudder went through him as he edged along the automated customs scanners and paper-checkers. What kind of people could these men of Kerak be? To actually kill a human being in cold blood; to plot and plan the death of a fellow man. Worse than barbaric. Savage.
He felt tired as he left customs and took the slideway to the planetary shuttle ships. Halfway there, he decided to check at the communications desk for messages. That Star Watch officer that Sir Harold had promised him a week ago should have arrived by now.
The communications desk consisted of a small booth that contained the output printer of a communications computer and an attractive young dark-haired girl. Automation or not, Leoh thought smilingly, there were certain human values that transcended mere efficiency.
A lanky, thin-faced youth was half-leaning on the booth’s counter, trying to talk to the girl. He had curly blond hair and crystal blue eyes; his clothes consisted of an ill-fitting pair of slacks and tunic. A small traveler’s kit rested on the floor at his feet.
“So, I was sort of, well, thinking ... maybe somebody might, uh, show me around ... a little,” he was stammering to the girl. “I’ve never been, uh, here ...”
“It’s the most beautiful planet in the galaxy,” the girl was saying. “Its cities are the finest.”
“Yes ... well, I was sort of thinking ... that is, I know we just, uh, met a few minutes ago ... but, well, maybe ... if you have a free day or so coming up ... maybe we could, uh, sort of—”.
She smiled coolly. “I have two days off at the end of the week, but I’ll be staying here at the station. There’s so much to see and do here, I very seldom leave.”
“Oh—”
“You’re making a mistake,” Leoh interjected dogmatically. “If you have such a beautiful planet for your homeworld, why in the name of the gods of intellect don’t you go down there and enjoy it? I’ll wager you haven’t been out in the natural beauty and fine cities you spoke of since you started working here on the station.”
“Why, you’re right,” she said, surprised.
“You see? You youngsters are all alike. You never think further than the ends of your noses. You should return to the planet, young lady, and see the sunshine again. Why don’t you visit the University at the capital city? Plenty of open space and greenery, lots of sunshine and available young men!”
Leoh was grinning broadly, and the girl smiled back at him. “Perhaps I will,” she said.
“Ask for me when you get to the University. I’m Dr. Leoh. I’ll see to it that you’re introduced to some of the girls and gentlemen of your own age.”
“Why ... thank you, doctor. I’ll do it this week end.”
“Good. Now then, any messages for me? Anyone aboard the station looking for me?”
The girl turned and tapped a few keys on the computer’s control console. A row of lights flicked briefly across the console’s face. She turned back to Leoh:
“No, sir, I’m sorry. No messages and no one has asked for you.”
“Hm-m-m. That’s strange. Well, thank you ... and I’ll expect to see you at the end of this week.”
The girl smiled a farewell. Leoh started to walk away from the booth, back toward the slideway. The young man took a step toward him, stumbled on his own traveling kit, and staggered across the floor for a half-dozen steps before regaining his balance. Leoh turned and saw that the youth’s face bore a somewhat ridiculous expression of mixed indecision and curiosity.
“Can I help you?” Leoh asked, stopping at the edge of the moving slideway.
“How ... how did you do that, sir?”
“Do what?”
“Get that girl to agree to visit the university. I’ve been talking to her for half an hour, and, well, she wouldn’t even look straight at me.”
Leoh broke into a chuckle. “Well, young man, to begin with, you were much too flustered. It made you appear overanxious. On the other hand, I am at an age where I can be strictly platonic. She was on guard against you, but she knows she has very little to fear from me.”
“I see ... I think.”
“Well,” Leoh said, gesturing toward the slideway, “I suppose this is where we go our separate ways.”
“Oh, no, sir. I’m going with you. That is, I mean, youareDr. Leoh, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. And you must be—” Leoh hesitated.Can this be a Star Watch officer?he wondered.
The youth stiffened to attention and for an absurd flash of a second, Leoh thought he was going to salute. “I am Junior Lieutenant Hector, sir; on special detached duty from the cruiser SW4-J188, home base Perseus Alpha VI.”
“I see,” Leoh replied. “Um-m-m ... is Hector your first name or your last?”
“Both, sir.”
I should have guessed, Leoh told himself. Aloud, he said, “Well, lieutenant, we’d better get to the shuttle before it leaves without us.”
They took to the slideway. Half a second later, Hector jumped off and dashed back to the communications desk for his traveling kit. He hurried back to Leoh, bumping into seven bewildered citizens of various descriptions and nearly breaking both his legs when he tripped as he ran back onto the moving slideway. He went down on his face, sprawled across two lanes moving at different speeds, and needed the assistance of several persons before he was again on his feet and standing beside Leoh.
“I ... I’m sorry to cause all that, uh, commotion, sir.”
“That’s all right. You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“Uh, no ... I don’t think so. Just embarrassed.”
Leoh said nothing. They rode the slideway in silence through the busy station and out to the enclosed berths where the planetary shuttles were docked. They boarded one of the ships and found a pair of seats.
“Just how long have you been with the Star Watch, lieutenant?”
“Six weeks, sir. Three weeks aboard a starship bringing me out to Perseus Alpha VI, a week at the planetary base there, and two weeks aboard the cruiser SW4-J188. That is, it’s been six weeks since I received my commission. I’ve been at the Academy ... the Star Watch Academy on Mars ... for four years.”
“You got through the Academy in four years?”
“That’s the regulation time, sir.”
“Yes, I know.”
The ship eased out of its berth. There was a moment of free-fall, then the drive engine came on and the grav-field equilibrated.
“Tell me, lieutenant, how did you get picked for this assignment?”
“I wish I knew, sir,” Hector said, his lean face twisting into a puzzled frown. “I was working out a program for the navigation officer ... aboard the cruiser. I’m pretty good at that ... I can work out computer programs in my head, mostly. Mathematics was my best subject at the Academy—”
“Interesting.”
“Yes, well, anyway, I was working out this program when the captain himself came on deck and started shaking my hand and telling me that I was being sent on special duty on Acquatainia by direct orders of the Commander-in-Chief. He seemed very happy ... the captain, that is.”
“He was no doubt pleased to see you get such an unusual assignment,” Leoh said tactfully.
“I’m not so sure,” Hector said truthfully. “I think he regarded me as some sort of a problem, sir. He had me on a different duty-berth practically every day I was on board the ship.”
“Well now,” Leoh changed the subject, “what do you know about psychonics?”
“About what, sir?”
“Eh ... electroencephalography?”
Hector looked blank.
“Psychology, perhaps?” Leoh suggested, hopefully. “Physiology? Computer molectronics?”
“I’m pretty good at mathematics!”
“Yes, I know. Did you, by any chance, receive any training in diplomatic affairs?”
“At the Star Watch Academy? No, sir.”
Leoh ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Then why did the Star Watch select you for this job? I must confess, lieutenant, that I can’t understand the workings of a military organization.”
Hector shook his head ruefully, “Neither do I, sir.”
The next week was an enervatingly slow one for Leoh, evenly divided between tedious checking of each component of the dueling machine, and shameless ruses to keep Hector as far away from the machine as possible.
The Star Watchman certainly wanted to help, and he actuallywaslittle short of brilliant in doing intricate mathematics completely in his head. But he was, Leoh found, a clumsy, chattering, whistling, scatterbrained, inexperienced bundle of noise and nerves. It was impossible to do constructive work with him nearby.
Perhaps you’re judging him too harshly, Leoh warned himself.You just might be letting your frustrations with the dueling machine get the better of your sense of balance.
The professor was sitting in the office that the Acquatainians had given him in one end of the former lecture hall that held the dueling machine. Leoh could see its impassive metal hulk through the open office door.
The room he was sitting in had been one of a suite of offices used by the permanent staff of the machine. But they had moved out of the building completely, in deference to Leoh, and the Acquatainian government had turned the other cubbyhole offices into sleeping rooms for the professor and the Star Watchman, and an auto-kitchen. A combination cook-valet-handyman appeared twice each day—morning and evening—to handle any special chores that the cleaning machines and auto-kitchen might miss.
Leoh slouched back in his desk chair and cast a weary eye on the stack of papers that recorded the latest performances of the machine. Earlier that day he had taken the electroencephalographic records of clinical cases of catatonia and run them through the machine’s input unit. The machine immediately rejected them, refused to process them through the amplification units and association circuits.
In other words, the machine had recognized the EEG traces as something harmful to a human being.
Then how did it happen to Dulaq?Leoh asked himself for the thousandth time. It couldn’t have been the machine’s fault; it must have been something in Odal’s mind that simply overpowered Dulaq’s.
“Overpowered?” That’s a terribly unscientific term, Leoh argued against himself.
Before he could carry the debate any further, he heard the main door of the big chamber slide open and then bang shut, and Hector’s off-key whistle shrilled and echoed through the high-vaulted room.
Leoh sighed and put his self-contained argument off to the back of his mind. Trying to think logically near Hector was a hopeless prospect.
“Are you in, doctor?” Hector’s voice rang out.
“In here.”
Hector ducked in through the doorway and plopped his rangy frame on the office’s couch.
“Everything going well, sir?”
Leoh shrugged. “Not very well, I’m afraid. I can’t find anything wrong with the dueling machine. I can’t evenforceit to malfunction.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Hector chirped happily.
“In a sense,” Leoh admitted, feeling slightly nettled at the youth’s boundless, pointless optimism. “But, you see, it means that Kanus’ people can do things with the machine that I can’t.”
Hector frowned, considering the problem. “Hm-m-m ... yes, I guess that’s right, too, isn’t it?”
“Did you see the girl back to her ship safely?” Leoh asked.
“Yes, sir,” Hector replied, bobbing his head vigorously. “She’s on her way back to the communications booth at the space station. She said to tell you she enjoyed her visit very much.”
“Good. It was, eh, very good of you to escort her about the campus. It kept her out of my hair ... what’s left of it, that is.”
Hector grinned. “Oh, I liked showing her around, and all that—And, well, it sort of keptmeout of your hair, too, didn’t it?”
Leoh’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
Hector laughed. “Doctor, I may be clumsy, and I’m certainly no scientist ... but I’m not completely brainless.”
“I’m sorry if I gave you that impression—”
“Oh no ... don’t be sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound so ... well, the way it sounded ... that is, I know I’m just in your way—” He started to get up.
Leoh waved him back to the couch. “Relax, my boy, relax. You know, I’ve been sitting here all afternoon wondering what to do next. Somehow, just now, I came to a conclusion.”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to leave the Acquataine Cluster and return to Carinae.”
“What? But you can’t! I mean—”
“Why not? I’m not accomplishing anything here. Whatever it is that this Odal and Kanus have been doing, it’s basically a political problem, and not a scientific one. The professional staff of the machine here will catch up to their tricks sooner or later.”
“But, sir, if you can’t find the answer, how can they?”
“Frankly, I don’t know. But, as I said, this is a political problem more than a scientific one. I’m tired and frustrated and I’m feeling my years. I want to return to Carinae and spend the next few months considering beautifully abstract problems about instantaneous transportation devices. Let Massan and the Star Watch worry about Kanus.”
“Oh! That’s what I came to tell you. Massan has been challenged to a duel by Odal!”
“What?”
“This afternoon, Odal went to the Council building. Picked an argument with Massan right in the main corridor and challenged him.”
“Massan accepted?” Leoh asked.
Hector nodded.
Leoh leaned across his desk and reached for the phone unit. It took a few minutes and a few levels of secretaries and assistants, but finally Massan’s dark, bearded face appeared on the screen above the desk.
“You have accepted Odal’s challenge?” Leoh asked, without preliminaries.
“We meet next week,” Massan replied gravely.
“You should have refused.”
“On what pretext?”
“No pretext. A flat refusal, based on the certainty that Odal or someone else from Kerak is tampering with the dueling machine.”
Massan shook his head sadly. “My dear learned sir, you still do not comprehend the political situation. The Government of the Acquataine Cluster is much closer to dissolution than I dare to admit openly. The coalition of star groups that Dulaq had constructed to keep the Kerak Worlds neutralized has broken apart completely. This morning, Kanus announced that he would annex Szarno. This afternoon, Odal challenges me.”
“I think I see—”
“Of course. The Acquatainian Government is paralyzed now, until the outcome of the duel is known. We cannot effectively intervene in the Szarno crisis until we know who will be heading the Government next week. And, frankly, more than a few members of our Council are now openly favoring Kanus and urging that we establish friendly relations with him before it is too late.”
“But, that’s all the more reason for refusing the duel,” Leoh insisted.
“And be accused of cowardice in my own Council meetings?” Massan smiled grimly. “In politics, my dear sir, theappearanceof a man means much more than his substance. As a coward, I would soon be out of office. But, perhaps, as the winner of a duel against the invincible Odal ... or even as a martyr ... I may accomplish something useful.”
Leoh said nothing.
Massan continued, “I put off the duel for a week, hoping that in that time you might discover Odal’s secret. I dare not postpone the duel any longer; as it is, the political situation may collapse about our heads at any moment.”
“I’ll take this machine apart and rebuild it again, molecule by molecule,” Leoh promised.
As Massan’s image faded from the screen, Leoh turned to Hector. “We have one week to save his life.”
“And avert a war, maybe,” Hector added.
“Yes.” Leoh leaned back in his chair and stared off into infinity.
Hector shuffled his feet, rubbed his nose, whistled a few bars of off-key tunes, and finally blurted, “How can you take apart the dueling machine?”
“Hm-m-m?” Leoh snapped out of his reverie.
“How can you take apart the dueling machine?” Hector repeated. “Looks like a big job to do in a week.”
“Yes, it is. But, my boy, perhaps we ... the two of us ... can do it.”
Hector scratched his head. “Well, uh, sir ... I’m not very ... that is, my mechanical aptitude scores at the Academy—”
Leoh smiled at him. “No need for mechanical aptitude, my boy. You were trained to fight, weren’t you? We can do the job mentally.”
It was the strangest week of their lives.
Leoh’s plan was straightforward: to test the dueling machine, push it to the limits of its performance, by actually operating it—by fighting duels.
They started off easily enough, tentatively probing and flexing their mental muscles. Leoh had used the dueling machine himself many times in the past, but only in tests of the machines’ routine performance. Never in actual combat against another human being. To Hector, of course, the machine was a totally new and different experience.
The Acquatainian staff plunged into the project without question, providing Leoh with invaluable help in monitoring and analyzing the duels.
At first, Leoh and Hector did nothing more than play hide-and-seek, with one of them picking an environment and the other trying to find his opponent in it. They wandered through jungles and cities, over glaciers and interplanetary voids, seeking each other—without ever leaving the booths of the dueling machine.
Then, when Leoh was satisfied that the machine could reproduce and amplify thought patterns with strict fidelity, they began to fight light duels. They fenced with blunted foils—Hector won, of course, because of his much faster reflexes. Then they tried other weapons—pistols, sonic beams, grenades—but always wearing protective equipment. Strangely, even though Hector was trained in the use of these weapons, Leoh won almost all the bouts. He was neither faster nor more accurate, when they were target-shooting. But when the two of them faced each other, somehow Leoh almost always won.
The machine projects more than thoughts, Leoh told himself.It projects personality.
They worked in the dueling machine day and night now, enclosed in the booths for twelve or more hours a day, driving themselves and the machine’s regular staff to near-exhaustion. When they gulped their meals, between duels, they were physically ragged and sharp-tempered. They usually fell asleep in Leoh’s office, while discussing the results of the day’s work.
The duels grew slowly more serious. Leoh was pushing the machine to its limits now, carefully extending the rigors of each bout. And yet, even though he knew exactly what and how much he intended to do in each fight, it often took a conscious effort of will to remind himself that the battles he was fighting were actually imaginary.
As the duels became more dangerous, and the artificially-amplified hallucinations began to end in blood and death, Leoh found himself winning more and more frequently. With one part of his mind he was driving to analyze the cause of his consistent success. But another part of him was beginning to really enjoy his prowess.
The strain was telling on Hector. The physical exertion of constant work and practically no relief was considerable in itself. But the emotional effects of being “hurt” and “killed” repeatedly were infinitely worse.
“Perhaps we should stop for a while,” Leoh suggested after the fourth day of tests.
“No, I’m all right.”
Leoh looked at him. Hector’s face was haggard, his eyes bleary.
“You’ve had enough,” Leoh said quietly.
“Please don’t make me stop,” Hector begged. “I ... I can’t stop now. Please give me a chance to do better. I’m improving ... I lasted twice as long in this afternoon’s two duels as I did in the ones this morning. Please, don’t end it now ... not while I’m completely lost—”
Leoh stared at him. “You want to go on?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if I say no?”
Hector hesitated. Leoh sensed he was struggling with himself. “If you say no,” he answered dully, “then it will be no. I can’t argue against you any more.”
Leoh was silent for a long moment. Finally he opened a desk drawer and took a small bottle from it. “Here, take a sleep capsule. When you wake up we’ll try again.”
It was dawn when they began again. Leoh entered the dueling machine determined to allow Hector to win. He gave the youthful Star Watchman his choice of weapon and environment. Hector picked one-man scoutships, in planetary orbits. Their weapons were conventional force beams.
But despite his own conscious desire, Leoh found himself winning! The ships spiraled about an unnamed planet, their paths intersecting at least once in every orbit. The problem was to estimate your opponent’s orbital position, and then program your own ship so that you arrived at that position either behind or to one side of him. Then you could train your guns on him before he could turn on you.
The problem should have been an easy one for Hector, with his knack for intuitive mental calculation. But Leoh scored the first hit—Hector had piloted his ship into an excellent firing position, but his shot went wide; Leoh maneuvered around clumsily, but managed to register an inconsequential hit on the side of Hector’s ship.
In the next three passes, Leoh scored two more hits. Hector’s ship was badly damaged now. In return, the Star Watchman had landed one glancing shot on Leoh’s ship.
They came around again, and once more Leoh had outguessed his younger opponent. He trained his guns on Hector’s ship, then hesitated with his hand poised above the firing button.
Don’t kill him again, he warned himself.His mind can’t accept another defeat.
But Leoh’s hand, almost of its own will, reached the button and touched it lightly. Another gram of pressure and the guns would fire.
In that instant’s hesitation, Hector pulled his crippled ship around and aimed at Leoh. The Watchman fired a searing blast that jarred Leoh’s ship from end to end. Leoh’s hand slammed down on the firing button, whether he intended to do it or not, he did not know.
Leoh’s shot raked Hector’s ship but did not stop it. The two vehicles were hurtling directly at each other. Leoh tried desperately to avert a collision, but Hector bored in grimly, matching Leoh’s maneuvers with his own.
The two ships smashed together and exploded.
Abruptly, Leoh found himself in the cramped booth of the dueling machine, his body cold and damp with perspiration, his hands trembling.
He squeezed out of the booth and took a deep breath. Warm sunlight was streaming into the high-vaulted room. The white walls glared brilliantly. Through the tall windows he could see trees and people and clouds in the sky.
Hector walked up to him. For the first time in several days, the Watchman was smiling. Not much, but smiling. “Well, we broke even on that one.”
Leoh smiled back, somewhat shakily. “Yes. It was ... quite an experience. I’ve never died before.”
Hector fidgeted. “It’s uh, not so bad, I guess—It does sort of, well, shatter you, you know.”
“Yes I can see that now.”
“Another duel?” Hector asked, nodding his head toward the machine.
“Let’s get out of this place for a few hours. Are you hungry?”
“Starved.”
They fought seven more duels over the next day and a half. Hector won three of them. It was late afternoon when Leoh called a halt to the tests.
“We can still get in another one or two,” the Watchman pointed out.
“No need,” Leoh said. “I have all the data I require. Tomorrow Massan meets Odal, unless we can put a stop to it. We have much to do before tomorrow morning.”
Hector sagged into the couch. “Just as well. I think I’ve aged seven years in the past seven days.”
“No, my boy,” Leoh said gently. “You haven’t aged. You’ve matured.”
It was deep twilight when the groundcar slid to a halt on its cushion of compressed air before the Kerak Embassy.
“I still think it’s a mistake to go in there,” Hector said. “I mean, you could’ve called him on the tri-di just as well, couldn’t you?”
Leoh shook his head. “Never give an agency of any government the opportunity to say ‘hold the line a moment’ and then huddle together to consider what to do with you. Nineteen times out of twenty, they’ll end by passing your request up to the next higher echelon, and you’ll be left waiting for weeks.”
“Still,” Hector insisted, “you’re simply stepping into enemy territory. It’s a chance you shouldn’t take.”
“They wouldn’t dare touch us.”
Hector did not reply, but he looked unconvinced.
“Look,” Leoh said, “there are only two men alive who can shed light on this matter. One of them is Dulaq, and his mind is closed to us for an indefinite time. Odal is the only other one who knows what happened.”
Hector shook his head skeptically. Leoh shrugged, and opened the door of the groundcar. Hector had no choice but to get out and follow him as he walked up the pathway to the main entrance of the Embassy. The building stood gaunt and gray in the dusk, surrounded by a precisely-clipped hedge. The entrance was flanked by a pair of tall evergreen trees.
Leoh and Hector were met just inside the entrance by a female receptionist. She looked just a trifle disheveled—as though she had been rushed to the desk at a moment’s notice. They asked for Odal, were ushered into a sitting room, and within a few minutes—to Hector’s surprise—were informed by the girl that Major Odal would be with them shortly.
“You see,” Leoh pointed out jovially, “when you come in person they haven’t as much of a chance to consider how to get rid of you.”
Hector glanced around the windowless room and contemplated the thick, solidly closed door. “There’s a lot of scurrying going on on the other side of that door, I’ll bet. I mean ... they may be considering how to, uh, get rid of us ... permanently.”
Leoh shook his head, smiling wryly. “Undoubtedly the approach closest to their hearts—but highly improbable in the present situation. They have been making most efficient and effective use of the dueling machine to gain their ends.”
Odal picked this moment to open the door.
“Dr. Leoh ... Lt. Hector ... you asked to see me?”
“Thank you, Major Odal; I hope you will be able to help me,” said Leoh. “You are the only man living who may be able to give us some clues to the failure of the Dueling Machine.”
Odal’s answering smile reminded Leoh of the best efforts of the robot-puppet designers to make a machine that smiled like a man. “I am afraid I can be of no assistance, Dr. Leoh. My experiences in the machine are ... private.”
“Perhaps you don’t fully understand the situation,” Leoh said. “In the past week, we have tested the dueling machine here on Acquatainia exhaustively. We have learned that its performance can be greatly influenced by a man’s personality, and by training. You have fought many duels in the machines. Your background of experience, both as a professional soldier and in the machines, gives you a decided advantage over your opponents.
“However, even with all this considered, I am convinced that you cannot kill a man in the machine—under normal circumstances. We have demonstrated that fact in our tests. An unsabotaged machine cannot cause actual physical harm.
“Yet you have already killed one man and incapacitated another. Where will it stop?”
Odal’s face remained calm, except for the faintest glitter of fire deep in his eyes. His voice was quiet, but had the edge of a well-honed blade to it: “I cannot be blamed for my background and experience. And I have not tampered with your machines.”
The door to the room opened, and a short, thick-set, bullet-headed man entered. He was dressed in a dark street suit, so that it was impossible to guess his station at the Embassy.
“Would the gentlemen care for refreshments?” he asked in a low-pitched voice.
“No, thank you,” Leoh said.
“Some Kerak wine, perhaps?”
“Well—”
“I don’t, uh, think we’d better, sir,” Hector said. “Thanks all the same.”
The man shrugged and sat at a chair next to the door.
Odal turned back to Leoh. “Sir, I have my duty. Massan and I duel tomorrow. There is no possibility of postponing it.”
“Very well,” Leoh said. “Will you at least allow us to place some special instrumentation into the booth with you, so that we can monitor the duel more fully? We can do the same with Massan. I know that duels are normally private and you would be within your legal rights to refuse the request. But, morally—”
The smile returned to Odal’s face. “You wish to monitor my thoughts. To record them and see how I perform during the duel. Interesting. Very interesting—”
The man at the door rose and said, “If you have no desire for refreshments, gentlemen—”
Odal turned to him. “Thank you for your attention.”
Their eyes met and locked for an instant. The man gave a barely perceptible shake of his head, then left.
Odal returned his attention to Leoh. “I am sorry, professor, but I cannot allow you to monitor my thoughts during the duel.”
“But—”
“I regret having to refuse you. But, as you yourself pointed out, there is no legal requirement for such a course of action. I must refuse. I hope you understand.”
Leoh rose from the couch, and Hector popped up beside him. “I’m afraid I do understand. And I, too, regret your decision.”
Odal escorted them out to their car. They drove away, and the Kerak major walked slowly back into the Embassy building. He was met in the hallway by the dark-suited man who had sat in on the conversation.
“I could have let them monitor my thoughts and still crush Massan,” Odal said. “It would have been a good joke on them.”
The man grunted. “I have just spoken to the Chancellor on the tri-di, and obtained permission to make a slight adjustment in our plans.”
“An adjustment, Minister Kor?”
“After your duel tomorrow, your next opponent will be the eminent Dr. Leoh,” Kor said.
The mists swirled deep and impenetrable about Fernd Massan. He stared blindly through the useless viewplate in his helmet, then reached up slowly and carefully to place the infrared detector before his eyes.
I never realized an hallucination could seem so real, Massan thought.
Since the challenge by Odal, he realized, the actual world had seemed quite unreal. For a week, he had gone through the motions of life, but felt as though he were standing aside, a spectator mind watching its own body from a distance. The gathering of his friends and associates last night, the night before the duel—that silent, funereal group of people—it had all seemed completely unreal to him.
But now, in this manufactured dream, he seemed vibrantly alive. Every sensation was solid, stimulating. He could feel his pulse throbbing through him. Somewhere out in those mists, he knew, was Odal. And the thought of coming to grips with the assassin filled him with a strange satisfaction.
Massan had spent a good many years serving his government on the rich but inhospitable high-gravity planets of the Acquataine Cluster. This was the environment he had chosen: crushing gravity; killing pressures; atmosphere of ammonia and hydrogen, laced with free radicals of sulphur and other valuable but deadly chemicals; oceans of liquid methane and ammonia; “solid ground” consisting of quickly crumbling, eroding ice; howling superpowerful winds that could pick up a mountain of ice and hurl it halfway around the planet; darkness; danger; death.
He was encased in a one-man protective outfit that was half armored suit, half vehicle. There was an internal grav field to keep him comfortable in 3.7 gees, but still the suit was cumbersome, and a man could move only very slowly in it, even with the aid of servomotors.
The weapon he had chosen was simplicity itself—a hand-sized capsule of oxygen. But in a hydrogen/ammonia atmosphere, oxygen could be a deadly explosive. Massan carried several of these “bombs”; so did Odal.But the trick, Massan thought to himself,is to know how to throw them under these conditions; the proper range, the proper trajectory. Not an easy thing to learn, without years of experience.
The terms of the duel were simple: Massan and Odal were situated on a rough-topped iceberg that was being swirled along one of the methane/ammonia ocean’s vicious currents. The ice was rapidly crumbling; the duel would end when the iceberg was completely broken up.
Massan edged along the ragged terrain. His suit’s grippers and rollers automatically adjusted to the roughness of the topography. He concentrated his attention on the infrared detector that hung before his viewplate.
A chunk of ice the size of a man’s head sailed through the murky atmosphere in a steep glide peculiar to heavy gravity and banged into the shoulder of Massan’s suit. The force was enough to rock him slightly off-balance before the servos readjusted. Massan withdrew his arm from the sleeve and felt the inside of the shoulder seam.Dented, but not penetrated.A leak would have been disastrous, possibly fatal. Then he remembered:Of course—I cannot be killed except by direct action of my antagonist. That is one of the rules of the game.
Still, he carefully fingered the dented shoulder to make certain it was not leaking. The dueling machine and its rules seemed so very remote and unsubstantial, compared to this freezing, howling inferno.
He diligently set about combing the iceberg, determined to find Odal and kill him before their floating island disintegrated. He thoroughly explored every projection, every crevice, every slope, working his way slowly from one end of the ’berg toward the other. Back and forth, cross and re-cross, with the infrared sensors scanning three hundred sixty-degrees around him.
It was time-consuming. Even with the suit’s servomotors and propulsion units, motion across the ice, against the buffeting wind, was a cumbersome business. But Massan continued to work his way across the iceberg, fighting down a gnawing, growing fear that Odal was not there at all.
And then he caught just the barest flicker of a shadow on his detector. Something, or someone, had darted behind a jutting rise of the ice, off by the edge of the iceberg.
Slowly and carefully, Massan made his way toward the base of the rise. He picked one of the oxy-bombs from his belt and held it in his right-hand claw.
Massan edged around the base of the ice cliff, and stood on a narrow ledge between the cliff and the churning sea. He saw no one. He extended the detector’s range to maximum, and worked the scanners up the sheer face of the cliff toward the top.
There he was! The shadowy outline of a man etched itself on the detector screen. And at the same time, Massan heard a muffled roar, then a rumbling, crashing noise, growing quickly louder and more menacing.
He looked up the face of the ice cliff and saw a small avalanche of ice tumbling, sliding, growling toward him.That devil set off a bomb at the top of the cliff!
Massan tried to back out of the way, but it was too late. The first chunk of ice bounced harmlessly off his helmet, but the others knocked him off-balance so repeatedly that the servos had no chance to recover. He staggered blindly for a few moments, as more and more ice cascaded down on him, and then toppled off the ledge into the boiling sea.
Relax!he ordered himself.Do not panic! The suit will float you. The servos will keep you right-side-up. You cannot be killed accidentally; Odal must perform thecoup-de-gracehimself.
Then he remembered the emergency rocket units in the back of the suit. If he could orient himself properly, a touch of a control stud on his belt would set them off, and he would be boosted back onto the iceberg. He turned slightly inside the suit and tried to judge the iceberg’s distance through the infrared detector. It was difficult, especially since he was bobbing madly in the churning currents.
Finally he decided to fire the rocket and make final adjustments of distance and landing site after he was safely out of the sea.
But he could not move his hand.
He tried, but his entire right arm was locked fast. He could not budge it an inch. And the same for the left. Something, or someone, was clamping his arms tight. He could not even pull them out of their sleeves.
Massan thrashed about, trying to shake off whatever it was. No use.
Then his detector screen was lifted slowly from the viewplate. He felt something vibrating on his helmet. The oxygen tubes! They were being disconnected.
He screamed and tried to fight free. No use. With a hiss, the oxygen tubes pulled free of his helmet. Massan could feel the blood pounding through his veins as he fought desperately to free himself.
Now he was being pushed down into the sea. He screamed again and tried to wrench his body away. The frothing sea filled his viewplate. He was under. He was being held under. And now ... now the viewplate itself was being loosened.
No! Don’t!The scalding cold methane ammonia sea seeped in through the opening viewplate.
“It’s only a dream!” Massan shouted to himself. “Only a dream. A dream. A—”
Dr. Leoh stared at the dinner table without really seeing it. Coming to this restaurant had been Hector’s idea. Three hours earlier, Massan had been removed from the dueling machine—dead.
Leoh sat stolidly, hands in lap, his mind racing in many different directions at once. Hector was off at the phone, getting the latest information from the meditechs. Odal had expressed his regrets perfunctorily, and then left for the Kerak Embassy, under a heavy escort of his own plainclothes guards. The government of the Acquataine Cluster was quite literally falling apart, with no man willing to assume responsibility ... and thereby expose himself. One hour after the duel, Kanus’ troops had landed on all the major planets of the Szarno Confederacy; the annexation was afait accompli.
And what have I done since I arrived on Acquatainia?Leoh demanded of himself.Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I have sat back like a doddering old professor and played academic games with the machine, while younger, more vigorous men have USED the machine to suit their purposes.
Used the machine. There was a fragment of an idea in that phrase. Something nebulous, that must be approached carefully or it will fade away. Used the machine ... used it ... Leoh toyed with the phrase for a few moments, then gave it up with a sigh of resignation.Lord, I’m too tired even to think.
Leoh focused his attention on his surroundings and scanned the busy dining room. It was a beautiful place, really; decorated with crystal and genuine woods and fabric draperies. Not a synthetic in sight. The waiters and cooks and busboys were humans, not the autocookers and servers that most restaurants employed. Leoh suddenly felt touched at Hector’s attempt to restore his spirits—even if it was being done at Star Watch expense.
He saw the young Watchman approaching the table, coming back from the phone. Hector bumped two waiters and stumbled over a chair before reaching the relative safety of his own seat.
“What’s the verdict?” Leoh asked.
Hector’s lean face was bleak. “Couldn’t revive him. Cerebral hemorrhage, the meditechs said—induced by shock.”
“Shock?”
“That’s what they said. Something must’ve, uh, overloaded his nervous system ... I guess.”
Leoh shook his head. “I just don’t understand any of this. I might as well admit it. I’m no closer to an answer now than I was when I arrived here. Perhaps I should have retired years ago, before the dueling machine was invented.”
“Nonsense.”
“No, I mean it,” Leoh said. “This is the first real intellectual puzzle I’ve had to contend with in years. Tinkering with machinery ... that’s easy. You know what you want, all you need is to make the machinery perform properly. But this ... I’m afraid I’m too old to handle a real problem like this.”
Hector scratched his nose thoughtfully, then answered. “If you can’t handle the problem, sir, then we’re going to have a war on our hands in a matter of weeks. I mean, Kanus won’t be satisfied with swallowing the Szarno group ... the Acquataine Cluster is next ... and he’ll have to fight to get it.”
“Then the Star Watch can step in,” Leoh said, resignedly.
“Maybe ... but it’ll take time to mobilize the Star Watch ... Kanus can move a lot faster than we can. Sure, we could throw in a task force ... a token group, that is. But Kanus’ gang will chew them up pretty quick. I ... I’m no politician, sir, but I think I can see what will happen. Kerak will gobble up the Acquataine Cluster ... a Star Watch task force will be wiped out in the battle ... and we’ll end up with Kerak at war with the Terran Commonwealth. And it’ll be a real war ... a big one.”
Leoh began to answer, then stopped. His eyes were fixed on the far entrance of the dining room. Suddenly every murmur in the busy room stopped dead. Waiters stood still between tables. Eating, drinking, conversation hung suspended.
Hector turned in his chair and saw at the far entrance the slim, stiff, blue-uniformed figure of Odal.
The moment of silence passed. Everyone turned to his own business and avoided looking at the Kerak major. Odal, with a faint smile on his thin face, made his way slowly to the table where Hector and Leoh were sitting.
They rose to greet him and exchanged perfunctory salutations. Odal pulled up a chair and sat with them.
“I assume that you’ve been looking for me,” Leoh said. “What do you wish to say?”
Before Odal could answer, the waiter assigned to the table walked up, took a position where his back would be to the Kerak major, and asked firmly, “Your dinner is ready gentlemen. Shall I serve it now?”
Leoh hesitated a moment, then asked Odal, “Will you join us?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Serve it now,” Hector said. “The major will be leaving shortly.”
Again the tight grin broke across Odal’s face. The waiter bowed and left.
“I have been thinking about our conversation of last night,” Odal said to Leoh.
“Yes?”
“You accused me of cheating in my duels.”
Leoh’s eyebrows arched. “I said someone was cheating, yes—”
“An accusation is an accusation.”
Leoh said nothing.
“Do you withdraw your words, or do you still accuse me of deliberate murder? I am willing to allow you to apologize and leave Acquatainia in peace.”
Hector cleared his throat noisily. “This is no place to have an argument ... besides, here comes our dinner.”
Odal ignored the Watchman. “You heard me, professor. Will you leave? Or do you accuse me of murdering Massan this afternoon?”
“I—”
Hector banged his fist on the table and jerked up out of his chair—just as the waiter arrived with a large tray of food. There was a loud crash. A tureen of soup, two bowls of salad, glasses, assorted rolls, vegetables, cheeses and other delicacies cascaded over Odal.
The Kerak major leaped to his feet, swearing violently in his native tongue. He sputtered back into basic Terran: “You clumsy, stupid oaf! You maggot-brained misbegotten peasant-faced—”
Hector calmly picked a salad leaf from the sleeve of his tunic. Odal abruptly stopped his tirade.
“I am clumsy,” Hector said, grinning. “As for being stupid, and the rest of it, I resent that. I am highly insulted.”
A flash of recognition lighted Odal’s eyes. “I see. Of course. My quarrel here is not with you. I apologize.” He turned back to Leoh, who was also standing now.
“Not good enough,” Hector said. “I don’t, uh, like the ... tone of your apology.”
Leoh raised a hand, as if to silence the younger man.
“I apologized; that is sufficient,” Odal warned.
Hector took a step toward Odal. “I guess I could insult your glorious leader, or something like that ... but this seems more direct.” He took the water pitcher from the table and poured it calmly and carefully over Odal’s head.
A wave of laughter swept the room. Odal went white. “You are determined to die.” He wiped the dripping water from his eyes. “I will meet you before the week is out. And you have saved no one.” He turned on his heel and stalked out.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Leoh asked, aghast.
Hector shrugged. “He was going to challenge you—”
“He will still challenge me, after you’re dead.”
“Uu-m-m, yes, well, maybe so. I guess you’re right—Well, anyway, we’ve gained a little more time.”
“Four days.” Leoh shook his head. “Four days to the end of the week. All right, come on, we have work to do.”
Hector was grinning broadly as they left the restaurant. He began to whistle.
“What are you so happy about?” Leoh grumbled.
“About you, sir. When we came in here, you were, uh, well ... almost beaten. Now you’re right back in the game again.”
Leoh glanced at the Star Watchman. “In your own odd way, Hector, you’re quite a boy ... I think.”
Their groundcar glided from the parking building to the restaurant’s entrance ramp, at the radio call of the doorman. Within minutes, Hector and Leoh were cruising through the city, in the deepening shadows of night.
“There’s only one man,” Leoh said, “who has faced Odal and lived through it.”
“Dulaq,” Hector agreed. “But ... for all the information the medical people have been able to get from him, he might as well be, uh, dead.”
“He’s still completely withdrawn?”
Hector nodded. “The medicos think that ... well, maybe in a few months, with drugs and psychotherapy and all that ... they might be able to bring him back.”
“It won’t be soon enough. We’ve only got four days.”
“I know.”
Leoh was silent for several minutes. Then: “Who is Dulaq’s closest living relative? Does he have a wife?”
“I think his wife is, uh, dead. Has a daughter though. Pretty girl. Bumped into her in the hospital once or twice—”
Leoh smiled in the darkness. Hector’s term, “bumped into,” was probably completely literal.
“Why are you asking about Dulaq’s next-of-kin?”
“Because,” Leoh replied, “I think there might be a way to make Dulaq tell us what happened during his duel. But it is a very dangerous way. Perhaps a fatal way.”
“Oh.”
They lapsed into silence again. Finally he blurted, “Come on, my boy, let’s find the daughter and talk to her.”
“Tonight?”
“Now.”
She certainly is a pretty girl, Leoh thought as he explained very carefully to Geri Dulaq what he proposed to do. She sat quietly and politely in the spacious living room of the Dulaq residence. The glittering chandelier cast touches of fire on her chestnut hair. Her slim body was slightly rigid with tension, her hands were clasped in her lap. Her face—which looked as though it could be very expressive—was completely serious now.