Pebble In The Sky

18. Duel!

Schwartz's mind was whirling. In a queer, hectic way he felt at ease. There was a piece of him that seemed in absolute control of the situation, and more of him that could not believe that. Paralysis had been applied later to him than to the others. Even Dr. Shekt was sitting up, while he himself could just budge an arm and little more.

And, staring up at the leering mind of the Secretary, infinitely foul and infinitely evil, he began his duel.

He said, "I was on your side originally, for all that you were preparing to kill me. I thought I understood your feelings and your intentions…But the minds of these others here are relatively innocent and pure, and yours is past description. It is not even for the Earthman you fight, but for your own personal power. I see in you not a vision of a free Earth, but of a re-enslaved Earth. I see in you not the disruption of the Imperial power, but its replacement by a personal dictatorship."

"You see all that, do you?" said Balkis. "Well, see what you wish. I don't need your information after all, you know-not so badly that I must endure insolence. We have advanced the hour of striking, it seems. Had you expected that? Amazing what pressure will do, even on those who swear that more speed is impossible. Did you see that, my dramatic mind reader?"

Schwartz said, "I didn't. I wasn't looking for it, and it passed my notice…But I can look for it now. Two days-Less-Let's see-Tuesday-six in the morning-Chica time."

The blaster was in the Secretary's hand, finally. He advanced in abrupt strides and towered over Schwartz's drooping figure.

"How did you know that?"

Schwartz stiffened; somewhere mental tendrils bunched and grasped. Physically his jaw muscles clamped rigorously shut and his eyebrows curled low, but these were purely irrelevant-involuntary accompaniments to the real effort. Within his brain there was that which reached out and seized hard upon the Mind Touch of the other.

To Arvardan, for precious, wasting seconds, the scene was meaningless; the Secretary's sudden motionless silence was not significant.

Schwartz muttered gaspingly, "I've got him…Take away his gun. I can't hold on-" It died away in a gurgle.

And then Arvardan understood. With a lurch he was on all fours. Then slowly, grindingly, he lifted himself once more, by main force, to an unsteady erectness. Pola tried to rise with him, could not quite make it. Shekt edged off his slab, sinking to his knees. Only Schwartz lay there, his face working.

The Secretary might have been struck by the Medusa sight. On his smooth and unfurrowed forehead perspiration gathered slowly, and his expressionless face hinted of no emotion. Only that right hand, holding the blaster, showed any signs of life. Watch closely, and you might see it jerk ever so gently; note the curious flexing pressure of it upon the contact button: a gentle pressure, not enough to do harm, but returning, and returning- "Hold him tight," gasped Arvardan with a ferocious joy. He steadied himself on the back of a chair and tried to gain his breath. "Let me get to him."

His feet dragged. He was in a nightmare, wading through molasses, swimming through tar; pulling with torn muscles, so slowly-so slowly.

He was not-could not be-conscious of the terrific duel that proceeded before him.

The Secretary had only one aim, and that was to put just the tiniest force into his thumb-three ounces, to be exact, since that was the contact pressure required for the blaster's operation. To do so his mind had only to instruct a quiveringly balanced tendon, already half contracted, to-to- Schwartz had only one aim, and that was to restrain that pressure-but in all the inchoate mass of sensation presented to him by the other's Mind Touch, he could not know which particular area was alone concerned with that thumb. So it was that he bent his efforts to produce a stasis, a complete stasis- The Secretary's Mind Touch heaved and billowed against restraint. It was a quick and fearfully intelligent mind that confronted Schwartz's untried control. For seconds it remained quiescent, waiting-then, in a terrific, tearing attempt, it would tug wildly at this muscle or that- To Schwartz it was as if he had seized a wrestling hold which he must maintain at all costs, though his opponent threw him about in frenzies.

But none of this showed. Only the nervous clenching and unclenching of Schwartz's jaw; the quivering lips, bloodied by the biting teeth-and that occasional soft movement on the part of the Secretary's thumb, straining-straining.

Arvardan paused to rest. He did not want to. He had to. His outstretched finger just touched the fabric of the Secretary's tunic and he felt he could move no more. His agonized lungs could not pump the breath his dead limbs required. His eyes were blurred with the tears of effort, his mind with the haze of pain.

He gasped, "Just a few more minutes, Schwartz. Hold him, hold him-"

Slowly, slowly, Schwartz shook his head. "I can't-I can't-"

And indeed, to Schwartz all the world was slipping away into dull, unfocused chaos. The tendrils of his mind were becoming stiff and nonresilient.

The Secretary's thumb pressed once again upon the contact. It did not relax. The pressure grew by tiny stages.

Schwartz could feel the bulging of his own eyeballs, the writhing expansion of the veins in his forehead. He could sense the awful triumph that gathered in the mind of the other

Then Arvardan lunged. His stiff and rebellious body toppled forward, hands outstretched and clawing.

The yielding, mind-held Secretary toppled with him. The blaster flew sideways, clanging along the hard floor.

The Secretary's mind wrenched free almost simultaneously, and Schwartz fell back, his own skull a tangled jungle of confusion.

Balkis struggled wildly beneath the clinging dead weight of Arvardan's body. He jerked a knee into the other's groin with a vicious strength while his clenched fist came down sideways on Arvardan's cheekbone. He lifted and thrust-and Arvardan rolled off in huddled agony.

The Secretary staggered to his feet, panting and disheveled, and stopped again.

Facing him was Shekt, half reclining. His right hand, shakingly supported by the left, was holding the blaster, and although it quivered, the business end pointed at the Secretary.

"You pack of fools," shrilled the Secretary, passion-choked, "what do you expect to gain? I have only to raise my voice-"

"And you, at least," responded Shekt weakly, "will die."

"You will accomplish nothing by killing me," said the

Secretary bitterly, "and you know it. You will not save the Empire you would betray us to-and you would not save even yourselves. Give me that gun and you will go free."

He extended a hand, but Shekt laughed wistfully. "I am not mad enough to believe that."

°'Perhaps not, but you are half paralyzed." And the Secretary broke sharply to the right. far faster than the physicist's feeble wrist could veer the blaster.

But now Balkis's mind, as he tensed for the final jump" was utterly and entirely on the blaster he was avoiding. Schwartz extended his mind once again in a final jab, and the Secretary tripped and slammed downward as if he had been clubbed.

Arvardan had risen painfully to his feet. His cheek was red and swollen and he hobbled when he walked. He said, "Can you move, Schwartz?"

"A little," came the tired response. Schwartz slid out of his seat.

"Anyone else coming this way, maybe?'"

"Not that I can detect."

Arvardan smiled grimly down at Pola. His hand was resting on her soft brown hair and she was looking up at him with brimming eyes. Several times in the last two hours he had been sure that never, never would he feel her hair or see her eyes again.

"Maybe there will be a later after an, Pola?"

And she could only shake her head and say, "There's not enough time. We only have till six o'clock Tuesday."

"Not enough time? Well, let's see." Arvardan bent over the prone Ancient and pulled his head back, none too gently.

"Is he alive?" He felt futilely for a pulse with his still-numb finger tips and then placed a palm beneath the green robe. He said, "His heart's beating, anyway…You've a dangerous power there, Schwartz. Why didn't you do this in the first place?"

"Because I wanted to see him held static.'" Schwartz clearly showed the effects of his ordeal. "I thought that if I could hold him, we could lead him out before; use him as decoy; hide behind his skirts."

Shekt said, in sudden animation, "We might. There's the Imperial garrison in Fort Dibburn not half a mile away. Once there, we're safe and can get word to Ennius."

"Once there! There must be a hundred guards outside, with hundreds more between here and there-And what can we do with a stiff green-robe? Carry him? Shove him along on little wheels?" Arvardan laughed humorlessly.

"Besides," said Schwartz gloomily, "I couldn't hold him very long. You saw-I failed."

Shekt said earnestly, "Because you're not used to it. Now listen, Schwartz, I've got a notion as to what it is you do with your mind. It's a receiving station for the electromagnetic fields of the brain. I think you can transmit also. Do you understand?"

Schwartz seemed painfully uncertain.

"You must understand, " insisted Shekt. "You'll have to concentrate on what you want him to do-and first we're going to give him his blaster back."

"What!" The outraged exclamation was neatly triple.

Shekt raised his voice. "He's got to lead us out of here. We can't get out otherwise, can we? And how can it look less suspicious than to allow him to be obviously armed?"

"But I couldn't hold him. I tell you I couldn't." Schwartz was flexing his arms, slapping them, trying to get back into the feel of normality. "I don't care what your theories are, Dr. Shekt. You don't know what goes on. It's a slippery, painful thing, and it's not easy."

"I know, but it's the chance we take. Try it now, Schwartz. Have him move his arm when he comes to." Shekt's voice was pleading.

The Secretary moaned as he lay there, and Schwartz felt the reviving Mind Touch. Silently, almost fearfully, he let it gather strength-then spoke to it. It was a speech that included no words; it was the silent speech you send to your arm when you want it to move, a speech so silent you are not yourself aware of it.

And Schwartz's arm did not move; it was the Secretary's that did. The Earthman from the past looked up with a wild smile, but the others had eyes only for Balkis-Balkis, that recumbent figure, with a lifting head, with eyes from which the glaze of unconsciousness was vanishing, and an arm which peculiarly and incongruously jerked outward at a ninety-degree angle.

Schwartz bent to his task.

The Secretary lifted himself up in angular fashion; nearly, but not quite, overbalancing himself. And then, in a queer and involuntary way, he danced.

It lacked rhythm; it lacked beauty; but to the three who watched the body, and to Schwartz, who watched body and mind, it was a thing of indescribable awe. For in those moments the Secretary's body was under the control of a mind not materially connected with it.

Slowly, cautiously, Shekt approached the robotlike Secretary and, not without a qualm, extended his hand. In the open palm thereof lay the blaster, butt first.

"Let him take it, Schwartz," said Shekt.

Balkis's hand reached out and grasped the weapon clumsily. For a moment there was a sharp, devouring glitter in his eyes, and then it all faded. Slowly, slowly, the blaster was put into its place in the belt, and the hand fell away.

Schwartz's laugh was high-pitched. "He almost got away, there." But his face was white as he spoke.

"Well? Can you hold him?"

"He's fighting like the devil. But it's not as bad as before."

"That's because you know what you're doing," said Shekt, with an encouragement he did not entirely feel. "Transmit, now. Don't try to hold him; just pretend you're doing it yourself."

Arvardan broke in. "Can you make him talk?"

There was a pause, then a low, rasping growl from the Secretary. Another pause; another rasp.

"That's all," panted Schwartz.

"But why won't it work?" asked Pola. She looked worried.

Shekt shrugged. "Some pretty delicate and complicated muscles are involved. It's not like yanking at the long limb muscles. Never mind, Schwartz. We may get by without."

The memory of the next two hours was something no two of those that took part in the queer odyssey could duplicate. Dr. Shekt, for instance, had acquired a queer rigidity in which all his fears were drowned in one breathless and helpless sympathy with the inwardly struggling Schwartz. Throughout he had eyes only for that round face as it slowly furrowed and twisted with effort. For the others he had hardly time for more than a moment's glance.

The guards immediately outside the door saluted sharply at the appearance of the Secretary, his green robe redolent of officialdom and power. The Secretary returned the salute in a fumbling, flat manner. They passed, unmolested.

It was only when they had left the great Hall that Arvardan became conscious of the madness of it all. The great, unimaginable danger to the Galaxy and the flimsy reed of safety that bridged, perhaps, the abyss. Yet even then, even then, Arvardan felt himself drowning in Pola's eyes. Whether it was the life that was being snatched from him, the future that was being destroyed about him, the eternal unavailability of the sweetness he had tasted-whatever it was, no one had ever seemed to him to be so completely and devastatingly desirable.

In aftertime she was the sum of his memories. Only the girl- And upon Pola the sunny brightness of the morning burned down so that Arvardan's downturned face blurred before her. She smiled up at him and was conscious of that strong, hard arm on which her own rested so lightly. That was the memory that lingered afterward. Flat, firm muscle lightly covered by glossy-textured plastic cloth, smooth and cool under her wrist- Schwartz was in a sweating agony. The curving drive that led away from the side entrance from which they had emerged was largely empty. For that he was hugely thankful.

Schwartz alone knew the full cost of failure. In the enemy Mind that he controlled he could sense the unbearable humiliation, the surpassing hatred, the utterly horrible resolves. He had to search that Mind for the information that guided him-the position of the official ground car, the proper route to take-And, in searching, he also experienced the galling bitterness of the determined revenge that would lash out should his control waver for but the tenth part of the second.

The secret fastnesses of the Mind in which he was forced to rummage remained his personal possession forever. In aftertimes there came the pale gray hours of many an innocent dawn during which once again he had guided the steps of a madman down the dangerous walks of an enemy stronghold.

Schwartz gasped at the words when they reached the ground car. He no longer dared relax sufficiently to utter connected sentences. He choked out quick phrases: "Can't-drive car-can't make-him-make drive-complicated-can't-"

Shekt soothed him with a soft, clucking sound. He dared not touch him, dared not speak in an ordinary way, dared net distract Schwartz's mind for a second.

He whispered, "Just get him into the back seat, Schwartz. I'll drive. I know how. From now on just keep him still. and I'll take the blaster away."

The Secretary's ground car was a special model. Because it was special, it was different. It attracted attention. Its green headlight turned to the right and left in rhythmic swings as the light dimmed and brightened in emerald flashes. Men paused to watch. Ground cars advancing in the opposite direction moved to the side in a respectful hurry.

Had the car been less noticed, had it been less obtrusive. the occasional passer-by might have had time to note the pale, unmoving Ancient in the back seat-might have wondered-might have scented danger- But they noticed only the car, so that time passed…

A soldier blocked the way at the gleaming chromium gates that rose sheerly in the expansive, overwhelming way that marked all Imperial structures in sharp contrast to the squatly massive and brooding architecture of Earth. His huge force gun shot out horizontally in a barring gesture, and the car halted.

Arvardan leaned out. "I'm a citizen of the Empire, soldier. I'd like to see your commanding officer."

"I'll have to see your identification, sir."

"That's been taken from me. I am Bel Arvardan of Baronn, Sirius. I am on the Procurator's business and I'm in a hurry."

The soldier lifted a wrist to his mouth and spoke softly into the transmitter. There was a pause while he waited for an answer, and then he lowered his rifle and stepped aside. Slowly the gate swung open.