1

Dulaq rode the slide to the upper pedestrian level, stepped off, and walked over to the railing. The city stretched out all around him—broad avenues thronged with busy people, pedestrian walks, vehicle thoroughfares, air cars gliding between the gleaming, towering buildings.

And somewhere in this vast city was the man he must kill. The man who would kill him, perhaps. It all seemed so real! The noise of the streets, the odors of the perfumed trees lining the walks, even the warmth of the reddish sun on his back as he scanned the scene before him.

It is an illusion, Dulaq reminded himself. A clever, man-made hallucination. A figment of my own imagination amplified by a machine.

But it seemed so very real.

Real or not, he had to find Odal before the sun set. Find him and kill him. Those were the terms of the duel. He fingered the stubby, cylindrical stat-wand in his tunic pocket. That was the weapon that he had chosen, his weapon, his own invention. And this was the environment he had picked: his city, busy, noisy, crowded. The metropolis Dulaq had known and loved since childhood.

Dulaq turned, and glanced at the sun. It was halfway down toward the horizon. He had about three hours to find Odal. And when he did—kill or be killed.

Of course no one is actually hurt. That is the beauty of the machine. It allows one to settle a score, to work out aggressive feelings, without either mental or physical harm.

Dulaq shrugged. He was a roundish figure, moon-faced, slightly stoop-shouldered. He had work to do. Unpleasant work for a civilized man, but the future of the Acquataine Cluster and the entire alliance of neighboring star systems could well depend on the outcome of this electronically synthesized dream.

He turned and walked down the elevated avenue, marveling at the sharp sensation of solidity that met each footstep on the paving. Children dashed by and rushed up to a toyshop window. Men of commerce strode along purposefully, but without missing a chance to eye the girls sauntering by.

I must have a marvelous imagination. Dulaq smiled to himself.

Then he thought of Odal, the blond, icy professional he was pitted against. Odal was an expert at all the weapons, a man of strength and cool precision, an emotionless tool in the hands of a ruthless politician. But how expert could he be with a stat-wand, when the first time he saw one was the moment before the duel began? And how well acquainted could he be with the metropolis, when he had spent most of his life in the military camps on the dreary planets of Kerak, sixty light-years from Acquatainia?

No, Odal would be helpless and lost in this situation. He would attempt to hide among the throngs of people. All Dulaq had to do was to find him.

The terms of the duel limited both men to the pedestrian walks of the commercial quarter of the city. Dulaq knew this area intimately, and he began a methodical search through the crowds for the tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed Odal.

And he saw him! After only a few minutes of walking down the major thoroughfare, he spotted his opponent, strolling calmly along a crosswalk, at the level below. Dulaq hurried down the ramp, worked his way through the crowd, and saw the man again, tall and blond, unmistakable. Dulaq edged along behind him quietly, easily. No disturbance. No pushing. Plenty of time. They walked down the street for a quarter-hour while the distance between them slowly shrank from fifty meters to five.

Finally Dulaq was directly behind him, within arm’s reach. He grasped the stat-wand and pulled it from his tunic. With one quick motion he touched it to the base of the man’s skull and started to thumb the button that would release a killing bolt of energy.

The man turned suddenly. It wasn’t Odal!

Dulaq jerked back in surprise. It couldn’t be. He had seen his face. It was Odal… and yet this man was a stranger. Dulaq felt the man’s eyes on him as he turned and walked away quickly.

A mistake, he told himself. You were overanxious. A good thing this is a hallucination, or the autopolice would be taking you in by now.

And yet… he had been so certain that it was Odal. A chill shuddered through him. He looked up, and there was his antagonist, on the thoroughfare above, at the precise spot where he himself had been a few minutes earlier.

Their eyes met, and Odal’s lips parted in a cold smile.

Dulaq hurried up the ramp. Odal was gone by the time he reached the upper level. He couldn’t have gotten far.

Slowly, but very surely, Dulaq’s hallucination crumbled into a nightmare. He’d spot Odal in the crowd, only to have him melt away. He’d find him again, but when he’d get closer, it would turn out to be another stranger. He felt the chill of the duelist’s ice-blue eyes on him again and again, but when he turned there was no one there except the impersonal crowd.

Odal’s face appeared again and again. Dulaq struggled through the throngs to find his opponent, only to have him vanish. The crowd seemed to be filled with tall blond men crisscrossing before Dulaq’s dismayed eyes:

The shadows lengthened. The sun was setting. Dulaq could feel his heart pounding within him, and perspiration pouring from every square centimeter of his skin.

There he is! Yes, that is him. Definitely, positively him! Dulaq pushed through the homeward-bound crowds toward the figure of a tall blond man leaning casually against the safety railing of the city’s main thoroughfare. It was Odal, the damned smiling confident Odal.

Dulaq pulled the wand from his tunic and battled across the surging crowd to the spot where Odal stood motionless, hands in pockets, watching him dispassionately. Dulaq came within arm’s reach…

“TIME, GENTLEMEN. TIME IS UP. THE DUEL IS ENDED.”

The Acquataine Cluster was a rich jewel box of some three hundred stars, just outside the borders of the Terran Commonwealth. More than a thousand inhabited planets circled those stars. The capital planet—Acquatainia—held the Cluster’s largest city. In this city was the Cluster’s oldest university. And in the university stood the dueling machine.

High above the floor of the antiseptic-white chamber that housed the dueling machine was a narrow gallery. Before the machine had been installed, the chamber had been a lecture hall in the university. Now the rows of students’ seats, the lecturer’s dais and rostrum were gone. The room held only the machine, a grotesque collection of consoles, control desks, power units, association circuits, and the two booths where the duelists sat.

In the gallery—empty during ordinary duels—sat a privileged handful of newsmen.

“Time limit’s up,” one of them said. “Dulaq didn’t get him.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t get Dulaq either.”

The first one shrugged. “Now he’ll have to fight Odal on his terms.”

“Wait, they’re coming out.”

Down on the floor below, Dulaq and his opponent emerged from their enclosed booths.

One of the newsmen whistled softly. “Look at Dulaq’s face… it’s positively gray.”

“I’ve never seen the Prime Minister so shaken.”

“And take a look at Kanus’ hired assassin.” The newsmen turned toward Odal, who stood before his booth, quietly chatting with his seconds.

“Hmp. There’s a bucket of frozen ammonia for you.”

“He’s enjoying this.”

One of the newsmen stood up. “I’ve got a deadline to meet. Save my seat.”

He made his way past the guarded door, down the rampway circling the outer wall of the building, to the portable tri-di camera unit that the Acquatainian government had permitted for the newsmen to make their reports.

The newsman huddled with his technicians for a few minutes, then stepped before the camera.

“Emile Dulaq, Prime Minister of the Acquataine Cluster and acknowledged leader of the coalition against Chancellor Kanus of the Kerak Worlds, has failed in the first part of his psychonic duel against Major Par Odal of Kerak. The two antagonists are now undergoing the routine medical and psychological checks before renewing their duel…”

By the time the newsman returned to his gallery seat, the duel was almost ready to begin again.

Dulaq stood in the midst of his group of advisers before the looming impersonality of the machine. Across the way, Odal remained with his two seconds.

“You needn’t go through with the next phase of the duel immediately,” one of the Prime Minister’s advisers was saying. “Wait until tomorrow. Rest and calm yourself.”

Dulaq’s round face puckered into a frown. He cocked an eye at the chief meditech, hovering on the edge of the little group.

The meditech, one of the staff that ran the dueling machine, pointed out, “The Prime Minister has passed the examinations. He is capable, within the rules of the duel, of resuming.”

“But he has the option of retiring for the day, doesn’t he?”

“If Major Odal agrees.”

Dulaq shook his head impatiently. “No. I shall go through with it. Now.”

“But…”

The Prime Minister’s expression hardened. His advisers lapsed into a respectful silence. The chief meditech ushered Dulaq back into his booth. On the other side of the machine, Odal glanced at the Acquatainians, grinned humorlessly, and strode into his own booth.

Dulaq sat and tried to blank out his mind while the meditechs adjusted the neurocontacts to his head and torso. They finished and withdrew. He was alone in the booth now, looking at the dead-white walls, completely bare except for the large view screen before his eyes. The screen began to glow slightly, then brightened into a series of shifting colors. The colors merged and changed, swirling across his field of view. Dulaq felt himself being drawn into them, gradually, compellingly, completely immersed in them…

The mists slowly vanished and Dulaq found himself standing on an immense and totally barren plain. Not a tree, not a blade of grass; nothing but bare, rocky ground stretching in all directions to the horizon and a disturbingly harsh yellow sky. He looked down at his feet and saw the weapon that Odal had chosen. A primitive club.

With a sense of dread, Dulaq picked up the club and hefted it in his hand. He scanned the plain. Nothing. No hills or trees or bushes to hide in. No place to run to.

And off on the horizon he could see a tall, lithe figure holding a similar club walking slowly and deliberately toward him.

The press gallery was practically empty. The duel had more than an hour to run, and most of the newsmen were outside, broadcasting their hastily drawn guesses about Dulaq’s failure to win with his own choice of weapons and environment.

Then a curious thing happened.

On the master control panel of the dueling machine, a single light flashed red. The chief meditech blinked at it in surprise, then pressed a series of buttons on his board. More red lights appeared. The chief meditech reached out and flipped a single switch.

One of the newsmen turned to his partner. “What’s going on down there?”

“I think it’s all over… Yeah, look, they’re opening up the booths. Somebody’s scored a win.”

“But who?”

They watched intently while the other newsmen quickly filed back into the gallery.

“There’s Odal. He looks happy.”

“Guess that means…”

“Good lord! Look at Dulaq!”

2

More than two thousand light-years from Acquatainia was the star cluster called Cannae. Although it was an even greater distance away from Earth, Carinae was still well within the confines of the mammoth Terran Commonwealth. Dr. Leoh, inventor of the dueling machine, was lecturing at the Carinae University when the news of Dulaq’s duel reached him. An assistant professor perpetrated the unthinkable breach of interrupting the lecture to whisper the news in his ear.

Leoh nodded grimly, hurriedly finished his lecture, and then accompanied the assistant professor to the university president’s office. They stood in silence as the slideway whisked them through the strolling students and blossoming greenery of the quietly busy campus.

Leoh was balding and jowly, the oldest man at the university. The oldest man anyone in the university knew, for that matter. But his face was creased from a smile that was almost habitual, and his eyes were active and alert. He wasn’t smiling, though, as they left the slideway and entered the administration building.

They rode the lift tube to the president’s office. Leoh asked the assistant professor as they stepped through the president’s open doorway, “You say he was in a state of catatonic shock when they removed him from the machine?”

“He still is,” the president answered from his desk. “Completely withdrawn from the real world. Cannot speak, hear, or even see. A living vegetable.”

Leoh plopped down in the nearest chair and ran a hand across his fleshy face. “I don’t understand it. Nothing like this has ever happened in a dueling machine before.”

The president said, “I don’t understand it either. But, this is your business.” He put a slight emphasis on the last word, unconsciously perhaps.

“Well, at least this won’t reflect on the university. That’s why I formed Psychonics as a separate business enterprise.” Then Leoh grinned and added, “The money, of course, was only a secondary consideration.”

The president managed a smile. “Of course.”

“I suppose the Acquatainians want to talk to me?” Leoh asked academically.

“They’re on tri-di now, waiting for you.”

“They’re holding a transmission frequency open over two thousand light-years?” Leoh looked impressed.

“You’re the inventor of the dueling machine and the head of Psychonics, Incorporated. You’re the only man who can tell them what went wrong.”

“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

“You can take the call here,” the president said, starting to get up from his chair.

“No, no, stay at your desk,” Leoh insisted. “There’s no need for you to leave. Or you either,” he added to the assistant professor.

The president touched a button on his desk communicator. The far wall of the office glowed momentarily, then seemed to dissolve. They were looking into another office, this one in distant Acquatainia. It was crowded with nervous-looking men in business clothes and military uniforms.

“Gentlemen,” Dr. Leoh said.

Several of the Acquatainians tried to answer him at once. After a few seconds of talking simultaneously, they all looked toward one of their members—a tall, determined, shrewd—looking civilian who bore a neatly trimmed black beard.

“I am Fernd Massan, the Acting Prime Minister of Acquatainia. You realize, of course, the crisis that has been precipitated in my government because of this duel?”

Leoh blinked. “I realize that there’s apparently been some difficulty with one of the dueling machines installed in your cluster. Political crises are not in my field.”

“But your dueling machine has incapacitated the Prime Minister,” one of the generals bellowed.

“And at this particular moment,” a minister added, “in the midst of our difficulties with the Kerak Worlds.”

Massan gestured them to silence.

“The dueling machine,” Leoh said calmly, “is nothing more than a psychonic device… it’s no more dangerous than a tri-di communicator. It merely allows two men to share a dream world that they create together. They can do anything they want to in their dream world-settle an argument as violently as they wish, and neither of them is physically hurt any more than a normal dream can hurt you physically. Men can use the dueling machine as an outlet for their aggressive feelings, for their tensions and hatreds, without hurting themselves or their society.

“Your own government tested one of the machines and approved its use on Acquatainia more than three years ago. I see several of you who were among those to whom I personally demonstrated the machine. Dueling machines are becoming commonplace through wide portions of the Terran Commonwealth, and neighboring nations such as Acquatainia. I’m sure that many of you have used the machine yourselves. You have, General, I’m certain.”

The general flustered. “That has nothing to do with the matter at hand!”

“Admittedly,” Leoh conceded. “But I don’t understand how a therapeutic machine can possibly become entangled in a political crisis.”

Massan said, “Allow me to explain. Our government has been conducting extremely delicate negotiations with the governments of our neighboring star-nations. These negotiations concern the rearmament of the Kerak Worlds. You have heard of Kanus of Kerak?”

“Vaguely,” Leoh said. “He’s a political leader of some sort.”

“Of the worst sort. He has acquired complete dictatorship of the Kerak Worlds and is now attempting to rearm them for war. This is in direct contravention of the Treaty of Acquatainia, signed only thirty Terran years ago.”

“I see. The treaty was signed at the end of the Acquataine-Kerak War, wasn’t it?”

“A war that we won,” the general pointed out.

“And now the Kerak Worlds want to rearm and try again,” Leoh said.

“Precisely.”

Leoh shrugged. “Why not call in the Star Watch? This is their type of police activity. And what has all this to do with the dueling machine?”

“Let me explain,” Massan said patiently. He gestured to an aide, and on the wall behind him a huge tri-di star map glowed into life.

Leoh recognized it immediately: the swirling spiral of the Milky Way galaxy. From the rim of the galaxy, where the Sun and Earth were, in toward the star-rich heart of the Milky Way, stretched the Terran Commonwealth—thousands of stars and myriads of planets. On Massan’s map the Commonwealth territory was shaded a delicate green. Just beyond its border was the golden cluster of Acquatainia. Around it were names that Leoh knew only vaguely: Safad, Szarno, Etra, and a pinpoint marked Kerak.

“Neither the Acquataine Cluster nor our neighboring nations,” said Massan, “have ever joined the Terran Commonwealth. Nor has Kerak, for that matter. Therefore the Star Watch can intervene only if all the nations concerned agree to intervention. Naturally Kanus would never accept the Star Watch. He wants to rearm.”

Leoh shook his head.

“As for the dueling machine,” Massan went on, “Kanus has turned it into a political weapon…”

“But that’s impossible. Your government passed strict laws concerning the Use of the machines. The dueling machine may be used only for personal grievances. It’s strictly outside the realm of politics.”

Massan shook his head sadly. “My dear Professor, laws are one thing, people are another. And politics consists of people, not words on tape.”

“I don’t understand,” said Leoh.

“A little more than one Terran year ago, Kanus picked a quarrel with a neighboring nation—the Safad Federation. He wanted an especially favorable trade agreement with them. Their minister of trade objected most strenuously. One of the Kerak negotiators—a certain Major Odal—got into a personal argument with the minister. Before anyone knew what had happened, they had challenged each other to a duel. Odal won the duel, and the minister resigned his post. He said he could no longer fight against the will of Odal and Kerak… he was psychologically incapable of it. Two weeks later he was dead—apparently a suicide, although I have my doubts.”

“That’s… extremely interesting,” Leoh said.

“Three days ago,” Massan continued, “the same Major Odal engaged Prime Minister Dulaq in a bitter personal argument. Odal is now a military attachй of the Kerak embassy here on Acquatainia. The argument grew so loud before a large group at an embassy party that the prime minister had no alternative but to challenge Odal. And now…”

“And now Dulaq is in a state of shock, and your government is tottering.”

Massan’s back stiffened. “Our government will not fall, nor shall the Acquataine Cluster acquiesce to the rearmament of the Kerak Worlds. But…” his voice lowered, “without Dulaq, our alliances with neighboring nations may dissolve. All our allies are smaller and weaker than Acquatainia. Kanus could pressure each one individually and make certain that they won’t take steps to prevent his rearming Kerak. Alone, Acquatainia cannot stop Kanus.”

“But if Kerak attacks you, surely you could ask the Star Watch for help and…”

“It won’t be that simple or clear-cut. Kanus will nibble off one small nation at a time. He can strike a blow and conquer a nation before the Star Watch can be summoned. Finally he’ll have us cut off completely, without a single ally. Then he’ll strike Acquatainia, or perhaps even try to subvert us from within. If he takes Acquatainia, he’ll have whetted his appetite for bigger game: he’ll want to conquer the Terran Commonwealth next. He’ll stop at nothing.”

“And he’s using the dueling machines to further his ambitions,” Leoh mused. “Well, gentlemen, it seems I have no alternative but to travel to the Acquataine Cluster. The dueling machine is my responsibility, and if there’s something wrong with it, or with the use of it, I’ll do my best to correct the situation.”

“That is all we ask,” Massan said. “Thank you.”

The Acquatainian scene faded away, and the three men in the president’s office found themselves looking at a solid wall once again.

“Well,” Leoh said, turning to the president, “it seems that I must request an indefinite leave of absence.”

The president frowned. “And it seems that I must grant it—even though the year isn’t even half-finished.”

“I regret the necessity,” said Leoh. Then, with a broad grin, he added, “My assistant, here, can handle my courses for the remainder of the year quite easily. Perhaps he’ll even be able to deliver his lectures without being interrupted.”

The assistant professor turned red from collar to scalp.

“Now then,” Leoh muttered to himself, “who is this Kanus, and why is he trying to turn the Kerak Worlds into an arsenal?”

3

Chancellor Kanus, Supreme Leader of the Kerak Worlds, stood at the edge of the balcony and looked across the wild, tumbling gorge to the rugged mountains beyond.

“These are the forces that mold men’s actions,” he said to his small audience of officials and advisers. “The howling winds, the mighty mountains, the open sky, and the dark powers of the clouds.”

The men nodded and made murmurs of agreement.

“Just as the mountains thrust up from the pettiness of the lands below, so shall we rise above the common walk of men,” Kanus said. “Just as a thunderstorm terrifies them, we will make them cower and bend to our will.”

“We will destroy the past,” said one of the ministers.

“And avenge the memory of defeat,” Kanus added. He turned and looked at the little group of men. Kanus was the smallest man on the balcony: short, spare, sallow-faced. His gaudy military uniform looked out of place on him, too big and heavy, too loaded with braid and medals. But he possessed piercing dark eyes and a strong voice that commanded attention.

He walked through the knot of men, and stopped before a tall, lean, blond youth in a light-blue military uniform. “And you, Major Odal, will be a primary instrument in the first steps of conquest.”

Odal bowed stiffly. “I only hope to serve my Leader and my Worlds.”

“You shall. And you already have,” Kanus said, beaming. “Already the Acquatainians are thrashing about like a snake whose head has been cut off. Without Dulaq, they have no brain to direct them. For your part in this triumph…” Kanus snapped his fingers, and one of his advisers quickly stepped to his side and handed him a small ebony box, “I present you with this token of the esteem of the Kerak Worlds, and of my personal high regard.”

He handed the box to Odal, who opened it and took out a small jeweled pin.

“The Star of Kerak,” Kanus announced. “This is the first time it has been awarded to anyone except a warrior on the battlefield. But, then, we have turned their so-called civilized dueling machine into our own battlefield, eh?”

Odal smiled. “Yes, sir, we have. Thank you very much, sir. This is the supreme moment of my life.”

“To date, Major. Only to date. There will be other moments, even higher ones. Come inside. We have many plans to discuss… more duels… more triumphs.”

They all filed into Kanus’ huge, elaborate office. The Leader walked across the plushly ornate room and sat at the elevated desk, while his followers arranged themselves on the chairs and couches placed about the floor. Odal remained standing, near the doorway.

Kanus let his fingers flick across a small control board set into his desk top, and a tri-dimensional star map appeared on the far wall. At its center were the eleven stars of the Kerak Worlds. Off to one side of the map was the Acquataine Cluster—wealthy, powerful, the most important political and economic power in this section of the galaxy. Farther away from Kerak, the slimmest edge of the Terran Commonwealth showed; to put the entire Commonwealth on the map would have dwarfed Acquatainia and made Kerak microscopic.

Pointing at the map, Kanus began one of his inevitable harangues. Objectives, political and military. Already the Kerak Worlds were unified under his dominant will. The people would follow wherever he led. Already the political alliances built up by Acquatainian diplomacy since the last war were tottering, now that Dulaq was out of the picture. Kerak was beginning to rearm. A political blow here, at the Szarno Confederacy, to bring them and their armaments industries into line with Kerak. Then a diplomatic alliance with the Etra Domain, which stood between the Acquataine Cluster and the Terran Commonwealth, to isolate the Acquatainians. Then, finally, the military blow against Acquatainia.

“A sudden strike, a quick, decisive series of blows, and the Acquatainians will collapse like a house of paper. Even if the Star Watch wanted to interfere, we would be victorious before they could bring help to the Acquataine Cluster. And with the resources of Acquatainia to draw on, we can challenge any force in the galaxy—even the Terran Commonwealth itself!”

The men in the room nodded and smiled.

They’ve heard this story many times, Odal thought. This was the first time he had been privileged to listen to it. If you closed your eyes, or looked only at the star map, the plan sounded bizarre, extreme, even impossible. But if you watched Kanus and let those piercing, almost hypnotic eyes fasten on yours, then the Leader’s wildest dreams sounded not only exciting, but inevitable.

Odal leaned a shoulder against the paneled wall and looked at the other men in the room.

There was fat Greber, the Vice Chancellor, fighting desperately to stay awake after drinking too much wine during luncheon and afterward. And Modal, sitting on the couch next to him, was bright-eyed and alert, thinking only of how much money and power would come to him as Minister of Industry once the rearmament program went into full speed.

Sitting alone on another couch was Kor, the quiet one, the head of Intelligence and—technically—Odal’s superior. Silent Kor, whose few words were usually charged with terror for those whom he spoke against. Kor had an unfathomed capacity for cruelty.

Marshal Lugal looked bored when Kanus spoke of politics, but his face changed when military matters came up. The Marshal lived for only one purpose: to avenge his army’s humiliating defeat in the war against Acquatainia. What he didn’t realize, Odal knew, was that as soon as he had reorganized the army and re-equipped it, Kanus planned to retire him and place younger men in charge. Men whose only loyalty was not to the army, nor even to the Kerak Worlds and their people, but to the Leader himself.

Eagerly following every syllable, every gesture of the Leader, was little Tinth. Born to the nobility, trained in the arts, a student of philosophy, Tinth had deserted his heritage to join the forces of Kanus. His reward was the Ministry of Education. Many teachers had suffered under him.

And finally there was Romis, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. A professional diplomat, one of the few men in government before Kanus’ sweep to power who had survived this long. It was clear that Romis hated the Chancellor. But he served the Kerak Worlds well. The diplomatic corps was flawless in their handling of the Safad trade treaty, although they would have gotten nowhere without Odal’s own work in the dueling machine. It was only a matter of time, Odal knew, before one of them—Romis or Kanus—killed the other.

The rest of Kanus’ audience consisted of political hacks, roughnecks-turned-bodyguards, and a few other hangers—on who had been with Kanus since the days when he held his political monologues in cellars and haunted the alleys to avoid the police. Kanus had come a long way: from the blackness of oblivion to the dazzling heights of the Chancellor’s rural estate.

Money, power, glory, revenge, patriotism: each man in the room, listening to Kanus, had his reason for following the Chancellor.

And my reasons? Odal asked himself. Why do I follow? Can I see into my own mind as easily as I see into theirs?

There was duty, of course. Odal was a soldier, and Kanus was the duly elected Leader of the government. Once elected, though, he had dissolved the government and solidified his powers as absolute dictator of the Kerak Worlds.

There was gain to be had by performing well under Kanus. Regardless of his political ambitions and personal tyrannies, Kanus rewarded well when pleased. The medal—the Star of Kerak—carried with it an annual pension that would nicely accommodate a family. If I had one, Odal thought sardonically.

There was a power, of sorts, also. Working the dueling machine in his special way, hammering a man into nothingness, finding the weaknesses in his personality and exploiting them, pitting his mind against others, turning sneering towers of pride like Dulaq into helpless whipped dogs—that was power. And it was a power that did not go unnoticed in Kerak. Already Odal was easily recognized on the streets; girls especially seemed to be attracted to him now.

“The most important factor,” Kanus was saying, “and I cannot stress it too heavily, is to build up an aura of invincibility. This is why your work is so important, Major Odal. You must be invincible! Because you represent the will of the Kerak Worlds. You are the instrument of my will, and you must triumph at every turn. The fate of your people and your Chancellor rests squarely on your shoulders each time you step into a dueling machine. You have borne that responsibility well, Major. Can you carry it even further?”

“I can, sir,” Odal answered crisply, “and I will.”

Kanus beamed at him. “Excellent! Because your next duel—and those that follow it—will be to the death.”

4

It took the star ship two weeks to make the journey from Carinae to the Acquataine Cluster. Dr. Leoh spent the time checking over the Acquatainian dueling machine, by direct tri-di communication link. The Acquatainian government gave him all the technicians and time he needed for the task.

Leoh spent as much of his spare time as possible with the other passengers of the ship. They were all enormously wealthy, as star-ship travelers had to be, or else they were traveling on government business—and expense. He was gregarious, a fine conversationalist, and had a nicely balanced sense of humor. Particularly, he was a favorite of the younger women, since he had reached the age where he could flatter them with his attention without making them feel endangered. But still, there were long hours when he was alone in his stateroom with nothing but memories. At times like these, it was impossible not to think back over the road he had been following.

Albert Robertus Leoh, Ph. D., professor of physics, professor of electronics, master of computer technology, inventor of the interstellar tri-di communications system. And more recently, student of psychology, professor of psychophysiology, founder of Psychonics, Incorporated, inventor of the dueling machine.

During his youthful years, with enthusiasm unbridled by experience, Leoh had envisioned himself as helping mankind to spread its colonies and civilizations throughout the galaxy. The bitter century of galactic war had ended in his childhood, and now human societies were linked together across the stars into a more-or-less peaceful coalition of nations.

There were two great motivating forces at work on those human societies, and these forces worked toward opposite goals. On the one hand was the urge to explore, to reach new stars, new planets, to expand the frontiers of man’s civilizations and found new colonies, new nations. Pitted against this drive to expand was an equally powerful force: the realization that technology had put an end to physical labor and almost to poverty itself on all the civilized worlds of man. The urge to move off to the frontier was penned in and buried alive under the enervating conflicts of civilization.

The result was inescapable. The civilized worlds became constantly more crowded. They became jam-packed islands of humanity sprinkled thinly across a sea of space that was still studded with unpopulated islands. The expense and difficulty of interstellar travel was often cited as an excuse. The star ships were expensive: their power demands were frightful. They could be used for business, for the pleasure of the very rich, for government travel; but hauling whole colonies of farmers and workers was almost completely out of the question. Only the most determined and best financed groups of colonists could afford them. The rest of mankind accepted the ease and safety of civilization, lived in the bulging cities of the teeming planets.

Their lives were circumscribed by their neighbors and by their governments. Constantly more people crowded into a fixed living space meant constantly less freedom. The freedom to dream, to run free, to procreate, all became state-owned, state-controlled privileges.

And Leoh had contributed to this situation.

He had contributed his thoughts and his work. He had contributed often and regularly. The interstellar communications system was only one outstanding achievement in a long career of achievements.

Leoh had been nearly at the voluntary retirement age for scientists when he realized what he and his fellow scientists had done. Their efforts to make life richer and more rewarding had only made it less strenuous and more rigid. With every increase in physical comfort, Leoh discovered, came a corresponding increase in spiritual discomfort—in neuroses, in crimes of violence, in mental aberrations. Senseless wars of pride broke out between star-nations for the first time in generations. Outwardly, the peace of the galaxy was assured except for minor flare-ups; but beneath the glossy surface of man’s civilization smoldered the beginnings of a volcano. Police actions fought by the Star Watch were increasing ominously. Petty wars between once-stable peoples were flaring up steadily.

Once Leoh realized the part he had played in all this, he was confronted with two emotions: a deep sense of guilt, both personal and professional; and, countering this, a determination to do something, anything, to restore at least some balance to man’s collective mentality.

Leoh stepped out of physics and electronics, and entered the field of psychology. Instead of retiring, he applied for a beginner’s status in his new profession. It took considerable bending and straining of the Commonwealth’s rules, but for a man of Leoh’s stature the rules could sometimes be flexed a little. Leoh became a student once again, then a researcher, and finally a professor of psychophysiology.

Out of this came the dueling machine. A combination of electroencephalograph and autocomputer. A dream machine that amplified a man’s imagination until he could engulf himself in a world of his own making. Leoh envisioned it as a device to enable men to rid themselves of hostility and tension, safely. Certainly psychiatrists and psychotechnicians used the machines to treat their patients. But Leoh saw further, saw that—as a dueling machine—the psychonic device could be used to prevent mental tensions and disorders. And he convinced many governments to install dueling machines for that purpose.

When two men had a severe difference of opinion, deep enough to warrant legal action, they could go to the dueling machine instead of the courts. Instead of passively watching the machinations of the law grind impersonally through their differences, they could allow their imaginations free rein in the dueling machine. They could settle the argument as violently as they wished, without hurting themselves or anyone else. On most civilized worlds, the results of properly monitored duels were accepted as legally binding.

The tensions of civilized life could be escaped—temporarily—in the dueling machine. This was a powerful tool, much too powerful to allow it to be used indiscriminately. Therefore Leoh safeguarded his invention by forming a private company, Psychonics, Incorporated, and securing an exclusive license from the Terran Commonwealth to manufacture, sell, install, and maintain the machines. His customers were government health and legal agencies. His responsibilities were: legally, to the Commonwealth; morally, to all mankind; and finally to his own restless conscience.

The dueling machines succeeded. They worked as well, and often better, than Leoh had anticipated. But he knew that they were only a stopgap, only a temporary shoring of a constantly eroding dam. What was needed, really needed, was some method of exploding the status quo, some means of convincing people to reach out for those unoccupied, unexplored stars that filled the galaxy, some way of convincing men that they should leave the comforts of civilization for the excitement and freedom of new lands.

Leoh had been searching for that method when the news of Dulaq’s duel had reached him. Now he was speeding across light-years of space, praying to himself that the dueling machine had not failed.

The two-week flight ended. The star ship took up a parking orbit around the capital planet of the Acquataine Cluster. The passengers trans-shipped to the surface.

Dr. Leoh was met at the landing disk by an official delegation, headed by Massan, the Acting Prime Minister. They exchanged formal greetings at the base of the ship while the other passengers hurried by, curious, puzzled. As they rode the slideway toward a private entrance to the spaceport’s administration building, Leoh commented:

“As you probably know, I have checked your dueling machine quite thoroughly via tri-d for the past two weeks. I can find nothing wrong with it.”

Massan shrugged. “Perhaps you should have checked the machine on Szarno instead.”

“The Szarno Confederation? Their dueling machine?”

“Yes. This morning, Kanus’ assassin killed a man in it.”

“He won another duel,” Leoh said.

“You do not understand,” Massan said grimly. “Major Odal’s opponent—an industrialist who had spoken out against Kanus—was actually killed in the dueling machine. The man is dead!”

5

One of the advantages of being Commander in Chief of the Star Watch, the old man thought to himself, is that you can visit any planet in the Commonwealth.

He stood at the top of the hill and looked out over the grassy tableland of Kenya. This was the land of his birth, Earth was his home world. The Star Watch’s official headquarters was in the heart of a star cluster much closer to the center of the Commonwealth, but Earth was the place the Commander wanted most to see as he grew older and wearier.

An aide, who had been following the Commander at a respectful distance, suddenly intruded himself in the old man’s reverie.

“Sir, a message for you.”

The Commander scowled at the young officer. “Didn’t I give express orders that I was not to be disturbed?”

The officer, slim and stiff in his black-and-silver uniform, replied, “Your chief of staff passed the message on to you, sir. It’s from Dr. Leoh of Carinae University. Personal and urgent, sir.”

The old man grumbled to himself, but nodded. The aide placed a small crystalline sphere on the grass before the Commander. The air above the sphere started to vibrate and glow.

“Sir Harold Spencer here,” the Commander said.

The bubbling air seemed to draw in on itself and take solid form. Dr. Leoh sat at a desk chair and looked up at the standing Commander.

“Harold, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Leoh said, getting up from the chair.

Spencer’s stern eyes softened and his beefy face broke into a well-creased smile. “Albert, you ancient sorcerer. What do you mean by interrupting my first visit home in fifteen years?”

“It won’t be a long interruption,” Leoh said. “I merely want to inform you of something…”

“You told my chief of staff that it was urgent,” Sir Harold groused.

“It is. But it’s not the sort of problem that requires much action on your part. Yet. Are you familiar with recent political developments on the Kerak Worlds?”

Spencer snorted. “I know that a barbarian named Kanus has taken over as dictator. He’s a troublemaker. I’ve been trying to get the Commonwealth Council to let us quash him before he causes grief, but you know the Council… first wait until the flames have sprung up, then wail at the Star Watch to do something!”

Grinning, Leoh said, “You’re as irascible as ever.”

“My personality is not the subject of this rather expensive discussion. What about Kanus? And what are you doing, getting yourself involved in politics? About to change your profession again?”

“No, not at all,” Leoh answered with a laugh. Then, more seriously, “It seems that Kanus has discovered a method of using the dueling machine to achieve political advantages over his neighbors.”

Leoh explained the circumstances of Odal’s duels with Dulaq and the Szarno industrialist.

“Dulaq is completely incapacitated and the other poor fellow is dead?” Spencer’s face darkened into a thundercloud. “You were right to call me. This is a situation that could quickly become intolerable.”

“I agree,” said Leoh. “But evidently Kanus hasn’t broken any laws or interstellar agreements. All that meets the eye is a disturbing pair of accidents, both of them accruing to Kanus’ benefit.”

“Do you believe they were accidents?”

“Certainly not. The dueling machine can’t cause physical or mental harm…unless someone’s tampered with it in some way.”

Spencer was silent for a moment, weighing the matter in his mind. “Very well. The Star Watch cannot act officially, but there’s nothing to prevent me from dispatching an officer to the Acquataine Cluster on detached duty, to serve as liaison between us.”

“Good. I think that will be the most effective way of handling the situation, at present.”

“It will be done.”

Sir Harold’s aide made a mental note of it.

“Thanks very much,” Leoh said. “Now go back to enjoying your vacation.”

“Vacation? This is no vacation. I happen to be celebrating my birthday.”

“So? Well, congratulations. I try not to remember mine,” said Leoh.

“Then you must be older than I,” Spencer replied, allowing only the faintest hint of a smile to appear.

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“But not very likely, eh?”

They laughed together and said good-bye. The Star Watch Commander tramped through the grassland until sunset, enjoying the sight of the greenery and the distant purple mountains he had known from childhood. As dusk closed in, he told the aide he was ready to leave.

The aide pressed a stud on his belt and a two-place air car skimmed silently from the far side of the hills and hovered beside them. Spencer climbed in laboriously while the aide stayed discreetly at his side. As the Commander settled his bulk into his seat the aide hurried around the car and hopped into his place. The car glided off toward Spencer’s planet ship, waiting for him at a nearby field.

“Don’t forget to assign an officer to Dr. Leoh,” Spencer muttered to his aide. Then he turned to watch 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 star ship, the aide dictated the necessary order to an auto-dispatcher 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 at Perseus Alpha VI. 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 extended 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.

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 that he had been watching before this matter of decision had arrived at his desk.

6

The space station that orbited Acquatainia’s capital planet served simultaneously as a transfer point from star ships to planet ships, a tourist resort, meteorological station, scientific laboratory, communications center, astronomical observatory, medical haven for allergy and cardiac patients, and military base. It was, in reality, a good-sized city with its own markets, government, and way of life.

Dr. Leoh had just stepped off the debarking ramp of the star ship 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 through the automated customs scanners and identification checkers. What kind of people could these men of Kerak be? To actually kill a human being deliberately. To purposely 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. Even the civilized hubbub of travelers and tourists was bothering him, despite the sound-deadening plastics of the slideway corridor. 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 computer and an attractive dark-haired girl. Automation or not, Leoh decided, no machine can replace a girl’s smile.

A lanky, thin-faced youth was half-leaning on the booth’s counter, his legs crossed nervously. He was 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 a tunic. A small traveler’s kit rested on the floor by 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… I mean, on Acquatainia, that is… before.…”

“It’s the most beautiful planet in the galaxy,” said the girl. “Its cities are the finest.”

“Yes… well, I was sort of thinking… that is, maybe you… eh.…”

She smiled coolly. “I very seldom leave the station. There’s so much to see and do here.” “Oh…”

“You’re making a mistake,” Leoh interrupted. “If you have such a beautiful planet for your home world, 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 at 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 students.”

“Why… thank you, Doctor. I’ll do it this weekend.”

“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 desk. A row of lights flicked briefly across the console’s face. She turned back to Leoh:

“No, sir, I’m sorry. Nothing.”

“Hmp. That’s strange. Well, thank you… And I’ll expect to see you this weekend.”

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 travel 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 slideway.

“How… how did you do that, sir?”

“Do what?”

“Get that girl to agree to visit the university. I’ve been, well, sort of talking to her for half an hour and she… uh, 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’m at an age where I can be fatherly. She was on guard against you, but not against me.”

“I see… I think.”

“Yes. Leoh gestured 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… you are Dr. 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. “Junior Lieutenant Hector, sir; on special detached duty from cruiser SW4-J188, home base Perseus Alpha VI.”

“I see,” Leoh replied. “Hmm… Is Hector your first name or your last?”

“Both, sir.”

I should have guessed, Leoh told himself. Aloud, he said, “All right, 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 booth for his travel 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 an elderly lady 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 star ship bringing me out to Perseus Alpha VI, a week at the planetary base there, and two weeks aboard the cruiser… um, SW4-J188, that is. The crew called her Old Lardbucket…after the captain, I think. Oh, I mean, six weeks since I received my commission,… I’ve been at the, uh, academy 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 weight returned to the passenger cabin.

“Tell me, Lieutenant, how did you get picked for this assignment?”

“I wish I knew, sir,” Hector said, his lean face wrinkling 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, pretty much. 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 at Acquatainia by direct orders of the Commander in Chief. He seemed very happy… the captain, that is.”

“He was probably pleased to see you get such an unusual assignment,” said Leoh, tactfully.

“I’m not so sure,” Hector answered truthfully. “I think he regarded me as… well, some sort of a, um, problem. He had me on a different duty berth practically every day I was aboard the ship.”

“Well now,” Leoh changed the subject, “what do you know about psychonics?”

“About what, sir?”

“Er… 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.”

7

The next week was an enervatingly slow one for Leoh, evenly divided between a 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 actually was little short of brilliant in handling intricate mathematics completely in his head. But he was also, 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 might be letting your frustrations with the 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 now 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 (or was it jealousy) to Leoh, and the Acquatainian government had turned the cubbyhole offices into living quarters for Leoh and the Star Watchman.

Leoh slouched back in his desk chair and cast a weary eye on the stack of papers that recorded the latest performance 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 circuits. 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 human beings.

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 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 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, Professor?” the Star Watchman’s voice rang out.

“In here.”

Hector ducked in through the doorway and plopped his rangy frame on the 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 even force it 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 considered the problem. “Hmm… yes, I guess that’s right too, isn’t it?”

“Did you see the girl back to her ship safely?” Leoh asked.

“Yessir,” 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 thanks and she enjoyed the visit a lot.”

“Good. It was very good of you to escort her around the campus. It kept her out of my hair… what’s left of it, that is.”

Hector grinned. “Oh, I liked taking her around and all that… and, well, it sort of kept me out of your hair too, didn’t it?”

Leoh’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

Laughing, Hector said, “Professor, I may be clumsy, and I’m sure 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… 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’ve come 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, 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 such as 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 Capital building and 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. 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’ve 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 do not comprehend the political situation. The government of Acquatainia is much closer to dissolution than I dare to admit publicly. The coalition of star-nations that Dulaq had constructed to keep Kerak neutralized has broken apart completely. Kerak is already arming. This morning, Kanus announced he would annex Szarno, with its enormous armaments industry. This afternoon, Odal challenges me.”

“I think I see…”

“Of course. The Acquataine 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 the Cabinet are now openly favoring Kanus and arguing that we should 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 Cabinet meetings?” Massan shook his head. “In politics, my dear sir, the appearance of a man means much—sometimes 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, which is the longest time I dare to postpone. I hope that in that time you can discover Odal’s secret. As it is, the political situation may collapse about our heads at any moment.”

“I’ll take the 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, uh, maybe prevent a war,” 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?”

“Hmm?” Leoh snapped out of his reverie.

“How can you take apart the dueling machine?” Hector repeated. “I mean… well, it’s 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 this job mentally.”

8

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 machines himself many times in the past, but only in tests of the system’s 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 him. They wandered through jungles and cities, over glaciers and interplanetary voids, all without ever leaving the dueling machine booths.

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. Leoh did poorly, because he knew nothing about fencing, and his reflexes were much slower than Hector’s. The dueling machine did not change a man’s knowledge or his physical abilities; it only projected them into a dream he was sharing with another man. It matched Leoh’s skills and knowledge against Hector’s. Then they tried other weapons—pistols, sonic beams, grenades—but always with the precaution of imagining themselves to be 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 began to realize. 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, discussing the results of the day’s work.

The duels slowly grew more serious. Leoh was pushing the machine to its limits now, carefully extending the rigors of each bout. Even though he knew exactly what and how much he intended to do in each fight, it often took a conscious effort 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 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 duels as I did 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’ll 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 let Hector win. He gave the youthful Star Watchman his choice of weapons and environment. Hector picked one-man scout ships in planetary orbits. Their weapons were conventional laser beams.

But despite his own conscious desire, Leoh found himself winning! The ships spiraled around 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 would arrive’ 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 clumsily, but he managed to register a trifling 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 young 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 take 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 didn’t know.

Leoh’s shot raked Hector’s ship but didn’t stop it. The two vehicles were hurtling directly at each other. Leoh tried desperately to avert a collision, but Hector bore 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 gleamed brilliantly. Through the tall windows he could see trees and early students 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… uh, 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 not so bad, I guess. It… sort of, well, it sort of shatters you, though.”

“Yes. I can see that now.”

“Try another duel?” Hector asked, nodding toward the machine.

“No. Not now. Let’s get out of this place for a few hours. Are you hungry?”

“Starved.”

They fought several more duels over the next day and a half. Hector won three of them. It was late afternoon when Leoh called a halt.

“We can get in another couple,” the Watchman said.

“No need,” said Leoh. “I have all the data I require. Tomorrow Massan meets Odal, unless we can put a stop to it. We’ve got 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.”

9

It was deep twilight when the ground car 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, couldn’t you?”

Leoh shook his head. “Never give an agency of any government the opportunity to say, ‘hold the line a moment.’ They huddle together and consider what to do with you. Nineteen times out of twenty, they’ll end by passing you to another department or transferring your call to a taped, ‘So sorry,’ message.”

“Still,” Hector insisted, “you’re sort of, well, stepping into enemy territory.”

“They wouldn’t dare harm us.”

Hector didn’t 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 man who knows what happened in those duels.”

Hector shook his head skeptically. Leoh shrugged, and opened the door of the ground car. Hector had no choice but to get out and follow him as he walked up the pathway to the main entrance of the embassy building. The building stood gaunt and gray in the dusk, surrounded by a precisely clipped hedge. The entrance was flanked by a pair of evergreen trees, straight and spare as sentries.

Leoh and Hector were met just inside the entrance by a female receptionist. She looked just a trifle disheveled, as though she’d been rushed to her 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 behind that door, I’ll bet. I mean… they might be figuring out how to get rid of us… uh, permanently.”

Leoh was about to reply when the door opened and Odal came into the room. He wore a military uniform of light blue, with his insignia of rank on the shoulders and the Star of Kerak on his breast.

“Dr. Leoh, I’m flattered,” he said with a slight bow. “And Mr. Hector… or is it Lieutenant Hector?”

“Junior Lieutenant Hector,” the Watchman answered, with a curtness that surprised Leoh.

“Lieutenant Hector is assisting me,” the Professor said, “and acting as liaison for Commander Spencer.”

“So,” Odal commented. He gestured them to be seated. Hector and Leoh placed themselves on a plush couch while Odal drew up a stiff chair, facing them. “Now, why have you come to see me?”

“I want you to postpone your duel against Minister Massan tomorrow,” Leoh said.

Odal’s lean face broke into a tight smile. “Has Massan agreed to a postponement?”

“No.”

“Then why should I?”

“To be perfectly frank, Major, I suspect that someone is tampering with the machine used in your duels. For the moment, let’s say that you have no knowledge of this. I am asking you to forego any further duels until we get to the bottom of this. The dueling machines are not to be used for political assassinations.”

Odal’s smile faded. “I regret, Professor, that I cannot postpone the duel. As for tampering with the machines, I can assure you that neither I nor anyone of the Kerak Worlds has touched the machines in any unauthorized manner.”

“Perhaps you don’t fully understand the situation,” Leoh said. “In the past week we’ve tested the dueling machine here on Acquatainia exhaustively. We’ve learned that its performance can be greatly influenced by a man’s personality and his attitude. You’ve 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’m still convinced that no one can kill a man in the machine—under normal circumstances. We’ve demonstrated that fact in our tests. An unsabotaged machine cannot cause actual physical harm.

“Yet you’ve 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 it 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 machine.”

The door to the room opened, and a short, thickset, 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 some refreshments?” he asked in a low-pitched voice.

“No thank you,” Leoh said.

“Some Kerak wine, perhaps?”

“Well…”

“I, uh, don’t think we’d better, sir,” Hector said. “Thanks all the same.”

The man shrugged and sat on 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 me to place some special instrumentation into the booth with you, so that we can monitor the duel more fully? We can do the same thing with Massan. I know that duels are normally private and you’d 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 for an instant. The man gave a barely perceptible shake of his head, then left.

Odal returned his attention to Leoh. “I’m sorry, Professor, but I can’t 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 slowly from the couch. “No, I do not understand. You sit here and discuss legal points when we both know full well that you’re planning to murder Massan tomorrow.” His voice burning with anger, Leoh went on, “You’ve turned my invention into a murder weapon. But you’ve turned me into an enemy. I’ll find out how you’re doing it, and I won’t rest until you and your kind are put away where you belong… on a planet for the criminally insane!”

Hector reached for the door and opened it. He and Leoh went out, leaving Odal alone in the room. In a few minutes, the dark-suited man returned.

“I have just spoken with the Leader 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 Dr. Leoh,” said Kor. “He is the next man to die.”

10

The mists swirled deep and impenetrable around Fernd Massan. He stared blindly through the useless view plate in his helmet, then reached up slowly and carefully placed the infrared detector before his eyes.

I never realized a hallucination could seem so real, Massan thought.

Since the challenge by Odal, 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 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. An internal liquid suspension system kept him tolerably comfortable at four times normal gravity, 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-held capsule of oxygen. But in a hydrogen/ammonia atmosphere, oxygen could be a deadly explosive. Massan carried several of these “bombs” hooked to his suit. So did Odal. But the trick, Massan thought to himself, is to throw them accurately 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 on one of the methane/ammonia ocean’s vicious currents. The ice was rapidly crumbling. The duel was to 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 view plate.

A chunk of ice the size of a man’s head sailed through the murky atmosphere in the 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 inside the shoulder seam. Dented, but not penetrated. A leak would have been disastrous, fatal. Then he remembered: Of course, I cannot be killed except by the direct action of my antagonist. That is one of the rules of the game.

Still, he carefully fingered the shoulder seam 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 recross, with the infrared sensors scanning 360 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 ice, off by the edge of the berg…

Slowly and carefully, Massan made his way across to the base of the rise. He picked one of the oxygen bombs from his belt and held it in his right-hand claw. Edging around the base of the ice cliff, he 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 his 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 down 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 the coup de grвce himself.

There were emergency rockets on the back of the suit. If he could orient himself properly, a touch of the 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, since the suit was bobbing madly in the churning currents.

Finally he decided to fire the rockets and make final adjustments of distance and landing site while he was in the air.

But he could not move his hand.

He tried, but his entire right arm was locked fast. He could not budge it a millimeter. 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 slowly lifted from the view plate. 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 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 view plate. He was under. He was being held under. And now… now the view plate itself was being loosened.

No! Don’t! The scalding cold methane/ammonia sea seeped through the opening view plate.

“It’s only a dream!” Massan shouted to himself. “Only a dream! A dream! A.…”

11

Dr. Leoh stared at the dinner table without really seeing it. Coming to the 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 the responsibility of leadership… and thereby expose himself. One hour after the duel, Kanus’ troops had landed on all the major planets of Szarno; the annexation was complete.

And what have I done since I arrived here? 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 own purposes.

Used the machine. There was a fragment of an idea there. 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.

He 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 odors of delicious food, the hushed murmur of polite conversation. The waiters and cooks and bus boys were humans, not the autocookers and servers that most restaurants employed. Leoh suddenly felt touched at Hector’s attempt to restore his spirits—and at a junior lieutenant’s salary.

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. “They couldn’t revive him. Cerebral hemorrhage, the meditechs said… brought on by shock.”

“Shock?”

“That’s what they said. Something must’ve, um, 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 when I arrived here. Perhaps I should have retired years ago, before the dueling machine was invented.”

“No…”

“I mean it,” said Leoh. “This is the first real intellectual problem I’ve had to contend with in years. Tinkering with machinery, that’s easy. You know what you want and all you need is to make the machinery perform properly. But this… I’m afraid I’m too old to handle a puzzle like this.”

Hector scratched his nose thoughtfully. Then he answered, “If you can’t handle the problem, sir, then we’re going to have a war on our hands in a matter of months… or maybe just 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 will step in,” Leoh said.

Hunching forward in his chair in eagerness to make his point, Hector said, “But… look, 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, I mean, a token group. Kerak’s army will chew them up pretty quick, though. I… I’m no politician, but I think what’ll happen is… well, Kerak will gobble up the Acquataine Cluster and wipe out a Star Watch force in the process. Then we’ll end up with the Commonwealth at war with Kerak. And that’ll be a big war, because Kanus’ll have Acquatainia’s, uh, resources to draw on.”

Leoh began to answer, then stopped. His eyes were fixed on the far entrance of the dining room. Suddenly every murmur in the busy restaurant stopped dead. Waiters stood frozen 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, unasked.

“What do you want?” Leoh asked curtly.

Before Odal could reply, 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?”

“Yes,” Hector said before Leoh could speak. “The major will he leaving shortly.”

Again the tight grin pulled across Odal’s face. The waiter bowed and left.

“I’ve 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…”

“An accusation is an accusation.”

Leoh said nothing.

“Do you withdraw your words, or do you still accuse me of deliberate murder? I’m willing to allow you to apologize and leave Acquatainia in peace.”

Hector cleared his throat noisily. “This is no place for an argument… besides, here comes our dinner.”

Odal ignored the Watchman, kept his ice-blue eyes fastened on Leoh. “You heard me, Professor. Will you leave? Or do you.…”

Hector banged his fist on the table and jerked up out of his chair—just as the waiter arrived with a heavy tray of appetizers and soups. There was a loud crash. A tureen of soup, two bowls of salad, glasses, assorted rolls, cheeses, and other delicacies cascaded over Odal.

The Kerak major leaped to his feet, swearing violently in his own language. The restaurant exploded with laughter.

Sputtering back into basic Terran, Odal shouted, “You clumsy, stupid oaf! You maggot-brained misbegotten peasant-faced.…”

Hector calmly picked a salad leaf from the sleeve of his tunic, while Odal’s voice choked with rage.

“I guess I am clumsy,” Hector said, grinning. “As for being stupid, and the rest of it, I resent that. In fact, I’m highly insulted.”

A flash of recognition lighted Odal’s eyes. “I see. Of course. My quarrel 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… I mean.…”

Leoh raised a hand as if to warn Hector to be silent.

“I apologized,” Odal said, his face red with anger. “That is enough.”

Hector took a step toward Odal. “I guess I could call you names, or insult your glorious Leader, or something like that… but this seems more direct.” He took the water pitcher from the table and carefully poured it over Odal’s head.

The people in the restaurant roared. Odal went absolutely white. “You are determined to die.” He wiped the dripping water from his eyes. “I’ll meet you before the week is out. And you’ve saved no one.” He turned and stalked out.

Everyone else in the room stood up and applauded. Hector bobbed his head and grinned.

Aghast, Leoh asked, “Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“He was going to challenge you…”

“He’ll still challenge me, after you’re dead.”

Shrugging, Hector said, “Well, yes, maybe so. I guess you’re right. But at least we’ve gained a little more time.”

“Four days.” Leoh shook his head. “Four days to the end of this 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, well… almost beaten. Now you’re right back in the game again.”

Leoh stared at him. “In your own odd way, my boy, you’re quite something… I think.”

12

Their ground car 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 mused, “who’s faced Odal and lived through it.”

“Dulaq,” Hector said. “But… he might as well be dead, for all the information anybody can get from him.”

“He’s still completely withdrawn?”

Hector nodded. “The medics think that… well, maybe with drugs and therapy and all that… maybe in a few months or so they might be able to bring him back.”

“Not 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?”

“Umm, I think his wife’s dead. Has a daughter, though. Pretty girl. I bumped into her in the hospital once or twice…”

Leoh smiled in the darkness. Hector’s term, “bumped into,” was probably completely literal.

“There might be a way to make Dulaq tell us what happened during his duel,” Leoh said. “But it’s a very dangerous way. Perhaps a fatal way.”

Hector didn’t reply.

“Come on, my boy,” Leoh said. “Let’s find that 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 tightly in her lap. Her face, which looked as though it could be very expressive, was completely serious now.

“And that’s the sum of it,” Leoh concluded. “I believe that it will be possible to use the dueling machine itself to examine your father’s thoughts and determine what took place during his duel against Major Odal. It might even help to break him out of his coma.”

She asked softly, “But it might also be such a shock to him that he could die?”

Leoh nodded wordlessly.

“Then I’m very sorry, Professor, but I must say no.” Firmly.

“I understand your feelings,” Leoh replied, “but I hope you realize that unless we can stop Odal immediately, we may very well be faced with war, and millions will die.”

She nodded. “I know. But we’re speaking of my father’s life. Kanus will have his war in any event, no matter what I do.”

“Perhaps,” Leoh admitted. “Perhaps.”

Hector and Leoh drove back to the university campus and their quarters in the dueling machine building. Neither of them slept well that night.

The next morning, after an unenthusiastic breakfast, they found themselves in the antiseptic-white chamber, before the looming impersonal intricacy of the machine.

“Would you like to practice with it?” Leoh asked.

Hector shook his head gloomily. “Maybe later.”

The phone chimed in Leoh’s office. They both went in. Geri Dulaq’s face took form on the view screen.

“I just heard the news,” she said a little breathlessly. “I didn’t know, last night, that Lieutenant Hector had challenged Odal.”

“He challenged Odal,” Leoh answered, “to prevent the assassin from challenging me.”

“Oh.” Her face was a mixture of concern and reluctance. “You’re a brave man, Lieutenant.”

Hector’s expression went through a dozen contortions, all of them speechless.

“Won’t you reconsider your decision?” Leoh asked. “Hector’s life may depend on it.”

She closed her eyes briefly, then said, “I can’t. My father’s life is my first responsibility. I’m sorry.” There was real torment in her voice.

They exchanged a few meaningless trivialities—with Hector still thoroughly tongue-tied—and ended the conversation on a polite but strained note.

Leoh rubbed his thumb across the phone switch for a moment, then turned to Hector. “My boy, I think it would be a good idea for you to go straight to the hospital and check on Dulaq’s condition.”

“But… why…”

“Don’t argue, son. This could be vitally important. Check on Dulaq. In person, no phone calls.”

Hector shrugged and left the office. Leoh sat down at his desk and waited. There was nothing else he could do. After a while he got up and paced out to the big chamber, through the main doors, and out onto the campus. He walked past a dozen buildings, turned and strode as far as the decorative fence that marked the end of the main campus, ignoring students and faculty alike. He walked all around the campus, like a picket, trading nervous energy for time.

As he approached the dueling machine building again he spotted Hector walking dazedly toward him. For once, the Watchman was not whistling. Leoh cut across some lawn to get to him.

“Well?” he asked.

Hector shook his head, as if to clear away an inner fog. “How did you know she’d be at the hospital?”

“The wisdom of age. What happened?”

“She kissed me. Right there in the hallway of the…”

“Spare me the geography,” Leoh cut in. “What did she say?”

“I bumped into her in the hallway. We, uh, started talking… sort of. She seemed, well… worried about me. She got upset. Emotional. You know? I guess I looked pretty down… I mean, I’m not that brave… I’m scared and it must have shown.”

“You aroused her maternal instinct.”

“I… I don’t think it was that… exactly. Well, anyway, she said that if I’m willing to risk my life to save yours, she couldn’t protect her father any more. Said she was doing it out of selfishness, really, since he’s her only living relative.… I don’t believe she meant it, but she said it anyway.”

They had reached the building by now. Leoh grabbed Hector’s arm and steered him clear of a collision with the half-open door.

“She’s agreed to let us put Dulaq in the dueling machine?”

“Sort of.”

“Eh?”

“The medical staff doesn’t want him moved… especially not back here. She agrees with them.”

Leoh snorted. “All right. In fact, so much the better. I’d rather not have the Kerak people see us bring Dulaq to the dueling machine. Instead, we’ll smuggle the dueling machine into the hospital!”

13

They plunged to work immediately. Leoh preferred not to inform the regular staff of the dueling machine about their plan, so he and Hector had to work through the night and most of the next morning. Hector barely understood what he was doing, but with Leoh’s supervision he managed to dismantle part of the machine’s central network, insert a few additional black electronics boxes that the Professor had conjured up from the spare-parts bins in the basement, and then reconstruct the machine so that it looked exactly the same as before they had started.

In between his frequent trips to oversee Hector’s work, Leoh had jury-rigged a rather bulky headset and a hand-sized override control circuit. The late morning sun was streaming through the hall when Leoh finally explained it all to Hector.

“A simple matter of technological improvisation,” he told the puzzled Watchman. “You’ve installed a short-range transceiver into the machine, and this headset is a portable transceiver for Dulaq. Now he can sit in his hospital bed and still be ‘in’ the dueling machine.”

Only the three most trusted members of the hospital staff were taken into Leoh’s confidence, and they were hardly enthusiastic about the plan.

“It is a waste of time,” said the chief psychotechnician, shaking his white-maned head vigorously. “You cannot expect a patient who has shown no positive response to drugs and therapy to respond to your machine.”

Leoh argued, and Geri Dulaq firmly insisted that they go through with it. Finally the doctors agreed. With only two days remaining before Hector’s duel with Odal, they began to probe Dulaq’s mind. Geri remained by her father’s bedside while the three doctors fitted the cumbersome transceiver to his head and attached the electrodes for the hospital equipment that monitored his physical condition. Hector and Leoh remained at the dueling machine, communicating with the hospital by phone.

Leoh made a final check of the controls and circuitry, then put in the last call to the tense little group in Dulaq’s room. All was ready.

He walked out to the machine with Hector beside him. Their footsteps echoed hollowly in the sepulchral chamber. Leoh stopped at the nearer booth.

“Now remember,” he said carefully, “I’ll be holding the emergency control unit in my hand. It will stop the duel the instant I set it off. However, if something goes wrong, you must be prepared to act quickly. Keep a close watch on my physical condition: I’ve shown you which instruments to check on the control board.”

“Yes, sir.”

Leoh nodded and took a deep breath. “Very well, then.”

He stepped into the booth and sat down. Hector helped to attach the neurocontacts, and then left him alone. Leoh leaned back and waited for the semihypnotic effect to take hold. Dulaq’s choice of the city and the stat-wand were known. But beyond that, everything was sealed in his uncommunicating mind. Could the machine reach past that seal?

Slowly, lullingly, the dueling machine’s imaginary yet very real mists enveloped Leoh. When they cleared, he was standing on the upper pedestrian level of the main commercial street of the city. For a long moment, everything was still.

Have I made contact? Whose eyes am I seeing with, my own or Dulaq’s?

And then he sensed it—an amused, somewhat astonished marveling at the reality of the illusion. Dulaq’s thoughts!

Make your mind a blank, Leoh told himself. Watch. Listen. Be passive.

He became a spectator, seeing and hearing the world through Dulaq’s eyes and ears as the Acquatainian Prime Minister advanced through his nightmarish ordeal. He felt the confusion, frustration, apprehension, and growing terror as, time and again, Odal appeared in the crowd—only to melt into someone else and escape.

The first part of the duel ended, and Leoh was suddenly buffeted by a jumble of thoughts and impressions. Then the thoughts slowly cleared and steadied.

Leoh saw an immense and totally barren plain. Not a tree, not a blade of grass, nothing but bare, rocky ground stretching in all directions to the horizon and a disturbingly harsh yellow sky. At his feet was the weapon Odal had chosen. A primitive club.

He shared Dulaq’s sense of dread as he picked up the club and hefted it. Off on the horizon he could see the tall lithe figure holding a similar club and walking toward him.

Despite himself, Leoh could feel his own excitement. He had broken through the shock-created armor that Dulaq’s mind had erected! Dulaq was reliving the part of the duel that had caused the shock.

Reluctantly, he advanced to meet Odal. But as they drew closer together, the one figure of his opponent seemed to split apart. Now there were two, four, six of them. Six Odals, six mirror images, all armed with massive, evil clubs, advancing steadily on him. Six tall, lean, blond assassins with six cold smiles on their intent faces.

Horrified, completely panicked, he scrambled away, trying to evade the six opponents with the half-dozen clubs raised and poised to strike.

Their young legs easily outdistanced him. A smash on his back sent him sprawling. One of them kicked his weapon away.

They stood over him for a malevolent, gloating second. Then six strong arms flashed down, again and again, mercilessly. Pain and blood, screaming agony, punctuated by the awful thudding of solid clubs hitting fragile flesh and bone, over and over again, endlessly, endlessly…

Everything went blank.

Leoh opened his eyes and saw Hector bending over him.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“I… I think so.”

“The controls hit the danger mark all at once. You were… well, you were screaming.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Leoh said.

They walked, with Leoh leaning on Hector’s arm, from the dueling machine to the office.

“That was… an experience,” Leoh said, easing himself onto the couch.

“What happened? What did Odal do? What made Dulaq go into shock? How does.…”

The old man silenced Hector with a wave of his hand. “One question at a time, please.”

Leoh leaned back on the deep couch and told Hector every detail of both parts of the duel.

“Six Odals,” Hector muttered soberly, leaning against the doorframe. “Six against one.”

“That’s what he did. It’s easy to see how a man expecting a polite, formal duel can be completely shattered by the viciousness of such an attack. And the machine amplifies every impulse, every sensation.” Leoh shuddered.

“But how does he do it?” Hector’s voice was suddenly demanding.

“I’ve been asking myself the same question. We’ve checked the dueling machine time and again. There’s no possible way for Odal to plug in five helpers… unless…”

“Unless?”

Leoh hesitated, seemingly debating with himself. Finally he nodded sharply and answered, “Unless Odal is a telepath.”

“Telepath? But…”

“I know it sounds farfetched, but there have been well-documented cases of telepathy.”

Frowning, Hector said, “Sure, everybody’s heard about it… natural telepaths, I mean… but they’re so unpredictable… I mean, how can…”

Leoh leaned forward on the couch and clasped his hands in front of his chin. “The Terran races have never developed telepathy, or any extrasensory talents, beyond the occasional wild talent. They never had to, not with tri-di communications and star ships. But perhaps the Kerak people are different…”

“They’re human, just like we are,” Hector’ said. “Besides, if they had, uh, telepathic abilities… well, wouldn’t they use them all the time? Why just in the dueling machine?”

“Of course!” Leoh exclaimed. “Odal’s shown telepathic ability only in the dueling machine!”

Hector blinked.

Excitedly, Leoh explained, “Suppose Odal’s a natural telepath… the same as dozens of Terrans have been proven to be. He has an erratic, difficult-to-control talent. A talent that doesn’t really amount to much. Then he gets into the dueling machine. The machine amplifies his thoughts. It also amplifies his talents!”

“Ohhh.”

“You see? Outside the machine, he’s no better than any wandering fortuneteller. But the dueling machine gives his natural abilities the amplification and reproducibility that they could never attain unaided.”

“So it’s a fairly straightforward matter for him to have five associates in the Kerak embassy sit in on the duel, so to speak. Possibly they’re natural telepaths, too, but they needn’t be.”

“They just, uh, pool their minds with his? Six men show up in the duel… pretty nasty.” Hector dropped into the desk chair. “So what do we do now?”

“Now?” Leoh blinked at the Watchman. “Why… I suppose the first thing we do is call the hospital and see how Dulaq came through.”

“Oh, yes… I forgot her… I mean, him.”

Leoh put the call through. Geri Dulaq’s face appeared on the screen, impassive.

“How is he?” Hector blurted.

“It was too much for him,” she said bleakly. “He is dead. The doctors have tried to revive him, but…”

“No.” Leoh groaned.

“I’m… sorry,” Hector said. “I’ll be right down there. Stay where you are.”

The Star Watchman dashed out of the office as Geri broke the phone connection. Leoh stared at the blank screen for a few minutes, then leaned far back in the couch and closed his eyes. He was suddenly exhausted, physically and emotionally. He fell asleep, and dreamed of men dead and dying. Sometimes it was Odal killing them, and sometimes it was Leoh himself.

Hector’s nerve-shattering whistling woke him up. It was deep night outside.

“What are you so happy about?” Leoh groused as Hector popped into the office.

“Happy? Me?”

“You were whistling.”

Hector shrugged. “I always whistle, sir. Doesn’t mean I’m happy.”

“All right.” Leoh rubbed his eyes. “How did the girl take her father’s death?”

“Pretty hard. She cried a lot. It… well, it shook us both up.”

Leoh looked at the younger man. “Does she blame… me?”

“You? Why, no, sir. Why should she? Odal, Kanus… the Kerak Worlds. But not you.”

The Professor sighed, relieved. “Very well. Now then, we have much work to do, and little time to do it in.”

“What do you want me to do?” Hector asked.

“Phone the Star Watch Commander…”

“My commanding officer, all the way back at Perseus Alpha VI? That’s a hundred light-years from here.”

“No, no, no,” Leoh shook his head. “The Commander-in-Chief, Sir Harold Spencer. At Star Watch Central Headquarters, or wherever he may be, no matter how far. Get through to him as quickly as possible. And reverse the charges.”

With a low whistle of astonishment, Hector began punching buttons on the phone.

14

The morning of the duel arrived, and precisely at the specified hour, Odal and a small retinue of Kerak seconds stepped through the double doors of the dueling machine chamber.

Hector and Leoh were already there, waiting. With them stood another man, dressed in the black-and-silver of the Star Watch. He was a blocky, broad-faced veteran with iron-gray hair and hard, unsmiling eyes.

The two little groups of men knotted together in the center of the room, before the machine’s main control board. The white-uniformed staff meditechs emerged from a far doorway and stood off to one side.

Odal went through the formality of shaking hands with Hector. The Kerak major nodded toward the older Watchman. “Your replacement?” he asked mischievously.

The chief meditech stepped between them. “Since you are the challenged party, Major Odal, you have the first choice of weapon and environment. Are there any instructions or comments necessary before the duel begins?”

“I think not,” Odal replied. “The situation will be self-explanatory. I assume, of course, that Star Watchmen are trained to be warriors and not merely technicians. The situation I have chosen is one in which many warriors have won glory.”

Hector said nothing.

“I intend,” Leoh said firmly, “to assist the staff in monitoring this duel. Your aides may, of course, sit at the control board with me.”

Odal nodded.

“If you are ready to begin, gentlemen,” the chief meditech said.

Hector and Odal went to their booths. Leoh sat at the control console, and one of the Kerak men sat down next to him. The others found places on the long curving bench that faced the machine.

Hector felt every nerve and muscle tensed as he sat in the booth, despite his efforts to relax. Slowly the tension eased and he began to feel slightly drowsy. The booth seemed to be melting away…

Hector heard a snuffling noise behind him and wheeled around. He blinked, then stared.

It had four legs, and was evidently a beast of burden. At least, it carried a saddle on its back. Piled atop the saddle was a conglomeration of what looked to Hector—at first glance—like a pile of junk. He went over to the animal and examined it carefully. The “junk” turned out to be a long spear, various pieces of armor, a helmet, sword, shield, battle-ax, and dagger.

The situation I have chosen is one in which many warriors have won glory.

Hector puzzled over the assortment of weapons. They came straight out of Kerak’s Dark Age. Probably Odal had been practicing with them for months, even years. He may not need five helpers, Hector thought.

Warily, he put on the armor. The breastplate seemed too big, and he was somehow unable to tighten the greaves on his shins properly. The helmet fit over his head like an ancient oil can, flattening his ears and nose and forcing him to squint to see through the narrow eye slit. Finally he buckled on the sword and found attachments on the saddle for the other weapons. The shield was almost too heavy to lift, and he barely struggled into the saddle with all the weight he was carrying.

And then he just sat. He began to feel a little ridiculous. Suppose it rains? But of course it wouldn’t.

After an interminable wait, Odal appeared on a powerful trotting charger. His armor was black as space, and so was his mount. Naturally, thought Hector.

Odal saluted gravely with his great spear from across the meadow. Hector returned the salute, nearly dropping his spear in the process.

Then Odal lowered his spear and aimed it—so it seemed to Hector—directly at the Watchman’s ribs. He pricked his mount into a canter. Hector did the same, and his steed jogged into a bumping, jolting gallop. The two warriors hurtled toward each other from opposite ends of the meadow, with Hector barely hanging on to his mount.

And suddenly there were six black figures roaring down on Hector!

The Watchman’s stomach wrenched within him. Automatically tie tried to turn his mount aside. But the beast had no intention of going anywhere except straight ahead. The Kerak warriors bore in, six abreast, with six spears aimed menacingly.

Abruptly, Hector heard the pounding of other hoof-beats right beside him. Through a corner of his helmet slit he glimpsed at least two other warriors charging with him into Odal’s crew.

Leoh’s gamble had worked. The transceiver that had allowed Dulaq to make contact with the dueling machine from his hospital bed was now allowing five Star Watch officers to join Hector, even though they were physically sitting in a star ship orbiting high above the planet.

The odds were even now. The five additional Watchmen were the roughest, hardiest, most aggressive man-to-man fighters that the Star Watch could provide on one-day’s notice.

Twelve powerful chargers met head-on, and twelve strong men smashed together with an ear-splitting CLANG! Shattered spears showered splinters everywhere. Men and animals went down.

Hector was rocked back in his saddle, but somehow managed to avoid falling off. On the other hand, he couldn’t really regain his balance, either. Dust and weapons filled the air. A sword hissed near his head and rattled off his shield.

With a supreme effort, Hector pulled out his own sword and thrashed at the nearest rider. It turned out to be a fellow Watchman, but the stroke bounced harmlessly off his helmet.

It was so confusing. The wheeling, snorting animals. Clouds of dust. Screaming, raging men. A black-armored rider charged into Hector, waving a battle-ax over his head. He chopped savagely, and the Watchman’s shield split apart. Another frightening swing—Hector tried to duck and slid completely out of the saddle, thumping painfully on the ground, while the ax cleaved the air where his head had been a split second earlier.

Somehow his helmet was turned around. Hector tried to decide whether to grope around blindly or lay down his sword and straighten out the helmet. The problem was solved for him by the crang! of a sword against the back of his head. The blow flipped him into a somersault, and knocked the helmet off completely.

Hector climbed painfully to his feet, his head spinning. It took him several moments to realize that the battle had stopped.

The dust drifted away, and he saw that all the Kerak fighters were down—except one. The black-armored warrior took off his helmet and tossed it aside. It was Odal. Or was it? They all looked alike. What difference does it make? Hector wondered. Odal’s mind is the dominant one.

Odal stood, legs braced apart, sword in hand, and looked uncertainly at the other Star Watchmen. Three of them were afoot and two still mounted. The Kerak major seemed as confused as Hector felt. The shock of facing equal numbers had sapped much of his confidence.

Cautiously he advanced toward Hector, holding his sword out before him. The other Watchmen stood aside while Hector slowly backpedaled, stumbling slightly on the uneven ground.

Odal feinted and cut at Hector’s arm. The Watchman barely parried in time. Another feint, at the head, and a slash to the chest; Hector missed the parry but his armor saved him. Odal kept advancing. Feint, feint, crack! Hector’s sword went flying from his hand.

For the barest instant everyone froze. Then Hector leaped desperately straight at Odal, caught him completely by surprise, and wrestled him to the ground. The Watchman pulled the sword from Odal’s hand and tossed it away. But with his free hand Odal clouted Hector on the side of the head and knocked him on his back. Both men scrambled up and ran for the nearest weapons.

Odal picked up a wicked-looking double-bladed ax. One of the mounted Star Watchmen handed Hector a huge broadsword. He gripped it with both hands, but still staggered off balance as he swung it up over his shoulder.

Holding the broadsword aloft, Hector charged toward Odal, who stood dogged, short-breathed, sweat-streaked, waiting for him. The broadsword was quite heavy, even for a two-handed grip. And Hector never noticed his own battered helmet lying on the ground between them.

Odal, for his part, had Hector’s charge and swing timed perfectly in his own mind. He would duck under the swing and bury his ax in the Watchman’s chest. Then he would face the others. Probably, with their leader gone, the duel would automatically end. But, of course, Hector would not really be dead; the best Odal could hope for now was to win the duel.

Hector charged directly into Odal’s plan, but the Watchman’s timing was much poorer than anticipated. Just as he began the downswing of a mighty broadsword stroke, he stumbled on the helmet. Odal started to duck, then saw the Watchman was diving face-first into the ground, legs flailing, and that heavy broadsword was cleaving through the air with a will of its own.

Odal pulled back in confusion, only to have the wild-swinging broadsword strike him just above the wrist with bone-shattering impact. The ax dropped out of his hand and Odal involuntarily grasped the wounded forearm with his left hand. Blood seeped through his fingers.

Shaking his head in bitter resignation, Odal turned his back on the prostrate Hector and began walking away.

Slowly the scene faded, and Hector found himself sitting in the booth of the dueling machine.

15

The door opened and Leoh squeezed into the booth. “You’re all right?”

Hector blinked and refocused his eyes on reality. “I think so…”

“Everything went well? The Watchmen got through to you?”

“Good thing they did. I was nearly killed anyway.”

“But you survived.”

“So far.”

Across the room, Odal stood massaging his forearm while Kor demanded, “How could they possibly have discovered the secret? Where was the leak? Who spoke to them?”

“That’s not important now,” Odal said quietly. “The primary fact is that they’ve not only discovered our trick, but they’ve found a way to duplicate it.”

The glistening dome of Kor’s bullet-shaped head—which barely rose to the level of Odal’s chin—was glowing with rage.

“The sanctimonious hypocrites,” Kor snarled, “accusing us of cheating, and then they do the very same thing.”

“Regardless of the moral values of our mutual behavior,” Odal said dryly, “it’s evident that there’s no longer any use in calling on telepathically guided assistants. I’ll face the Watchman alone during the second half of the duel.”

“Can you trust them to do the same?”

“Yes. They easily defeated my aides, then stood aside and allowed the two of us to fight by ourselves.”

“And you failed to defeat him?”

Odal frowned. “I was wounded by a fluke. He’s a very… unusual opponent. I can’t decide whether he’s actually as clumsy as he appears, or whether he’s shamming and trying to confuse me. Either way, it’s impossible to predict what he’s going to do.” To himself he added, Could he be telepathic, also?

Kor’s gray eyes became flat and emotionless. “You know, of course, how the Leader will react if you fail to kill this Watchman. Not merely defeat him. He must be killed. The aura of invincibility must be maintained.”

“I’ll do my best,” Odal said.

“He must be killed.”

The chime that marked the end of the rest period sounded. Odal and Hector returned to their booths. Now it was Hector’s choice of environment and weapons.

Odal found himself enveloped in darkness. Only gradually did his eyes adjust. He was in a spacesuit. For several minutes he stood motionless, peering into the darkness, every sense alert, every muscle coiled for instant action. Dimly he could see the outlines of jagged rock against a background of innumerable stars. Experimentally, he lifted one foot. It stuck, tacky, to the surface. Magnetized boots. This must be a planetoid.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness he saw that he was right. It was a small planetoid, perhaps a mile or so in diameter, he judged. Almost zero gravity. Airless.

Odal swiveled his head inside the fish-bowl helmet of his suit and saw, over his right shoulder, the figure of Hector—lank and ungainly even with the bulky suit. For a moment, Odal puzzled over the weapon to be used. Then Hector bent down, picked up a loose stone, straightened, and tossed it softly past Odal’s head. He watched it sail by and off into the darkness of space, never to return. A warning shot.

Pebbles? Odal thought to himself. Pebbles for a weapon? He must be insane. Then he remembered that inertial mass was unaffected by gravity, or the lack of it. On this planetoid a fifty-kilogram rock might be easier to carry, but it would be just as hard to throw—and it would do just as much damage when it hit, regardless of its gravitational “weight.”

Odal crouched down and selected a stone the size of his fist. He rose carefully, sighted Hector standing a hundred meters or so away, and threw as hard as he could.

The effort of his throw sent him tumbling off balance and the stone was far off target. He fell to his hands and knees, bounced lightly, and skipped to a stop. Immediately he drew his feet up under his body and planted the magnetized soles of his boots firmly on the iron-rich surface.

But before he could stand again, a small stone pinged lightly off his oxygen tank. The Star Watchman had his range already! Probably he had spent some time on planetoids. Odal scrambled to the nearest upjutting rocks and crouched behind them. Lucky I didn’t rip open the suit, he told himself. Three stones, evidently hurled in salvo, ticked off the top of the rock he was hunched behind. One of the Stones bounced off his fish-bowl helmet.

Odal scooped up a handful of pebbles and tossed them in Hector’s general direction. That should make him duck. Perhaps he’ll stumble and crack his helmet open.

He grinned at that. That’s it. Kor wants him dead, and that’s the way to do it. Pin him under a big rock, then bury him alive under more rocks. A few at a time, stretched out nicely. Break some of his bones in the process, and let him sweat while his oxygen supply runs out. That should put enough strain on his nervous system to hospitalize him, at least. Then he can be assassinated by more conventional means. Perhaps he’ll even be as obliging as Massan, and have a fatal stroke.

A large rock. One that’s light enough to lift and throw, yet also big enough to pin him for a few moments. Once he’s down, it will be easy enough to bury him under more rocks.

Odal spotted a boulder of the proper size, a few meters away. He backed toward it, throwing small stones in Hector’s direction to keep the Watchman busy. In return, a barrage of stones began striking all around him. Several hit him, one hard enough to knock him slightly off balance.

Slowly, patiently, Odal reached his chosen weapon: an oblong boulder, about the size of a small chair. He crouched behind it and tugged at it experimentally. It moved slightly. Another stone zinged off his arm, hard enough to hurt. Odal could see Hector clearly now, standing atop a small rise, calmly firing stones at him. He smiled as he coiled, cat-like, and tensed himself. He gripped the boulder with his outstretched arms and hands.

Then in one vicious uncoiling motion he snatched it up, whirled around, and hurled it at Hector. The violence of the action sent him tottering awkwardly as he released the boulder. He fell to the ground, but kept his eyes fixed on the boulder as it tumbled end over end, directly at the Watchman.

For an eternally long instant Hector stood motionless, seemingly entranced. Then he leaped sideways, floating dream-like in the low gravity as the stone bore inexorably past him.

Odal pounded his fist on the ground in fury. He started up, only to have a good-sized stone slam against his shoulder and knock him flat again. He looked up in time to see Hector fire again. A stone puffed into the ground inches from Odal’s helmet. The Kerak major flattened himself. Several more stones clattered on his helmet and oxygen tank. Then nothing.

Odal looked up and saw Hector squatting, reaching for more ammunition. The Kerak warrior stood up quickly, his own fists filled with stones. He cocked his arm to throw…

Something made him turn around and look behind him. The boulder loomed before his eyes, still tumbling slowly as it had when he’d thrown it. It was too big and too close to avoid. It smashed into Odal, picked him off his feet, and slammed him against the upjutting rocks a few meters away.

Even before he began to feel the pain inside him, Odal began trying to push the boulder off. But he couldn’t get enough leverage. Then he saw the Star Watchman’s form standing over him.

“I didn’t really think you’d fall for it,” Hector’s voice said in his earphones. “I mean… didn’t you realize that the boulder was too massive to escape completely after it missed me? You just threw it into orbit… uh, a two-minute orbit, roughly. It had to come back… all I had to do was keep you in the same spot for a few minutes.”

Odal said nothing, but strained every cell in his pain-racked body to get the boulder off him. Hector reached over his shoulder and began fumbling with the valves that were pressed against the rocks.

“Sorry to do this… but I’m not killing you… just defeating you. Let’s see, one of these is the oxygen valve, and the other, I think, is the emergency rocket pack. Now, which is which?”

Hector’s hand tightened on a valve and turned it sharply. A rocket roared to life and Odal was hurtled free of the boulder, shot completely off the planetoid. Hector was bowled over by the blast and rolled halfway around the tiny chunk of rock and metal.

Odal tried to reach the rocket throttle, but the pain was too great. He was slipping into unconsciousness. He fought against it. He knew he must return to the planetoid and somehow kill his opponent. But gradually the pain overpowered him. His eyes were closing, closing…

And quite abruptly he found himself sitting in the booth of the dueling machine. It took a moment for him to realize that he was back in the real world. Then his thoughts cleared. He had failed to kill Hector. He hadn’t even defeated him.

And at the door of the booth stood Kor, his face a grim mask of anger.

16

For the moment, Leoh’s office behind the dueling machine looked like a great double room. One wall had been replaced by a full-sized view screen, which now seemed to be dissolved, so that he was looking directly into the austere metallic utility of a star-ship compartment.

Spencer was saying, “So this hired assassin, after killing four men and nearly wrecking a government, has returned to his native worlds.”

Leoh nodded. “He returned under guard. I suppose he’s in disgrace, or perhaps even under arrest.”

“Servants of a dictator never know when they’ll be the ones who are served—on a platter.” Spencer chuckled. “And the Watchman who assisted you, this Junior Lieutenant Hector, where is he?”

“The Dulaq girl has him in tow, somewhere. Evidently it’s the first time he’s been a hero.”

Spencer shifted his weight in his chair. “I’ve long prided myself on the conviction that any Star Watch officer can handle almost any kind of emergency. From your description of the past few weeks’ happenings, I was beginning to have my doubts. However, Junior Lieutenant Hector seems to have scraped through.”

“He turned out to be an extremely valuable man,” Leoh said, smiling. “I think he’ll make a fine officer.”

Spencer grunted an affirmative.

“Well,” Leoh said, “that’s the story, to date. I believe that Odal is finished. But the Kerak Worlds have annexed the Szarno Confederacy and are rearming in earnest now. And the Acquatainian government is still very wobbly. There will be elections for a new Prime Minister in a few days, with half a dozen men running and no one in a clear majority. We haven’t heard the last of Kanus, either, not by a long shot.”

Spencer lifted a shaggy eyebrow. “Neither,” he rumbled, “has he heard the last from us.”