The Dueling Machine sw-3 Page 13

  Leoh stood three steps inside the door, unmoving, silent.

  “Let me remind you,” Odal said calmly, “that you have gone to great lengths to prove to the people of Acquatainia that the dueling machine is safe and harmless. If I may quote one of your many tri-di speeches, Tampering with the dueling machine is a thing of the past.’ If you refuse to meet me in a duel, it will seem that you’re afraid that the machine is not so safe… when I am the opponent.”

  Leoh said, “And you would, of course, see to it that my refusal became public knowledge.”

  Smiling again, Odal nodded. “You are a great celebrity. I’m sure the news media would learn about it one way or another.”

  “Don’t do it,” Hector said to Leoh. “It’s a trap. Don’t agree to duel with him. I’ll…”

  “You, Watchman, have already beaten me in a duel,” Odal said, his smile vanishing. “You can’t ask me to face you again. It would be unfair.”

  “I’ll agree to the duel,” Leoh answered, “if you’ll agree to have the tape shown publicly.”

  “Very well,” Odal said. “We will meet in three days, as is customary?”

  “Make it a week,” Hector said. “Give us a chance to… uh, inspect the machine and make sure, that is…”

  “Make certain that the monsters from Kerak haven’t tampered with it?” Odal laughed. “Very well, a week from today.”

  Odal walked toward the door, stepped between Hector and Leoh, and left. The door clicked shut behind him.

  Hector turned his eyes from the closed door to Leoh. “You shouldn’t have accepted… I mean, well, it’s a trick of some kind, I know it is.”

  The Professor looked thoughtful. “Is it? Or is Odal—or Kanus, or whoever—getting desperate? I’ve been able to show the Acquatainian people that they have nothing to fear from the dueling machine, you know. They might be trying to restore the machine to its symbol of terror.”

  Hector shook his head.

  “But I can beat Odal in a fair duel,” Leoh said. “After all, I’ve won every duel I’ve fought, haven’t I? And you beat Odal. The only duels he won were when he had outside help. I think I can beat him, I honestly do.”

  Hector didn’t answer, but merely stared in disbelief at the old man.

  The building that housed the dueling machine was surrounded by throngs of people. Their restless, anxious murmuring could be heard even inside the normally quiet room. The press gallery, high above the machine itself, was packed with reporters.

  For a solid week every tri-di outlet in the Acquataine Cluster had drummed continuously on the coming duel between Leoh and Odal. Good against evil, with the issue seriously in doubt. The old, overweight, shaggy professor against the blade-slim professional killer.

  Hector and Leoh stood before the machine. The meditechs were bustling about making final checks on the controls. On the other side of the room, tiers of temporary seats had been put in. They were filled with government and social leaders, military men, policemen, and a small contingent from the Kerak embassy. Geri Dulaq sat in the front row, next to the empty chair that would be Hector’s.

  “I still don’t like it,” Hector said in a near whisper to Leoh.

  With his eyes sweeping the room, watching the restless onlookers and the busy meditechs, Leoh answered, “Relax, my boy. We’ve turned the machine inside out. The worst he can do is to defeat me. At the slightest medical irregularity, the machine will automatically stop us. And beside, I still think I can beat him. I’ll be using the neutron star environment again, the same one I used against that college student. He’ll have no advantage over me there.”

  A roar went up from the crowd outside.

  “Here he comes,” Hector said.

  The main doors opened. Flanked by two rows of uniformed policemen, in walked Odal and his two seconds, all in the light blue uniforms of Kerak. Odal was annoyedly brushing something from his tunic.

  “Evidently,” Leoh said, “diplomatic immunity didn’t protect Odal entirely from the crowd.”

  The introductions, the medical checks, the instructions, the choice of weapon and environment—all seemed to take hours instead of minutes. Until suddenly they were over, and Hector found himself walking alone to his spectator’s seat.

  He sat beside Geri and watched Leoh and Odal enter their booths, watched the meditechs take their stations at the control desks, watched the panel lights turn from amber to green. The duel was on.

  The crowd stirred uncertainly. A buzzing murmur filled the room. There was nothing to do now but wait.

  Geri leaned close to Hector and asked sweetly, “Did you bring a gun?”

  “Huh? A… what for? I mean…”

  She whispered, “For Odal. I have a small one in my handbag.”

  “But… but.…”

  “You promised me!” Still in a whisper, but harsher now.

  “I know, but not here. There’re… well, there’re too many people here. Someone might get hurt… if shooting starts.…”

  Geri thought a moment. “Maybe you’re right. Of course, if he kills Professor Leoh in there, he’ll walk right out of here and board a Kerak star ship and we’ll never see him again.”

  Hector couldn’t think of a reply, so he just sat there feeling thoroughly miserable.

  The two of them remained silent for the rest of the half-hour. At the end of the time limit for the duel, all the lights on the machine went amber. The crowd let out a gust of disappointed-yet-relieved sighs. Hector sprinted to Leoh’s booth while Odal’s seconds marched in time to his.

  Leoh came out of the booth looking very thoughtful.

  “You’re all right?” Hector asked.

  “What? Oh yes, fine. He played exactly by the rules,” Leoh said. He looked toward Odal, who was smiling icily, calm and confident. “He played extremely well… extremely well. There were a couple of times when I thought he’d really finish me off. And I never really put him into much trouble at all.”

  The chief meditech was motioning for the two duelists to come to him at the main control desk. Hector accompanied Leoh.

  “The first part of the duel has been a draw,” the chief meditech said. “You—both of you—now have the option of withdrawing for a day, or continuing the duel now.”

  “I will continue,” Odal said unhesitatingly.

  Leoh nodded, “Continue.”

  “Very well,” said the chief meditech. Turning to Odal, “Yours is the choice of environment and weapon. Are there any special instructions necessary?”

  Odal shook his head. “The Professor knows how to drive a ground car?” At Leoh’s affirming nod he said, “Then that is all the skill that is necessary.”

  Leoh found himself sitting at the wheel of a sleek blue ground car: plastic-bubble canopy, two bucket seats, engine throbbing under an aerodynamically sculptured hood.

  Ahead of him stretched a highway, arrow-straight to the horizon, where jagged bluish mountains rose against the harsh yellow sky. The car was pulled off to the side of the road, in neutral gear. The landscape around the highway was bleak desert—flat, featureless, cloudless, and hot.

  Odal’s voice came from the radio in the dashboard. “I am parked about five kilometers behind you, Professor. You will pull out onto the highway and I will follow you.

  These cars have wheels, not air cushions; there are no magnetic bumpers, no electronic controls to lock you onto the highway. A few kilometers ahead, as we enter the mountains, the road becomes quite interesting. The object of the game, of course, is to make the other fellow crash. But if you can outrun me for a half hour, I will acknowledge you as the winner.”

  Leoh glanced at the controls, touched the drive button, and nudged the throttle. The turbine purred smoothly. He swung onto the highway and ran up to a hundred kilometers per hour. The rearview screen showed a blood-red car, exactly like his own except for its color, pulling up precisely ten car lengths behind him.

  “I’ll let you get the feel of the car while we’re on the straig
htaway,” Odal’s voice came through the radio. “We won’t begin to play in earnest until we get into the mountains.”

  The road was rising now, Leoh realized. A gentle grade, but at their speed they were soon well above the desert floor. The mountains were no longer distant blue wrinkles; they loomed close, high, and bareboned, with scraggy bushes and sparse patches of grass on them.

  Leoh nearly missed the first curve, it came on him so quickly. He cut to the inside, slammed on the brakes, and skidded around.

  “Not very good,” Odal laughed.

  The red car was just off his left rear fender now, crowding him against the shoulder of the mountain rise that jutted up from the right side of the road. Leoh could hear pebbles clattering against the floorboards, over the whine of their two turbines. On the other side of the road, the cliff dropped away to the desert floor. And they were still climbing.

  Leoh hugged the right side of the road, with Odal practically beside him. Suddenly the mountains fell away and a bridge, threaded dizzily between two cliffs, stood before them. It seemed to Leoh that the bridge was leaping toward him. He tried to get back toward the center of the road, but Odal rammed his side. The wheel ripped out of his hands, spinning wildly. The car skidded toward the road’s shoulder. Leoh grabbed at the wheel, steered out of the skid, and found himself on the bridge, the supporting suspension cables whizzing past. He was sweating hard and hunched, white-knuckled, over the wheel.

  Odal was in front of him now. He must’ve passed me when I skidded, Leoh told himself. The red car was running smoothly, easily; Odal waved one hand back to his opponent.

  On the other side of the bridge the road became a torturous series of curves, climbs, and drops. The grades were steep, the turns murderous, and at times the road narrowed so much that two cars could barely squeeze by. Sometimes they were flanked on both sides by looming masses of rock, rising up out of sight. Mostly, though, one side of the road was a sheer drop of a thousand meters or more.

  Odal braked, swerved, pulled up alongside Leoh and slammed the two cars together with bone-rattling force. He was trying to force Leoh off the edge of the cliff. Leoh clung to the wheel, fighting for control. His one defense was that he could set the speed for the battle; but to his horror he found that not even this was under his real control. The car refused to slow much past seventy-five.

  “You wish to stop and enjoy the scenery?” Odal called to him, banging the two cars together again, pushing Leoh dangerously close to the cliffs edge.

  Desperately, Leoh leaned on the throttle with all his weight. The car spurted ahead, leaving Odal momentarily in a cloud of wheel-churned dirt.

  “Ah-hah, now the turtle becomes a rabbit!” The red car streaked after him.

  There was a tunnel ahead. Leoh raced for it, praying that it was long enough and narrow enough for him to stay ahead of Odal. The time must be running out. It’s got to be! It was hard for Leoh to keep his sweaty hands firm on the wheel. His back and head were hurting, his heart racing dangerously.

  The tunnel was long and straight—and narrow! Hopefully, Leoh planted his car in the middle of the roadway and throttled down as much as he could. Still, the tunnel walls were a blur as he roared by, the turbine echoing shrilly against the encasing rock.

  The red car was pulling close and now it was trying to pass him. Leoh swerved slightly to the left, to block it. The red car moved right. Leoh edged that way. Odal cut left again.

  Got to keep ahead of him. Time must be almost over. Odal was insisting on his left. Leoh pushed farther to the left, staying ahead of him. But Odal kept coming, up off the roadway and onto the curving tunnel wall with his left wheels. Leoh stayed on the left of the road and Odal swung even farther up the wall just behind Leoh’s fender.

  Glancing at the rearview screen, Leoh could see Odal’s face clenched grimly, determined to pass him. The red car seemed to climb halfway up the curving tunnel wall and…

  And then fell over, out of control, smashing over upside down onto the roadway, exploding in a shower of sparks and fuel with a concussion that slammed Leoh so hard he nearly lost control of his car.

  He found himself sitting in the dueling machine booth, the screen before him a calm flat gray, his body soaking wet, his hands pressed into aching fists in front of him, as though he were still gripping the car’s steering wheel.

  The door jerked open and Hector ducked into the booth, his face anxious.

  “You’re all right?”

  Leoh’s arms dropped and his whole body relaxed.

  “I beat him,” he said. “I beat Odal!”

  They stepped outside the booth, Leoh smiling broadly now. Across the way, Odal’s thin face was deathly grim. The crowd was absolutely still, not daring to believe what it saw.

  The chief meditech cleared his throat and announced loudly, “Professor Leoh is the victor!”

  The crowd’s sudden roar burst through the room. They rose from their seats, swarmed down upon the machine and lifted Leoh and Hector to their shoulders. Jumping up and down on the main control desk, yelling louder than anyone, Was the white-coated chief meditech. Outside, the much larger throng was cheering even harder.

  Within a few minutes no one was left in the chamber except a few of the uniformed policemen, Odal, and his seconds.

  “Are you able to go outside now?” asked one of the soldiers, also a major.

  The taut expression on Odal’s face relaxed a little. “Of course.”

  The three men walked from the building to a waiting ground car. The other soldier, a colonel, said to, Odal, “You have taken your death rather well.”

  “Thank you.” Odal managed a thin smile. “But after all, it’s not as though I was killed by the enemy. I engaged in a suicide mission, and my mission has been accomplished.”

  12

  “I…well… you saw what happened,” Hector said to Geri. “How could anybody do anything in that mob?”

  They were sitting together in a restaurant near the tri-di studio where Leoh was being lionized by a panel of Acquatainia’s leading citizens.

  She poked at her food with a fork and said, “You might never get the chance to kill him again. He’s probably on his way back to Kerak right now.”

  “Well, maybe that’s… I mean… murder just isn’t right.…”

  “It wouldn’t be murder,” Geri said coldly, staring at her plate. “It would be an execution. Odal deserves to die! And if you won’t do it, I’ll find someone who can!”

  “Geri… I…”

  “If you really loved me, you’d have done it already.” She looked as though she was going to cry.

  “But it’s…”

  “You promised me!”

  Hector sagged, defeated. “All right, don’t cry. I’ll… I’ll think of something.”

  Odal sat now in the office of the Kerak ambassador. The ambassador had left discreetly when Kor’s call came through.

  The Kerak major sat at a huge desk, leaning back comfortably in the soft padding of the luxurious leather swivel chair. The wall-sized view screen across the room seemed to dissolve into another room: Kor’s dimly lit office. The Intelligence Minister eyed Odal for a long moment before speaking.

  “You seem relieved.”

  “I have performed an unpleasant duty, and done it successfully,” Odal said.

  “Yes, I know. Leoh is now serving us to his full capacity. The Acquatainians will look up to him now as their savior. The fear they felt of Major Par Odal is now dissolved, and with it, their fear of Kerak is also purged.

  They associate Leoh with safety and victory. And while they are toasting him and listening to his pompous speeches, we will strike!”

  Even though his presence in the room was only an image, Odal saw clearly what was in Kor’s mind: bigger prisons, more prisoners, more interrogation rooms filled with terrified, helpless people who would cringe at the mention of Kor’s name.

  “Now then,” Kor said, “new duties await you, Major. Not quite so unpleasant as c
ommitting suicide. And these duties will be performed here in Kerak.”

  Odal said evenly, “I would not wish to interrogate other army officers again.”

  “I realize that,” Kor replied, frowning. “That phase of our investigation is finished. But there are other groups that must be examined. You would have no objection, I trust, to interrogating diplomats… members of the Foreign Ministry?”

  Romis’ people? Odal thought. Kor must be insane. Romis won’t stand for having his people arrested.

  “Yes, Romis,” Kor answered the major’s unspoken question. “Who else would have the pigheaded pride to lead the plotting against the Leader?”

  Or the intelligence, Odal found himself thinking. Aloud he asked, “When do I return to Kerak?”

  “Tomorrow morning a ship will be ready for you.”

  Odal nodded. Then I have only tonight to find the Watchman and crush him.

  Hector paced nervously along the narrow control booth of the tri-di studio. Technicians and managers bent over the monitors and electronic gear. Behind them, shadowed in the dimly lit booth, were a host of visitors whom Hector elbowed and jostled as he fidgeted up and down.

  Beyond the booth’s window wall was the well-lit studio where Leoh sat flanked by a full dozen of Acquatainia’s leading newsmen and political philosophers.

  The old man looked very tired but very pleased. The show had started by running the tape of the duel against Odal. Then the panel members began questioning Leoh about the duel, the machine itself, his career in science, his whole life.

  Hector turned from the studio to peer into the crowd of onlookers in the dimly lit control booth. Geri was still there, off by the far corner, squeezed between an old politician and a slickly dressed female advertising executive. Geri was still pouting. Hector turned away before she saw him watching her.

  “It seems clear,” one of the political pundits was saying out in the studio, “that Kanus can’t use the dueling machine to frighten us any more. And without fear, Kanus isn’t half the threat we thought he was.”