The Dueling Machine sw-3 Read online

  Shaking his head to clear it and get rid of the ear-ringing, Hector got to his feet. He was unhurt. The platform was about ten meters square, with a stairway leading down from one corner. Did they hear me coming?

  As if in answer, he heard footsteps ticking up the stone stairway. Shrugging off the jet belt, he hefted its weight in his hands, then hurried over to the top of the stairs. A man’s head came into view. He turned as he ran up the last few steps and started to whisper hoarsely, “Are you here, Watchman? I…”

  Hector knocked him unconscious with the jet belt before he could say any more. As he struggled into the Kerak guard’s uniform, pulling it over his own cover-alls, Hector suddenly wondered: How did he know it was a Watchman? Maybe he’s been alerted by the star-ship captain. If that’s the case, then these people are against Kanus.

  Once inside the guard uniform, Hector started down the steps. Three more guards were waiting for him at the bottom of the flight, in a stone-faced hallway that curved off into darkness. The lighting wasn’t very good, but Hector could see that there men were big, tough-looking, and armed with pistols. He hoped they wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t the same man who had gone up the stairs a few minutes earlier.

  Hector grinned at them and fluttered a wave. He kept walking, trying to get past them and down the corridor.

  “Hey, you’re the…” one of the guards started to say, in the Kerak language.”

  Hector suddenly felt sick. He could barely understand the Kerak tongue, much less speak it. He kept his grin, weak though it was, and walked a bit faster.

  The second guard grabbed the first one’s arm and cut him short. “Let him through,” he whispered. “We’ll try to get the word to our people downstairs and get him into the dueling machine and out of here. But don’t get caught near him by Kor’s people! Understand?”

  “All right, but somebody better cut off the scanners that watch the halls.”

  “Can’t do that without running the risk of alerting Kor himself!”

  “We’ll have to chance it… otherwise they’ll spot him in a minute, in a guard uniform four sizes too small for him.”

  Hector was past them now, wondering what the whispering was about, but still moving. As he rounded the corner of the corridor, he saw an open lift tube, looking raw and new in the warm polished stone of the wall. The tube was lit and operating. Hector stepped in, said, “Dueling machine level” in basic Terran to the simple-minded computer that ran the tube, and closed his eyes.

  The computer’s squeaky voice echoed back, “Dueling machine level; turn left, then right.” Hector opened his eyes and stepped out of the tube. The corridor here was much brighter, better lit. But there was still no one in sight.

  It was almost like magic. Hector made his way through the long corridors of the castle without seeing another soul. He passed guard stations where steaming mugs sat alone on desk tops, passed open doors to spacious rooms, passed blank view screens. He saw scanning cameras set high up on the corridor wall every few meters, but they seemed to be off. Once or twice he thought he might have heard scuffling and the muffled sounds of men struggling, but he never saw a single person.

  Then the big green double doors of the dueling machine chamber came into view. One of them was open, and he could see the machine itself, dimly lit inside.

  Still no one in sight!

  Hector sprinted into the big, arched-ceiling room and ran straight to the main control desk of the machine. He started setting the power when all the lights in the chamber blazed on blindingly.

  From all the doors around the chamber, white-helmeted guards burst in, guns in their hands. A viewscreen high above flashed into life and a furious man with a bald, bullet-shaped head shouted:

  “There he is! Get him!”

  Before Hector could move, he felt the flaming pain of a stun bolt smash him against the control desk. As he sank to the floor, consciousness spiraling away from him, he heard Kor ordering:

  “Now arrest all the traitors who were helping him. If they resist, kill them!”

  Hector’s head was buzzing. He couldn’t get his eyes open all the way. He seemed to be in a tiny unlit cubicle, metal-walled, with a blank view screen staring at him. Something was on his head, something else strapped around his chest. He couldn’t see his hands; they were down on his lap and his head wouldn’t move far enough to look at them. Nor would his hands move, despite his will.

  He heard voices. Whether they were outside the cubicle or inside his head, he couldn’t tell.

  “What do you mean, nothing? He must have some thoughts in his head!”

  “Yes, Minister Kor, there are. But they are so random, so patternless…, I’ve never examined a brain like his. I don’t see how he can walk straight, let alone think.”

  “He is a natural telepath,” Kor’s harsh voice countered. “Perhaps he’s hiding his true thought patterns from you.”

  “Under the influence of the massive drug doses we’ve given him? Impossible.”

  “The drugs might not affect him.”

  “No, that couldn’t be. His physical condition shows that the drugs have stupefied him almost completely.”

  A new voice piped up. “The monitor shows that the drugs are wearing off; he’s beginning to regain consciousness.”

  “Dose him again,” Kor ordered.

  “More drugs? The effect could be dangerous… even fatal.”

  “Must I repeat myself? The Watchman is a natural telepath. If he regains full consciousness inside the dueling machine, he can disappear at will. The consequences of that will be fatal… to you!”

  Hector tried to open his eyes fully, but the lids felt gummy, as though they’d been glued together. Inside the dueling machine! If I can get myself together before they put me under again.… His hands weighed two hundred kilos apiece, and he still couldn’t move his head. But through his half-open eyes he could see that the view screen was softly glowing, even though blank. The machine was on. They’ve been trying to pick my brain, he realized.

  “Here’s the syringe, Doctor,” another voice said. “It’s fully loaded.”

  Frantically, Hector tried to brush the cobwebs from his mind. Concentrate on Acquatainia, he told himself. Concentrate! But he could hear the footsteps approaching his booth.

  And then his mind seemed to explode. His whole body wrenched violently with a flood of alien thought pouring through him.

  9

  One moment Odal was sitting in the Acquatainian dueling machine, thinking about Geri Dulaq. An instant later he knew he was in Kerak, and someone else was in the dueling machine with him. Hector! His mind was open and Odal could look deep.… A flash like a supernova explosion rocked Odal’s every fiber. Two minds exposed to each other, fully, amplified and cross-linked by the circuits of the machine, fused together inescapably. Every nerve and muscle in both their bodies arched as though a hundred thousand volts of electricity were shooting through them.

  Odal! Hector realized. He could see into Odal’s mind as if it were his own. In a strange, double-visioned sort of way, he was Odal… himself and Odal, both at the same time. And Odal, sharing Hector’s mind, became Hector.

  Hector saw long files of cadets marching wearily in heavy gray uniforms, felt the weight of the lumpy field packs on their backs, sweated under the scorching sun.

  Odal felt the thrill of a boy’s first sight of a star ship as it floated magnificently in orbit.

  Now Hector was running through the narrow streets of an ancient town, running with a dozen other teenagers in brown uniforms, wielding clubs, shouting in the night shadows, smashing windows of certain shops and homes where a special symbol had been crudely painted only a few minutes earlier. And if anyone came outside to protest, they smashed him, too.

  Odal saw a Star Watch instructor sadly shaking his head at his/Hector’s attempts to command the bridge of a training ship.

  Standing at attention, face frozen in a grim scowl, while the Leader harangued an assembly of a half-mi
llion troops and citizens on the anniversary of his ascent to power.

  Running after the older boys, trying to get them to let you into the game; but they say you’re too small, too dumb, and above all too clumsy.

  Holding back the tears of anger and fright while the captain slowly explained why your parents had been taken away. He was almost using baby talk. He didn’t like this task, didn’t like sending grown-ups to wherever it was that they put bad people. But Mother and Father were bad. They had said bad things about the Leader. And now he would become a soldier and help the Leader and kill all the bad people.

  Playing ball in zero gee with four other cadets, floating in the huge, metal-ribbed, spheroidal gym, laughing, trying to toss the ball without flipping yourself into a weightless tumble.

  Smashing the smug face of the upperclassman who called his parents traitor. His bloody, surprised face. Kneeing, clubbing, kicking him into silence. No one will mention that subject again.

  Standing, shaking with exertion and fear, gun in hand, wanting to kill, wanting to please the girl who screamed for death, but looking into the face of the downed man and realizing that nothing, NOTHING, warrants taking a human life.

  Clubbing the moon-faced Dulaq, smashing him down into shrieking blood as the six of you hammered him to death, telling yourself he’s an enemy, an enemy, if I don’t kill him he’ll kill me, if I don’t kill him the Leader will find someone else who will.

  Half-thoughts, emotions, snatches of memory. A mother’s face, the special smell of your own room, the sound of laughter. The forgotten past, the buried past, the warmth of the fireplace at home after a day in the snow, the fragrance of Father’s pipe, the satisfied purring of the soft-furred kitten in your arms.

  Leaving home saying good-by, Dad still unconvinced that you belonged in the Star Watch. Driving off with the captain, away from the house that was empty now. Fumbling, faltering through training, somehow passing, but always by the barest margin. Being the best, first in the ranks: best student, best athlete, best soldier. Always the best. Learning the real mission of the Star Watch: protect the peace. Learning how to hate, how to kill, and above all, how to revenge yourself against Acquatainia.

  Meeting and merging, spiraling together, memories of a lifetime intertwining, interlinking, brain synapses flashing, chemical balances subtly changing, two lives, two histories, two personalities melting together more completely than any two minds had ever known before. Hector and Odal, Odal/Hector—in the flash of that instant when they met in the dueling machine they became briefly one and the same.

  And when one of the Kerak meditechs noted the power surging through the machine and turned it off, each of the two young men became an individual again. But a different individual than before. Neither of them could be the same as before. They were linked, irrevocably.

  “What is it?” Kor snapped. “What caused the machine to use power like that?”

  The meditech shrugged inside his white lab coat. “The Watchman is in there alone. I don’t understand…”

  Furious, Kor bustled toward Hector’s booth. “If he’s recovered and escaped, I’ll…”

  Both doors opened simultaneously. From one booth stepped Hector, clear-eyed, straight-backed, tall and lean and blond. His face was curiously calm, almost smiling. He glanced across to the other booth.

  Odal stood there. Just as tall and lean and blond as Hector, with almost exactly the same expression on his face: a knowing expression, a satisfaction that nothing would ever be able to damage.

  “You!” Kor shouted. “You’ve returned.”

  For half an instant they all stood there frozen: Hector and Odal at opposite ends of the dueling machine, Kor stopped in mid-stride about halfway between them, four meditechs at the control panels, a pair of armed guards slightly behind Kor. Kerak’s wan bluish sun was throwing a cold early-morning light through the stone-ribbed chamber’s only window.

  “You are under arrest,” Kor said to Odal. “And as for you, Watchman, we’re not finished with you.”

  “Yes you are,” Hector said evenly as he walked slowly and deliberately toward the Intelligence Minister.

  Kor frowned. Then he saw Odal advancing toward him too. He took a step backward, then turned to the two guards. “Stop them…”

  Too late. Like a perfectly synchronized machine, Odal and Hector launched themselves at the guards and knocked them both unconscious before Kor could say another word. Picking up a fallen guard’s pistol, Odal pointed it at Kor. Hector retrieved the other gun and covered the cowering meditechs.

  “Into the prisoners’ cells, all of you,” Odal commanded.

  “You’ll die for this!” Kor screamed.

  Odal jabbed him in the ribs with the pistol. “Everyone dies sooner or later. Do you want to do it here and now?”

  Kor went white. Trembling, he marched out of the chamber and toward the cell block.

  There were guards on duty at the cells. One of them Odal recognized as a member of Romis’ followers. They locked up the rest, then hurried back upstairs toward Kor’s office.

  “You take this pistol,” Odal said to the guard as they hurried up a flight of stone steps. “If we see anyone, tell them you’re taking us to be questioned by the Minister.”

  The guard nodded. Hector tucked his pistol out of sight inside his coveralls.

  “We’ve only got a few minutes before someone discovers Kor in the cells,” Odal said to Hector. “We must reach Romis and get out of here.”

  Twice they were stopped by guards along the corridors, but both times were permitted to pass. Kor’s outer office was empty; it was still too early for his staff to have shown up.

  The guard used Kor’s desktop communicator to reach Romis, his fingers shaking slightly at the thought of exposing himself to the Minister’s personal equipment.

  Romis’ face, still sleepy-looking, took shape on the desktop view screen. His eyes widened when he recognized Odal.

  “What?…”

  Hector stepped into view. “I escaped from your ship,” he explained swiftly, “but got caught by Kor when I tried to get to the dueling machine here. Odal jumped back from Acquatainia. We’ve got Kor locked up temporarily.

  If you’re going to move against Kanus, this is the morning for it. You’ve only got a few minutes to act.”

  Romis blinked. “You… you’ve locked up Kor? You’re at the Intelligence Ministry?”

  “Yes,” Odal said. “If you have any troops you can rely on, get them here immediately. We’re going to release as many of Kor’s prisoners as we can, but we’ll need more troops and weapons to hold this building against Kor’s private army. If we can hang on here and get to Kanus, I think most of the army will go over to your side. We can win without bloodshed, perhaps. But we must act quickly!”

  10

  Sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the two young blond faces on his bedside view screen, Romis struggled to put his thoughts in order.

  “Very well. I’ll send every unit I can count on to hold the Intelligence Ministry. Major Odal, perhaps you can contact some of the people you know in the army.”

  “Yes,” said Odal. “Many of their officers are right here, under arrest.”

  Romis nodded. “I’ll call Marshal Lugal immediately. I think he’ll join us.”

  “But we’ve got to get Kanus before he can bring the main force of the army into action,” Hector said.

  “Yes, yes of course. Kanus is at his retreat in the mountains. It’s not quite dawn there. Probably he’s still asleep.”

  “Is there a dueling machine there?” Odal asked.

  “I don’t know. There might be. I’ve heard rumors about his having one installed for his own use recently…”

  “All right,” Hector said. “Maybe we can jump there.”

  “Not until we’ve freed the prisoners and made certain this building is well defended,” said Odal.

  “Right,” Hector agreed.

  “There’s much to do,” Odal said t
o the Foreign Minister. “And not a second to waste.”

  “Yes,” Romis agreed.

  The tri-di image snapped off, leaving him looking at a dead-gray screen set into the side of his bed table. Romis shook his head, as though trying to clear it of the memory of a dream.

  It could be a trap, he told himself. One of Kor’s insidious maneuvers. But the Star Watchman was there; he wouldn’t help Kor. Or was it the Watchman? Might it have been an impersonator?

  “Trap or not,” Romis said aloud, “we’ll never have another opportunity like this… if it’s real.”

  He made up his mind. In three minutes he placed three tri-di calls. The deed was done. He was either going to free Kerak of its monster, or kill several hundred good men—including himself.

  He got up from bed, dressed swiftly, and called for an air car. Then he opened the bed-table drawer and took out a palm-sized pistol.

  His butler appeared at the door. “Sir, your air car is ready. Will you require a pilot?”

  “No,” said Romis, tucking the gun into his belt. “I’ll go alone. If I don’t call you by noon, then… open the vault behind the bed, read the instructions there, and try to save yourself and the other servants. Good-bye.”

  Before the stunned butler could say another word, Romis strode past him and out toward the air car.

  Kanus was abruptly awakened by a terrified servant.

  “What is it?” the Leader grumbled, sitting up slowly in the immense circular bed. The sun had barely started to touch the distant snow-capped peaks that were visible through the giant room’s floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “A… a call from the Minister of Intelligence, sir.”

  “Don’t stand there, put him through!”

  The servant touched an ornamented dial next to the doorway. Part of the wall seemed to dissolve into a very grainy, shadowy image of Kor. He appeared to be sitting on a hard bench in a dimly lit, stone-walled cell.