1

Odal sat alone in the waiting room. It was a bare cubicle, with rough stone walls and a single slit window set high above the floor, close to the ceiling. For furniture, there was only one wooden bench and a view screen set into the wall opposite it. The room was quiet as death.

The Kerak major sat stiff-backed and unmoving. But his mind was racing:

Kor uses this type of room to awe visitors. He knows how much like an ancient dungeon this room looks. He likes to terrify people.

Odal also knew that the interrogation rooms, deep in the sub-basements, were also built like this. Except that they had no windows, and the walls were often blood-spattered.

“The Minister will see you now,” said a feminine voice from the view screen. But the screen remained blank. Odal realized that he had probably been under observation every minute since he had entered Kor’s headquarters.

He stood up as the room’s only door opened automatically. With a measured military briskness, Odal strode down the hallway toward the other door at its end, his boots clicking on the stone flooring. He knocked once at the heavy wooden door. No answer. He knocked again, and the door opened by itself.

Kor was sitting at the far end of the office, behind a mammoth desk. The room was dimly lit, except for a single lamp over the desk that made the Intelligence Minister’s bald head glisten. Odal carefully shut the door, took a few steps into the carpeted room, and waited for Kor to look up. The Intelligence chief was busily signing papers, ignoring his visitor.

Finally Kor glanced up. “Sit,” he commanded.

Odal walked to the desk and sat at the single straightbacked chair before it. Kor signed a few more documents, then pushed the stack of papers off to the side of his desk.

“I spent the morning with the Leader,” he said in his irritatingly shrill voice. “Needless to say, he was unhappy about your duel with the Watchman.”

Odal could picture Kanus’ angry tirade. “My only desire is to meet the Watchman again and rectify that error.”

Kor’s emotionless eyes fixed on Odal’s. “Personal motives are of no interest. The Watchman is only a bumbling fool, but he has succeeded in destroying our primary plan for the defeat of Acquatainia. He succeeded because of this meddler, Leoh. He is our target. He is the one who must be put out of the way.”

“I see…”

“No, you do not see,” Kor snapped. “You have no concept of the plan I have in mind, because I have told it to no one except the Leader himself. And I will tell it to no one, until it is necessary.”

Odal didn’t move a muscle. He refused to show any emotion, any fear, any weakness to his superior.

“For the time being you are assigned to my personal staff. You will remain at this headquarters building at all times. Your duties will be given to you daily by my assistants.”

“Very well.”

“And consider this,” Kor said, hunching forward in his chair. “Your failure with the Watchman made the Leader accuse me of failure. He will not tolerate excuses. If you fail the next time I call on you, it will be necessary to destroy you.”

“I understand perfectly.”

“Good. Return to your quarters until summoned. And remember, either we destroy Leoh, or he destroys us.”

Odal nodded, rose from his chair, and walked out of the office. Us, he thought. Kor is beginning to feel the terror he uses on others. If he could have been sure that he wasn’t being watched by hidden cameras, Odal would have smiled.

2

Professor Leoh eased his bulky body into the softness of an air couch. It looked as though he was sitting on nothingness, with the glistening metal curve of the couch several centimeters from his body.

“This is what I’ve needed for a long time,” he said to Hector. “A real vacation, with all the luxuries. It makes an old man happy.”

The Star Watchman was standing by the window wall across the room from Leoh, anxiously peering down at the bustling city far below. “It’s a nice apartment they’ve given you, all right.”

The room was long and spacious, with one whole side devoted to the window wall. The decorations were color—and scent—coded to change slowly through the day. At the moment the walls were in shades of brown and gold, and the air hinted faintly of spices.

“The best part of it,” Leoh said, stretching slowly on the couch, “is that the dueling machine is fixed so that a telepath can’t bring in outside helpers without setting off a warning alarm, and I’ve got nothing to do until the new school year begins at Cannae. I might not even go back then; as long as the Acquatainians want to treat me so royally, why shouldn’t I spend a year or so here? There’s plenty of research I can do… perhaps even lecture occasionally at the university here…”

Hector tried to smile at the old man’s musings, but looked worried instead. “Maybe you shouldn’t stay in Acquatainia too long. I mean, well… the Kerak people might still be after you. Odal was going to challenge you before I… that is.…”

“Before you saved me.”

The Watchman’s face colored. “Well, I didn’t really mean… that is, it wasn’t…”

Leoh chuckled. “Don’t be so flustered, my boy. You’re a hero. Surely Geri regards you as such.”

“Urn, yes, I guess so.”

Changing the subject, Leoh asked, “And how are your quarters? Comfortable, I hope.”

“Sure.” Hector nodded. “The Terran embassy’s almost as plush as this apartment.”

“Not bad for a junior lieutenant.”

Hector fidgeted from the window waif to the couch, then sat on the edge of a web chair.

“Are you nervous about Sir Harold’s visit?” Leoh asked.

“N… nervous? No, sir. Terrified!”

Laughing, Leoh said, “Don’t worry. Harold’s a pleasant enough old grouse… although he tries his best to hide it.”

Nodding without looking convinced, Hector got to his feet again and went back to the window wall. Then he gasped, “He… he’s here!”

Leoh heaved himself up from the couch and hurried to see. A sleek ground car with Star Watch markings was pulled up at the building’s entrance. Official Acquatainian escort cars flanked it.

“He must be on his way up,” Leoh said. “Now try to relax and act…”

The simple-minded door computer announced in a tinny monotone, “Your expected guests are here.”

“Then open up,” Leoh commanded.

The door slid open to reveal a pair of sturdy, steel-eyed Watchmen, a half-dozen Acquatainian honor guards, and—in their midst—the paunchy, jowly figure of Sir Harold Spencer, dressed in a shapeless gray jumpsuit.

The Star Watch Commander in Chief broke into one of his rare smiles. “Albert, you old scoundrel, how are you?”

Leoh rushed to the doorway and grasped Spencer’s outstretched hand. “Harold… I thought we’d never see each other again, in the flesh.”

“Considering the amount of flesh between the two of us, perhaps we’re violating some basic law of the universe by being in the same room together.”

They laughed and walked into the room. The door slid shut, leaving the guards outside. Hector stood transfixed beside the window wall.

“Harold, you look wonderful.…”

“Nonsense. I’m a walking geriatrics experiment. But you, you ancient schemer, you must have transferred to another body since I saw you last.”

“No, merely careful living.…”

“Ahah. My downfall. Too many worries and too much wine. It must be pleasant to live the university life, free of care…”

“Of course. Of course. Oh… Harold, I’d like to introduce Junior Lieutenant Hector.”

Hector snapped to attention and saluted.

“Stand easy, Lieutenant. No need for formality. So, you’re the man who beat Kerak’s assassin, are you?”

“No, sir. I mean yessir… I mean, Professor Leoh is the one…”

“Nonsense. Albert told me all about it. You’re the one who faced the danger.”

Hector’s mouth twitched once or twice, as though he was trying to say something, but no sounds came out.

Spencer stuck a massive hand into his pocket and pulled out a small ebony box. “This is for you, Lieutenant.” He handed the box to Hector.

The Watchman opened it and saw inside, against a jet-black setting, two small silver pins in the shape of comets. The insignia of a full lieutenant. His jaw dropped open.

“The official notification is grinding through Star Watch processing, Lieutenant,” Spencer said. “I thought there was no sense letting you wait until the computers straightened out all the records. Congratulations on a well-earned promotion.”

Hector managed a half-strangled, “Thank you, sir.”

Turning to Leoh, Spencer said, “Now then, Albert, let us recount old times. I assume you have some refreshments on the premises?”

Several hours later the two old men were sitting on the air couch, while Hector listened from the web chair. The room’s color had shifted to reds and yellows now, and the scent was of desert flowers.

“And what do you intend to do now?” Sir Harold was asking the Professor. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe that you’re going to luxuriate here and then return to Carinae, in the midst of the deepest political crisis of the century.”

Leoh shrugged and hiked his eyebrows, an expression that sent a network of creases across his fleshy face. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I’d still like to take a good look at some ideas for better interstellar transportation. And I’d want to be on hand here if those savages from Kerak try to use the dueling machine for their own purposes again.”

Nodding, Spencer rumbled, “I knew it. You’re getting yourself involved in politics. Sooner or later you’ll be after my job.”

Even Hector laughed at that.

More seriously, Spencer went on, “You know, of course, that I’m here officially to attend the inauguration of General Martine as the new Prime Minister.”

“Yes,” said Leoh. “And your real reason for coming?”

Lowering his voice slightly, Spencer answered, “I hope to persuade Martine to join the Commonwealth. Or at least to sign a treaty of alliance with us. It’s the only way that Acquatainia can avoid a war with Kerak. All of Acquatainia’s former allies have been taken over by Kerak or frightened off. Alone, the Acquatainians are in grave danger. As a Commonwealth member, or an ally, I doubt that even Kanus would be foolish enough to attack them right now.”

“But Acquatainia has always refused Commonwealth membership… or even an alliance.”

“Yes, but General Martine might see things differently now that Kanus is obviously preparing for war,” Spencer said.

“But the General…” Hector began, then stopped.

“Go on, my boy. What were you going to say?”

“Well, it might not be anything important… just something that Geri told me about the General… er, the Prime Minister. She, eh, well, she said he’s a stubborn, shortsighted, proud old clod. Those were her words, sir.”

Spencer huffed. “The Terran embassy here used slightly different terms, but they painted the same picture of him.”

“And, uh, she said he’s also very brave and patriotic .… but short-tempered.”

Leoh turned a worried expression toward Spencer. “It doesn’t sound as though he’d be willing to admit that he needs Commonwealth protection, does it?”

Shrugging, Sir Harold replied, “The plain fact is that an alliance with the Commonwealth is the only way to avert a war. I’ve had our computer simulators study the situation. Now that Kerak has absorbed Szarno and has neutralized Acquatainia’s other former allies, the computer predicts that Kerak will defeat Acquatainia in a war. Ninety-three percent probability.”

Leoh’s look of gloom sank deeper.

“And once Kanus has Acquatainia under his grasp, he’ll attack the Commonwealth.”

“What? But that’s suicide! Why should he do that?”

“I’d say it’s because he’s a lunatic,” Spencer answered, with real anger edging his voice. “The sociodynamicists tell me that Kanus’ sort of dictatorship must continually seek to expand, or it will fall apart from internal dissensions and pressures.”

“But he can’t beat the Commonwealth,” Hector said.

“Correct,” Spencer agreed. “Every computer simulation we’ve run shows that the Commonwealth would crush Kerak, even if Kanus has Acquatainia’s resources in his hands.”

The Star Watch Commander paused a moment, then added, “But the computers also predict that the war will cost millions of lives on both sides. And it will trigger off other wars, elsewhere, that could eventually destroy the Commonwealth entirely.”

Leoh leaned back with the shock. “Then—Martine simply must accept Commonwealth alliance.”

Spencer nodded. But his face showed that he didn’t expect it.

3

Leoh and Hector watched General Martine’s inauguration on tri-di, in the professor’s apartment. That evening, they joined the throngs of politicians, businessmen, military leaders, ambassadors, artists, visitors, and other VIP’s who were congregating at the city’s main spaceport for the new Prime Minister’s inaugural ball. The party was to be held aboard a satellite orbiting the planet.

“Do you think Geri will be there?” Hector asked Leoh as they pushed along with the crowd into a jammed shuttle craft.

The Watchman was wearing his dress black-and-silver uniform, with the comet insignias on his collar. Leoh wore a simple cover-all, as advised in the invitation to the party. It was a splendid crimson with gold trim.

“You said she’s been invited,” Leoh answered over the hubbub of the hundreds of other conversations.

They found a pair of seats together and strapped themselves in.

“But she wasn’t certain that she ought to go… what with her father’s death only a few weeks ago.”

Leaning back in the padded chair, Leoh said, “Well, if she’s, not there, you can spend hours telling her all about the party.”

The Watchman’s lean face broke into a toothy grin. “I hadn’t thought of that…”

The shuttle filled quickly with noisy party goers and then took off. It flew like a normal rocket plane to the top of the atmosphere, then boosted swiftly to the satellite. The party was well under way when Hector and Leoh stepped from the shuttle’s air lock into the satellite.

It was a huge globular satellite, with all the interior decks and bulkheads removed so that it was as hollow as an enormous soap bubble. The shell of the “bubble” was transparent, except for small disks around the various air locks.

There must have been more than a thousand people present already, Leoh guessed as he took a first look at the milling throng floating weightlessly through the vast globe. They seemed to be suspended over his head, many of them upside down, others hanging sideways or calmly drifting along and gesturing, deep in conversation. Most of them held drinks in sealed plastic squeeze containers with straws poking out from their tops. The crowd formed a dizzying kaleidoscope overhead: brilliant costumes, flashing jewelry, buzzing voices, crackling laughter, all mixing and gliding effortlessly in mid-air.

Leoh put a hand out to Hector, to steady himself.

“Must be some sort of grav field along the shell,” the Watchman said, pulling one boot tackily from the floor.

“For the fainthearted, I suppose,” Leoh said.

The other shuttle passengers were streaming past them and launching themselves like swimmers away from the air lock, coasting gracefully up into the huge chamber.

Looking around, Leoh saw refreshment bars spotted along the shell, and more floating overhead. He turned back to Hector and said, “Why don’t you go look for Geri, and I’ll try to find Harold.”

“I sort of think I should stay close to you, Professor. After all, my job is to, uh, that is…”

“Nonsense! There are no Kerak assassins in this crowd. Go find Geri.”

Grinning, Hector said, “All right. But I’ll be keeping one eye on you.”

With that, Hector jumped off the floor to join the weightless throng. But he jumped a bit too hard, banged into a rainbow-clad Acquatainian who was floating past with a drink in his hand, and knocked the drink, the man, and himself spinning. The drink’s cover popped open and globules of liquid spattered through the air, hitting other members of the crowd and breaking into constantly smaller droplets. A woman screamed.

The Acquatainian righted himself immediately, but Hector couldn’t stop. He went tumbling head over heels, cleaving through the crowd like a runaway chariot, emitting a string of, “Wh… whoops… look out.… gosh… pardon me… watch it…”

Leoh stood rooted to his spot beside the air lock, staring unbelievingly as Hector barreled through the crowd. The weightless guests scattered before him, some yelling angrily, a few women screaming, most of them laughing. Then they closed in again, and Leoh could no longer see the Watchman. A trio of servants took off after him, chasing across the gigantic globe to intercept him.

Only then did Leoh notice a servant standing beside him, with a slim belt in his hands. “A stabilizer, sir. Most of the guests have their own. It is very difficult to maneuver weightlessly without one… as the Star Watchman is demonstrating.”

Leoh accepted the belt, decided there wasn’t much he could do about Hector except add to the confusion, so he floated easily up into the heart of the party. The sensation of weightlessness was pleasant, like floating in a pool of water. He got himself a drink in one of the special covered cups and sucked on the straw as he drifted toward a large knot of people near the center of the globe.

Suddenly Hector pinwheeled past him, looking helpless and red-faced, as a couple of servants swam after him as hard as they could. The party goers laughed as Hector buzzed by, then returned to their conversations. Leoh put out a hand, but the Watchman was past and disappeared into the crowd again.

Leoh frowned. He loathed big parties. Too many people, too little activity. People talked incessantly at parties, but said nothing. They ate and drank despite the fact that they weren’t hungry. They spent hours listening to total strangers whom they would never see again. It was a mammoth waste of time.

Or are you merely bored, he asked himself, because no one here recognizes you? They seem to be having a fine time without the famous inventor of the dueling machine.

Leoh drifted toward the transparent wall of the satellite and watched the glowing surface of the planet outside, a huge solid sphere bathed in golden sunlight. Then he turned and floated effortlessly until he got a good view of the stars. The Acquataine Cluster was a jewel box of gleaming red and gold and orange stars, packed together so thickly that you could barely see the black background of space.

So much beauty in the universe, Leoh thought.

“Professor Leoh?”

Startled out of his reverie, Leoh turned to see a small, moon-faced, balding man floating beside him and extending his hand in greeting.

“I am Lal Ponte,” he said as Leoh shook his hand. “It is an honor to meet you.”

“An honor for me,” Leoh replied with the standard Acquatainian formality.

“You are probably looking for Sir Harold, and I know the Prime Minister would like to see you. Since they’re both in the same place, may I take you to them?” Ponte’s voice was a squeaky tenor.

Leoh nodded. “Thanks. Lead the way.”

Ponte took off across the satellite, worming his way around knots of people—many of them upside down. Leoh followed. Like a freighter being towed by a tub, he thought of the sight of his bulky self tagging along after the mousy-looking Acquatainian.

Leoh searched his memory. Lal Ponte: the new Secretary of Interior Affairs. Until a few weeks ago, Ponte had been an insignificant member of the legislature. But in the hectic voting for a new Prime Minister, with four possible candidates splitting the legislature almost evenly, Ponte had risen from obscurity to bring a critical dozen votes to General Martine’s side. His reward was the Cabinet position.

Ponte glided straight into an immense clot of people near the very center of the satellite. Leoh followed him ponderously, bumping shoulders and elbows, getting frowns and mutterings, apologizing like a latecomer to the theater who must step on many toes to reach his seat.

“Who’s the old one?” he heard a feminine voice whisper.

“Ah, Albert, there you are!” Spencer called as they got to the center of the crowd. With that, the crowd flowed back slightly to make room for Leoh. The mutterings took on a different tone.

“General Martine,” Spencer said to the new Prime Minister, “you of course know Albert Leoh, the inventor of the dueling machine and one of the Commonwealth’s leading scientists.”

A buzz of recognition went through the crowd.

Martine was tall and slim, wearing a military uniform of white and gold that accentuated his lean frame. His face was long, serious, with sad hound’s eyes and a prominent patrician nose. He nodded and put on a measured smile. “Of course. The man who defeated Kerak’s assassin. It is good to see you again, Professor.”

“Thank you for inviting me,” Leoh responded. “And congratulations on your election.”

Martine nodded gravely.

“I have been trying to convince the Prime Minister,” Spencer said in his heavy public-address voice, “that Acquatainia would benefit greatly from joining the Commonwealth. But he seems to have reservations.”

Martine raised his eyes to look beyond the crowd, out toward the satellite’s transparent shell and the golden planet beyond.

“Acquatainia has traditionally remained independent of the Commonwealth,” Martine said. “We have no need of special trade advantages or political alliances. We are a rich and strong and happy people.”

“But you are threatened by Kerak,” Leoh said.

“My dear Professor,” Martine said, raising himself slightly and looking down on Leoh, “I have been a military man all my adult life. I had the honor of helping to defeat Kerak a generation ago. I know how to deal with military threats.”

Far across the satellite, at one of the air lock entrances, Hector—wearing a stabilizer belt now—hovered above a crowd of latecomers as they came through the air lock, searching their faces. And there she was!

He rushed down into them, accidentally pushing three Jeweled and cloaked businessmen into an equal number of mini-gowned wives, stepping on the foot of a burly Acquatainian colonel, and jostling through the new arrivals to get to Geri Dulaq.

“You came,” he said, taking both her hands in his.

Her smile made his knees flutter. “I hoped you’d be here, Hector.”

“I… well,” he was grinning like an idiot, “I’m here.”

“I’m glad.”

They stood there at the air lock entrance, looking at each other, while people elbowed their way around them to get into the party.

“Hector, shouldn’t we move away from the air lock?” Geri suggested gently.

“Huh? Oh, sure.… He walked her toward a slightly sweaty servant (one of the posse who had chased Hector across the satellite) and then took a stabilizer belt from him.

“You’ll need one of these belts before you try to float Otherwise it’s, eh, kind of tricky trying to maneuver.”

The servant gritted his teeth and glared.

Geri blinked her large brown eyes at Hector. “Will you show me how it works? I’m terribly poor at things like this.”

Restraining an impulse to leap off the floor and do a triple somersault, Hector said simply, “Oh, there’s really nothing to it…” he glanced at the sweaty-faced servant, then added, “once you get the hang of it.”

Spencer was saying, with some edge to his voice, “But when you defeated Kerak, you had the Szarno Confederacy and several other star-nations on your side. Now your old alliances are gone. You are alone against Kerak.”

Martine sighed like a man being forced to exert great patience. “I repeat, Sir Harold, that Acquatainia is strong enough to defeat any Kerak attack without Star Watch assistance.”

Leoh shook his head, but said nothing.

Lal Ponte, floating beside his Prime Minister and looking like a small satellite near a large planet, said, “The Prime Minister is making plans for an impenetrable defense system, a network of fortified planets and star-ship fleets so strong that Kerak would never dare to attack it.”

“And suppose,” Spencer countered, “Kerak attacks before this defense line is completed? Or attacks from a different direction?”

“We will fight and win,” Martine said.

Spencer ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Don’t you realize that an alliance with the Commonwealth—even a token alliance—will force Kanus to pause before he dares to attack? Your objective, it seems to me, should be to prevent a war from starting. Instead, you’re concentrating on plans to win the war, once it begins.”

“If Kanus wants war,” Martine said, “we will defeat him.”

“But he can be defeated without war,” Spencer insisted.

Leoh added, “No dictator can last long without the threat of war to keep his people frightened enough to serve him. And if it becomes clear that Acquatainia cannot be attacked successfully…”

“Kanus wants war,” Martine said.

“And so do you, apparently,” Spencer added.

The Prime Minister glared at Spencer for a long moment, then turned and said, “Excuse me, I am neglecting my other guests.”

He pushed away, accompanied by a half-dozen followers, leaving Spencer, Leoh, and Lal Ponte in the middle of a suddenly dissipating crowd.

Geri and Hector floated close to the transparent shell, looking out at the stars, barely aware of the music and voices from the party.

“Hector.”

“Yes?”

“Will you promise me something?”

“Sure. What is it?”

Her face was so serious, so beautiful, he could feel his pulse throbbing through his body.

“Do you think Odal will ever return to Acquatainia?”

The question surprised him. “Uh… I don’t know. Maybe. I sort of doubt it. I mean, well.…”

“If he ever does .…” Geri’s voice trailed off.

“Don’t worry,” Hector said, holding her close to him. “I won’t let him hurt you… or anybody else.”

Her smile was overpowering. “Hector, dearest Hector. If Odal should ever return here, would you kill him for me?”

Without a microsecond’s thought, he replied, “I’d challenge him as soon as I saw him.”

Her face grew serious again. “No. I don’t mean in the dueling machine. I mean really. Kill him.”

“I don’t understand the Prime Minister’s attitude,” Leoh said to Spencer and Lal Ponte.

“He has great pride,” Ponte answered, “the pride of a military man. And we have great pride in him. He is the man who can lead Acquatainia back to glory. Dulaq and Massan… they were good men, but civilians, too weak to deal with Kanus of Kerak.”

“They were political leaders,” Spencer rumbled. “They realized that war is an admission of failure. War is the last resort, when all else fails.”

“We are not afraid of war!” Ponte snapped.

“You should be,” Leoh said.

“Why? Do you doubt that we could defeat Kerak?”

“Why run the risk when you could avoid the war altogether?”

The little politician waved his arms agitatedly, a maneuver that caused him to bob up and down weightlessly. “We are not afraid of the Kerak Worlds! You assume that we are cowards who must run under the skirts of your Terran Commonwealth at the first sign of danger!”

“Lack of judgment is worse than cowardice,” said Leoh. “Why do you insist?”

“You accuse the Acquatainian government of stupidity?”

“No, I…”

His voice rising higher and higher, Ponte squeaked, “Then you accuse me of stupidity… or the Prime Minister, perhaps?”

“I am only questioning your judgment about.…”

“And I accuse you of cowardice!” Ponte screeched.

People were turning to watch them now. Ponte bobbed up and down, raging. “Because you are afraid of this bully, Kanus, you assume that we should be!”

“Now really…” Spencer began.

“You are a coward!” Ponte screamed at Leoh. “And I will prove it. I challenge you to meet me in your own dueling machine!”

For the first time in years, Leoh felt his own temper flaring. “This is the most asinine argument I’ve ever seen.”

“I challenge you!” Ponte insisted. “Do you accept the challenge, or will you slink away and prove your cowardice?”

“Accepted!” Leoh snapped.

4

The sun was a small bluish-white disk high in the sky of Meklin, one of Kerak’s forced agriculture planets. Up here on the ridge, the wind felt chill to Odal, despite the heat in the valley farmlands below. The sky was cloudless, but the wind-rippled trees rustled a mosaic of gold and red against the blue.

Odal saw Runstet sitting on the grass in a patch of sunlight with his wife and three small children. The oldest, a boy, could hardly have been more than ten. They were enjoying a picnic, laughing at something that had escaped Odal’s notice.

The Kerak major stepped forward. Runstet saw him and paled. He got up to face Odal.

“This is not what I want to see,” Odal said quietly. “You’ll have to do better.”

Runstet stood there, rooted to the spot, while everything around him began to flicker, dim. The children and their mother, still laughing, grew faint and their laughter faded. The woods seemed to go misty, then disappeared altogether. Nothing was visible except Runstet and the fearful look on his face.

“You are trying to hide your memories from me by substituting other memories,” Odal said. “We know that you met with certain other high-ranking army officers at your home three months ago. You claim it was a social occasion. I would like to see it.”

The older man, square-jawed, his hair an iron gray, was obviously fighting for self-control. Fear was in him, Odal knew, but he also sensed something else: anger, stubbornness, and pride.

“Inferior-grade officers were not invited to the… to the party. It was strictly for my old classmates, Major.” General Runstet accented the last word with as much venom as he could muster.

Odal felt a flash of anger, but replied calmly, “May I remind you that you are under arrest and therefore have no rank. And if you insist on refusing me access to your memories of this meeting, more stringent methods of interrogation will be used.” Fool! he thought. You’re a dead man and yet you refuse to admit it.

“You can do anything you want to,” Runstet said. “Drugs, torture… you’ll get nothing from me. Use this damnable dueling machine for a hundred years and I’ll still tell you nothing!”

Unmoving, Odal said, “Shall I recreate the scene for you? I have visited your home in Meklin, and I have a list of the officers who attended your meeting.”

“When Marshal Lugal learns how Kor and his trained assassins have treated a general officer, you’ll all be exterminated!” Runstet bellowed. “And you! An officer yourself. A disgrace to the uniform you wear!”

“I have my duty,” Odal said. “And I am trying to spare you some of the more unpleasant methods of interrogation.”

As Odal spoke, the mist around them dissolved and they were standing in a spacious living room. Sunlight streamed through the open patio doors. Nearly a dozen men in army uniforms sat on the couches. But they were silent, unmoving.

“Now then,” said Odal, “you will show me exactly what happened. Every word and gesture, every facial expression.”

“Never!”

“That in itself is an admission of guilt,” Odal snapped. “You have been plotting against the Leader; you and a number of others of the general staff.”

“I will not incriminate other men,” Runstet said stubbornly. “You can kill me, but…”

“We can kill your wife and children, too,” Odal said softly.

The General’s mouth popped open and Odal could feel the panic flash through him. “You wouldn’t dare! Not even Kanus himself would.…”

“Accidents happen,” said Odal. “As far as the rest of Kerak is concerned, you are hospitalized with a mental breakdown. Your despondent wife might take her own life, or your entire family could die in a crash while on their way to the hospital to see you.”

Runstet seemed to crumple. He did not physically move or say a word, but his entire body seemed to soften, to sag. Behind him, one of the generals stirred to life. He leaned forward, took a cigar from the humidor on the low table before him, and said:

“When we’re ready to attack the Acquatainians, just how far can we trust Kanus to allow the army to operate without political interference?”

5

“I simply don’t understand what came over me,” Leoh said to Spencer and Hector. “I never let my temper get the better of me.”

They were standing in the former lecture hall that housed the grotesque bulk of the dueling machine. No one else had entered yet; the duel with Ponte was still an hour away.

“Come now, Albert,” said Spencer. “If that whining little politician had spoken to me the way he did to you, I’d have been tempted to hit him there and then.”

Leoh shrugged.

“These Acquatainians are an emotional lot,” Spencer went on. “Frankly, I’m glad to be leaving.”

“When will you go?”

“As soon as this silly duel is finished. It’s quite clear that Martine is unwilling to accept any support from the Commonwealth. My presence here is merely aggravating him and his people.”

Hector spoke for the first time. “That means there’ll be war between Acquatainia and Kerak.” He said it quietly, his eyes gazing off into space, as though he were talking to himself.

“Both sides want war,” Spencer said.

“Stupidity,” muttered Leoh.

“Pride,” Spencer corrected. “The same kind of pride that makes men fight duels.”

Startled, Leoh was about to answer until he saw the grin on Spencer’s leathery face.

The chamber filled slowly. The meditechs who operated the dueling machine came in, a few at a time, and started checking out the machine. There was a new man on the team, sitting at a new console. His equipment monitored the duels and made certain that neither of the duelists was getting telepathic help from outside.

Ponte and his group arrived precisely at the appointed time for the duel. Four newsmen appeared in the press gallery, high above. Leoh suppressed a frown. Surely a duel involving the machine’s inventor should warrant more attention from the networks.

They went through the medical checks, the instructions on using the machine (which Leoh had written), and the agreement that the challenged party would have the first choice of weapons.

“My weapon will be the elementary laws of physics,” Leoh said. “No special instructions will be necessary.”

Ponte’s eyes widened slightly with puzzlement. His seconds glanced at each other. Even the dueling machine’s meditechs looked uncertain. After a heartbeat’s silence, the chief meditech shrugged.

“If there are no objections,” he said, “let us proceed.”

Leoh sat patiently in his booth while the meditechs attached the neurocontacts to his head and torso. Strange, he thought. I’ve operated dueling machines hundreds of times. But this is the first time the other man in the machine is really angry at me. He wants to kill me.

The meditechs left and shut the booth. Leoh was alone now, staring into the screen and its subtly shifting colors. He tried to close his eyes, found that he couldn’t, tried again and succeeded.

When he opened them he was standing in the middle of a large, gymnasium-like room. There were windows high up near the lofty ceiling. Instead of being filled with athletic apparatus, this room was crammed with rope pulleys, inclined ramps, metal spheres of all sizes from a few centimeters to twice the height of a man. Leoh was standing on a slightly raised, circular platform, holding a small control box in his hand.

Lal Ponte stood across the room, his back to a wall, frowning at the jungle of unfamiliar equipment.

“This is a sort of elementary physics lab,” Leoh called out to him. “While none of the objects here are really weapons, many of them can be dangerous if you know how to use them. Or if you don’t know.”

Ponte began to object. “This is unreasonable…”

“Not really,” Leoh said pleasantly. “You’ll find that the equipment is spread around the room to form a sort of maze. Your job is to get through the maze to this platform, and to find something to use as a weapon on me. Now, there are traps in the maze. You’ll have to avoid them. And this platform is really a turntable… but we’ll talk about that later.”

Ponte looked around. “You are foolish.”

“Perhaps.”

The Acquatainian took a few steps to his right and lifted a slender metal rod. Hefting it in his hand, he started toward Leoh.

“That’s a lever,” the Professor said. “Of course, you can use it as a club if you wish.”

A tangle of ropes stood in Ponte’s way. Instead of detouring around them, he pushed his way through.

Leoh shook his head and touched a button on his control box. “A mistake, I’m afraid.”

The ropes—a pulley, actually—jerked into motion and heaved the flooring under Ponte’s feet upward. The Acquatainian toppled to his hands and knees and found himself on a platform suddenly ten meters in the air. Dropping the lever, he began grabbing at the ropes. One of them swung free and he jumped at it, curling his arms and legs around it.

“Pendulum,” Leoh called to him. “Watch your…”

Ponte’s rope, with him on it, swung out a little way, then swung back again toward the mid-air platform. He cracked his head nastily on the platform’s edge, let go of the rope, and thudded to the floor.

“The floor’s padded,” Leoh said, “but I forgot to pad the edge of the platform. Hope it didn’t hurt you too badly.”

Ponte sat up groggily, his head rolling. It took him three tries to stand up again. He staggered forward.

“On your right is an inclined plane of the sort Galileo used, only much larger. You’ll have to hurry to get past the ball.…”

At a touch of Leoh’s finger on the control box, an immense metal ball began rolling down the gangway-sized plane. Ponte heard its rumbling, turned to stare at it goggle-eyed, and barely managed to jump out of its way. The ball rolled across the floor, ponderously smashing everything in its way until it crashed against the far wall.

“Perhaps you’d better sit down for a few moments and gather your wits,” Leoh suggested.

Ponte was puffing hard. “You… you’re a devil… a smiling devil.”

He reached down for a small sphere at his feet. As he raised his hand to throw it, Leoh touched the control box again and the turntable platform began to rotate slowly. Ponte’s awkward toss missed him by a meter.

“I can adjust the turntable’s speed,” Leoh explained as Ponte threw several more spheres. All missed.

The Acquatainian, his once-bland face furiously red now, rushed toward the spinning platform and jumped onto it, on the side opposite Leoh. He still had two small spheres in his hand.

“Be careful,” Leoh warned as Ponte swayed and nearly fell off. “Centrifugal force can be tricky.…”

The two men stood unmoving for a moment: Leoh alertly watching, Ponte glaring. The room appeared to be swinging around them.

Ponte threw one of the spheres as hard as he could. It seemed to curve away from Leoh.

“The Coriolis force,” said Leoh, in a slightly lecturing tone, “is a natural phenomenon on rotating systems. It’s what makes the winds curve across a planet’s rotating surface.”

The second sphere whistled by, no closer than the first.

“I should also warn you that this platform is made of alternate sections of magnetic and nonmagnetic materials.” Leoh gestured toward the mosaic-colored floor. “Your shoes have metal in them. If you remain on the magnetized sections, the red ones, you should be able to move about without too much difficulty.”

He touched the control box again and the turntable speeded up considerably. The room seemed to whirl wildly around them now. Leoh hunched down and leaned inward.

“Of course,” he went on, “at the speed we’re going now, if you should step onto a nonmagnetized section.…”

Ponte started doggedly across the turntable, heading for Leoh, his eyes on the colored flooring. Leoh stepped carefully away from him, keeping as much distance between them as possible. Ponte was moving faster now, trying to keep one eye on Leoh and one on his feet. He stopped abruptly, started to move directly toward Leoh, cutting in toward the center of the turntable.

“Be careful!”

Ponte’s feet slipped out from under him. He fell painfully on his back, skidded across the turntable out to the edge, and shot across the floor to slam feet first into a big metal block.

“My leg…” He groaned. “My leg is broken…”

Leoh stopped the turntable and stepped off. He walked over to the Acquatainian, whose face was twisted with pain.

“I could kill you fairly easily now,” he said softly. “But I really have no desire to. You’ve had enough, I think.”

The room began to fade out. Leoh found himself sitting in the dueling machine’s booth, blinking at the now dead screen in front of him.

The door popped open and Hector’s grinning face appeared. “You beat him!”

“Yes,” Leoh said, suddenly tired. “But I didn’t kill him. He can try again with his own choice of weapons, if he chooses to.”

Ponte was white-faced and trembling as they walked toward him. His followers were huddled around him, asking questions. The chief meditech was saying:

“You may continue, if you wish, or postpone the second half of the duel until tomorrow.”

Looking up at Leoh, Ponte shook his head. “No… no. I was defeated. I can’t… fight again.”

The chief meditech nodded. “The duel is concluded, then. Professor Leoh has won.”

Leoh extended his hand to the Acquatainian. Ponte’s grasp was soft and sweaty.

“I hope we can be friends now,” Leoh said.

Looking thoroughly miserable, Ponte mumbled, “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

6

Long after everyone else had left the dueling machine chamber, Leoh, Spencer, and Hector remained behind, pacing slowly across the tiled floor, speaking in low voices that echoed gloomily in the vast room.

“I must go now, Albert,” Spencer said. “My ship was scheduled to leave half an hour ago. My adjutant, outside, is probably eating tranquilizers by now. He’s a good man, but extremely nervous.”

“And there’s nothing you can do to convince Martine?” Leoh asked.

“Apparently not. But if you’re going to remain on the scene here, perhaps you can try.”

Leoh nodded. “I can speak to the scientists here at the university. Their voices should carry some weight with the government.”

Spencer looked skeptical. “What else will you be tinkering with? I know you won’t be content without some sort of research problem to puzzle over.”

“I’m trying to find a way of improving on the star ships. We’ve got to make interstellar travel easier.…”

“The star ships are highly efficient already.”

“I know. I mean a fundamental improvement. Perhaps a completely different way to travel through space… as different as the star ships are from the ancient rockets.”

Spencer held up a beefy hand. “Enough! In another minute you’ll start spouting metadimensional physics at me. Politics is hard enough for me to understand.”

Leoh chuckled.

Turning to Hector, Sir Harold said, “Lieutenant, keep a close eye on him as long as he’s in Acquatainia. Professor Leoh is a valuable man—and my friend. Understood?”

“Yessir.”

Odal stood rigidly at attention before Kor. The Intelligence Minister was leaning back in his padded desk chair, his hands playing over an ornate dagger that he used as a pointer.

“You don’t enjoy your duties here?” Kor was smiling coldly.

“I am an army officer,” Odal said carefully. “I find that interrogation work is… unpleasant.”

Kor tapped the dagger against his fingernails. “But you are one of the few men who can use the dueling machine for interrogation. And you are by far the best man we have for the purpose. The others are amateurs compared to you. You have talent!”

“It is difficult for me to interrogate fellow army officers.”

“I suppose so,” Kor admitted. “But you have done quite well. We now know exactly who in the army we can trust, and who is plotting against the Leader.”

“Then my work here is finished.”

“The plotting involves more than the army, Major. It goes far wider and deeper. The enemies of the Leader infest every part of our government. Marshal Lugal is involved, I’m sure.…”

“But there’s no evidence.…”

“I’m convinced he’s involved,” Kor snapped. “And Romis, too!”

Kanus wants control of the army, Odal knew, and you want to eliminate anyone who can compete with you for Kanus’ favor.

“Don’t look so sour, Major,” said Kor, his smile broader and somehow more chilling. “You have served your Leader—and me—very well in these weeks. Now then .… how would you like to return to Acquatainia?”

Odal felt a shock of surprise and strange elation.

“Spencer has left Acquatainia,” Kor explained, “and our plans are going well. But Leoh still remains there. He is still dangerous. You will destroy him.”

“And the Watchman too,” Odal said.

Kor jabbed the dagger toward Odal. “Not so fast. Leoh will be destroyed by his own dueling machine, but in a very special way. In fact, he has already taken the first step toward his own destruction, in a duel with a simple little man who thinks he will be Prime Minister of Acquatainia, once Kerak conquers the Cluster.”

Frowning, Odal said, “I don’t understand.”

“You will, Major. You probably won’t enjoy what you must do, any more than Lal Ponte did. But you will do your duty to Kerak and to the Leader, just as Ponte did what we told him to. You won’t become Prime Minister of Acquatainia, of course—but then, neither will Lal Ponte.”

Kor’s laugh was like a knife scraping on bone.

7

The night sky of Acquatainia was a blaze of stars twinkling, shimmering, dazzling so brightly that there was no real darkness in the city, only a silvery twilight brighter than full moonlight on Earth.

Hector sat at the controls of the skimmer and raced it down the river that cut through the city, heading toward the harbor and the open ocean. He could smell the salt air already. He glanced across the skimmer’s tiny cockpit at Geri, sitting in the swivel seat beside him and hunched slightly forward to keep the spray off her face. The sight of her almost made it impossible for him to concentrate on steering the high-speed skimmer.

He snaked the little vessel through the other pleasure boats on the river, trailing a plume of slightly luminous spray. Out in the harbor there were huge freighters anchored massively in the main channel. Hector ran the skimmer over to shallower water, between the channel and the docks, as Geri stared up at the vast ocean-going ships.

Finally they were out on the deep swells of the sea. Hector cut the engine and the skimmer slowed, dug its prow into an oncoming billow, and settled its hull in the water.

“The rocking isn’t going to… uh, bother you, is it?” he asked, turning to Geri.

Shaking her head, she said, “Oh no, I love it here on the sea.” Now that they were resting easily on the water, Geri reached up and unpinned her hair. It fell around her shoulders with a softness that made Hector quiver.

“The cooker should be finished by now,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

He nodded. They got up together, bumped slightly as they squeezed between the two swivel seats to get to the padded bench at the rear of the cockpit. Geri smiled at him and Hector plopped back in the pilot’s seat, content to savor her perfume and watch her. She sat on the bench and opened the cooker’s hatch. Out came steaming trays of food.

Hector came over to the bench, stumbling slightly, and sat beside her.

“The drinks are in the cooler,” she said, pointing to the other side of the bench.

After dinner they sat together on the bench, heads back to gaze at the stars, while the skimmer’s autopilot kept them from drifting too far from the harbor.

“This, uh… thing about Odal,” Hector said, very reluctantly. “It’s not… well, it’s not the kind of thing that…”

“I know. It’s a terrible thing to ask you to do.” She put her hand in his. “But what else can I do? I’m only a girl; I can’t go out and kill him myself. I need a protector, a champion, someone who will avenge my father’s murder. You’re the only one I can turn to, Hector.”

“Yes, but… um… killing him, that’s…”

“It’ll be dangerous, I realize that. But you’re so brave. You’re not afraid of Odal, are you?”

“No, but…”

“And it won’t be anything more than a justifiable execution. He’s a murderer. You’ll be the sword of justice. My sword of justice.”

“Yes, but…”

She pulled away slightly. “Of course, Odal will probably never return to Acquatainia. But if he does, you can be sure it’s for one thing only.”

Hector blinked. “What’s that?”

“To murder Professor Leoh,” she said.

The Star Watchman slumped back on the bench. “You’re right. And I guess I’ve got to stop him from doing, that.”

Geri turned and grabbed him by the ears and kissed him. Hector felt his feet come off the deck. He held onto her and kissed back. Then she slid away from him. He reached for her, but she took his hand in hers.

“Let me catch my breath,” she said.

He eased over toward her, feeling his heart thumping louder than the slap of the waves against the skimmer’s hull.

“Of course,” Geri said coolly, “it seems that Professor Leoh can take care of himself in the dueling machine.”

“Uh-huh.” Hector edged closer to her.

“It was very surprising to hear that Lal Ponte had challenged the Professor,” she said, backing into the corner of the bench. “Ponte is such a… a nothing type of person. I never thought he’d have the courage to fight a duel.”

Leaning close to Geri and sliding an arm across the bench’s backrest and around her shoulders, Hector said nothing.

“I remember my father saying that if anyone in the legislature was working for Kerak, it would be Ponte.”

“Huh?”

Geri was frowning with the memory. “Yes, Father was concerned that Ponte was allied with Kerak. ‘If Kerak ever conquers us,’ Father said to me once, ‘that little coward will be our Prime Minister.’”

Hector sat upright. “But now he’s serving Martine… and Martine sure isn’t pro-Kerak.”

“I know,” Geri said, nodding, “Perhaps Father was wrong. Or Ponte may have changed his mind. Or…”

“Or he could still be working for Kerak.”

Geri smiled. “Even if he is, Professor Leoh took care of him.”

“Umm.” Hector leaned back again and saw that he and Geri had somehow moved slightly apart. He pushed over toward her.

“My foot!” Geri leaped up from the bench.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I step on…” Hector jumped up too.

Geri was hopping on one foot in the tiny cockpit, making the skimmer rock with each bounce. Hector reached out to hold her, but she pushed him away. The effort toppled her over backward. The cockpit gunwale caught her behind the knees and she flipped backward, howling, into the water with a good-sized splash.

Hector, appalled, never hesitated a second. He leaped right into the sea from the point where he stood, narrowly missing Geri as he hit the water, head first, arms and legs flailing.

He came up spouting, blurry-eyed, gasping. Geri was treading water beside him.

“I… I… I…”

She laughed. “It’s all right, Hector. It’s my own fault. I lost my temper when you stepped on my foot.”

“But… I… are you?…”

“It’s a lovely night,” she said. “As long as we’re in the water anyway, why don’t we have a swim?”

“Uh… fine, except, well, that is… I can’t swim,” Hector said, and slowly he sank under.

As he stepped from the ramp of the spaceship to the slideway that led into the terminal building, Odal felt a strange sense of exhilaration.

He was in Acquatainia again! The warm sunlight, the bustling throngs of people, the gleaming towers of the city—he almost felt Dulaq’s sense of joy about being here. Of course, Odal told himself, it’s probably just a reaction to being free of Kor’s dreary Ministry of Intelligence. But the Kerak major had to admit to himself—as he moved toward the spaceport terminal, escorted by four of Kor’s men—that Acquatainia had a rhythm, a freshness, a sense of freedom and gaiety that he had never found on Kerak.

Inside the terminal building, he had fifty meters of automated inspectors to walk through before he could get into the ground car that would take him to the Kerak embassy. If there was going to be trouble, it would be here.

Two of his escorts got into the inspection line ahead of him, two behind.

Odal walked slowly between the two full-length X-ray screens and then stopped before the radiation detector. He inserted his passport and embassy identification cards into the correct slot in the computer’s registration processor.

Then he heard someone in the next line, a woman’s voice, saying, “It is him! I recognize the uniform from the tri-di news.”

“Couldn’t be,” a man’s voice answered. “They wouldn’t dare send him back here.”

Odal purposely turned their way and smiled gravely at them. The woman said, “I told you it was him!” Her husband glared at Odal.

Kor had arranged for a few newsmen to be on hand. As Odal collected bis cards and travel kit at the end of the inspection line, a small knot of cameramen began grinding their tapers at him. He walked briskly toward the nearest doors, and the ground car that he could see waiting outside. His four escorts kept the newsmen at arm’s length.

“Major Odal, don’t you consider it risky to return to Acquatainia?”

“Do you think diplomatic immunity covers assassination?”

“Aren’t you afraid someone might take a shot at you?”

The newsmen yelped after him like a pack of puppies following a man with an armful of bones. But Odal could feel the hatred now. Not so much from the newsmen, but from the rest of the people in the crowded terminal lobby. They stared at him, hating him. Before, when he was Kerak’s invincible warrior, they feared him, even envied him. But now there was nothing in the crowd but hatred for the Kerak major, Odal knew.

He ducked into the ground car and sank into the back seat. Kor’s guards filled the rest of the car. The door slammed shut, and some of the emotion and noise coming from the terminal crowd was cut off. For the first time, Odal thought about why he had returned to Acquatainia. Leoh. He frowned at the thought of what he had to do. But when he thought about Hector, about revenging himself for the Star Watchman’s absurd victory in their duel, he allowed himself to smile.

8

Leoh sat slumped at the desk chair in the office behind the dueling machine chamber. He had some thinking to do, and his apartment was too comfortable for creative thought.

Through the closed door of the office he heard an outer door bang, hard fast-moving footsteps, and a piercing off-key whistle. With a reluctant smile, he told the door control to open. Hector was standing there with a fist raised, ready to knock.

“How’d you know?…”

“I’m partly telepathic,” Leoh said.

“Really? I didn’t know. Do you think that helped you in your duel with… oh, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.…”

Leoh raised a hand for silence. “Come in, my boy, and sit down. Tell me, have you seen the tri-di newscasts this morning?”

Taking a chair next to the Professor, Hector said, “No, sir. I, uh, got in kind of late last night and sort of late getting up this morning.… Got some water in my left ear… it gurgles every time I move my head…”

With an effort, Leoh stayed on the subject. “The newscasts showed Odal landing at the main spaceport. He’s returned.”

Hector jerked as though someone had stuck him with a pin. “He… he’s back?”

“Now don’t get rattled,” Leoh said as calmly as he could. “No one’s going to come in here with pistols blazing to assassinate me.”

“Maybe… but, well, I mean… there’s a chance that Odal—or somebody—will try something.”

“Nonsense,” Leoh grumbled.

Hector didn’t reply. He seemed to be lost in an inner debate; his face was flashing through a series of expressions: worried, puzzled, determined.

“What’s the matter?” Leoh asked.

“Huh? Oh, nothing… just thinking.”

“This news about Odal has upset you more than I thought it would.”

“No, no… I’m not upset… just, uh, thinking.” Hector shook his head, as if trying to clear his mind. Leoh thought he could hear the gurgling of water.

“It’s my duty,” Hector said, “to, uh, protect you. So I’ll have to stay, well, very close to you at all times. I think I should move into your apartment and stay with you wherever you go.”

Now Leoh found himself upset more than he thought he would be. But he knew that if he didn’t let the Watchman stay close to him openly, Hector would try to do it secretly, which would merely be more agonizing for both of them.

“All right, my boy, If you insist; although I think you’re being overly dramatic about this.”

Hector said, “No, I’ve got to be there when Odal shows up.… And anyway, I think the Terran ambassador was getting a little tired of having me around the embassy. He, uh, he seemed to be avoiding me as much as he could.”

Leoh barely suppressed a smile. “Very well. Get your things together and you can move in with me today,”

“Good,” Hector said. And to himself he added, I won’t leave him for a minute. Then when Odal shows up I can protect him… and do what Geri wants me to.

There was no escaping Hector. He moved into Leoh’s apartment and stood within ten meters of the old scientist, day and night. When Leoh awoke, Hector was already whistling shrilly in the autokitchen, punching buttons, and somehow managing to make the automatic equipment burn at least one part of breakfast. Hector drove him wherever he wanted to go, and stayed with him when he got there. Leoh went to sleep with Hector’s cheerful jabbering still in his ears.

Increasingly, they ate dinner at Geri Dulaq’s sumptuous home on the outskirts of the city. Hector waggled like an overanxious puppy whenever Geri was in sight. And Leoh saw that she was coolly able to keep him at arm’s length. There was something that she wanted Hector to do for her, the old man quickly realized, something Hector wouldn’t talk about. Which—for Hector—was completely unusual.

About a week after the news of Odal’s return, the Kerak major still hadn’t been seen outside of his embassy’s building. But an enterprising newsman, expecting new duels, asked for an interview with Leoh. The Professor met him at the dueling machine. Hector was at his side.

The newsman turned out to be Hector’s age and Leoh’s girth, florid in complexion, sloppy in dress, and slightly obnoxious in attitude.

“I know all about the basic principles of its operation,” he told Leoh airily when the Professor began to explain how the dueling machine worked.

“Oh? Have you had courses in psychonics?”

The newsman laughed. “No, but I understand all about this dream-machine business.”

Pacing slowly by the empty control desk and peering up at the dueling machine’s bulky consoles and power conditioners, he asked, “How can you be sure that people can’t be killed in this rig again? Major Odal actually killed people.…”

“I understand the question,” Leoh said. “I’ve added three new circuits to the machine. The first psychonically isolates the duelists inside the machine; it’s now impossible for Odal or anyone else to contact the outside world while the machine is in operation.”

The newsman turned up the volume control on his wrist recorder. “Go on.”

“The second circuit,” Leoh continued, “monitors the entire duel. If either side requests, the dueling machine’s chief meditech can review the tape and determine if any rules were broken. Thus, even if there is foul play of some sort, we can at least catch it”

“After the fact,” the newsman pointed out.

“Yes.”

“That wouldn’t have helped Dulaq or Massan, or the others that were killed.”

Leoh could feel irritation growing inside him. “After one duel, we could have found out what Odal was doing and stopped him.”

The newsman said nothing.

“Finally, we have added an automatic override to the medical monitoring equipment, so that if one of the duelists shows the slightest sign of actual medical danger, the duel is automatically stopped,”

The newsman thought it over for half a second. “Suppose a man gets a sudden heart attack? He might be dead before you can get the door to his booth open, even though you’ve stopped the duel immediately.”

Leoh fumed. “And if there’s an earthquake, both duelists and much of the city may be destroyed. Young man, there is no way to make the world absolutely safe.”

“Maybe not.” But his round, puffed face showed he didn’t believe it absolutely.

They talked for a quarter-hour more. Leoh showed him the equipment involved in the three new safety circuits and tried to explain how they worked. The newsman looked professionally skeptical and unimpressed. Leoh’s exasperation mounted.

“Frankly, Professor, all you’ve told me is a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo. There’s no guarantee that the machine won’t kill people again.”

Reddening, Leoh snapped back, “The machine didn’t kill anyone! A man murdered his opponents, deliberately.”

“In the machine.”

“Yes, but it can’t happen again!”

Shrugging, the newsman said, “All I’ve got to go on is your word.”

“My reputation as a scientist means something, I should think.”

Hector interrupted. “If the Acquatainian government is satisfied that the dueling machine’s safe.…”

The newsman laughed. “Both the government and the Professor claimed the machine was absolutely safe when it was first installed here. Two men died in this gadget, and who knows how many others have been killed in Szarno and other places?”

“But that…”

Turning back to Leoh, he asked, “How many people have been killed in dueling machines in the Commonwealth?”

“None!”

“You sure? I can check, you know.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“Look, it boils down to this: you told us the machine was safe, and two very important men were killed. Now you’re saying it’s safe again.…” He let the implication dangle.

“Out!” Leoh snapped. “Get out of here, or by all the ancient gods, old as I am…”

The newsman backed off a step. Then, “Suppose I am doubting you. Not your veracity, but your optimism about the machine’s being safe. Suppose I said you don’t really know that it’s safe, you’re just hoping that it is.”

Hector stepped between them. “Now wait… if you can’t.…”

“Suppose,” the newsman went on, ducking past Hector, “suppose I challenged you to a duel.”

“I’ve used this machine many times,” Leoh said.

“Okay, but I still challenge you.”

Suddenly Leoh felt absolutely calm. “Very well. I accept your challenge. And you can do whatever you want to during our duel to try to prove your point. But I insist on one condition: the tape of the duel must be made public knowledge immediately after the duel is finished.”

The newsman grinned. “Perfect.”

Leoh realized that this was what he had been after all along.

9

Odal sat in his cell-like room in the Kerak embassy, waiting for the phone message. The room was narrow and severe, with strictly functional furniture—a bed, a. desk and chair, a view screen. No decorations, plain military gray walls, no window.

Kor had explained the plan for Leoh’s destruction before Odal had boarded the ship for Acquatainia. Odal did not like the plan, but it seemed workable and it would surely remove Leoh from the scene.

The phone buzzed.

Odal leaned across the desk and touched the ON button. The newsman’s chubby face took form on the small screen.

“Well?” Odal demanded.

“He accepted the challenge. We duel in three days. And he wants the tape shown publicly, just as you thought he would.”

Odal smiled tightly. “Excellent.”

“Look, if I’m going to be made to look foolish on that tape,” the newsman said, “I think I ought to get more money.”

“I don’t handle the financial matters,” Odal said. “You’ll have to speak to the embassy accountant… after we see how well you play your part in the duel.”

Pouting, the newsman replied, “All right. But I’m going to be finished for life when that tape is shown.”

“We’ll take care of you,” Odal promised. Indeed, we’ll provide for you for the rest of your life.

Geri Dulaq walked briskly out of the sunlight of the university’s campus into the shadows of the dueling machine’s high-vaulted chamber.

“Hector, you sounded so worried on the phone…”

He took her hands in his. “I am. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. It’s… well, it’s happened again. First Ponte argues the Professor into a duel, and now this newsman. You think Ponte might be working for Kerak, so… I mean.…”

“Perhaps the newsman is too,” Geri finished for him.

Hector nodded. “And with Odal back… well, they’re brewing up something.…”

“Where is the Professor now?” Geri asked.

Pointing to the office behind the dueling machine chamber, Hector said, “In there. He doesn’t want to be disturbed… working on equations or something… about interstellar ships, I think.”

Geri looked surprised.

“Oh, he’s not worried about the duel,” Hector explained. “I told him all about Ponte… what you said, I mean. But he thinks the machine can’t be tampered with, so he’s not, uh, worried. And he beat Ponte pretty easily.”

Geri turned toward the massive, looming machine. “I’ve never been here before. It’s a little frightening.”

Hector put on a smile. “There’s nothing to be frightened about… that is, I mean, well, it’s only a machine. It can’t hurt you.”

“I know. It was Odal and Kanus’ hired monsters that killed father, not the machine itself.”

She walked along the long, curving, main control desk, looked over its banks of gauges and switches, ran a finger lightly across its plastisteel edge.

“Could you show me what it’s like?”

Hector blinked. “Huh?”

“In the dueling machine,” she said. “Can it be used for something else, other than duels? I’d like to see what it’s like to have your imagination made real.”

“Oh, but… well, you’re not… I mean, nobody’s supposed to ran it without… that is…”

“You do know how to run the machine, don’t you?” She looked right up into his eyes.

With a gulp, Hector managed a weak, “Oh sure…”

“Then can’t we use it together? Perhaps we can share a dream.”

Looking around, his hands suddenly clammy, Hector mumbled, “Well, uh, somebody’s supposed to be at the controls to, er, monitor the duel… I mean—”

“Just for a few little minutes?” Geri smiled her prettiest.

Hector melted. “Okay… I guess it’ll be all right. Just for a few minutes, that is.”

He walked with her to the farther booth and helped her put on the neurocontacts. Then he went back to the main desk and with shaky hands set the machine into action. He checked and double-checked all the controls, pushed the final switches, and dashed to the other booth, tripping as he entered it and banging noisily into the seat. He sat down, fumbled with the neurocontacts hastily, and then stared into the screen.

Nothing happened.

For a moment he was panic-stricken. Then the screen began to glow softly, colors shifted, green mostly, soft cool green with a hint of blue in it.…

And he found himself floating dreamily next to Geri in a world of green, with greenish light filtering down ever so softly from far above them.

“Hello,” Geri said.

He grinned at her. “Hi.”

“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be able to live underwater, without any equipment, like a mermaid.”

Hector noticed, when she said that, hundreds of fish swimming lazily about them. As his eyes adjusted to the subdued lighting, he saw sculptured shapes of coral about them, colors that he had never seen before.

“Our castle,” Geri said, and she swam slowly toward one of the coral pinnacles and disappeared behind it.

Hector found himself sliding easily after her. The water seemed to offer no resistance to his movement. He was completely relaxed, completely at home. He saw her up ahead, gliding gracefully along, and pulled up beside her. A great silver fish crossed in front of them, and brilliantly hued plants swayed gently in the currents.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Geri murmured. “Our own world, without troubles, without dangers.”

Hector nodded. It was hard to believe that they were actually sitting in a pair of booths some thirty meters apart. Hard to admit that there was another world where a war was brewing, where Odal was waiting to commit another murder.

A dark shape slid out from behind the rocks ahead. Geri screamed.

It was Odal. Slim, dressed in black, his lean face a mask of death.

“Hector, don’t let him! Hector, help me!”

Everything went black.

Hector snapped his eyes open. He was sitting in the booth beside Geri, his arms around her protectively. She was shuddering.

“How did.…”

“It was my fault,” she gasped. “I thought about Odal…”

The door to the booth was yanked open. Leoh stood there, his face a mixture of surprise and puzzlement.

“What are you two doing? All the lights and power in the building are off!”

“I’m sorry…” Hector began.

“It’s my fault,” Geri said. She explained what happened.

Leoh still looked puzzled. “But why are you both in the same booth?”

Hector started to answer, then it hit him. “I… I was in the other booth!”

“It’s empty,” Leoh said. “I looked in there first, when the power went off. The door was closed.”

Hector looked at Geri, then back at the Professor. “I must’ve jumped out of the booth and ran over here… but, I mean… I don’t remember doing it.”

The chief meditech came striding into the room, his steps clicking angrily against the hard flooring. “What’s going on here? Who blew out the power?”

Turning, Leoh said, “It’s all right, just a little experiment that didn’t work out.”

The chief meditech looked over the control console in the fading sunlight of the afternoon as Geri and Hector got out of the booth. He muttered and glared at them.

“No permanent damage, I’m sure,” Leoh said as soothingly as he could.

The lights on the control panels sprang back to life, as did the room’s main illumination lights. “Hmp,” grunted the chief meditech. “I guess it’s all right. The power’s on again.”

“I don’t understand it,” Hector said.

“Neither do I,” Leoh answered. “But it’s something to think about.”

“What is?”

“How Hector got from one booth to the other.” To the chief meditech he called out, “I’m going to take the tape of this, er, experiment. Do you mind?”

The chief meditech was still inspecting the machine with the aggressive solicitude of a worried father. He nodded curtly to Leoh. “I don’t think you should do any more such experiments until we have back-up power units installed. The entire building was blacked out.”

10

Leoh sat in his office behind the dueling machine room, staring at the now blank view screen. In three days he had run the tape at least a hundred times. He had timed it down to the picosecond. He had seen Geri and Hector swimming lazily, happily, like two humanized dolphins perfectly at ease in the sea. Then Odal’s shark-life form sliced into view. Geri screamed. The scene cut off.

It was precisely at that moment (within four picoseconds, as nearly as Leoh could calculate it) that the power in the whole building went off.

How long did it take Hector to get from his booth to Geri’s? Thirty seconds? Leoh was looking into Hector’s booth about thirty seconds after the power went off, he estimated. Less, then. Ten seconds? Physically impossible; no one could disconnect himself from the neurocontacts and spring from one booth to the other in ten seconds. And both booth doors were closed, too.

Leoh muttered to himself, “Knowing Hector’s manual dexterity, it’s difficult to imagine him making the trip in less than ten minutes.”

All right then, he asked himself, how did he get into Geri’s booth? Precognition? He realized ahead of time that Odal would appear and frighten Geri? Then why doesn’t he remember it, or even remember going from one booth to the other? And why the enormous power drain? What happened to the machine to cause it?

There was only one answer that Leoh could see, but it was so farfetched that he wanted to find another one. The one answer was teleportation.

The dueling machine amplifies the powers of natural telepaths. Some telepaths have been reported to be able to move small objects with no apparent physical force. Could the dueling machine amplify that talent, too? And drain all the power in the building to do it?

Leoh shook his head. Too much theorizing, not enough facts. He wished there were tape cameras in the booths; then he could have timed Hector’s arrival. Did he make the trip in four picoseconds? Or was it four-trillionths of a second?

The door slid open and Hector stood there uncertainly, his lanky form framed in the doorway.

Leoh looked up at him. “Yes?”

“It’s time… the, uh, newsman and his seconds are here for the duel.”

Feeling annoyed at the interruption, Leoh pushed himself out of the chair and headed for the dueling machine. “A lot of silliness,” he muttered. “Just a publicity stunt.”

The chief meditech, in his professional white cover-all now, introduced the duelists and their seconds. For Leoh, only Hector. For the newsman, his editor—a thin, balding, nervous type—and a network vice president, who looked comfortable and well-fed. Probably keeps three dietitians and a biochemist busy preventing him from going overweight, Leoh groused to himself.

They exchanged formalities and entered the booths. Hector sat at one end of the long, curving, padded bench that ran along the wall across the floor from the machine’s control desk. The editor and V.P. sat at the other end. Except for the meditechs, who took their stations at the control consoles, there was no one else in the room. The press gallery was empty. The lights on the panels winked on. The silent room vibrated with the barely audible hum of electrical power.

In ten minutes, all the lights on the control panels flicked from green to amber. The duel was finished.

Hector shot up and started for Leoh’s booth. The Professor came out, smiling slightly.

“Are you… did it go… all right?” Hector asked.

The newsman was getting out of the other booth. His editor put out a hand to steady him. The V.P. remained on the bench, looking half-disappointed, half-amused. The newsman seemed like a lumpy wad of dough, white-faced, shaken.

“He has terrible reflexes,” Leoh said, “and no concept at all of the most elementary rules of physics.”

The V.P. got up from his seat and walked over toward Leoh, his hand extended and a toothy smile on his smooth face. “Let me congratulate you, Professor,” he said in a hearty baritone.

Leoh took his hand, but replied, “This has been nothing but a waste of time. I’m surprised that a man in your position indulges in such foolishness.”

The V.P. bent his head slightly and answered softly, “I’m afraid I’m to blame. My staff convinced me that it would be a good idea to test the dueling machine and then make the results of the test public. You have no objection if we run the tape of your duel on our tri-di broadcasts?”

With a shrug, Leoh said, “Your man is going to look very foolish. He was run over by a bowling ball, and then overestimated his strength and popped his back trying to lift…”

The V.P. put up his hands. “I don’t care what the tape shows. I made up my mind to put it on the air, if you have no objections.”

“No, I don’t object.”

“You’ll become a famous man all over the planet,” the V.P. beamed. “Your name will become a household word; tri-di stardom can do that for you.”

“If the tape will convince the Acquatainian people that the dueling machine is safe, fine,” Leoh said. “As for fame… I’m already rather well known.”

“Ah, but not to the general public. Certainly you’re famous among your fellow scientists, and to the elite of Acquatainia and the Commonwealth. But all the general public’s seen of you has been a few fleeting glimpses on news broadcasts. But now you’re going to become very famous.”

“Because of one silly duel? I doubt that”

“You’ll see,” the V.P. promised.

The V.P. did not exaggerate. In fact, he had been overly conservative.

Leoh’s duel was broadcast over the tri-di networks all across the planet that night. Within the week, it had been shown throughout the Acquataine Cluster and was in demand in the Commonwealth.

It was the first time a duel had ever been seen by the general public, and the fact that the inventor of the dueling machine was involved made it doubly fascinating. The sight of the chubby newsman bumbling into obvious traps and getting tangled in pulleys and inclined planes with bowling balls atop them, while Leoh solicitously urged him to be careful every step of the way, struck most people as funny. The Acquatainians, living for months now with the fear of war hanging over them, found a sudden and immense relief in Leoh’s duel. Here was the inventor of the dueling machine, the man who had stopped the Kerak assassinations, appearing on tri-di, showing how clever he is, proving that Kerak is up against a mastermind.

The real facts of the matter—that Leoh had no influence with Martine’s government, that Odal was now back in Acquatainia, that Kerak war fleets were quietly deploying along the Acquatainian frontier—these facts the average Acquatainian submerged in his joy over Leoh’s duel.

Leoh became an instant public figure. He was invited to speak at every university in the Cluster. Tri-di shows vied for his appearance and newsmen followed his every move.

The old scientist tried to resist the pressure, at first. For the week after the original showing of his duel on tri-di, he refused to make any public statement.

“Tell them I’m busy,” he said to Hector, and he tried to barricade himself behind his equations and computer tapes in the office behind the dueling machine.

When the universities began calling on him, though, he bowed to their wishes. Before he knew it, he was swept away in a giddy tide of personal appearances, tri-di shows, and parties.

“Perhaps,” he told Hector, “this is the way to meet the people who influence Martine’s government. Perhaps I can convince them to consider the Commonwealth alliance, and they can put pressure on Martine.”

At parties, at private meetings, at press conferences, Leoh stressed the point. But there was no apparent affect The students, the professors, the newsmen, the businessmen, the tri-di audience—they wanted entertainment, not politics. They wanted to be assured that all was well, not forced to think about how to protect themselves.

The university lectures were huge successes, as lectures. Leoh expected to be speaking mainly to the psychonics students, but each vast auditorium was filled to overflowing with students and faculty from political science, physics, mathematics, sociology, psychiatry… thousands at each campus.

And at each university there were the local newsmen, tri-di appearances, discussion clubs. And the faculty parties in the evenings. And the informal student seminars in the late afternoons. And the newsman who just “dropped in for a few words” at breakfast time.

It took more than two months to make the rounds of each university in the Cluster. At first, Leoh tried to steal a few moments each day to work on the problem of Hector’s “jump.” But each day he woke up more tired, each day was filled with still more people to talk to, people who listened respectfully, admiringly. Each night he retired later; happy, exhausted, with a small nagging grumble in the back of his mind that he should really stop this show-business routine and get back to science.

Hector grew more and more worried as he shepherded Leoh from one campus to the next. The old man was obviously enjoying himself hugely, and just as obviously spending too much of his strength on the traveling and personal appearances and parties. What’s more, Geri was in the capital city, and all the eager smiling girls on all the campuses in the Cluster couldn’t replace her in his eyes.

In the midst of all this, Leoh even fought two more duels.

The first one was with a university physics student who had bet his friends that he could beat the Professor. Leoh agreed good-naturedly to the duel, provided the boy was willing to let the tape be shown on tri-di. The boy agreed.

Instead of the simple physics arena, Leoh chose a more difficult battleground: the intensely warped space in the powerful gravitational field of a collapsed star. The duelists fought in one-man spacecraft, using laser beams for weapons. The problem was to control the ship in a gravitational field so tenacious that one slip meant an inevitable spiral into the star’s seething surface; and to aim the laser weapons properly, where the relativistic warp of space drove straight-line physics out the window.

The boy tried bravely as the two ships circled the dying star. The tape showed the view from each ship, alternately. Now the viewer could see the black depths of space, empty except for a few distant pinpoints of stars, and the curving crescent of the other duelist’s ship streaking by, a pencil beam of laser light flicking out, bending weirdly in that crazy gravity field, seeking its target. Then the bluish inferno of the star would slide into view, blazing, brilliant, drowning out everything else from sight.

The boy fought well, but finally maneuvered himself too close to the star. He could have escaped if he had controlled the ship a little better. Instead, he power-dived straight into its flaming surface. The tri-di executives decided to erase his final screams from the tape before they showed it to the public.

The second challenge came from an Acquatainian merchant, one of the richest men in the Cluster, who had drunk too much at a party and picked a quarrel with Leoh. The Professor went back to the simple physics arena and disposed of him easily.

By the time Leoh (and Hector) returned to the capital, he was the darling of Acquatainian society. They feasted him, they toasted him, they took him to the ballet and opera, they did everything except let him alone to work. Geri was part of Acquatainia’s social leadership, so Hector at least got to see her—but only in crowded, noisy rooms.

11

Odal sat tensely to his room’s only chair and watched Kor’s bullet-shaped head on the view screen as the Intelligence Minister said:

“So far the plan has gone extremely well. Leoh has not only been of no trouble to us, but his exploits have distracted most of the soft-headed Acquatainians. Meanwhile our preparations are exactly on schedule.”

“The invasion,” Odal murmured.

Kor smiled. “We have—let us say, persuaded—the government of the Etra Domain to allow us to station a battle fleet in their territory. Etra stands between the Acquatainian Cluster and the nearest Star Watch bases. If the Commonwealth tries to intervene, we can hold up their forces long enough to allow us to conquer Acquatainia.”

Odal nodded curtly, he had heard the plan before.

“Now is the time,” Kor went on, “for you to supply the final step. The destruction of Leoh, and the complete lulling of the Acquatainians.”

Odal said nothing.

“You still do not like the role you are required to play,” Kor said. “No, don’t bother to deny it, I can see it in your face. Let me remind you that your duty may not always be pleasant, but if you succeed your rewards will be high.”

“I will do my duty, unpleasant or not,” Odal said stiffly. And I know the penalties for failure, he added silently.

Leoh looked bone-weary to Hector as they returned from the party. That morning, a new psychonics building had been dedicated at the university. It was named the Albert Robertus Leoh Center for Psychonics Studies.

The day had been spent in speeches on an outdoor platform in the morning, a tour of the new building in the afternoon, dinner with the president and trustees of the university, and the inevitable party that night.

“I’ve simply got to find time,” Leoh was saying as they stepped out of the lift tube into the hallway in front of their apartment, “to run some experiments on your ‘jump.’ We can use the tape of…”

But Hector was staring quizzically at the apartment door. It was open and the lights inside were on.

“Another newsman, I’ll bet,” Leoh said wearily.

“I’ll tell him to come back some other time,” said Hector. He moved ahead of Leoh and entered the apartment.

Sitting on the air couch in the middle of the living room was Odal.

“You!”

The Kerak major rose to his feet slowly, a tight smile on his face, as first Hector and then Leoh came in, saw him, and stopped.

“Good evening,” Odal said, getting to his feet. “Come right in. After all, this is your place.”

“How did you get into?…”

“That’s of no real concern. I’m here to settle some unfinished business. Professor Leoh, some time ago you accused me of cheating in the dueling machine. I was about to challenge you when the Watchman intervened. I challenge you now.”

“Now wait,” Hector began, “you can’t…”

“I already have. Professor, do you accept my challenge?”

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 straightaway,” 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 committing 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.”

“I disagree,” Leoh said, shifting his bulk in the frail-looking web chair. “Kerak has made great strides in isolating Acquatainia diplomatically…”

“But we never depended on our neighbors for our own defense,” a newsman said. “Those so-called allies of ours were more of a drain on our treasury than a help to us.”

“But Kerak now has the industrial base of Szarno and outposts that flank Prime Minister Martine’s new defense line.”

“Kerak would never dare attack us, and if they did, we’d beat them just as we did the last time.”

“But an alliance with the Commonwealth…”

“We don’t need it. Kanus is a paper tiger, believe me. All bluff, all dueling machine trickery, but no real strength. He’ll probably be deposed by his own people in another year or two.”

Something made Hector shift his gaze from the semicircle of sonorous solons to the technical crews working the cameras and laser lights. Something made him squint into the pooled shadows far in the back of the studio, where a single tall, slim man stood. Hector couldn’t see his face, or what he was wearing, or the color of his hair. Only the knife-like outline of a figure that radiated danger: Odal.

Without thinking twice about it, Hector pushed past the crowd in the control booth toward the door. He stepped on toes and elbowed technicians in the backs of their heads in his haste to get out into the studio, leaving a wake of muttering, sore-rubbing people behind him. He went right past Geri, who stepped back out of his way but refused to say anything to him or even look directly into his eyes.

The door from the control booth led into a small entryway that had two more doors in it: one to the outside hallway and one to the studio. A uniformed guard stood before the studio door.

“I’m sorry, sir, you can’t go in while the show’s in progress.”

“But… I saw someone come in the back way… into the studio…”

Shrugging, the guard said, “Must be a member of the camera crew. No one else allowed in.”

Hector blinked once, then went to the hall door. The corridor outside circled the studio. At least, he thought it did. He followed it around. Sure enough, there was another door with a blinking red light atop it, labeled STUDIO C. Hector pushed the door open. Inside, in the focus of a circle of lights and cameras, a man and woman were locked in a wild embrace.

“Hey, who opened the door?”

“Cut! CUT! Get that clown out of here! Can’t even tape a simple scene without tourists wandering into the studio! Of all the…”

Hector quickly shut the door, closing off a string of invective that would have made his old drillmaster back at the Star Watch Academy grin with appreciation.

Which studio are they in?

As if in answer, farther down the hall a door opened and Odal stepped out. He was not in uniform; instead he wore a simple dark tunic and slacks. But it was unmistakably Odal. He glanced directly at Hector, a sardonic smile on his lips, then started walking the other way. Hector chased after him, but Odal disappeared around a bend in the almost featureless corridor.

A door was closing farther down the hall. Hector sprinted to it and yanked it open. The room was dark. He stepped in.

In the faint light from the hallway, Hector saw row after row of life-sized tri-di viewscreens, each flanked by a desk of control and monitoring equipment. A tape viewing room, he reasoned. Or maybe an editing room.

He walked hesitantly toward the center of the room. It was big, filled with the bulky screens and desks. Plenty of room to hide in. The door snapped shut behind him, plunging the room into total darkness.

Hector froze rock-still. Odal was in here. He could feel it. Gradually his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. He turned slowly and began retracing his steps toward the door, only to bump into a chair and send it clattering into its desk.

“You defeated me in the dueling machine,” Odal’s voice echoed calmly through the room. “Now let’s see if you can defeat me in real life. This room is soundproof. We are alone. No one will disturb us.”

“Uh… I’m unarmed,” Hector said. It was hard to trace the source of Odal’s voice. The echoes spoiled any chance of locating him in the darkness.

“I’m also unarmed. But we are both trained fighting men. You have no doubt had standard Star Watch hand-to-hand combat training.”

The painful memory of fumbling through the rough-and-tumble courses at the Star Watch Academy surged through Hector’s mind. What he remembered most vividly was laying flat on his back with his instructor screaming, “No, no, no!” at him.

Odal stepped out from behind a full-length view screen. “You seem less than eager to do battle with me. Perhaps you’re afraid that you’ll hurt me. Let me demonstrate my qualifications.”

Odal’s foot lashed into one of the desk chairs, smashing its fragile frame against the tough plastic of the view screen. The chair disintegrated. Then he swung an edge-of-the-hand chop at the top of the nearby desk: the metal dented with a loud crunk!

Hector backed away until he felt another desk pressing against his legs. He glanced behind him and saw that it was some sort of master control unit, long and filled with complicated switches’ and monitor screens. Several roller chairs lined its length.

Odal was advancing on him. Something in the back of Hector’s mind was telling him to run away and hide, but then he heard the barking voice of his old instructor insisting, “The best defense is a fast, aggressive attack.” Hector took a deep breath, planted his feet solidly, and launched himself at Odal.

Only to find himself twisted around, lifted off his feet, and thrown back against the desk, banging painfully against the switches.

“LOOKING FOR THE IDEAL VACATION PARADISE?” a voice boomed at them. From behind Odal’s shoulder a girl in a see-through spacesuit did a free-fall somersault. Hector blinked at her, and Odal looked over his shoulder, momentarily amazed. The voice blared on, “JOIN THE FUN CROWD AT ORBIT HOUSE, ACQUATAINIA’S NEWEST ZERO-GRAVITY RESORT.…”

Through his mind flashed another maxim from his old instructor: “Whenever possible, divert your opponent’s attention. Create confusion. Feint, maneuver!”

Hector rolled off the desktop and ran along the master control unit, pounding every switch in sight.

“TIRED OF BEING CALLED SHORTY?” A disgruntled young man, standing on tiptoes next to a gorgeous, statuesque redhead, appeared beside Odal. The Kerak major involuntarily stepped back.

“THE IRRESISTIBLE PERFUME,” a seductive blonde materialized before his eyes, speaking smokily.

“MODERN SCIENCE CAN CURE ANY DISEASE, BUT WHEN EMBARRASSING…” said a medic, radiating sincerity and concern.

Odal was surrounded by solid-looking, life-sized, tri-di advertising pitches.

“WHEN YOU’VE EATEN MORE THAN YOU SHOULD…”

“THE NORMAL TENSIONS OF MODERN LIFE…

“FOR THE ULTIMATE IN FEMININE…”

Eyes goggling, Odal saw himself being pressed backward by a teenage dancer, an “average family” mother, a worried young husband, a nervous businessman, a smiling teen couple, a crowd of surfers, a chorus of animated vegetables. Suddenly bellowing with rage, Odal dived through the pleading, cajoling, urgent figures and threw himself at the long control desk.

“You can’t hide from me!” he roared, and he started punching at the control switches, banging the desk panels with both fists.

“Who’s hiding?” Hector yelled from behind him.

Odal turned and swung heavily at the voice. Startled, he saw his fist whisk through the impalpable jaw of a lovely girl in a skimpy bathing suit. She smiled at him and continued selling. “… AND WHEN YOU’RE IN THE MOOD FOR SOMETHING REALLY REFRESHING…”

Hector had ducked away. Odal turned and chased after the Watchman, trying to follow him as he flickered in and out among the dozens of tri-di images that were dancing, urging, laughing, drinking, eating, taking pills, worrying…

“You coward!” Odal screamed over the babble of sales talk.

“Why should I fight you?” Hector hollered back from somewhere across the room.

Odal squinted, trying to see through the gyrating tri-di figures. “You tricked me in the dueling machine but now there’ll be no tricks. I’ll find you, and when I do, I’ll kill you!”

The flash of a black-and-silver uniform among the fashion models, overweight women, underweight men, scientific demonstrations and new, new, new products. Odal headed in that direction.

“And what about Leoh?” Hector’s voice cut through the taped noise. “He killed you without any tricks. But you’re afraid to go after him now, aren’t you?”

Odal laughed. “Do you really believe that old man beat me? I could have destroyed him at any time I wished.”

He ducked under the arm of a well-preserved matron who was saying, “WHY LET ADVANCING AGE WORRY YOU, WHEN A REJUVE.…” There was Hector, edging slowly toward the door.

“You deliberately lost to Leoh?” Hector’s face, in the reflections of the tri-di images, looked more puzzled than frightened. “To make it seem…”

“To make it seem that Leoh is a great hero, and that Kerak is populated by weaklings and cowards. All his duels were designed for that purpose. And while he lulls the Acquatainians with his tales of victory, we prepare to strike.”

On the final word Odal leaped at Hector, hit him with satisfying solidity, shoulder in mid-section, and they both went down.

A tangle of arms and legs, knees and elbows, gasps, two strong young bodies grappling. Somehow they rolled into one of the desk chairs, which toppled down on them. Odal felt Hector slipping out of his grasp. As the Kerak major started to get back to his feet, the chair slid into him again and he slipped against it and hit the floor face first.

Swearing, he started to get up. But Hector was already on his feet. And then the door swung open, stabbing light from the hallway into the room. A girl stood there, with a gun in her trembling hand.

“Hector! Here!” Geri said, and she tossed the gun to the Watchman.

Hector grabbed it and pointed it at Odal. The Kerak major froze, on one knee, hands on the floor, head upturned, face a mask of rage turned to sudden fear. Hector stood equally immobile, arm outstretched with the gun aimed at Odal’s head.

“Kill him!” Geri whispered harshly. “Quickly, they’re coming!”

Hector let his arm relax. The gun dropped slightly away from Odal. “Get up,” he said. “And… don’t give me any excuses for using this thing.”

Odal got slowly to his feet.

“Kill him! You promised!” Geri insisted, half in tears.

“I can’t… not like this…”

“You mean you won’t!”

Nodding without taking his eyes off Odal, Hector said, “That’s right, I won’t. Not even for you.”

Odal’s voice was like a knife. “You’d better kill me, Watchman, while you have the chance. I’ll spend the rest of my life hunting you.”

A trio of uniformed guards puffed up to the doorway; behind them were a half-dozen people from the tri-di show, and Leoh.

“What’s going on? Who’s this? Are you…”

“This is Major Odal,” Hector said, pointing with the gun. “He’s… uh, under the protection of diplomatic immunity. Please escort him back to the Kerak embassy.”

His face expressionless, Odal nodded to the Star Watchman and went with the guards.

13

“You mean it all went out on the tri-di network? Every word?” asked Hector.

He, Leoh, and Geri were sitting in the back of an automated Dulaq ground car as it threaded its way through the darkened city, heading for Geri’s home. The midnight rain was falling for its programed half-hour, so the car’s bubble top was up.

Geri had not said a word since Odal was taken from the tri-di studio.

But Leoh was chuckling. “When you hit all those switches and turned on the commercial tapes, you also turned on the sound system for every studio. We heard the bedlam, with you and Odal shouting at each other over it all. It came over the speakers right in the middle of our show. You should have seen the look on everyone’s face!

And I understand that you ruined at least six other shows that were being taped at the time.”

“Really?” Hector squirmed. “I… that is, I didn’t mean… well, I’m sorry about that.…”

Waving a hand at him, Leoh said, “Relax, my boy. Your fight with Odal—the audio portion of it—was beamed into nearly every home on the planet. Everyone in Acquatainia knows what a fool I’ve been, and that Kerak is still as much of a threat as ever.”

“You’re not a fool,” Hector said.

“Yes, I’ve been one,” insisted Leoh. “Worse, I’ve been a dupe, letting my own glory get in the way of my judgment. But that’s over now. My place is in science, not politics, and certainly not show business! I’m going to concentrate on your ‘jump’ in the dueling machine. If that was a sample of teleportation, then the machine can amplify that talent, just as it amplified Odal’s telepathic abilities. Now, if we put enough power into the machine…”

The car glided to a stop under the roofed driveway in front of the entrance to Geri’s house. Leoh stayed in the car while Hector walked her to her door. In the shadows, he couldn’t see her face too well. They stopped at the door.

“Um… Geri, I… well, I just couldn’t kill him. Not… not like that. I wanted to please you… but, well, if you want an assassin… I guess it’s just not me that you’re interested in.”

She said nothing. A gentle warm breeze brought the odor of wet leaves to them.

Hector fidgeted.

Finally he said, “Well, good night…”

“Good-by, Hector,” Geri said flatly.

Leoh was studiously looking the other way, watching the final few drops of ram splatter on the statuary alongside the driveway, when Hector returned to the car. The old scientist looked at the Watchman as he ducked into the car and slumped in the seat.

“Why so glum, my boy? What’s the matter?”

Shrugging, Hector said. “It’s a long story…”

“Oh, I see. Well then. To get back to the teleportation idea. If we can boost the power of the machine…”