[Illustration]
* * * * *
Dulaq rode the slide to the upper pedestrian level, stepped off and
walked over to the railing. The city stretched out all around
him—broad avenues thronged with busy people, pedestrian walks,
vehicle thoroughfares, aircars gliding between the gleaming, towering
buildings.
And somewhere in this vast city was the man he must kill. The man who
would kill him, perhaps.
It all seemed so real! The noise of the streets, the odors of the
perfumed trees lining the walks, even the warmth of the reddish sun on
his back as he scanned the scene before him.
_It is an illusion_, Dulaq reminded himself, _a clever man-made
hallucination. A figment of my own imagination amplified by a
machine._
But it seemed so very real.
Real or not, he had to find Odal before the sun set. Find him and kill
him. Those were the terms of the duel. He fingered the stubby
cylinderical stat-wind in his tunic pocket. That was the weapon he had
chosen, his weapon, his own invention. And this was the environment he
had picked: his city, busy, noisy, crowded, the metropolis Dulaq had
known and loved since childhood.
Dulaq turned and glanced at the sun. It was halfway down toward the
horizon, he judged. He had about three hours to find Odal. When he
did—kill or be killed.
_Of course no one is actually hurt. That is the beauty of the machine.
It allows one to settle a score, to work out aggressive feelings,
without either mental or physical harm._
Dulaq shrugged. He was a roundish figure, moon-faced, slightly stooped
shoulders. He had work to do. Unpleasant work for a civilized man, but
the future of the Acquataine Cluster and the entire alliance of
neighboring star systems could well depend on the outcome of this
electronically synthesized dream.
He turned and walked down the elevated avenue, marveling at the sharp
sensation of hardness that met each footstep on the paving. Children
dashed by and rushed up to a toyshop window. Men of commerce strode
along purposefully, but without missing a chance to eye the girls
sauntering by.
_I must have a marvelous imagination_, Dulaq thought smiling to
himself.
Then he thought of Odal, the blond, icy professional he was pitted
against. Odal was an expert at all the weapons, a man of strength and
cool precision, an emotionless tool in the hands of a ruthless
politician. But how expert could he be with a stat-wand, when the
first time he saw one was the moment before the duel began? And how
well acquainted could he be with the metropolis, when he had spent
most of his life in the military camps on the dreary planets of Kerak,
sixty light-years from Acquatainia?
No, Odal would be lost and helpless in this situation. He would
attempt to hide among the throngs of people. All Dulaq had to do was
to find him.
The terms of the duel restricted both men to the pedestrian walks of
the commercial quarter of the city. Dulaq knew the area intimately,
and he began a methodical hunt through the crowds for the tall,
fair-haired, blue-eyed Odal.
And he saw him! After only a few minutes of walking down the major
thoroughfare, he spotted his opponent, strolling calmly along a
crosswalk, at the level below.
Dulaq hurried down the next ramp, worked his way through the crowd,
and saw the man again. Tall and blond, unmistakable. Dulaq edged along
behind him quietly, easily. No disturbance. No pushing. Plenty of
time. They walked along the street for a quarter hour while the
distance between them slowly shrank from fifty feet to five.
Finally Dulaq was directly behind him, within arm’s reach. He grasped
the stat-wand and pulled it from his tunic. With one quick motion he
touched it to the base of the man’s skull and started to thumb the
button that would release the killing bolt of energy ...
The man turned suddenly. It wasn’t Odal!
Dulaq jerked back in surprise. It couldn’t be. He had seen his face.
It was Odal—and yet this man was definitely a stranger.
He stared at Dulaq as the duelist backed away a few steps, then turned
and walked quickly from the place.
_A mistake_, Dulaq told himself. _You were overanxious. A good thing
this is an hallucination, or else the autopolice would be taking you
in by now._
And yet ... he had been so certain that it was Odal. A chill shuddered
through him. He looked up, and there was his antagonist, on the
thoroughfare above, at the precise spot where he himself had been a
few minutes earlier. Their eyes met, and Odal’s lips parted in a cold
smile.
Dulaq hurried up the ramp. Odal was gone by the time he reached the
upper level. _He could not have gotten far_, Dulaq reasoned. Slowly,
but very surely, Dulaq’s hallucination turned into a nightmare. He
spotted Odal in the crowd, only to have him melt away. He saw him
again, lolling in a small park, but when he got closer, the man turned
out to be another stranger. He felt the chill of the duelist’s
ice-blue eyes on him again and again, but when he turned to find his
antagonist, no one was there but the impersonal crowd.
Odal’s face appeared again and again. Dulaq struggled through the
throngs to find his opponent, only to have him vanish. The crowd
seemed to be filled with tall, blond men crisscrossing before Dulaq’s
dismayed eyes.
The shadows lengthened. The sun was setting. Dulaq could feel his
heart pounding within him and perspiration pouring from every square
inch of his skin.
There he is! Definitely, positively him! Dulaq pushed through the
homeward-bound crowds toward the figure of a tall, blond man leaning
against the safety railing of the city’s main thoroughfare. It was
Odal, the damned smiling confident Odal.
Dulaq pulled the wand from his tunic and battled across the surging
crowd to the spot where Odal stood motionless, hands in pockets,
watching him.
Dulaq came within arm’s reach ...
“TIME, GENTLEMEN. TIME IS UP, THE DUEL IS ENDED.”
* * * * *
High above the floor of the antiseptic-white chamber that housed the
dueling machine was a narrow gallery. Before the machine had been
installed, the chamber had been a lecture hall in Acquatainia’s
largest university. Now the rows of students’ seats, the lecturer’s
dais and rostrum were gone. The chamber held only the machine, the
grotesque collection of consoles, control desks, power units,
association circuits, and booths where the two antagonists sat.
In the gallery—empty during ordinary duels—sat a privileged handful
of newsmen.
“Time limit is up,” one of them said. “Dulaq didn’t get him.”
“Yes, but he didn’t get Dulaq, either.”
The first one shrugged. “The important thing is that now Dulaq has to
fight Odal on _his_ terms. Dulaq couldn’t win with his own choice of
weapons and situation, so—”
“Wait, they’re coming out.”
Down on the floor below, Dulaq and his opponent emerged from their
enclosed booths.
One of the newsmen whistled softly. “Look at Dulaq’s face ... it’s
positively gray.”
“I’ve never seen the Prime Minister so shaken.”
“And take a look at Kanus’ hired assassin.” The newsmen turned toward
Odal, who stood before his booth, quietly chatting with his seconds.
“Hm-m-m. There’s a bucket of frozen ammonia for you.”
“He’s enjoying this.”
One of the newsmen stood up. “I’ve got a deadline to meet. Save my
seat.”
He made his way past the guarded door, down the rampway circling the
outer walls of the building, to the portable tri-di transmitting unit
that the Acquatainian government had permitted for the newsmen on the
campus grounds outside the former lecture hall.
The newsman huddled with his technicians for a few minutes, then
stepped before the transmitter.
“Emile Dulaq, Prime Minister of the Acquataine Cluster and
acknowledged leader of the coalition against Chancellor Kanus of the
Kerak Worlds, has failed in the first part of his psychonic duel
against Major Par Odal of Kerak. The two antagonists are now
undergoing the routine medical and psychological checks before
renewing their duel.”
By the time the newsman returned to his gallery seat, the duel was
almost ready to begin again.
Dulaq stood in the midst of a group of advisors before the looming
impersonality of the machine.
“You need not go through with the next phase of the duel immediately,”
his Minister of Defense was saying. “Wait until tomorrow. Rest and
calm yourself.”
Dulaq’s round face puckered into a frown. He cocked an eye at the
chief meditech, hovering at the edge of the little group.
The meditech, one of the staff that ran the dueling machine, pointed
out, “The Prime Minister has passed the examinations. He is capable,
within the agreed-upon rules of the contest, of resuming.”
“But he has the option of retiring for the day, does he not?”
“If Major Odal agrees.”
Dulaq shook his head impatiently. “No. I shall go through with it.
Now.”
“But—”
The prime minister’s face suddenly hardened; his advisors lapsed into
a respectful silence. The chief meditech ushered Dulaq back into his
booth. On the other side of the room, Odal glanced at the
Acquatainians, grinned humorlessly, and strode to his own booth.
Dulaq sat and tried to blank out his mind while the meditechs adjusted
the neurocontacts to his head and torso. They finished at last and
withdrew. He was alone in the booth now, looking at the dead-white
walls, completely bare except for the viewscreen before his eyes. The
screen finally began to glow slightly, then brightened into a series
of shifting colors. The colors merged and changed, swirled across his
field of view. Dulaq felt himself being drawn into them gradually,
compellingly, completely immersed in them.
* * * * *
The mists slowly vanished, and Dulaq found himself standing on an
immense and totally barren plain. Not a tree, not a blade of grass;
nothing but bare, rocky ground stretching in all directions to the
horizon and disturbingly harsh yellow sky. He looked down and at his
feet saw the weapon that Odal had chosen.
A primitive club.
With a sense of dread, Dulaq picked up the club and hefted it in his
hand. He scanned the plain. Nothing. No hills or trees or bushes to
hide in. No place to run to.
And off on the horizon he could see a tall, lithe figure holding a
similar club walking slowly and deliberately toward him.
* * * * *
The press gallery was practically empty. The duel had more than an
hour to run, and most of the newsmen were outside, broadcasting their
hastily-drawn guesses about Dulaq’s failure to win with his own choice
of weapon and environment.
Then a curious thing happened.
On the master control panel of the dueling machine, a single light
flashed red. The meditech blinked at it in surprise, then pressed a
series of buttons on his board. More red lights appeared. The chief
meditech rushed to the board and flipped a single switch.
One of the newsmen turned to his partner. “What’s going on down
there?”
“I think it’s all over.... Yes, look, they’re opening up the booths.
Somebody must’ve scored a victory.”
They watched intently while the other newsmen quickly filed back into
the gallery.
“There’s Odal. He looks happy.”
“Guess that means—”
“Good Lord! Look at Dulaq!”