It took the starship two weeks to make the journey from Carinae to the
Acquataine Cluster. Dr. Leoh spent the time checking over the
Acquatainian dueling machine, by direct tri-di beam; the Acquatainian
government gave him all the technicians, time and money he needed for
the task.
Leoh spent as much of his spare time as possible with the other
passengers of the ship. He was gregarious, a fine conversationalist,
and had a nicely-balanced sense of humor. Particularly, he was a
favorite of the younger women, since he had reached the age where he
could flatter them with his attention without making them feel
endangered.
But still, there were long hours when he was alone in his stateroom
with nothing but his memories. At times like these, it was impossible
not to think back over the road he had been following.
* * * * *
Albert Robertus Leoh, Ph.D., Professor of Physics, Professor of
Electronics, master of computer technology, inventor of the
interstellar tri-di communications system; and more recently, student
of psychology, Professor of Psychophysiology, founder of Psychonics,
Inc., inventor of the dueling machine.
During his earlier years, when the supreme confidence of youth was
still with him, Leoh had envisioned himself as helping mankind to
spread his colonies and civilizations throughout the galaxy. The
bitter years of galactic war had ended in his childhood, and now human
societies throughout the Milky Way were linked together—in greater or
lesser degree of union—into a more-or-less peaceful coalition of star
groups.
There were two great motivating forces at work on those human
societies spread across the stars, and these forces worked toward
opposite goals. On the one hand was the urge to explore, to reach new
stars, new planets, to expand the frontiers of man’s civilizations and
found new colonies, new nations. Pitted against this drive to expand
was an equally-powerful force: the realization that technology had
finally put an end to physical labor and almost to poverty itself on
all the civilized worlds of man. The urge to move off to the frontier
was penned in and buried alive under the enervating comforts of
civilization.
The result was inescapable. The civilized worlds became constantly
more crowded as time wore on. They became jampacked islands of
humanity sprinkled thinly across the sea of space that was still full
of unpopulated islands.
The expense and difficulty of interstellar travel was often cited as
an excuse. The starships _were_ expensive: their power demands were
frightful. Only the most determined—and the best financed—groups of
colonists could afford them. The rest of mankind accepted the ease and
safety of civilization, lived in the bulging cities of the teeming
planets. Their lives were circumscribed by their neighbors, and by
their governments. Constantly more people crowding into a fixed living
space meant constantly less freedom. The freedom to dream, to run
free, to procreate, all became state-owned, state-controlled
monopolies.
And Leoh had contributed to this situation.
He had contributed his thoughts and his work. He had contributed often
and regularly—the interstellar communications systems was only the
one outstanding achievement in a long career of achievements.
Leoh had been nearly at the voluntary retirement age for scientists
when he realized what he, and his fellow scientists, had done. Their
efforts to make life richer and more rewarding for mankind had made
life only less strenuous and more rigid.
And with every increase in comfort, Leoh discovered, came a
corresponding increase in neuroses, in crimes of violence, in mental
aberrations. Senseless wars of pride broke out between star-groups for
the first time in generations. Outwardly, the peace of the galaxy was
assured; but beneath the glossy surface of the Terran Commonwealth
there smoldered the beginnings of a volcano. Police actions fought by
the Star Watch were increasing ominously. Petty wars between
once-stable peoples were flaring up steadily.
Once Leoh realized the part he had played in this increasingly tragic
drama, he was confronted with two emotions—a deep sense of guilt,
both personal and professional; and, countering this, a determination
to do something, anything, to restore at least some balance to man’s
collective mentality.
Leoh stepped out of physics and electronics, and entered the field of
psychology. Instead of retiring, he applied for a beginner’s status in
his new profession. It had taken considerable bending and straining of
the Commonwealth’s rules—but for a man of Leoh’s stature, the rules
could be flexed somewhat. Leoh became a student once again, then a
researcher, and finally a Professor of Psychophysiology.
Out of this came the dueling machine. A combination of
electroencephalograph and autocomputer. A dream machine, that amplified
a man’s imagination until he could engulf himself into a world of his
own making.
Leoh envisioned it as a device to enable men to rid themselves of
hostility and tension safely. Through his efforts, and those of his
colleagues, dueling machines were quickly becoming accepted as devices
for settling disputes.
When two men had a severe difference of opinion—deep enough to
warrant legal action—they could go to the dueling machine instead of
the courts. Instead of sitting helplessly and watching the
machinations of the law grind impersonally through their differences,
the two antagonists could allow their imaginations free rein in the
dueling machine. They could settle their differences personally, as
violently as they wished, without hurting themselves or anyone else.
On most civilized worlds, the results of properly-monitored duels were
accepted as legally binding.
The tensions of civilized life could be escaped—albeit
temporarily—in the dueling machine. This was a powerful tool, much
too powerful to allow it to be used indiscriminately. Therefore Leoh
safeguarded his invention by forming a private company—Psychonics,
Inc.—and securing an exclusive license from the Terran Commonwealth
to manufacture, sell, install and maintain the machines. His customers
were government health and legal agencies; his responsibilities were:
legally, to the Commonwealth; morally, to all mankind; and, finally, to
his own restless conscience.
The dueling machines succeeded. They worked as well, and often better,
than Leoh had anticipated. But he knew that they were only a stopgap,
only a temporary shoring of a constantly-eroding dam. What was
needed, really needed, was some method of exploding the status quo,
some means of convincing people to reach out for those unoccupied,
unexplored stars that filled the galaxy, some way of convincing men
that they should leave the comforts of civilization for the excitement
of colonization.
Leoh had been searching for that method when the news of Dulaq’s duel
against Odal reached him.
Now he was speeding across parsecs of space, praying to himself that
the dueling machine had not failed.
The two-week flight ended. The starship took up a parking orbit
around the capital planet of the Acquataine Cluster. The passengers
transhipped to the surface.
Dr. Leoh was met at the landing disk by an official delegation, headed
by Massan, the acting prime minister. They exchanged formal greetings
there at the base of the ship, while the other passengers hurried by.
As Leoh and Massan, surrounded by the other members of the delegation,
rode the slideway to the port’s administration building, Leoh
commented:
“As you probably know, I have checked through your dueling machine
quite thoroughly via tri-di for the past two weeks. I can find nothing
wrong with it.”
Massan shrugged. “Perhaps you should have checked then, the machine on
Szarno.”
“The Szarno Confederation? Their dueling machine?”
“Yes. This morning Kanus’ hired assassin killed a man in it.”
“He won another duel,” Leoh said.
“You do not understand,” Massan said grimly. “Major Odal’s
opponent—an industrialist who had spoken out against Kanus—was
actually killed in the dueling machine. The man is dead!”
V
One of the advantages of being Commander-in-Chief of the Star Watch,
the old man thought to himself, is that you can visit any planet in
the Commonwealth.
He stood at the top of the hill and looked out over the green tableland
of Kenya. This was the land of his birth, Earth was his homeworld. The
Star Watch’s official headquarters may be in the heart of a globular
cluster of stars near the center of the galaxy, but Earth was the place
the commander wanted most to see as he grew older and wearier.
An aide, who had been following the commander at a respectful
distance, suddenly intruded himself in the old man’s reverie.
“Sir, a message for you.”
The commander scowled at the young officer. “I gave orders that I was
not to be disturbed.”
The officer, slim and stiff in his black-and-silver uniform, replied,
“Your chief of staff has passed the message on to you, sir. It’s from
Dr. Leoh, of Carinae University. Personal and urgent, sir.”
The old man grumbled to himself, but nodded. The aide placed a small
crystalline sphere on the grass before him. The air above the sphere
started to vibrate and glow.
“Sir Harold Spencer here,” the commander said.
The bubbling air seemed to draw in on itself and take solid form. Dr.
Leoh sat at a desk chair and looked up at the standing commander.
“Harold, it’s a pleasure to see you once again.”
Spencer’s stern eyes softened, and his beefy face broke into a
well-creased smile. “Albert, you ancient scoundrel. What do you mean
by interrupting my first visit home in fifteen years?”
“It won’t be a long interruption,” Leoh said.
“You told my chief of staff that it was urgent,” Sir Harold groused.
“It is. But it’s not the sort of problem that requires much action on
your part. Yet. You are familiar with recent political developments on
the Kerak Worlds?”
Spencer snorted. “I know that a barbarian named Kanus has established
himself as a dictator. He’s a troublemaker. I’ve been talking to the
Commonwealth Council about the advisability of quashing him before he
causes grief, but you know the Council ... first wait until the flames
have sprung up, then thrash about and demand that the Star Watch do
something!”
Leoh grinned. “You’re as irascible as ever.”
“My personality is not the subject of this rather expensive
discussion. What about Kanus? And what are you doing, getting yourself
involved in politics? About to change your profession again?”
“No, not at all,” Leoh answered, laughing. Then, more seriously. “It
seems as though Kanus has discovered some method of using the dueling
machines to achieve political advantages over his neighbors.”
“What?”
Leoh explained the circumstances of Odal’s duels with the Acquatainian
prime minister and Szarno Industrialist.
“Dulaq is completely incapacitated and the other poor fellow is dead?”
Spencer’s face darkened into a thundercloud. “You were right to call
me. This is a situation that could easily become intolerable.”
“I agree,” Leoh said. “But evidently Kanus has not broken any laws or
interstellar agreements. All that meets the eye is a disturbing pair
of accidents, both of them accruing to Kanus’ benefit.”
“Do you believe that they were accidents?”
“Certainly not. The dueling machine cannot cause physical or mental
harm ... unless someone has tampered with it in some way.”
“That is my thought, too.” Spencer was silent for a moment, weighing
the matter in his mind. “Very well. The Star Watch cannot act
officially, but there is nothing to prevent me from dispatching an
officer to the Acquataine Cluster, on detached duty, to serve as
liaison between us.”
“Good. I think that will be the most effective method of handling the
situation, at present.”
“It will be done.” Sir Harold pronounced. His aide made a mental note
of it.
“Thank you very much,” Leoh said. “Now, go back to enjoying your
vacation.”
“Vacation? This is no vacation,” Spencer rumbled. “I happen to be
celebrating my birthday.”
“So? Well, congratulations. I try not to remember mine,” Leoh said.
“Then you must be older than I,” Spencer replied, allowing only the
faintest hint of a smile to appear.
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“But not very likely, eh?”
They laughed together and said good-by. The Star Watch commander
tramped through the hills until sunset, enjoying the sight of the
grasslands and distant purple mountains he had known in his childhood.
As dusk closed in, he told his aide he was ready to leave.
The aide pressed a stud on his belt and a two-place aircar skimmed
silently from the far side of the hills and hovered beside them.
Spencer climbed in laboriously while the aide remained discreetly at
his side. While the commander settled his bulk into his seat the aide
hurried around the car and hopped into his place. The car glided off
toward Spencer’s personal planetship, waiting for him at a nearby
field.
“Don’t forget to assign an officer to Dr. Leoh,” the commander
muttered to his aide. Then he turned and watched the unmatchable
beauty of an Earthly sunset.
* * * * *
The aide did not forget the assignment. That night, as Sir Harold’s
ship spiraled out to a rendezvous with a starship, the aide dictated
the necessary order into an autodispatcher that immediately beamed it
to the Star Watch’s nearest communications center, on Mars.
The order was scanned and routed automatically and finally beamed to
the Star Watch unit commandant in charge of the area closest to the
Acquataine Cluster, on the sixth planet circling the star Perseus
Alpha. Here again, the order was processed automatically and routed
through the local headquarters to the personnel files. The automated
files selected three microcard dossiers that matched the requirements
of the order.
The three microcards and the order itself appeared simultaneously on
the desktop viewer of the Star Watch personnel officer. He looked at
the order, then read the dossiers. He flicked a button that gave him
an updated status report on each of the three men in question. One was
due for leave after an extensive period of duty. The second was the
son of a personal friend of the local commandant. The third had just
arrived a few weeks ago, fresh from the Star Watch Academy on Mars.
The personnel officer selected the third man, routed his dossier and
Sir Harold’s order back into the automatic processing system, and
returned to the film of primitive dancing girls he had been watching
before this matter of decision had arrived at his desk.