They plunged to work immediately. Leoh preferred not to inform the
regular staff of the dueling machine about their plan, so he and
Hector had to work through the night and most of the next morning.
Hector barely understood what he was doing, but with Leoh’s
supervision, he managed to dismantle part of the dueling machine’s
central network, insert a few additional black boxes that the
professor had conjured up from the spare parts bins in the basement,
and then reconstruct the machine so that it looked exactly the same as
before they had started.
In between his frequent trips to oversee Hector’s work, Leoh had
jury-rigged a rather bulky headset and a hand-sized override control
circuit.
The late morning sun was streaming through the tall windows when Leoh
finally explained it all to Hector.
“A simple matter of technological improvisation,” he told the
bewildered Watchman. “You have installed a short-range transceiver
into the machine, and this headset is a portable transceiver for
Dulaq. Now he can sit in his hospital bed and still be ‘in’ the
dueling machine.”
Only the three most trusted members of the hospital staff were taken
into Leoh’s confidence, and they were hardly enthusiastic about Leoh’s
plan.
“It is a waste of time,” said the chief psychophysician, shaking his
white-maned head vigorously. “You cannot expect a patient who has
shown no positive response to drugs and therapy to respond to your
machine.”
Leoh argued, Geri Dulaq coaxed. Finally the doctors agreed. With only
two days remaining before Hector’s duel with Odal, they began to probe
Dulaq’s mind. Geri remained by her father’s bedside while the three
doctors fitted the cumbersome transceiver to Dulaq’s head and attached
the electrodes for the automatic hospital equipment that monitored his
physical condition. Hector and Leoh remained at the dueling machine,
communicating with the hospital by phone.
Leoh made a final check of the controls and circuitry, then put in the
last call to the tense little group in Dulaq’s room. All was ready.
He walked out to the machine, with Hector beside him. Their footsteps
echoed hollowly in the sepulchral chamber. Leoh stopped at the nearer
booth.
“Now remember,” he said, carefully, “I will be holding the emergency
control unit in my hand. It will stop the duel the instant I set it
off. However, if something should go wrong, you must be prepared to
act quickly. Keep a close watch on my physical condition; I’ve shown
you which instruments to check on the control board—”
“Yes sir.”
Leoh nodded and took a deep breath. “Very well then.”
He stepped into the booth and sat down. The emergency control unit
rested on a shelf at his side; he took it in his hands. He leaned back
and waited for the semihypnotic effect to take hold. Dulaq’s choice
of this very city and the stat-wand were known. But beyond that,
everything was locked and sealed in Dulaq’s subconscious mind. Could
the machine reach into that subconscious, probe past the lock and seal
of catatonia, and stimulate Dulaq’s mind into repeating the duel?
Slowly, lullingly, the dueling machine’s imaginary yet very real mists
enveloped Leoh. When the mists cleared, he was standing on the upper
pedestrian level of the main commercial street of the city. For a long
moment, everything was still.
_Have I made contact? Whose eyes am I seeing with, my own or Dulaq’s?_
And then he sensed it—an amused, somewhat astonished marveling at the
reality of the illusion. Dulaq’s thoughts!
_Make your mind a blank_, Leoh told himself. _Watch. Listen. Be
passive._
He became a spectator, seeing and hearing the world through Dulaq’s
eyes and ears as the Acquatainian Prime Minister advanced through his
nightmarish ordeal. He felt the confusion, frustration, apprehension
and growing terror as, time and again, Odal appeared in the
crowd—only to melt into someone else and escape.
The first part of the duel ended, and Leoh was suddenly buffeted by a
jumble of thoughts and impressions. Then the thoughts slowly cleared
and steadied.
Leoh saw 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 a disturbingly harsh yellow sky. At his feet was
the weapon Odal had chosen. A primitive club.
He shared Dulaq’s sense of dread as he picked up the club and hefted
it. Off on the horizon he could see a tall, lithe figure holding a
similar club walking toward him.
Despite himself, Leoh could feel his own excitement. He had broken
through the shock-created armor that Dulaq’s mind had erected! Dulaq
was reliving the part of the duel that had caused the shock.
Reluctantly, he advanced to meet Odal. But as they drew closer
together, the one figure of his opponent seemed to split apart. Now
there were two, four, six of them. Six Odals, six mirror images, all
armed with massive, evil clubs, advancing steadily on him.
Six tall, lean, blond assassins, with six cold smiles on their intent
faces.
Horrified, completely panicked, he scrambled away, trying to evade the
six opponents with the half-dozen clubs raised and poised to strike.
Their young legs and lungs easily outdistanced him. A smash on his
back sent him sprawling. One of them kicked his weapon away.
They stood over him for a malevolent, gloating second. Then six strong
arms flashed down, again and again, mercilessly. Pain and blood,
screaming agony, punctuated by the awful thudding of solid clubs
hitting fragile flesh and bone, over and over again, endlessly.
Everything went blank.
* * * * *
Leoh opened his eyes and saw Hector bending over him.
“Are you all right, sir?”
“I ... I think so.”
“The controls all hit the danger mark at once. You were ... well, sir,
you were screaming.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Leoh said.
They walked, with Leoh leaning on Hector’s arm, from the dueling
machine booth to the office.
“That was ... an experience,” Leoh said, easing himself onto the
couch.
“What happened? What did Odal do? What made Dulaq go into shock? How
does—”
The old man silenced Hector with a wave of his hand. “One question at
a time, please.”
Leoh leaned back on the deep couch and told Hector every detail of
both parts of the duel.
“Six Odals,” Hector muttered soberly, leaning back against the
doorframe. “Six against one.”
“That’s what he did. It’s easy to see how a man expecting a polite,
formal duel can be completely shattered by the viciousness of such an
attack. And the machine amplifies every impulse, every sensation.”
“But how does he do it?” Hector asked, his voice suddenly loud and
demanding.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question. We’ve checked over the
dueling machine time and again. There is no possible way for Odal to
plug in five helpers ... unless—”
“Unless?”
Leoh hesitated, seemingly debating with himself. Finally he nodded his
head sharply, and answered, “Unless Odal is a telepath.”
“Telepath? But—”
“I know it sounds farfetched. But there have been well-documented
cases of telepathy for centuries throughout the Commonwealth.”
Hector frowned. “Sure, everybody’s heard about it ... natural
telepaths ... but they’re so unpredictable ... I don’t see how—”
Leoh leaned forward on the couch and clasped his hands in front of his
chin. “The Terran races have never developed telepathy, or any of the
extrasensory talents. They never had to, not with tri-di
communications and superlight starships. But perhaps the Kerak people
are different—”
Hector shook his head. “If they had uh, telepathic abilities, they
would be using them everywhere. Don’t you think?”
“Probably so. But only Odal has shown such an ability, and only ...
_of course!_”
“What?”
“Odal has shown telepathic ability only in the dueling machine.”
“As far as we know.”
“Certainly. But look, suppose he’s a natural telepath ... the same as
a Terran. He has an erratic, difficult-to-control talent. Then he gets
into a dueling machine. The machine amplifies his thoughts. And it
also amplifies his talent!”
“Ohhh.”
“You see ... outside the machine, he’s no better than any wandering
fortuneteller. But the dueling machine gives his natural abilities the
amplification and reproducibility that they could never have unaided.”
Hector nodded.
“So it’s a fairly straightforward matter for him to have five
associates in the Kerak Embassy sit in on the duel, so to speak.
Possibly they are natural telepaths also, but they needn’t be.”
“They just, uh, pool their minds with his, hm-m-m? Six men show up in
the duel ... pretty nasty.” Hector dropped into the desk chair.
“So what do we do now?”
“Now?” Leoh blinked at his young friend. “Why ... I suppose the first
thing we should do is call the hospital and see how Dulaq came
through.”
Leoh put the call through. Geri Dulaq’s face appeared on the screen.
“How’s your father?” Hector blurted.
“The duel was too much for him,” she said blankly. “He is dead.”
“No,” Leoh groaned.
“I ... I’m sorry,” Hector said. “I’ll be right down there. Stay where
you are.”
The young Star Watchman dashed out of the office as Geri broke the
phone connection. Leoh stared at the blank screen for a few moments,
then leaned far back in the couch and closed his eyes. He was suddenly
exhausted, physically and emotionally. He fell asleep, and dreamed of
men dead and dying.
Hector’s nerve-shattering whistling woke him up. It was full night
outside.
“What are you so happy about?” Leoh groused as Hector popped into the
office.
“Happy? Me?”
“You were whistling.”
Hector shrugged. “I always whistle, sir. Doesn’t mean I’m happy.”
“All right,” Leoh said, rubbing his eyes. “How did the girl take her
father’s death?”
“Pretty hard. Cried a lot.”
Leoh looked at the younger man. “Does she blame ... me?”
“You? Why, no, sir. Why should she? Odal ... Kanus ... the Kerak
Worlds. But not you.”
The old professor sighed, relieved. “Very well. Now then, we have much
work to do, and little more than a day in which to finish it.”
“What do you want me to do?” Hector asked.
“Phone the Star Watch Commander—”
“My commanding officer, all the way back at Alpha Perseus VI? That’s a
hundred light-years from here.”
“No, no, no.” Leoh shook his head. “The Commander-in-Chief, Sir Harold
Spencer. At Star Watch Central Headquarters. That’s several hundred
parsecs from here. But get through to him as quickly as possible.”
With a low whistle of astonishment, Hector began punching buttons on
the phone switch.