VI

Approaching the scientists' and technicians' row along the subsurface

arcades, the expensive restaurants grew fewer and were replaced by

German-type beer halls, schools with courses advertised in their

posted schedules whose titles were completely unintelligible to him,

and second hand bookstalls selling battered technical books and

journals whose titles were undecipherable in any tongue Bryce could

think of. The lunch hour crowds were beginning to pour out into the

arcades from elevators and tube trains in a rush to get first place in

their favorite eating places.

Pierce half turned as if his eyes caught on the expression of a face

behind them.

"Carter! There you are, you bastard!" The voice came from behind him,

thick with rage, but more than that was the insult. It meant

challenge. This was nothing in which Pierce could defend him!

Bryce wheeled, left hand automatically plucking out his magnomatic,

wondering if the attacker would be the honorable kind of duelist who

would hold fire long enough for him to get his gun out.

Miraculously it seemed to be happening. He already had his sights

halfway on to the speaker when he recognized him, a gross heavy figure

he had seen a hundred times. Mr. Beldman of the Board of Directors.

What was he doing on the Moon?

Beldman stood with his fists on his hips and his legs spraddled,

sneering at Bryce. "That's right," he said, heavily sarcastic, "start

shootin' when you're surrounded by innocent spectators; when you know

I can't draw on you. That's the way of a crook." The husky base voice

echoed from the walls. Behind him to the bend of the corridor people

were scattering hastily out of the firing line.

_Crook_ was the central word. Somehow Beldman had found out that Bryce

was responsible for the corruption of UT, and he was dealing with the

matter in the most direct way that it could be dealt with, for a death

in a private duel would be laid to a quarrel and not investigated.

How had he found out? Bryce forced down the question as he stiffly

reholstered his magnomatic. There was no use thinking of that until

the question of surviving the next five minutes was settled. He stood

with his hands empty, feeling curiously empty inside, oddly missing

the white rage and love of murder that usually carried him through

such things.

It seemed too good a day to spoil. He would rather have continued his

way to lunch with Sheila, and let the man live--or let himself live.

This would be no duel for a little bloodletting. Beldman's purpose was

to kill. And Beldman himself, knowing what he knew, had to die. "Do

you understand what you have said, sir?" Bryce used the formal words

of the dueling countries.

"You're damn well right I do!"

"Are you prepared to take the consequences, sir?"

"More ready than you are," Beldman said, his hands still on his hips.

He amplified his remark with a few well chosen words that harked back

to his truck driving days.

"How many shots?" Bryce asked more softly, beginning to want to kill.

"Until one of us is down with his gun out of his hand."

Bryce repeated the provision to the crowd that had drawn up discreetly

along the side-lines. "We fire until one of us is both down and

disarmed."

There was a murmur of surprise among the crowd for that was an unusual

and deadly provision for a formal duel. As Bryce paced backward the

required number of paces, counting aloud, two men volunteered as

seconds. They came forward to compare the guns rapidly and show them

to the duelists. It had to be done and finished rapidly, for lunch

hour had begun with its flood of people into the corridors, and they

were holding up traffic.

Bryce's gun was a .42 magnomatic, working on an electrical

acceleration of the slug by electromagnetic rings in the thick barrel.

It was soundless except for a legal built-in radio yeep that announced

its firing and number to the police emergency receivers. Beldman's gun

was another maggy of the same make but heavier with a wide-mouthed

barrel apparently throwing a much heavier caliber slug.

"Ready?" The second stepped back to the edge of the crowd and began

counting off half a minute by seconds.

The faces of the crowd faded from his consciousness. Bryce stood with

his hands empty at his sides as the seconds were counted. "Thirty,

twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven," came the voice, counting

evenly and loudly. The world narrowed to a corridor of space with the

blocky figure of Beldman at one end and himself at the other. Funny,

Bryce thought, that he had never considered that bull-headed

impatience and strength as dangerous. He was a massive block of a man;

where Bryce was thick with muscle, J. H. Beldman was so wide in

shoulder and barrel and so thick in arm that he looked almost round.

Like Bryce he had worked up from the bottom, Bryce remembered,

starting as a truck driver and labor organizer, and then owning his

own line and giving UT a stiff battle before being bought out. Crude,

but that didn't mean that there wasn't a lightning brain behind that

round face.

"Twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three--"

He had underestimated the deadliness of the man. Beldman was obviously

subject to rages, and in the grip of one now, and if he had survived

all the duels and battles that his rages had brought long enough to

grow as old as he was then his age was an indication not of weakness,

but of the degree of his deadliness. The irritable thought came that

he might well be killed by this ox.

"Twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty, nineteen--"

He flexed his fingers restlessly, and felt in his mind the speed and

sureness of his draw and firing. That big blocky figure was just

another obstacle standing in his way, to be blasted aside. A loud

mouth to be shut.

"Ten, nine--" He concentrated on the counting, "--six, five, four--"

sureness growing like a coiled spring in every muscle. "--three--" He

crouched slightly. That blocky figure that was all the rest of the

world was no more than a target. A big target.

"Two--one--_fire_."

Something confusing happened. As the word came it seemed that a

gigantic blow hit him somewhere on his left shoulder, twisting him

around so he couldn't see his target. He spun back, willing himself to

shoot again quickly, but his legs buckled oddly as he turned. He

reeled, finding his balance with great effort.

Heavy slug, he thought, seeing as delayed memory the coiled spring

speed with which Beldman had moved. Bryce's left arm did not seem to

have any connection with his mind. Glancing down briefly he saw that

it dangled.

* * * * *

But the maggy was still there, held in the numb, unfeeling hand,

pointed limply at the ground.

He wondered if he had fired it yet.

"Drop it and fall down," advised Pierce's clear voice from somewhere.

There was a stirring and whisper from the blur of the crowd who stood

watching to see that the rules were observed. Beldman was walking

towards him.

"Do you end the duel?" asked someone, probably the second.

"No," the blur of Beldman answered and suddenly he came into focus,

walking up, his wide mouthed gun unwavering in his hand. Bryce

remembered the provisions of the duel. Fire until one is down and

weaponless. There was nothing said about remaining at a fixed

distance. Beldman intended to walk up close enough to shoot him

between the eyes. It was too late to let himself fall and end the

duel. Beldman would fire if he saw Bryce begin to fall now. He was

already close enough for a sure head shot.

Feeling was returning to his left arm. It dangled abnormally far and

probably looked broken and useless, but there was nothing actually

wrong with it, only something in his shoulder was broken. After the

first cold numbness of impact, sensation returned tingling in his

fingers, and pain was beginning to burn in his shoulder. Bryce waited

a few more seconds, feeling the control returning to his fingers, not

changing the glazed off focus of his eyes. How many duels had Beldman

won like this? The impact of one of those heavy slugs hitting bone was

a dazing blow, enough to stun some men, and he probably counted on

that effect.

The square figure lumbered closer, a lumpish clumsy caricature of the

self-made man, brutally strong, unashamedly misfit to the society of

the smooth-wise, smiling, easy mannered people that he and Bryce had

joined; a model of everything that Bryce was trying to destroy in

himself.

With a quick twist of the wrist Bryce swung his palm flat up flipping

the magnomatic muzzle into line with it and put a bullet into the

round face.

In that position of his hand the back kick of the shot twisted his arm

back in its broken shoulder and pulled the maggy from his hand, but it

didn't matter. The duel was over.

The motionless crowd dissolved again into talking individuals going to

lunch.

Pierce picked up the maggy and made the usual query of those who chose

to remain.

"Which of you has any complaint of unfairness or advantage taken by

either party of this duel?"

Most of them were leaving, anticipating the arrival of the police with

their time-consuming questions, but twenty or so crowded close around

Bryce and the corpse. "Press a thumb on your shoulder sub-clavian,

man," someone advised Bryce. "You're bleeding like a faucet."

Pierce's clear voice said the standard words over the murmur and

shuffle of feet. "No unfairness having been observed, when called to

give testimony you can then say that he shot in self-defense and under

duress."

A low wail of sirens was heard.

* * * * *

"Who was that character?" Pierce asked later, sitting beside the table

while a surgeon patiently pieced together the three or four shattered

pieces of Bryce's collarbone and fastened them with ingenious plastic

bolts.

Bryce absently watched the process in a large tilted mirror slung

overhead. Medicine bored him. "J. H. Beldman, member of the Board of

Directors," he explained, and for the benefit of the policeman

standing beside the door he added, "Bad tempered as they come." He

looked into the mirror uneasily, trying to focus on his face.

His clothes were being cleaned of blood and dried somewhere. When the

doctor had finished sewing and patching Bryce showered and dressed in

a small dressing room beside the emergency ward, where he found his

clothes hanging neatly in a drying closet.

As he finished a man in plain clothes entered and dismissed the cop

with a word, and handed Bryce a printed notice and his magnomatic;

"You're clear," he said, leaving again with a friendly half salute.

"No charges." The police had already recorded the testimony of the

witnesses and inspected the weapons used. It had been a fair duel and

the survivor was clear with a standard case for self-defense. The

printed notice called him to testify at the coroner's inquest into the

death of J. H. Beldman during the next Saturday, but there would be no

charges and no investigation.

There would be no trouble from Beldman, but who else knew what he had

known, that Bryce Carter was responsible for the corruption of UT? How

had he learned it? If someone else knew, there was going to be

trouble.

Coming out of the emergency ward, he checked his watch.

One-fifteen. Too late to find Sheila Wesley still at Geiger's Counter.

But he knew he could see her another day--and with a good story to

explain why he had not turned up the first time.

They ate at the nearest stand and went back to work. Trying to write

was almost impossible, and even using his left hand for minor tasks

was difficult. In spite of quick healing of muscle and flesh from the

amino and nucleic acid powders the doctor had packed in, the shoulder

ached with a tightness that spoiled his coordination. He shifted to

writing clumsily with his right hand.

After twenty minutes he abandoned the pretense of working and began

thoughtfully doing practice draws with his right hand. It was stiff

and clumsy, and there was no holster in his right pocket to make

grasping easy. The second time the maggy caught on his pocket edge and

slipped from his hand he left it on the rug where it had fallen,

sitting looking at it thoughtfully for a moment. Today was the day he

would meet Orillo.

"How well can you handle a four tube cabin cruiser?"

"Line of sight only. I'm no navigator," Pierce responded.

Bryce said soberly, realizing what he had decided, "This is a good day

to have a bodyguard who's a good shot. I have an appointment to meet a

friend--and I'm not sure he's a friend."

"I shoot," Pierce said, writing at one of the letters he had been set

to. "Happy to oblige. Shall I wear my bulletproof clothes?"

"You could do with something like that," Bryce said soberly.

Pierce looked up from the letters. "Would this be the man behind all

these bullets, and you're meeting him in space?"

"Yes."

"In armor plated tanks with heavy artillery?"

"No."

"No light and heavy cruisers. No marines?"

"Just you." Bryce was smiling at Pierce's mock astonishment. He knew

that the kid didn't care in the slightest where Bryce led him as long

as there was a fight at the end of it, and he left it to Bryce to

choose the odds.

The odds might be even enough. Orillo himself, if he came with murder

as his intention, would bring no helpers for witnesses, and he would

expect Bryce to bring none. Or if he had hired assassins, he would not

come himself, and they would not know who had hired them, but they

would have been told to expect one man only.

* * * * *

The secrecy of any meeting in space is practically absolute. If there

is one thing which space has plenty of, it's distance--distance enough

to lose things in, distance enough to hide in, distance enough so that

even if you know where something is by all the figures of its

coordinates, if it's smaller than a planet you can't find it even when

you are there. To put it crudely, what space has is space. And finding

something that doesn't want to be found in space is like looking for a

missing germ in the Atlantic.

He had the coordinates of the beacon he had chosen for his appointment

point and the robot pilot took him to that area with automatic

precision. But once there he had to cruise manually back and forth

three times through the perpendicular plane of Earth's equator before

picking up the radar pip of the buoy, which was set to broadcast its

presence by a circular sweep of radar pulses on a flat plane

corresponding to the Earth equatorial average.

He found it no later than expected, which was over an hour early, on

the principle that he who arrives first finds no ambush.

He left Pierce with certain instructions and floated from the ship to

the familiar globe that spun so placidly on the anchoring rod that

attached it to the controlling buoy. The buoy was powered strongly

enough to have controlled the orbits of fifty such globes without

strain. Buoys of that type were just beginning to be popular in the

Belt.

Once inside he opened his faceplate, looking around with the same

pleasure he always felt on his visits here. It was like being back at

the Belt for a time. After the raw harshness of the moon and the

artificial luxuries of its cities, after the agoraphobic vastness of

Earth's giant surface, to be within this little close-knit familiar

world was soothing and relaxing. It was a green glade of leaves and

branches, greenness underfoot and overhead, a brown metal cliff with

vines and a door to his left, a larger brown metal cliff like the

round head of a barrel with doors in it to his right, and a circular

silver door in the center. Behind the small right hand cliff was the

small amount of regulating machinery required, behind the doors of the

larger cliff was a small kitchen, and convertible study-bedrooms.

Behind the silver door was a corridor leading to the airlock and

space. It was forty feet from cliff to cliff, and from the growing

greenery underfoot to the growing greenery overhead, as spacious as a

wide glade in the woods of Earth.

He picked his way among the vines and shrubs to a carpetlike patch of

green moss and sat down comfortably to wait. Pierce had drawn the ship

off beyond detector range by now, and it would seem to any ship

approaching that he had not yet arrived.

It was peaceful there, no breeze stirred the leaves. Twenty feet

above, fixed in the air on clear spokes of lucite, the crystal globe

that was the sun for this small world gave forth its warming flood of

light, sunlight borrowed from the sunlight outside and led in on the

lucite spokes.

He had an interest in its manufacture, and had anchored his globe here

as a commercial sample of a spaceglobe for the viewing of likely

settlers. It was slightly better and more compact, since it was a

newer model, contained in an ovoid hull that was only forty-six by

sixty-six feet, but in essence it was like any of the farms and homes

of the asteroid belt, and there was nothing like it on any planet in

the universe.