"I see no need to."
"All right," Kesley said. "Let me suggest an alternate policy: you step
down from the throne and appoint me Duke. I'm an Immortal too, I've
discovered lately; I'll take your job. And I'll break down all the
barriers that keep the people of the world penned away from each other."
"Just how will you persuade me to allow this?" van Alen asked, with icy
calmness.
_This is the moment_, Kesley thought. He stepped toward van Alen,
seized the momentarily relaxed arm quickly, twisted it up behind the
Immortal's back. At the same moment he drew his knife, touched it to
van Alen's throat just below the beard.
"Miguel taught me that Immortals can be killed. He sent me off to kill
one. I don't want to drive this knife home, van Alen, but I will if I
have to. Get your robots in here and dictate a message of abdication."
"If I don't--"
Kesley twitched the knife slightly. Van Alen winced.
"I can break your hold, you know," the Duke pointed out.
"Probably." Kesley remembered the time van Alen had broken Kesley's
grip in the Iowa farmhouse, had removed Kesley's hands from his throat
as if he were a child. "But while you're doing that, I push the knife
in. You don't have a chance. Will you dictate the abdication?"
"I've ruled here three hundred sixty years and more," van Alen said.
"It's not easy to give up a throne in a moment after so long."
Again Kesley dug the knife in. This time, a few drops of blood trickled
down, staining van Alen's broad collar. Immortal blood.
"Well?"
Sweat mingled with the blood droplets on van Alen's throat. "I agree to
terms," he said hoarsely. "Snap on the recorder on my desk."
Kesley looked suspiciously at the knob mounted in the cabinet. "If this
is a trick--"
"No trick," van Alen said.
Kesley backed across the room without releasing his grip on van Alen,
and spun the noble around. "Reach down and snap on the recorder
yourself. I'll be ready with the knife if anything strange happens.
Then start to talk."
Van Alen shifted the position of the stud with an extended finger. A
faint hum resulted; otherwise, nothing happened. Kesley relaxed just a
trifle.
"Talk," he ordered.
Van Alen said: "People of Antarctica, hear and believe this message.
"Today, in the three hundred sixty-second year of my rule, I am giving
up my throne.
"I turn it over to the man named Dale Kesley--like myself an Immortal.
He will rule you wisely and well, I am sure, and will lead you to
greatnesses I never dared to attain.
"Thank you."
Van Alen shut the machine off. "There," he said. "When I touch the
spiral lever, the message will be beamed on wide circuit to the entire
continent. The robots will shift allegiance to you at once; the place
will be yours."
"Touch the lever," Kesley said hoarsely.
Van Alen reached out--but as he nudged the control, a bright green beam
licked out suddenly. Acting instinctively, Kesley jabbed at the Duke's
throat with the knife.
There was no knife.
The knife had been whisked from his hand the instant the beam had shot
forth.
Van Alen turned, easily extricating his imprisoned arm from Kesley's
numbed grasp. His fist crashed into Kesley's stomach, rocking him
backward.
_Cheated!_ Kesley thought wildly. He recalled an earlier, forgotten
resolution never to have dealings with Dukes again.
Mechanically he raised a fist to defend himself. Van Alen's attack
drove through, and blows thudded against his face and chest. He tried
to fight back; he hit van Alen glancingly on the shoulder, struck for
his midsection. Another blow sent him staggering away.
Desperately Kesley leaped forward and flung himself on van Alen. They
tumbled to the floor, rolled over several times, once with Kesley
on top. Then van Alen began to get the upper hand. The Immortal was
fantastically strong.
He rose to a sitting position atop Kesley, gripping both of Kesley's
hands in one of his. He wiped flecks of perspiration from his chin and
dabbed at the tiny cut on his throat.
"Sorry, Dale. In five hundred years I've learned a few tricks. That was
a teleport beam; your knife's now somewhere in the main routing depot
of my post office."
Kesley muttered a harsh, wordless curse. Then he said: "You'll kill me
now, I suppose."
"For reacting the way I expected you would? Nonsense." Van Alen rolled
off Kesley and stood up. Reaching to his desk, he pressed a buzzer and
said, "Admit Daveen."
"Why do you want _him_?" Kesley asked.
"You'll see."
The panel glided open and Daveen stepped through, walking with uncanny
assurance.
"Three," van Alen said.
Daveen began to play the same haunting melody he had played before.
Kesley, lying on the floor, waited uncertainly for the moment when--
"_Three_," Daveen said.
One crushing fact rolled down on Kesley like a shock wave. _One_ fact.
He waited while its implications shuddered through him like
subharmonics from Daveen's music-maker. His dazed mind evaluated the
new datum.
"Of course," he said finally, standing up. "Why else would you have
gone to Iowa Province looking for me? Why else would you be so
interested in my whereabouts?"
"You see now?" van Alen asked.
"I see part of it. I see that _yours_ is the line of Immortals that
breeds true, since I'm your son."
"I thought you would have guessed that when Daveen rolled back the very
first layer of fog," van Alen said. "You didn't. But now you know _who_
you are."
"And why--why--"
"Four," van Alen ordered.
"_Four!_" Daveen cried.
And Kesley began to understand.