Meek suddenly was flustered. "Why, maybe I acted too hastily. It really
was nothing. I just noticed something about the deal...."
Luke jerked erect, kicking his chair away with the single motion of
rising. The crowd suddenly surged away, out of the line of fire. The
bartender ducked behind the bar. Stiffy flung himself with a howl out
of his chair, skidded along the floor.
Meek, suddenly straightening from the table, saw Luke's hand streaking
for the gun at his belt and in a split second he realized that here he
faced a situation that demanded action.
He didn't think about those days of practice in front of the mirror. He
didn't call upon a single iota of the gun-lore he had read in hundreds
of books. His mind, for a bare instant, was almost a blank, but he
acted as if by instinct.
His hands moved like driving pistons, snapped the twin guns from their
holsters, heaved them clear of leather, grabbed them in mid-air.
He saw Luke's gun muzzle swinging up, tilted down the muzzle of his own
left gun, pressed the activator. There was a screeching hiss, a streak
of blue that crackled in the air and the gun that Luke held in his hand
was suddenly red hot.
But Meek wasn't watching Luke. His eyes were for the crowd and even as
he pressed the firing button he saw a hand pick a bottle off the bar,
lift it to throw. The gun in his right hand shrieked and the bottle
smashed into a million pieces, the liquor turned to steam.
Slowly Meek backed away, his tread almost cat-like, his weak blue eyes
like cold ice behind the thick-lensed spectacles, his hunched shoulders
still hunched, his lean jaw like a steel trap.
He felt the wall at his back and stopped.
Out in the room before him no one stirred. Luke stood like a statue,
gripping his right hand, badly burned by the smoking gun that lay at
his feet. Luke's face was a mask of hatred.
The rest of them simply stared. Stared at this outlander. A man who
wore clothing such as the Asteroid Belt had never seen before. A man
who looked as if he might be a clerk or even a retired farmer out on a
holiday. A man with glasses and hunched shoulders and a skin that had
never known the touch of sun in space.
And yet a man who had given Luke Blaine a head start for his gun, had
beaten him to the draw, had burned the gun out of his hand.
Oliver Meek heard himself speaking, but he couldn't believe it was
himself. It was as if some other person had taken command of his
tongue, was forcing it to speak. He hardly recognized his voice, for it
was hard and brittle and sounded far away.