For Texas and Zed

'Why don't you bypass that defective lobe and give us at least that much?' Lex asked.

'Look, Texas,' the Tech Chief said, 'you just don't go frigging around with a computer. That lobe was put there for a reason. I have no idea what would happen if we blinked with that lobe bypassed and I don't intend to find out.'

'It was put there to handle information not needed on a blink,' Lex said.

'In view of your erratic and deceptive behavior,' the Cassiopeian Vandy sent, 'we must reluctantly challenge you.'

The honor of the Emperor was at stake. Captain Wal knew that he had a slim chance in a head-to-head duel with the new Cassie Vandy and he answered with his head high, but with inner anger. So it was to end like this, out here in the core, on a ship which was years overdue for the junk heap.

'In the name of the Emperor, I accept your challenge,' Wal sent. He followed, since he was the challenged party, with a time in universal and with coordinates in a clear area of space which would give his errant computer room for wide misses.

'Do we have to fight him?' Lex asked Jakkes.

'It's the code.'

'Let me be sure I understand,' Lex said. 'We blink out at a place we've given him in advance and he'll be there and then we just sit there blasting at each other until something gives.'

'That's the way it is.'

'Why?'

Jakkes shook his head. 'Hell, that's just the way it is.'

'It's based on trust,' the Tech Chief said. 'By making the duel conform to tradition we assure the Cassie and he assures us that the duel is an isolated engagement and that neither of us is up to any tricks. That keeps it one ship on one ship and doesn't expand the fight.'

'But we're apt to miss the coordinate by a few million miles and make him think we're trying to sneak by him into Cassie space,' Jakkes said.

'If we do, we'll have a battle fleet down on our ass in hours,' the Tech Chief said.

Jakkes was getting drunk rapidly. He looked at Lex with watery eyes. 'If you want to write any last letters home, better get with it.'

Lex didn't even know where home was. And he wasn't ready to write last letters. He'd done two of his years with the fleet and he'd even begun to believe, after the slow passage of what seemed like aeons of time, that he'd live to see Texas again as a free man.

The Captain called a crew meeting. 'Fleeters,' he said, standing tall in his finest dress uniform, 'for those of you who have not dueled, I will explain. At the given moment, theGrus will go into normal space at a prearranged point. The enemy will blink in at the same instant. Should there be a slight discrepancy in blink times, there is a short period of adjustment allowable. When both ships are on station, armed, screened properly, a signal will be exchanged. That is when the reactions of the gun crew become of utmost importance. The gun crew which reacts quickest to the signal will be victorious. I have the utmost confidence that it will be you.' He looked directly at Lex, who was on the main battery control on the bridge because of his superior reaction time.

There was more about honor and duty to Empire and Lex was sitting there thinking that something was wrong with the entire setup. Here they were, about to go willingly into a situation where they would be at a disadvantage. Even if they had been evenly matched it seemed foolish to him to fight on prearranged terms. He'd never been in a fight to the death, but he'd faced a couple of tough old Bojack farls and when you're up against something or someone who is trying to kill you you don't give advantage. You take advantage if you can.

He thought about it through the waiting period and then, just before he knew that the ship was going to be called to battle stations, he went down into the navigator's room where his friend, the Tech Chief, was working feverishly on the computer.

'How is it?' Lex asked.

'I won't guarantee it,' the Chief said. 'There's a galloping decay in that damned lobe.'

'What happens if we miss the appointed coordinate?'

'They start blasting, if they can. If they can't, they call in a fleet. There's one standing by a blink away. Either way if we miss it we've had it.'

'And we're going to miss it, just as we've missed each blink point for the last few weeks,' Lex said.

'Bet your ass on it,' the Chief said.

'It's the only ass I've got,' Lex said, putting his hand on a heavy wrench, lifting it, carefully demolishing the sick lobe.

'Now bypass that bastard,' he said, as the crew stood there, shocked.

They had no other choice.

There was no time to test the jury-rigged computer. It was time to defend the honor of the Emperor. Captain Arden Wal sounded stations. TheGrus came alive, quivered. At the appointed second she blinked and came out on the nose with the Cassie Vandy sitting within point-blank range getting ready to put up her screens for the duel.

There was a ritual for it. Wal sent his greeting. His greeting was returned gravely in the voice of a Cassiopeian. The next order was to be, 'Screens up.' After that there would be the mutual signal and the duel would begin.

Only it didn't go that way.

When he got into position, on the instant of blinking out, Lex was already arming his battery. He punched it in, programmed it. He could see the Cassie with his naked eye. At that range, with her screens not yet in place, she was a sitting duck. The Cassie didn't know what hit her. She vaporized and was no more.

There was a stunned silence on the bridge. Arden Wal's face went white. For three hundred years the honorable duel had been the accepted method of keeping a war relatively cool, of testing new weapons, of providing a victory for either side to propagandize. Now, at the hands of one crewman, the entire concept was shot down. He was shocked into momentary immobility, then he turned his attention to the scanners. By all rights there should be a Cassiopeian battle fleet blinking in at that very moment. However, space was empty. After five minutes of tense waiting, Wal concluded that the Cassie had not sent a signal to the waiting fleet, that the suddenness of its destruction had prevented a report of the unbelievable action of the Empire Vandy.

He had time, then, to walk slowly to Lex's station. Lex was retiring his weapons, clearing charge on them,

Returning them to their pods. 'Congratulations, son,' Wal said in an even, tired voice. 'You've killed us.' Lex looked up. 'If I may speak, sir?'

'Yes,' Wal said wearily.

'I think I saved our lives, sir.'

'For the moment,' Wal said. 'However, we have violated the Military Code of Honor as it has never been violated before. Every action, every signal is recorded in the ship's Automatic Record. That record will be inspected when we return to port. There is no way of erasing it. Tampering with an Automatic Record is a death offense, just as violating the Code is a death offense.'

The First Officer stood at Lex's back, hand weapon pointed at Lex's head. 'Shall I put him in the brig, sir?'

'Why bother?' Wal said.

'Damned Texican,' the First Officer said, his hand white on his weapon.

'Texican?' Wal asked.

'This is the one, sir, the outworlder.'

'Yes, yes,' Wal said. 'I've been meaning to have a chat with you.' Actually he'd been putting it off. He had been afraid, having been harmed twice through contact with Texicans, that he would, face to face with one, lose his control. He knew, now, that Texicans had precipitated the Battle of Wolf's Star, where he'd lost his fine middleguard cruiser. He knew that the Texicans had led him into the Cassiopeian ambush, asa result of which he'd lost a splendid Vandy. It was because of Texas and Texicans that he was in command of a junk ship. And now, because of a Texican, he, as Captain and therefore responsible, would share this boy's guilt for blasting an enemy in violation of the Code.

And now that he was face to face with the Texican, he felt only an overwhelming sadness, and a hint of curiosity.