The dark complected Vacamundian was surly. “I don’t know. It didn’t occur to me that they’d have that cubicle of a room, occupied by a junior janitor, bugged. I thought the rest of you were wrong, that we ought to report on these Dawnworld developments, so I took your disguised communicator and called Sid Jakes. You know the rest.”
“No use crying over spilled milk,” Jerry Rhodes said.
All eyes went to him.
Helen snarled, “I ought to spill some milk over you. What was the idea of getting into that stupid roulette game with the big shot? You knew damn well you didn’t have any real negotiable credits on Geneva.”
Jerry was plaintive. “I couldn’t escape him. I couldn’t have got out of it without blowing our cover. He was hot to get his hands on hard exchange in a numbered account on Geneva, and he wasn’t going to take no.”
Helen looked at Cesare Marconi, who had been absorbing it all, his face intelligently serious. “Why don’t you start talking?” she said.
He nodded. “Obviously, my cousin was trying to get out from under while he still had his skin. He probably does not wish to go through even this next pseudo-election.”
“Why not?” Zorro said.
Marconi turned to him. “During the elections, the First Signore’s immunity to challenge no longer applies, at least in so far as other potential candidates within the ranks of the Machiavellian Party are concerned. Over the years, a man’s reflexes fall off. This is Antonio’s second term and he’s possibly afraid he wouldn’t live to serve another.” He looked around at the others. “I can only be ashamed of the fantastically ridiculous institutions of my planet, that the Code Duello should play such a major part. It would seem impossible.”
Horsten said, “It’s not as unprecedented as all that
“At any rate,” Marconi said, “Antonio’s problems are probably solved. He’ll have his Anti-Subversion lads do up a good case against you. The fact that you’re from overspace makes it still better. This duel will be highly popular and”—he looked at Jerry glumly—“his killing you will undoubtedly result in his retaining his office. Hell be so popular that his opponents wouldn’t dream of opposing him openly.” His eyes went to Horsten and Zorro. “Then, he’ll take on you two, just to parlay his popularity to the skies.”
Jerry cleared his throat. “Suppose I finish him, instead. I’m kind of lucky.”
The Florentine shook his head. “Luck isn’t going to be involved. And, you being a subversive from overspace, if by the wildest chance you did win, the mob would find you and pull you down. If you’re lucky, there’ll be a quick death under Antonio’s fire, which is what will happen anyway. As I told you, his reflexes are admirable, possibly next to my own, the best on Firenze.”
Zorro said, “If you’re so good, why aren’t you First Signore?”
Marconi looked at him and said very slowly, “I told you I was the sole Engelist on Firenze. I am opposed to the present institutions. And that includes dueling as a method of achieving political ends.” He snorted self- deprecation. “In spite of the fact that events have made it necessary for me to take up tutoring fencing to make my living.”
Helen popped up from her chair and strode over to the bar, the childish skip gone from her walk. She grabbed up the sole remaining bottle of Golden Chartreuse and returned with it to the table to pour herself a healthy slug. “What an aroma,” she murmured.
And then, “Look. We’re going around and around, getting nowhere. By the looks of it, we’re being kept in this suite until the slaughter. Jerry’s going to have his work cut out avoiding that appointment in the Parco Duello. And…”
“Not in the park,” Cesare Marconi said, shaking his head. “Too big an event. It’ll be in the auditorium of the College of the Code Duello, where the Tri-Di coverage will be perfect.”
Jerry said, “You mean this whole thing goes on the air?”
“Like I said, Signore Rhodes, it will be the making of the First Signore in this pseudo-election. It will be played up to the point where every man, woman and child on Firenze will be glued to the Tri-Di set.”
“Hm,” Helen said.
The Great Marconi reached out for the bottle of Chartreuse, but little Helen was before him. She snatched the rare liqueur. There was only an inch or so left.
The Florentine’s eyebrows went up. She didn’t look particularly the worse for wear, in spite of the hefty number of drinks she had poured down since the First Signore and his party had left.
Helen said, ”
Dorn Horsten grunted. “You’ve had a use for all three bottles the bar originally was equipped with,” he said. “I’ll never get over it. You put away alcohol like it was strained fruit juice.”
“Shut up, you big lummox, I’m thinking.”
Horsten grunted again and turned back to the Florentine duelist. “To get back to Jerry and his rendezvous with your cousin. What will be the procedure?”
“I suppose you two, you and Zorro, will have to be Signore Rhodes’ seconds. However, I’ll act as your adviser. The manufacturing of the Sten guns shouldn’t take more than twenty-four hours. Undoubtedly, Antonio’s seconds will then turn up and a time will be set for the meeting. You have, perhaps, a day and a half, at most, two.”
Helen said, “No way of escaping? Getting off the planet?”
He looked at her glumly. “With the security forces on this world? And only one spaceport? And with no United Planets Embassy, even? Why do you bother to ask?”
The auditorium of the College of the Code Duello was done up in such wise that it might have been recognized by a showman of yesteryear as a movie set portraying the Florence of the days of the Medici. Perhaps a cinema producer of the past might have so recognized it, though the doubt is there that Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, or Donatello would have. Alas, long millennia had expired between the golden Renaissance city and the interior decorators employed by the Machiavellian Party.
Nevertheless, the setting was impressive in its rich grandeur. On the face of it, the First Signore was going to milk every drop of propaganda value from his revenge on the subversives from overspace who had come to undermine the institutions of the Free Democratic Commonwealth of Firenze. Or, so at least had the mass media of the planet announced.
Uniforms were impressive; even those of the enlisted men of the guard were a blaze of color. Officers and high rankers of the immediate staffs of the First Signore and his Council on Signori were quite breathtaking in their grandeur.
Even Cesare Marconi, for once, had risen above his usual seedy attire and had blossomed forth in the garb of a Florentine of the highest position.
He stood, most unhappily, with the group of Section G operatives in the corner of the auditorium where the protocol officers had assigned them. There were two or three Tri-Di cameras trained on them, otherwise they were free to their own devices.
The self-styled Great Marconi grunted deprecation. “I am beginning to wonder why I am here,” he said. “Foot-dragging opposition to my cousin’s government is one thing. In the past, nobody took me very seriously. This is another thing.”
Zorro said sourly, “What happens now?”
“We’re waiting for the First Signore. His public relations people undoubtedly have it all figured out. Just the point where suspense has built up to the ultimate, but not quite to where the patriotic citizenry is beginning to weary of the delay. Only the blind, on Firenze, are not watching this, and they’re listening.”
Helen, now that their cover was irretrievably blown, had improvised from her wardrobe the nearest thing she could achieve to adult wear and a touch of cosmetics. She had rearranged her hair, managed a bit here, a bit there, so that she now appeared to be an adult, albeit a tiny one by the standards of any member of the United Planets save her own world.
Jerry said, not nearly so glum as the occasion might have warranted, “I’ve always been kind of lucky.”
They ignored that.
Dorn Horsten, pushing his glasses back on his nose in irritation, said, “I’m beginning to build up a disregard
