Code Duello

deck.

Jerry Rhodes looked down at the unconscious sorehead.

“Wow,” he said in awed wonder. “That sure was luck.”

“Luck!” Helen snarled at him, as she reappeared in the doorway. “Why, you stupid jerk! If we hadn’t followed, this overgrown pig would have clobbered you.”

“Um,” he told her, in heartfelt earnestness. “That’s what I meant. I sure am lucky you two showed up.”

Chapter Three

They had little to go on, when the Half Moon set down on Firenze. In fact, had decided, in conference, that there was surprisingly little known about the workings of the subversive wracked world. After all, it had been a member of United Planets for the better part of a century. During that time, a considerable dossier should have accumulated, based on the reports of Section G and other U.P. personnel assigned there. However, after assimilating what reports Irene Kasansky had given them, immediately before departure, they realized how preciously scant the supposed inside information was.

“These people are really security conscious,” Dorn Horsten had muttered, frowning down at the thin sheaf of study material.

“We’ll have to play it by ear,” Helen said, as unhappy as her oversized partner.

Jerry said, “Well, it’s all rather simple. They’re plagued by an underground. Our job is to locate these subversives and do them in. With a little luck…”

They bent on him a simultaneous glower.

Jerry swallowed apologetically and shut up.

Zorro said, “We’d better destroy these papers. It wouldn’t do to try to land with anything connecting us to Section G.”

It turned out that their destination had exactly one spaceport. It was indicative of the restrictions Firenze’s situation had imposed. There were, throughout the United Planets Confederation, various worlds that minimized the amount of intercourse with fellow planets. But, invariably, these were the most reactionary, backward members of man’s far-flung league, worlds whose ruling classes could not afford to allow their populations to come in contact with peoples who had solved man’s immediate socioeconomic problems and had achieved to a high degree of freedom.

There were quite a number of such planets thrown up in the race’s chaotic populating of this sector of the galaxy. Usually, worlds based on one type of dictatorship or another, ranging from theocracies to technocracies, in few of which the ruling elite were actually elite—although when the politico-economic system had been originated, perhaps they had been.

Possibly, the least valid method of choosing a ruling class has been the most widely utilized by the human race: nepotism. In primitive society, it must have been unknown, or practically so. When representation was based on the sib, clan, or gens and chiefs were elected on their merit, there was little reason for such a tribal official to wish to hand down his office to his son. There was no profit motive, since the job was not remunerative, a chief being not better off materially than any other member of the tribe. However, as society evolved and the powers of the chiefs—and priests—of necessity expanded, they had little time to hunt their own game, or till their own fields, as Odysseus was found doing when Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Palamedes came to recruit him for the police action against Illium. It became necessary for society as a whole to provide for their elected rulers and in time the jobs became worth having, leisure being the ultimate luxury in a society where abundance is but a dream. And, shortly, such offices became no longer elective, as strongman and holyman subverted primitive institutions.

Be all this as it may, it was distressing for the operatives of Section G to see such indications of the police state as but one port of entry to a whole planet as advanced as Firenze. Among other things, it meant restrictions on commerce and exchange of technological knowledge, and this, above all, was what their department was interested in fostering.

Their small group were the only ones disembarking on Firenze. For that matter, they had been the only passengers aboard the Half Moon, which, although licensed to carry travelers, was so haphazardly scheduled that it was seldom practical. While the robos unloaded their luggage, and such freight as had been designated for this set down, the four of them, still pretending to be comparative strangers, took a spaceport ground vehicle to the administration building, the surly second officer accompanying them, to handle any red tape that might evolve.

By the half-puzzled looks he sometimes shot from the corner of his eyes at Jerry Rhodes, it could be seen that Helmut Drinker was still not quite clear on what had happened. In his memory, evidently, one moment he had been heading for the foppish Jerry, to wring from him either the credits Brinker considered he had coming to him, or his pound of flesh, from the other’s none too brawny frame. The next moment, black had become the color of the day, and when he had awakened, it was with an egg-sized bump on his chin and utter disbelief in his mind.

Helen, her small, chubby hands folded demurely in her lap, had been gazing at him in the unblinking quizzicalness of pre-adolescence, since they had first mounted the air-cushion cart.

Finally she blurted, “Mr. Second Officer Blinker, you got two chins.”

“Helen!” Dorn Horsten said.

She looked at her supposed father. “Well, he has, Daddy. Hasn’t he, Uncle Zorro? One of ’em’s blue. You got two chins, Mr. Blinker, and one of ’em’s blue.” She added, from accumulated wisdom, “Most people only got one chin.”

Helmut Brinker scowled at her. “Brinker,” he said.

“Brinker what?”

“My name’s Brinker, not Blinker,” he growled in disgust.

“That’s what I said,” she said with satisfaction. “And two chins.”

“Helen,” Dorn Horsten said in mild reproof, “Citizen Brinker is the same as everyone else. He has only one chin. Now, that will be all. Please be on your best behavior at the administration building.”

Helen looked skeptically at the second officer’s lower face. She turned her eyes to Zorro and then Jerry Rhodes, as though seeking corroboration. However, those two worthies looked away. Helen returned to observing the chin—or chins—in question and muttering to herself under her breath.

“That will be all, Helen,” her father said, and, evidently to take the conversation out of the hands of his disconcerting daughter, added to Helmut Brinker, “Are none of the crew to take, ah, port-leave here? I would think they would welcome the opportunity.” The second officer snorted. “On this planet? If the skipper let ten men off on an overnight pass, three’d get themselves shot in duels, as easy’s they’d get a black eye and a hangover on some good shore-leave world like, say, Shangri-La. And four of the others’d be in the brig for something subversive, like preferring vanilla to chocolate ice cream.” He snorted sourly again.

The driver of the spaceport runabout swiveled in his seat and looked at Helmut Brinker. He said evenly, “You an Engelist, or something?”

“Holy Jumpin’ Zen, no,” the Half Moon’s second officer blurted. “I was just kidding.”

The driver continued to look at him for a long moment, finally, after darting a glance back at the tarmac to check his course, he said, “Maybe you don’t like Firenze? Maybe you think you can toss insults around about the planet of my birth, right in front of me. I’m just a nobody, without enough guts to call you out.”

“Holy Ultimate,” the second muttered. “If I get myself skewered in some silly duel, the skipper’ll crucify me.” He looked earnestly at the Florentine. “Look, fella, I’m sorry. I apologize. I love this planet, uh, Firenze. I was just joking.”

The driver began to turn back to his task of piloting, when Jerry Rhodes began to laugh.

The Florentine’s face became a mask. “What’s funny Signore?”

But Helen was in there. She shook her finger at the transportation cart’s chauffeur. “Now, you stop turning around all the time and talking and all. You scare me. I never rode in one of these things afore, and you turn around all the time and get mad, and you scare me. And I don’t like it here. And”—she topped it—“I’ll tell my daddy!”

“Now, Helen,” her father said.