The Dueling Machine

him.”

“He’s still completely withdrawn?”

Hector nodded. “The medics think that… well, maybe with drugs and therapy and all that… maybe in a few months or so they might be able to bring him back.”

“Not soon enough. We’ve only got four days.”

“I know.”

Leoh was silent for several minutes. Then, “Who is Dulaq’s closest living relative? Does he have a wife?”

“Umm, I think his wife’s dead. Has a daughter, though. Pretty girl. I bumped into her in the hospital once or twice…”

Leoh smiled in the darkness. Hector’s term, “bumped into,” was probably completely literal.

“There might be a way to make Dulaq tell us what happened during his duel,” Leoh said. “But it’s a very dangerous way. Perhaps a fatal way.”

Hector didn’t reply.

“Come on, my boy,” Leoh said. “Let’s find that daughter and talk to her.”

“Tonight?”

“Now.”

She certainly is a pretty girl, Leoh thought as he explained very carefully to Geri Dulaq what he proposed to do. She sat quietly and politely in the spacious living room of the Dulaq residence. The glittering chandelier cast touches of fire on her chestnut hair. Her slim body was slightly rigid with tension, her hands were clasped tightly in her lap. Her face, which looked as though it could be very expressive, was completely serious now.

“And that’s the sum of it,” Leoh concluded. “I believe that it will be possible to use the dueling machine itself to examine your father’s thoughts and determine what took place during his duel against Major Odal. It might even help to break him out of his coma.”

She asked softly, “But it might also be such a shock to him that he could die?”

Leoh nodded wordlessly.

“Then I’m very sorry, Professor, but I must say no.” Firmly.

“I understand your feelings,” Leoh replied, “but I hope you realize that unless we can stop Odal immediately, we may very well be faced with war, and millions will die.”

She nodded. “I know. But we’re speaking of my father’s life. Kanus will have his war in any event, no matter what I do.”

“Perhaps,” Leoh admitted. “Perhaps.”

Hector and Leoh drove back to the university campus and their quarters in the dueling machine building. Neither of them slept well that night.

The next morning, after an unenthusiastic breakfast, they found themselves in the antiseptic-white chamber, before the looming impersonal intricacy of the machine.

“Would you like to practice with it?” Leoh asked.

Hector shook his head gloomily. “Maybe later.”

The phone chimed in Leoh’s office. They both went in. Geri Dulaq’s face took form on the view screen.

“I just heard the news,” she said a little breathlessly. “I didn’t know, last night, that Lieutenant Hector had challenged Odal.”

“He challenged Odal,” Leoh answered, “to prevent the assassin from challenging me.”

“Oh.” Her face was a mixture of concern and reluctance. “You’re a brave man, Lieutenant.”

Hector’s expression went through a dozen contortions, all of them speechless.

“Won’t you reconsider your decision?” Leoh asked. “Hector’s life may depend on it.”

She closed her eyes briefly, then said, “I can’t. My father’s life is my first responsibility. I’m sorry.” There was real torment in her voice.

They exchanged a few meaningless trivialities—with Hector still thoroughly tongue-tied—and ended the conversation on a polite but strained note.

Leoh rubbed his thumb across the phone switch for a moment, then turned to Hector. “My boy, I think it would be a good idea for you to go straight to the hospital and check on Dulaq’s condition.”

“But… why…”

“Don’t argue, son. This could be vitally important. Check on Dulaq. In person, no phone calls.”

Hector shrugged and left the office. Leoh sat down at his desk and waited. There was nothing else he could do. After a while he got up and paced out to the big chamber, through the main doors, and out onto the campus. He walked past a dozen buildings, turned and strode as far as the decorative fence that marked the end of the main campus, ignoring students and faculty alike. He walked all around the campus, like a picket, trading nervous energy for time.

As he approached the dueling machine building again he spotted Hector walking dazedly toward him. For once, the Watchman was not whistling. Leoh cut across some lawn to get to him.

“Well?” he asked.

Hector shook his head, as if to clear away an inner fog. “How did you know she’d be at the hospital?”

“The wisdom of age. What happened?”

“She kissed me. Right there in the hallway of the…”

“Spare me the geography,” Leoh cut in. “What did she say?”

“I bumped into her in the hallway. We, uh, started talking… sort of. She seemed, well… worried about me. She got upset. Emotional. You know? I guess I looked pretty down… I mean, I’m not that brave… I’m scared and it must have shown.”

“You aroused her maternal instinct.”

“I… I don’t think it was that… exactly. Well, anyway, she said that if I’m willing to risk my life to save yours, she couldn’t protect her father any more. Said she was doing it out of selfishness, really, since he’s her only living relative.… I don’t believe she meant it, but she said it anyway.”

They had reached the building by now. Leoh grabbed Hector’s arm and steered him clear of a collision with the half-open door.

“She’s agreed to let us put Dulaq in the dueling machine?”

“Sort of.”

“Eh?”

“The medical staff doesn’t want him moved… especially not back here. She agrees with them.”

Leoh snorted. “All right. In fact, so much the better. I’d rather not have the Kerak people see us bring Dulaq to the dueling machine. Instead, we’ll smuggle the dueling machine into the hospital!”

13

They plunged to work immediately. Leoh preferred not to inform the regular staff of the dueling machine about their plan, so he and Hector had to work through the night and most of the next morning. Hector barely understood what he was doing, but with Leoh’s supervision he managed to dismantle part of the machine’s central network, insert a few additional black electronics boxes that the Professor had conjured up from the spare-parts bins in the basement, and then reconstruct the machine so that it looked exactly the same as before they had started.

In between his frequent trips to oversee Hector’s work, Leoh had jury-rigged a rather bulky headset and a hand-sized override control circuit. The late morning sun was streaming through the hall when Leoh finally explained it all to Hector.

“A simple matter of technological improvisation,” he told the puzzled Watchman. “You’ve installed a short- range transceiver into the machine, and this headset is a portable transceiver for Dulaq. Now he can sit in his hospital bed and still be ‘in’ the dueling machine.”