now there’ll be no tricks. I’ll find you, and when I do, I’ll kill you!”
The flash of a black-and-silver uniform among the fashion models, overweight women, underweight men, scientific demonstrations and new, new, new products. Odal headed in that direction.
“And what about Leoh?” Hector’s voice cut through the taped noise. “He killed you without any tricks. But you’re afraid to go after him now, aren’t you?”
Odal laughed. “Do you really believe that old man beat me? I could have destroyed him at any time I wished.”
He ducked under the arm of a well-preserved matron who was saying, “WHY LET ADVANCING AGE WORRY YOU, WHEN A REJUVE.…” There was Hector, edging slowly toward the door.
“You deliberately lost to Leoh?” Hector’s face, in the reflections of the tri-di images, looked more puzzled than frightened. “To make it seem…”
“To make it seem that Leoh is a great hero, and that Kerak is populated by weaklings and cowards. All his duels were designed for that purpose. And while he lulls the Acquatainians with his tales of victory, we prepare to
On the final word Odal leaped at Hector, hit him with satisfying solidity, shoulder in mid-section, and they both went down.
A tangle of arms and legs, knees and elbows, gasps, two strong young bodies grappling. Somehow they rolled into one of the desk chairs, which toppled down on them. Odal felt Hector slipping out of his grasp. As the Kerak major started to get back to his feet, the chair slid into him again and he slipped against it and hit the floor face first.
Swearing, he started to get up. But Hector was already on his feet. And then the door swung open, stabbing light from the hallway into the room. A girl stood there, with a gun in her trembling hand.
“Hector! Here!” Geri said, and she tossed the gun to the Watchman.
Hector grabbed it and pointed it at Odal. The Kerak major froze, on one knee, hands on the floor, head upturned, face a mask of rage turned to sudden fear. Hector stood equally immobile, arm outstretched with the gun aimed at Odal’s head.
“Kill him!” Geri whispered harshly. “Quickly, they’re coming!”
Hector let his arm relax. The gun dropped slightly away from Odal. “Get up,” he said. “And… don’t give me any excuses for using this thing.”
Odal got slowly to his feet.
“Kill him! You promised!” Geri insisted, half in tears.
“I can’t… not like this…”
“You mean you
Nodding without taking his eyes off Odal, Hector said, “That’s right, I won’t. Not even for you.”
Odal’s voice was like a knife. “You’d better kill me, Watchman, while you have the chance. I’ll spend the rest of my life hunting you.”
A trio of uniformed guards puffed up to the doorway; behind them were a half-dozen people from the tri-di show, and Leoh.
“What’s going on? Who’s this? Are you…”
“This is Major Odal,” Hector said, pointing with the gun. “He’s… uh, under the protection of diplomatic immunity. Please escort him back to the Kerak embassy.”
His face expressionless, Odal nodded to the Star Watchman and went with the guards.
13
“You mean it all went out on the tri-di network? Every word?” asked Hector.
He, Leoh, and Geri were sitting in the back of an automated Dulaq ground car as it threaded its way through the darkened city, heading for Geri’s home. The midnight rain was falling for its programed half-hour, so the car’s bubble top was up.
Geri had not said a word since Odal was taken from the tri-di studio.
But Leoh was chuckling. “When you hit all those switches and turned on the commercial tapes, you also turned on the sound system for every studio. We heard the bedlam, with you and Odal shouting at each other over it all. It came over the speakers right in the middle of our show. You should have seen the look on everyone’s face!
And I understand that you ruined at least six other shows that were being taped at the time.”
“Really?” Hector squirmed. “I… that is, I didn’t mean… well, I’m sorry about that.…”
Waving a hand at him, Leoh said, “Relax, my boy. Your fight with Odal—the audio portion of it—was beamed into nearly every home on the planet. Everyone in Acquatainia knows what a fool I’ve been, and that Kerak is still as much of a threat as ever.”
“You’re not a fool,” Hector said.
“Yes, I’ve been one,” insisted Leoh. “Worse, I’ve been a dupe, letting my own glory get in the way of my judgment. But that’s over now. My place is in science, not politics, and certainly not show business! I’m going to concentrate on your ‘jump’ in the dueling machine. If that was a sample of teleportation, then the machine can amplify that talent, just as it amplified Odal’s telepathic abilities. Now, if we put enough power into the machine…”
The car glided to a stop under the roofed driveway in front of the entrance to Geri’s house. Leoh stayed in the car while Hector walked her to her door. In the shadows, he couldn’t see her face too well. They stopped at the door.
“Um… Geri, I… well, I just couldn’t kill him. Not… not like that. I wanted to please you… but, well, if you want an assassin… I guess it’s just not me that you’re interested in.”
She said nothing. A gentle warm breeze brought the odor of wet leaves to them.
Hector fidgeted.
Finally he said, “Well, good night…”
“Good-by, Hector,” Geri said flatly.
Leoh was studiously looking the other way, watching the final few drops of ram splatter on the statuary alongside the driveway, when Hector returned to the car. The old scientist looked at the Watchman as he ducked into the car and slumped in the seat.
“Why so glum, my boy? What’s the matter?”
Shrugging, Hector said. “It’s a long story…”
“Oh, I see. Well then. To get back to the teleportation idea. If we can boost the power of the machine…”
PART III
1
It was ironic, thought Odal, that they were using the dueling machine to torture him. For it was torture, no matter what they called it or how they smiled when they were doing it.
He sat there in the cramped cubicle, staring at its featureless walls, the blank view screen, waiting for them to begin.
The price of failure was heavy, too heavy. Kanus had made Odal the glory of Kerak while he was a success,
