The Dueling Machine

Looks like an ancient castle, Hector thought, without knowing that it was.

He ducked back through the hatch into the equipment storage racks, pulled out a jet belt, and squirmed into it. Then he went forward to the pilot’s compartment and turned off all the power on the ship.

Might need her again, in case I can’t get to the dueling machine.

It took him ten minutes to grope his way back to the hatch in darkness. Ten minutes, three shin-barkings, and one head-banging of near concussion magnitude. But finally Hector stood outside the hatch once more. He took a deep breath, faced the Intelligence building, and touched the control stud of the jet belt.

In the quiet night, the noise was shattering. Hector’s ears rang as he flew, squinting into the stinging wind, toward the castle. Maybe this isn’t the best way to sneak up on them, he suspected. But now the battlements were looming before him, racing up fast. Cutting power, he tumbled down and hit hard, sprawling on the squared-off top of the tallest tower.

Shaking his head to clear it and get rid of the ear-ringing, Hector got to his feet. He was unhurt. The platform was about ten meters square, with a stairway leading down from one corner. Did they hear me coming?

As if in answer, he heard footsteps ticking up the stone stairway. Shrugging off the jet belt, he hefted its weight in his hands, then hurried over to the top of the stairs. A man’s head came into view. He turned as he ran up the last few steps and started to whisper hoarsely, “Are you here, Watchman? I…”

Hector knocked him unconscious with the jet belt before he could say any more. As he struggled into the Kerak guard’s uniform, pulling it over his own cover-alls, Hector suddenly wondered: How did he know it was a Watchman? Maybe he’s been alerted by the star-ship captain. If that’s the case, then these people are against Kanus.

Once inside the guard uniform, Hector started down the steps. Three more guards were waiting for him at the bottom of the flight, in a stone-faced hallway that curved off into darkness. The lighting wasn’t very good, but Hector could see that there men were big, tough-looking, and armed with pistols. He hoped they wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t the same man who had gone up the stairs a few minutes earlier.

Hector grinned at them and fluttered a wave. He kept walking, trying to get past them and down the corridor.

“Hey, you’re the…” one of the guards started to say, in the Kerak language.”

Hector suddenly felt sick. He could barely understand the Kerak tongue, much less speak it. He kept his grin, weak though it was, and walked a bit faster.

The second guard grabbed the first one’s arm and cut him short. “Let him through,” he whispered. “We’ll try to get the word to our people downstairs and get him into the dueling machine and out of here. But don’t get caught near him by Kor’s people! Understand?”

“All right, but somebody better cut off the scanners that watch the halls.”

“Can’t do that without running the risk of alerting Kor himself!”

“We’ll have to chance it… otherwise they’ll spot him in a minute, in a guard uniform four sizes too small for him.”

Hector was past them now, wondering what the whispering was about, but still moving. As he rounded the corner of the corridor, he saw an open lift tube, looking raw and new in the warm polished stone of the wall. The tube was lit and operating. Hector stepped in, said, “Dueling machine level” in basic Terran to the simple-minded computer that ran the tube, and closed his eyes.

The computer’s squeaky voice echoed back, “Dueling machine level; turn left, then right.” Hector opened his eyes and stepped out of the tube. The corridor here was much brighter, better lit. But there was still no one in sight.

It was almost like magic. Hector made his way through the long corridors of the castle without seeing another soul. He passed guard stations where steaming mugs sat alone on desk tops, passed open doors to spacious rooms, passed blank view screens. He saw scanning cameras set high up on the corridor wall every few meters, but they seemed to be off. Once or twice he thought he might have heard scuffling and the muffled sounds of men struggling, but he never saw a single person.

Then the big green double doors of the dueling machine chamber came into view. One of them was open, and he could see the machine itself, dimly lit inside.

Still no one in sight!

Hector sprinted into the big, arched-ceiling room and ran straight to the main control desk of the machine. He started setting the power when all the lights in the chamber blazed on blindingly.

From all the doors around the chamber, white-helmeted guards burst in, guns in their hands. A viewscreen high above flashed into life and a furious man with a bald, bullet-shaped head shouted:

“There he is! Get him!”

Before Hector could move, he felt the flaming pain of a stun bolt smash him against the control desk. As he sank to the floor, consciousness spiraling away from him, he heard Kor ordering:

“Now arrest all the traitors who were helping him. If they resist, kill them!”

Hector’s head was buzzing. He couldn’t get his eyes open all the way. He seemed to be in a tiny unlit cubicle, metal-walled, with a blank view screen staring at him. Something was on his head, something else strapped around his chest. He couldn’t see his hands; they were down on his lap and his head wouldn’t move far enough to look at them. Nor would his hands move, despite his will.

He heard voices. Whether they were outside the cubicle or inside his head, he couldn’t tell.

“What do you mean, nothing? He must have some thoughts in his head!”

“Yes, Minister Kor, there are. But they are so random, so patternless…, I’ve never examined a brain like his. I don’t see how he can walk straight, let alone think.”

“He is a natural telepath,” Kor’s harsh voice countered. “Perhaps he’s hiding his true thought patterns from you.”

“Under the influence of the massive drug doses we’ve given him? Impossible.”

“The drugs might not affect him.”

“No, that couldn’t be. His physical condition shows that the drugs have stupefied him almost completely.”

A new voice piped up. “The monitor shows that the drugs are wearing off; he’s beginning to regain consciousness.”

“Dose him again,” Kor ordered.

“More drugs? The effect could be dangerous… even fatal.”

“Must I repeat myself? The Watchman is a natural telepath. If he regains full consciousness inside the dueling machine, he can disappear at will. The consequences of that will be fatal… to you!”

Hector tried to open his eyes fully, but the lids felt gummy, as though they’d been glued together. Inside the dueling machine! If I can get myself together before they put me under again.… His hands weighed two hundred kilos apiece, and he still couldn’t move his head. But through his half-open eyes he could see that the view screen was softly glowing, even though blank. The machine was on. They’ve been trying to pick my brain, he realized.

“Here’s the syringe, Doctor,” another voice said. “It’s fully loaded.”

Frantically, Hector tried to brush the cobwebs from his mind. Concentrate on Acquatainia, he told himself. Concentrate! But he could hear the footsteps approaching his booth.

And then his mind seemed to explode. His whole body wrenched violently with a flood of alien thought pouring through him.

9

One moment Odal was sitting in the Acquatainian dueling machine, thinking about Geri Dulaq. An instant