“You haven’t forgotten that skill!” he cried, as if charging me with a crime. “Have you forgotten anything, then? Are you truly here without memory, or are you a traitor to—”
Gederr stepped close to him. He leveled a pistol-device, which threw rays. Rohbar suddenly lacked a head.
“That was the most merciful thing to do,” said Gederr, holstering his weapon. “Send someone to drag the rest of him away.” He faced me. “Yandro will please accept my admiring congratulations. What better proof of his great gifts and high destiny than this easy conquest of one who was judged skilful with the ray-saber.” He strode toward the sound of faint music. “Come, you others. The entertainment has certainly not been spoiled.”
I switched off my saber’s power, and sheathed it. I had just killed a man, because I felt I had to, but I had no sense of triumph. I walked at the rear of the group, Doriza moving respectfully beside me.
“Doriza,” I said, “he tried to tell me something. What?”
She shook her head. “I did not know Rohbar’s mind.”
“Yet he felt close to you. Wanted to fight to keep you from me. That’s another thing. Why did you ask me if I wanted you?”
She smiled a little, with a certain shy humor. “Do not all things on Dondromogon belong to Yandro?”
I smiled back. “Doriza, perhaps I should act complimented. Yet it seems to me that Gederr and Elonie told you to make the offer. And I’m not sure—I can say this to my personal aide, can’t I?—that I want any favors at their hands.”
“Or at mine?” And she smiled again.
“Come off it, Doriza, you’re not the best of flirts. Shall we take a drink together? It wasn’t pleasant, killing that man, though you don’t seem to mourn him.”
Back in the great chamber, a sort of cloud of light was thrown in the center by several reflectors, and a sort of motion picture show was going on in the midst of it. I drank much, but the wine did not affect me greatly. Finally I felt tired, and said so. Gederr and Doriza escorted me to sumptuous apartments, where I quickly slept.
I do not know how many hours I lay asleep, but I woke refreshed. A breakfast of strange synthetic foods was waiting, on a lift that rode up in a slot of the wall. I ate with relish, took a brisk shower in a room behind my sleeping quarters, and resumed the costume of Yandro. Then came a buzz at the door, and a voice came through a speaker system: “Gederr requests that Yandro admit him.”
I opened the door. Gederr was there, and Doriza behind him. I felt the gaze of her blue eyes, very soft and pretty. Gederr smiled respectfully.
“We have talked much about the duel, we of the Council. It is agreed that great Yandro’s value is more than inspirational. If a single combat could be arranged, with some champion of the Newcomers, ill be their fate! Some boasting successor to Barak—”
“Barak,” I repeated and wondered again why his name stuck so in my fogged mind. “I—I do not know how to say it, but I seek no quarrel with Barak. I do not fear him, or anyone else; but I do not wish to fight him.”
“Barak is dead,” snapped Gederr, quite ungraciously. “Yandro need have no apprehensions.”
“I have said I fear nobody,” I reminded, stiff and lofty.
Gederr bowed. “Who could doubt it? But to return to our talk of battle; at the South Pole an inner blaze of flame from within Dondromogon has kept opposing forces from contacting each other. Only here at the North Pole can we fight, and there has been a lull since—since the destruction of their champion, Barak. We have taken advantage to hollow out a great pocket underground. See, I will show you.”
He went to a little televiso screen, and switched on the power, then dialed. I saw a great domed cavern, larger than the hemisphere room of last night’s recreation period. Around its edges toiled men with ray-batons, shaping and enlarging.
“Elsewhere we have set up cunning defenses,” explained Gederr. “Great force-fields, that interfere with their digging advance. But at one point we have purposely allowed their advance tunnels to come along easily. What you see here is behind that point. We fall back—”
“Fall back?” I repeated.
Gederr winked. “Their forces will follow, and fill this chamber. Beyond, we have entrenchments, sortie tunnels, weapons. And the floor of the chamber is mined—enough explosive even to wreck those power-shields. Their van, with its heavy equipment, will perish. We’ll wipe out the others easily!”
“How many?” ventured Doriza.
“Who can say?” Gederr responded. “They are many, but most of them must work to sustain life and action in the section of Dondromogon they have seized. They have not the sunken cities, the synthesizing advances, the other time-seasoned devices for living that we have developed. Several hundred fighting men, not many more than ours, are all that can be sent against us.”
“Are they brave?” I demanded.
“They have stubborn courage. They will rush after their comrades who fall. Perhaps if we capture a few, they will try a rescue. It will bring them to defeat—us to glory!”
His voice rose in exultation, and I chose to disagree.
“Not glory, Gederr. We can claim cunning for such a plan—yes. The pride of successful ambush and deceit—yes. But there is hardly any glory in trickery. Not as I see it, anyway.”
He bowed again. “Great Yandro is bravest of the brave, but his thoughts are those of the First Comers, ages ago. He does not understand modern sophistication and practicality.”
“I understand the practicality,” I assured him, “but I don’t glory in it.
