Ben Bova - The Dueling Machine

Hector came over to the bench, stumbling slightly, and sat beside her.

“The drinks are in the cooler,” she said, pointing to the other side of the bench.

After dinner they sat together on the bench, heads back to gaze at the stars, while the skimmer’s autopilot kept them from drifting too far from the harbor.

“This, uh… thing about Odal,” Hector said, very reluctantly. “It’s not… well, it’s not the kind of thing that…”

“I know. It’s a terrible thing to ask you to do.” She put her hand in his. “But what else can I do? I’m only a girl; I can’t go out and kill him myself. I need a protector, a champion, someone who will avenge my father’s murder. You’re the only one I can turn to, Hector.”

“Yes, but… um… killing him, that’s…”

“It’ll be dangerous, I realize that. But you’re so brave. You’re not afraid of Odal, are you?”

“No, but…”

“And it won’t be anything more than a justifiable execution. He’s a murderer. You’ll be the sword of justice. My sword of justice.”

“Yes, but…”

She pulled away slightly. “Of course, Odal will probably never return to Acquatainia. But if he does, you can be sure it’s for one thing only.”

Hector blinked. “What’s that?”

“To murder Professor Leoh,” she said.

The Star Watchman slumped back on the bench. “You’re right. And I guess I’ve got to stop him from doing, that.”

Geri turned and grabbed him by the ears and kissed him. Hector felt his feet come off the deck. He held onto her and kissed back. Then she slid away from him. He reached for her, but she took his hand in hers.

“Let me catch my breath,” she said.

He eased over toward her, feeling his heart thumping louder than the slap of the waves against the skimmer’s hull.

“Of course,” Geri said coolly, “it seems that Professor Leoh can take care of himself in the dueling machine.”

“Uh-huh.” Hector edged closer to her.

“It was very surprising to hear that Lal Ponte had challenged the Professor,” she said, backing into the corner of the bench. “Ponte is such a… a nothing type of person. I never thought he’d have the courage to fight a duel.”

Leaning close to Geri and sliding an arm across the bench’s backrest and around her shoulders, Hector said nothing.

“I remember my father saying that if anyone in the legislature was working for Kerak, it would be Ponte.”

“Huh?”

Geri was frowning with the memory. “Yes, Father was concerned that Ponte was allied with Kerak. ‘If Kerak ever conquers us,’ Father said to me once, ‘that little coward will be our Prime Minister.’”

Hector sat upright. “But now he’s serving Martine… and Martine sure isn’t pro-Kerak.”

“I know,” Geri said, nodding, “Perhaps Father was wrong. Or Ponte may have changed his mind. Or…”

“Or he could still be working for Kerak.”

Geri smiled. “Even if he is, Professor Leoh took care of him.”

“Umm.” Hector leaned back again and saw that he and Geri had somehow moved slightly apart. He pushed over toward her.

“My foot!” Geri leaped up from the bench.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I step on…” Hector jumped up too.

Geri was hopping on one foot in the tiny cockpit, making the skimmer rock with each bounce. Hector reached out to hold her, but she pushed him away. The effort toppled her over backward. The cockpit gunwale caught her behind the knees and she flipped backward, howling, into the water with a good-sized splash.

Hector, appalled, never hesitated a second. He leaped right into the sea from the point where he stood, narrowly missing Geri as he hit the water, head first, arms and legs flailing.

He came up spouting, blurry-eyed, gasping. Geri was treading water beside him.

“I… I… I…”

She laughed. “It’s all right, Hector. It’s my own fault. I lost my temper when you stepped on my foot.”

“But… I… are you?…”

“It’s a lovely night,” she said. “As long as we’re in the water anyway, why don’t we have a swim?”

“Uh… fine, except, well, that is… I can’t swim,” Hector said, and slowly he sank under.

As he stepped from the ramp of the spaceship to the slideway that led into the terminal building, Odal felt a strange sense of exhilaration.

He was in Acquatainia again! The warm sunlight, the bustling throngs of people, the gleaming towers of the city—he almost felt Dulaq’s sense of joy about being here. Of course, Odal told himself, it’s probably just a reaction to being free of Kor’s dreary Ministry of Intelligence. But the Kerak major had to admit to himself—as he moved toward the spaceport terminal, escorted by four of Kor’s men—that Acquatainia had a rhythm, a freshness, a sense of freedom and gaiety that he had never found on Kerak.

Inside the terminal building, he had fifty meters of automated inspectors to walk through before he could get into the ground car that would take him to the Kerak embassy. If there was going to be trouble, it would be here.

Two of his escorts got into the inspection line ahead of him, two behind.

Odal walked slowly between the two full-length X-ray screens and then stopped before the radiation detector. He inserted his passport and embassy identification cards into the correct slot in the computer’s registration processor.

Then he heard someone in the next line, a woman’s voice, saying, “It is him! I recognize the uniform from the tri-di news.”

“Couldn’t be,” a man’s voice answered. “They wouldn’t dare send him back here.”

Odal purposely turned their way and smiled gravely at them. The woman said, “I told you it was him!” Her husband glared at Odal.

Kor had arranged for a few newsmen to be on hand. As Odal collected bis cards and travel kit at the end of the inspection line, a small knot of cameramen began grinding their tapers at him. He walked briskly toward the nearest doors, and the ground car that he could see waiting outside. His four escorts kept the newsmen at arm’s length.

“Major Odal, don’t you consider it risky to return to Acquatainia?”

“Do you think diplomatic immunity covers assassination?”

“Aren’t you afraid someone might take a shot at you?”

The newsmen yelped after him like a pack of puppies following a man with an armful of bones. But Odal could feel the hatred now. Not so much from the newsmen, but from the rest of the people in the crowded terminal lobby. They stared at him, hating him. Before, when he was Kerak’s invincible warrior, they feared him, even envied him. But now there was nothing in the crowd but hatred for the Kerak major, Odal knew.

He ducked into the ground car and sank into the back seat. Kor’s guards filled the rest of the car. The door slammed shut, and some of the emotion and noise coming from the terminal crowd was cut off. For the first time, Odal thought about why he had returned to Acquatainia. Leoh. He frowned at the thought of what he had to do. But when he thought about Hector, about revenging himself for the Star Watchman’s absurd victory in their duel, he allowed himself to smile.

Leoh sat slumped at the desk chair in the office behind the dueling machine chamber. He had some thinking to do, and his apartment was too comfortable for creative thought.

Through the closed door of the office he heard an outer door bang, hard fast-moving footsteps, and a piercing off-key whistle. With a reluctant smile, he told the door control to open. Hector was standing there with a fist raised, ready to knock.

“How’d you know?…”

“I’m partly telepathic,” Leoh said.

“Really? I didn’t know. Do you think that helped you in your duel with… oh, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.…”