Ben Bova - The Dueling Machine

The old scientist tried to resist the pressure, at first. For the week after the original showing of his duel on tri-di, he refused to make any public statement.

“Tell them I’m busy,” he said to Hector, and he tried to barricade himself behind his equations and computer tapes in the office behind the dueling machine.

When the universities began calling on him, though, he bowed to their wishes. Before he knew it, he was swept away in a giddy tide of personal appearances, tri-di shows, and parties.

“Perhaps,” he told Hector, “this is the way to meet the people who influence Martine’s government. Perhaps I can convince them to consider the Commonwealth alliance, and they can put pressure on Martine.”

At parties, at private meetings, at press conferences, Leoh stressed the point. But there was no apparent affect The students, the professors, the newsmen, the businessmen, the tri-di audience—they wanted entertainment, not politics. They wanted to be assured that all was well, not forced to think about how to protect themselves.

The university lectures were huge successes, as lectures. Leoh expected to be speaking mainly to the psychonics students, but each vast auditorium was filled to overflowing with students and faculty from political science, physics, mathematics, sociology, psychiatry… thousands at each campus.

And at each university there were the local newsmen, tri-di appearances, discussion clubs. And the faculty parties in the evenings. And the informal student seminars in the late afternoons. And the newsman who just “dropped in for a few words” at breakfast time.

It took more than two months to make the rounds of each university in the Cluster. At first, Leoh tried to steal a few moments each day to work on the problem of Hector’s “jump.” But each day he woke up more tired, each day was filled with still more people to talk to, people who listened respectfully, admiringly. Each night he retired later; happy, exhausted, with a small nagging grumble in the back of his mind that he should really stop this show-business routine and get back to science.

Hector grew more and more worried as he shepherded Leoh from one campus to the next. The old man was obviously enjoying himself hugely, and just as obviously spending too much of his strength on the traveling and personal appearances and parties. What’s more, Geri was in the capital city, and all the eager smiling girls on all the campuses in the Cluster couldn’t replace her in his eyes.

In the midst of all this, Leoh even fought two more duels.

The first one was with a university physics student who had bet his friends that he could beat the Professor. Leoh agreed good-naturedly to the duel, provided the boy was willing to let the tape be shown on tri-di. The boy agreed.

Instead of the simple physics arena, Leoh chose a more difficult battleground: the intensely warped space in the powerful gravitational field of a collapsed star. The duelists fought in one-man spacecraft, using laser beams for weapons. The problem was to control the ship in a gravitational field so tenacious that one slip meant an inevitable spiral into the star’s seething surface; and to aim the laser weapons properly, where the relativistic warp of space drove straight-line physics out the window.

The boy tried bravely as the two ships circled the dying star. The tape showed the view from each ship, alternately. Now the viewer could see the black depths of space, empty except for a few distant pinpoints of stars, and the curving crescent of the other duelist’s ship streaking by, a pencil beam of laser light flicking out, bending weirdly in that crazy gravity field, seeking its target. Then the bluish inferno of the star would slide into view, blazing, brilliant, drowning out everything else from sight.

The boy fought well, but finally maneuvered himself too close to the star. He could have escaped if he had controlled the ship a little better. Instead, he power-dived straight into its flaming surface. The tri-di executives decided to erase his final screams from the tape before they showed it to the public.

The second challenge came from an Acquatainian merchant, one of the richest men in the Cluster, who had drunk too much at a party and picked a quarrel with Leoh. The Professor went back to the simple physics arena and disposed of him easily.

By the time Leoh (and Hector) returned to the capital, he was the darling of Acquatainian society. They feasted him, they toasted him, they took him to the ballet and opera, they did everything except let him alone to work. Geri was part of Acquatainia’s social leadership, so Hector at least got to see her—but only in crowded, noisy rooms.

Odal sat tensely to his room’s only chair and watched Kor’s bullet-shaped head on the view screen as the Intelligence Minister said:

“So far the plan has gone extremely well. Leoh has not only been of no trouble to us, but his exploits have distracted most of the soft-headed Acquatainians. Meanwhile our preparations are exactly on schedule.”

“The invasion,” Odal murmured.

Kor smiled. “We have—let us say, persuaded—the government of the Etra Domain to allow us to station a battle fleet in their territory. Etra stands between the Acquatainian Cluster and the nearest Star Watch bases. If the Commonwealth tries to intervene, we can hold up their forces long enough to allow us to conquer Acquatainia.”

Odal nodded curtly, he had heard the plan before.

“Now is the time,” Kor went on, “for you to supply the final step. The destruction of Leoh, and the complete lulling of the Acquatainians.”

Odal said nothing.

“You still do not like the role you are required to play,” Kor said. “No, don’t bother to deny it, I can see it in your face. Let me remind you that your duty may not always be pleasant, but if you succeed your rewards will be high.”

“I will do my duty, unpleasant or not,” Odal said stiffly. And I know the penalties for failure, he added silently.

Leoh looked bone-weary to Hector as they returned from the party. That morning, a new psychonics building had been dedicated at the university. It was named the Albert Robertus Leoh Center for Psychonics Studies .

The day had been spent in speeches on an outdoor platform in the morning, a tour of the new building in the afternoon, dinner with the president and trustees of the university, and the inevitable party that night.

“I’ve simply got to find time,” Leoh was saying as they stepped out of the lift tube into the hallway in front of their apartment, “to run some experiments on your ‘jump.’ We can use the tape of…”

But Hector was staring quizzically at the apartment door. It was open and the lights inside were on.

“Another newsman, I’ll bet,” Leoh said wearily.

“I’ll tell him to come back some other time,” said Hector. He moved ahead of Leoh and entered the apartment.

Sitting on the air couch in the middle of the living room was Odal.

“You!”

The Kerak major rose to his feet slowly, a tight smile on his face, as first Hector and then Leoh came in, saw him, and stopped.

“Good evening,” Odal said, getting to his feet. “Come right in. After all, this is your place.”

“How did you get into?…”

“That’s of no real concern. I’m here to settle some unfinished business. Professor Leoh, some time ago you accused me of cheating in the dueling machine. I was about to challenge you when the Watchman intervened. I challenge you now.”

“Now wait,” Hector began, “you can’t…”

“I already have. Professor, do you accept my challenge?”

Leoh stood three steps inside the door, unmoving, silent.