Ben Bova - The Dueling Machine

“But, you see, if Dulaq and Massan and all their predecessors never allied Acquatainia with the Commonwealth, then for me to attempt it would be an admission of weakness. There are strong pro-Kerak forces in the legislature, and many others who are still as blind and stubborn as I’ve been. I would be voted out of office in a week if I tried to make an alliance with the Terrans.”

Leoh asked, “Then what can you do?”

“I can do very little. But you can do much. I cannot call the Star Watch for help. But you can contact your friend, Sir Harold, and suggest that he ask me for permission to bring a Star Watch fleet through the Cluster. Any excuse will do… battle maneuvers, exploration, cultural exchange, anything.”

Leoh shifted uneasily in his chair. “You want me to ask Harold to ask you…”

“Yes, that’s it.” Martine nodded briskly. “And it must be a small Star Watch fleet, quite small. To the rest of Acquatainia, it must appear obvious that the Terran ships are not being sent here to help defend us against Kerak. But to Kanus, it must be equally obvious that he cannot attack Acquatainia without the risk of killing Watchmen and immediately involving the Commonwealth.”

“I think I understand,” said Leoh, with a rueful smile. “Einstein was right: nuclear physics is much simpler than politics.”

Martine laughed, but there was bitterness in it.

Kanus sat in brooding silence behind his immense desk, his thin, sallow face dark with displeasure. Sitting with him in the oversized office, either looking up at him at his cunningly elevated desk, or avoiding his sullen stare, were most of the members of his Inner Cabinet.

At length, the Leader spoke. “We had the Acquataine Cluster in our grasp, and we allowed an old refugee from a university and a half-wit Watchman to snatch it away from us. Kor! You told me the plan was foolproof!”

The Minister of Intelligence remained calm, except for a telltale glistening of perspiration on his bullet-shaped dome. “It was foolproof, until…”

“Until? Until? I want the Acquataine Cluster, not excuses!”

“And you shall have it,” Marshal Lugal promised. “As soon as the army is re-equipped and…”

“As soon as! Until!” Kanus’ voice rose to a scream. “We had a plan of conquest and it failed. I should have the lot of you thrown to the dogs! And you, Kor; this was your operation, your plan. You picked this mind reader… Odal. He was to be the express instrument of my will. And he failed! You both failed. Twice! Can you give me any reason for allowing you to continue to pollute the air with your presence?”

Kor replied evenly, “The Acquataine government is still very shaky and ripe for plucking. Men sympathetic to you, my Leader, have gained important posts in that government. Moreover, despite the failures of Major Odal, we are now on the verge of perfecting a new secret weapon, a weapon so powerful that…”

“A secret weapon?” Kanus’ eyes lit up.

Kor lowered his voice a notch. “It may be possible, our scientists believe, to use a telepath such as Odal and the dueling machine to transport objects from one place to another—over any distance, almost instantaneously.”

Kanus sat silent for a moment, digesting the information. Then he asked: “Whole armies?”

“Yes.”

“Anywhere in the galaxy?”

“Wherever there is a dueling machine.”

Kanus rose slowly, dramatically, from his chair and stepped over to the huge star map that spanned one entire wall of the spacious room. He swept the whole map with an all-inclusive gesture and shouted:

“Anywhere! I can strike anywhere. And they will never know what hit them!”

He literally danced for joy, prancing back and forth before the map. “Nothing can stand in our way now! The Terran Commonwealth will fall before us. The galaxy is ours. We will make them tremble at the thought of us. We will make them cower at the mention of my name!”

The men of the Inner Cabinet nodded and murmured agreement.

Suddenly Kanus’ face hardened again and he whirled around to Kor. “Is this really a secret, or is someone else working on it too? What of this Leoh?”

“It is possible,” Kor replied as blandly as he could, “that Professor Leoh is also working along the same lines. After all, the dueling machine is his invention. But he does not have the services of a trained telepath, such as Odal.”

Kanus said, “I do not like the fact that you are depending on this failure, Odal.”

Kor allowed a vicious smile to crack his face. “We are not depending on him, my Leader. We are using his brain. He is an experimental animal, nothing more.”

Kanus smiled back at the Minister. “He is not enjoying his new duties, I trust.”

“Hardly,” Kor said.

“Good. Let me see tapes of his… ah, experiments.”

“With pleasure, my Leader.”

The door to the far end of the room opened and Romis, Minister of Foreign Affairs, stepped in. The room fell into a tense silence as his shoes clicked across the marble floor. Tall, spare, utterly precise, Romis walked straight to the Leader, holding a lengthy report in his hand. His patrician face was graven.

“I have unpleasant news, Chancellor.”

They stood confronting each other, and everyone in the room could see their mutual hatred. Kanus—short, spare, dark—glared up at the silver-haired aristocrat.

“Our embassy in Acquatainia,” Romis continued icily, “reports that Sir Harold Spencer has requested permission to base a Star Watch survey expedition temporarily on one of the frontier stars of the Acquataine Cluster. A star near our border, of course. Martine has agreed to it.”

Kanus went white, then his face slowly turned red. He snatched the report from Romis’ hand, scanned it, crumpled it, and threw it to the floor. For a few moments he could not even speak. Then the tirade began.

An hour and a half later, when the Leader was once again coherent enough to speak rationally, his ministers were assuring him:

“The Terrans will only be there temporarily.”

“It’s only a small fleet… no military value at all.”

“It’s a feeble attempt by Martine and Spencer…”

At the mention of Spencer’s name, Kanus broke into another half-hour of screaming tantrum. Finally, he abruptly stopped.

“Romis! Stop staring out the window and give me your assessment of this situation.”

The Foreign Minister turned slowly from the window and answered, “You must assume that the Terrans will remain in Acquatainia indefinitely. If they do not, all to the good. But your plans must be based on the assumption that they will. That means you cannot attack Acquatainia by military force…”

“Why not?” Kanus demanded.

Romis explained, “Because the Terrans will immediately become involved in the fighting. The entire Star Watch will be mobilized, under the pretext of saving their survey fleet from danger, as soon as we attack. The fleet is simply an excuse for the Terrans to step in against us.”

But Kanus’ eyes began to glow. “I have the plan,” he announced. Turning to Kor:

“You must push the development of this instantaneous transporter to the ultimate. I want a working device immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my Leader.”

Rubbing his hands together joyfully, Kanus said, “We will have our army appear in the Acquatainian capital. We’ll conquer the Cluster from within! Wherever they have a dueling machine, we’ll appear and conquer with the swiftness of lightning! Let the Star Watch plant their hostages on the frontier… they’ll gather cobwebs there! We’ll have the whole Cluster in our fist before Spencer even realizes we’ve moved!”