Ben Bova - The Dueling Machine

Kanus laughed uproariously, and all his aides laughed with him.

All except Romis.

Professor Leoh slouched unhappily in a chair at the dueling machine’s main control desk. Hector sat uneasily on the first few centimeters of the desk edge.

“We have adequate power,” Leoh said, “the circuits are correct, everything seems normal.” He looked up, puzzled, at Hector.

The Watchman stammered, “I know… I just… well, I just can’t do it.”

Shaking his head, Leoh said, “We’ve duplicated the conditions of your first jump. But now it doesn’t work. If the machine is exactly the same, then there must be something different about you.”

Hector wormed his shoulders uncomfortably.

“What is it, my boy? What’s bothering you? You haven’t been yourself since the night you caught Odal.” Hector didn’t reply.

“Listen,” said Leoh. “Psychic phenomena are very difficult to pin down. For centuries men have known cases where people have apparently teleported, or used telepathy. There are thousands of cases on record of poltergeists#longdash#they were actually thought to be ghosts, ages ago. Now I’m sure that they’re really cases of telekinesis: the poltergeist was actually a fairly normal human being, under extraordinary stress, who threw objects around his house mentally without even knowing it himself.”

“Just like when I jumped without knowing it,” Hector said.

“Exactly. Now, it was my hope that the dueling machine would amplify the psychic talent in you. It did once, but it’s not doing it now.”

“Maybe I don’t really have it.”

“Maybe,” Leoh admitted. Then, leaning forward in his chair and pointing a stubby finger at the Watchman, he added, “Or maybe something’s upsetting you so much that your talent is buried, dormant, switched off.”

“Yes… well, uh, that is…”

“Is it Geri? I haven’t seen her around here lately. Perhaps if she could come… after all, she was one of the conditions of your original jump, wasn’t she?”

“She won’t come here,” Hector said miserably.

“Eh? Why not?”

The Watchman blurted, “Because she wanted me to murder Odal and I wouldn’t, so she’s sore at me and won’t even talk to me on the view phone.”

“What? What’s this? Take it slower, son.”

Hector explained the whole story of Geri’s insistence that Odal be killed.

Leaning back in the chair, fingers steepled on his broad girth, Leoh said, “Hmm. Natural enough, I suppose. The Acquatainians have that sort of outlook. But somehow I expected better of her.”

“She won’t even talk to me,” Hector repeated.

“But you did the right thing,” said Leoh. “At least, you were true to your upbringing and your Star Watch training. Vengeance is a paltry motive, and nothing except self-defense can possibly justify killing a man.”

“Tell it to her.”

“No, my boy,” Leoh said, pulling himself up and out of the chair. “ You must tell her. And in no uncertain terms.”

“But she won’t even see me…”

“Nonsense. If you love her, you’ll get to her. Tell her where you stand and why. If she loves you, she’ll accept you for what you are, and be proud of you for it.”

Hector looked uncertain. “And if she doesn’t love me?”

“Well… knowing the Acquatainian temperament, she might start throwing things at you.”

The Watchman remained sitting on the desk top and stared down at the floor.

Leoh grasped his shoulder. “Listen to me, son. What you did took courage, real courage. It would have been easy to kill Odal and win her approval… everyone’s approval, as a matter of fact. But you did what you thought was right. Now, if you had the courage to do that, surely you have the courage to face an unarmed girl.”

Hector looked up at him, his long face somber. “But suppose… suppose she never loved me. Suppose she was just… well, using me… until I killed Odal?”

Then you’re well rid of her, Leoh thought. But he couldn’t say that to Hector.

“I don’t think that’s the case at all,” he said softly.

And he added to himself, At least I hope not.

In his exhausted sleep, Odal did not hear the door opening. The sergeant stepped into the bare windowless cell and shined his lamp in Odal’s eyes. The Kerak major stirred and turned his face away from the light. The sergeant grabbed his shoulder and shook him sternly. Odal snapped awake, knocked the guard’s hand from his shoulder, and seized him by the throat. The guard dropped his lamp and tried to pry Odal’s single hand from his windpipe. For a second or two they remained locked in soundless fury, in the weird glow from the lamp on the floor—Odal sitting up on the cot, the sergeant slowly sinking to his knees.

Then Odal released him. The sergeant fell to all fours, coughing; Odal swung his legs out of the cot and stood up.

“When you rouse me, you will do it with courtesy,” he said. “I am not a common criminal, and I will not be’ treated as one by such as you. And even though my door is locked from the outside, you will knock on it before entering. Is that clear?”

The sergeant climbed to his feet, rubbing his throat, his eyes a mixture of anger and fear.

“I’m just following orders. Nobody told me to treat you special.…”

“ I am telling you,” Odal snapped. “And as long as I still have my rank, you will address me as sir!”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant muttered sullenly.

Odal relaxed slightly, flexed his fingers.

“You’re wanted at the dueling machine… sir.”

“In the middle of the night? By whose orders?”

The guard shrugged. “They didn’t say. Sir.”

Odal smiled. “Very well. Step outside while I put on my ‘uniform.’ ” He gestured to the shapeless fatigues draped over the end of the cot.

A single meditech stood waiting for Odal beside the dueling machine, which bulked ominously in the dim night lighting. Odal recognized him as one of the inquisitors he had been facing for the past several weeks. Wordlessly, the man gestured Odal to his booth. The sergeant took up a post at the doorway to the large room as the meditech fitted Odal’s head and torso with the necessary neurocontacts. Then he stepped out of the compartment and firmly shut the door.

For a few moments nothing happened. Then Odal felt a voice in his mind:

“Major Odal?”

“Of course,” he replied silently.

“Yes… of course.”

There was something puzzling. Something wrong. “You… you are not the…”

“I am not the man who put you into the dueling machine. That is correct.” The voice seemed both pleased and worried. “That man is at the controls of the machine, while I am halfway across the planet. He has a miniature transceiver with him, and I am communicating with you through it. This means of communication is unorthodox, but it probably cannot be intercepted by Kor or his henchmen.”

“But I know you,” Odal thought. “I have met you before.”

“That is true.”

“Romis! You are Minister Romis.”

“Yes.”

“What do you want with me?”

“I learned only this morning of your situation. I was shocked at such treatment for a loyal soldier of Kerak.”

Odal felt the words forming in his mind, yet he knew that Romis’ words were only a glossy surface, hiding a deeper meaning. He communicated nothing, and waited for the Minister to continue.

“Are you being mistreated?”

Odal smiled mirthlessly. “No more so than any laboratory animal. I suppose it’s no worse than having one’s intestines sliced open without anesthetics.”

Romis’ mind recoiled. Then he recovered and said, “There might be some way in which I can help you…”