Ben Bova: The Dueling Machine

It took about fifteen seconds for the power plants to pump all their energy into the short circuit. The effect was a quiet one: no sparks, no smoke, no explosion. All that happened was that all the lights and motors aboard the ship went off simultaneously. The emergency systems turned on immediately, of course. But in the dim auxiliary lighting, and the confusion of the surprised, bewildered, angry men, it was fairly simple for Hector to make his way along a carefully preplanned route to the main air lock.

Now he sat in the captain’s shuttle, waiting for the power to return. The main lights flickered briefly, then turned on to full brightness. The air-lock pumps hummed to life, the outer hatch slid open. Hector nudged the throttle and the shuttle edged out of the air lock and away from the orbiting ship.

The Kerak captain needed about ten minutes to piece together all the information: the deliberate misconnection in the switching equipment; Hector’s disappearance; and, finally, the unauthorized departure of his personal shuttle.

“He’s escaped,” the captain mumbled. “Escaped. When we were just about to send him back.”

“What shall we do, sir? If the planetary patrols detect the ship, he won’t be able to identify himself satisfactorily. They’ll blast him!”

The captain’s eyes lit up at the thought. But then, “No. If we lose him, the whole Star Watch will pour into Kerak.” He thought for a moment, then told his aides, “Have our communications men send out a flight plan to the planetary patrol. Tell them that my shuttle and an auxiliary boat are bringing a contingent of men and officers to the Ministry of Intelligence. And get one of the boats ready for immediate departure. Take your best men. This mess is going to get worse before it gets better.”

Odal paced his windowless room endlessly: from the wall screen, around the lounge, past the guarded door to the outside hall, to the bedroom doorway, back again. And again, and again, across the thick carpeting.

He was trying to use his mind as a dispassionate computer, to weigh and count and calculate a hundred different factors. But each factor was different, imponderable, non-numerical. And any one of them could determine the length of Odal’s life span.

Kanus, Kor, Romis, Hector, and Geri.

If I returned to Kerak, would Kanus restore me to my full honors? I hold the key to teleportation, to a devastating new way to invade and conquer a nation. Or has Kanus found other psychic talents? Would he regard me as a traitor or a spy? Or worst of all, a failure?

Kor. Odal could report everything he knew about Romis’ plot to kill the Leader. Which wasn’t much. Kor probably already had that much information and more.

What about Romis? Is he still bent on overthrowing the Leader? Does he still want an assassin?

And the Watchman, that bumbling fool. But a teleporter, and probably as full talented as Odal himself. I can impress Leoh and Spencer by rescuing him. It would be risky, but if I do it… it will impress the girl, too.

The girl. Geri Dulaq. Yes, Geri. She has every reason to hate me, and yet there is something other than hate in her eyes. Fear? Anger? They say that hate is very close to love.

The view screen chimed, snapping Odal from his chain of thought and pacing. He clapped his hands and the wall dissolved, revealing the bulky form of Leoh sitting at his desk in the dueling machine building. The machine itself was partially visible through the open doorway behind the Professor.

“I thought you should know,” Leoh said without preliminaries, his wrinkled face downcast with worry, “that Hector has apparently escaped from Romis’ hands. We received a message from one of Romis’ friends in the Kerak embassy that he’s disappeared.”

Odal stood absolutely still in the middle of the room. “Disappeared? What do you mean?”

Shrugging, Leoh replied, “According to our information, Hector was being kept aboard an orbiting star ship. He somehow got off the ship in a shuttle craft, presumably heading for the Kerak dueling machine. The same one you escaped from. That’s all we know.”

“That machine is in Kor’s Ministry of Intelligence,” Odal heard himself saying calmly. But his mind was racing: Kor, Hector, Romis, Geri. “He’s walking straight into the fire.”

“You’re the only one who can help him now,” Leoh said.

Geri. The look on her face. Her voice: “You wouldn’t know what decency is.”

“Very well,” said Odal. “I’ll try.”

He had expected to feel either an excitement at the thought of pleasing Geri, or a new burden of fear at the prospect of returning to Kor’s hands. Instead he felt neither. Nothing. His emotions seemed turned off-or, perhaps, they were merely waiting for something to happen.

It was late at night when Odal, closely guarded, arrived at the dueling machine. He was wearing black from his throat to his boots, and looked like a grim shadow against the antiseptic white of the chamber.

Leoh met him at the control desk. The Acquatainian guards stood back.

“I’m sorry it took so long to get you here. Every minute’s delay could mean Hector’s life. And yours.”

Odal smiled tightly at the afterthought.

The old man continued, “I had to talk to Martine for two whole hours before he’d permit your release. And I roused Sir Harold from his sleep. He was less than happy.”

“If I recall the time differential correctly,” Odal said, “it’s nearly dawn at Kor’s headquarters. An ideal time to arrive.”

“But is their dueling machine on?” Leoh asked. “We can’t make the jump unless the machine on the receiving end is under power.”

Odal thought a moment. “It might be. When Kor was… experimenting with me, they used the machine early each morning. It was always turned up to full power when I arrived for the day’s testing. They probably turn it on at dawn as a matter of routine.”

“There’s one way to find out,” said Leoh, gesturing to the dueling machine.

Odal nodded. The moment had come. He was returning to Kerak. To what fate? Death or glory? To which allegiance? Kor or Romis? Kill Hector or save him?

And the picture he held in his mind as they adjusted the neurocontacts and left him in the dueling machine’s booth was the picture of Geri’s face. He tried to imagine how she would look smiling.

It was late at night, dark and wind swept, when Hector skidded the stolen shuttle craft to a bone-rattling stop deep in a ravine a few kilometers from the Intelligence Ministry.

He had come in low and fast, hoping to avoid detection by Kerak scanners. Now, as he stood atop the dented shuttle craft, feeling the wind, hearing its keening through the dark trees in the ravine, he focused his gaze on the beetling towers of the Intelligence building, silhouetted darkly atop a hill against the star-bright sky.

Looks like an ancient castle, Hector thought, without knowing that it was.

He ducked back through the hatch into the equipment storage racks, pulled out a jet belt, and squirmed into it. Then he went forward to the pilot’s compartment and turned off all the power on the ship.

Might need her again, in case I can’t get to the dueling machine.

It took him ten minutes to grope his way back to the hatch in darkness. Ten minutes, three shin-barkings, and one head-banging of near concussion magnitude. But finally Hector stood outside the hatch once more. He took a deep breath, faced the Intelligence building, and touched the control stud of the jet belt.

In the quiet night, the noise was shattering. Hector’s ears rang as he flew, squinting into the stinging wind, toward the castle. Maybe this isn’t the best way to sneak up on them, he suspected. But now the battlements were looming before him, racing up fast. Cutting power, he tumbled down and hit hard, sprawling on the squared-off top of the tallest tower.