Ben Bova: The Dueling Machine

“He won another duel,” Leoh said.

“You do not understand,” Massan said grimly. “Major Odal’s opponent—an industrialist who had spoken out against Kanus—was actually killed in the dueling machine. The man is dead!”

One of the advantages of being Commander in Chief of the Star Watch , the old man thought to himself, is that you can visit any planet in the Commonwealth .

He stood at the top of the hill and looked out over the grassy tableland of Kenya. This was the land of his birth, Earth was his home world. The Star Watch’s official headquarters was in the heart of a star cluster much closer to the center of the Commonwealth, but Earth was the place the Commander wanted most to see as he grew older and wearier.

An aide, who had been following the Commander at a respectful distance, suddenly intruded himself in the old man’s reverie.

“Sir, a message for you.”

The Commander scowled at the young officer. “Didn’t I give express orders that I was not to be disturbed?”

The officer, slim and stiff in his black-and-silver uniform, replied, “Your chief of staff passed the message on to you, sir. It’s from Dr. Leoh of Carinae University. Personal and urgent, sir.”

The old man grumbled to himself, but nodded. The aide placed a small crystalline sphere on the grass before the Commander. The air above the sphere started to vibrate and glow.

“Sir Harold Spencer here,” the Commander said.

The bubbling air seemed to draw in on itself and take solid form. Dr. Leoh sat at a desk chair and looked up at the standing Commander.

“Harold, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Leoh said, getting up from the chair.

Spencer’s stern eyes softened and his beefy face broke into a well-creased smile. “Albert, you ancient sorcerer. What do you mean by interrupting my first visit home in fifteen years?”

“It won’t be a long interruption,” Leoh said. “I merely want to inform you of something…”

“You told my chief of staff that it was urgent,” Sir Harold groused.

“It is. But it’s not the sort of problem that requires much action on your part. Yet. Are you familiar with recent political developments on the Kerak Worlds?”

Spencer snorted. “I know that a barbarian named Kanus has taken over as dictator. He’s a troublemaker. I’ve been trying to get the Commonwealth Council to let us quash him before he causes grief, but you know the Council… first wait until the flames have sprung up, then wail at the Star Watch to do something!”

Grinning, Leoh said, “You’re as irascible as ever.”

“My personality is not the subject of this rather expensive discussion. What about Kanus? And what are you doing, getting yourself involved in politics? About to change your profession again?”

“No, not at all,” Leoh answered with a laugh. Then, more seriously, “It seems that Kanus has discovered a method of using the dueling machine to achieve political advantages over his neighbors.”

Leoh explained the circumstances of Odal’s duels with Dulaq and the Szarno industrialist.

“Dulaq is completely incapacitated and the other poor fellow is dead?” Spencer’s face darkened into a thundercloud. “You were right to call me. This is a situation that could quickly become intolerable.”

“I agree,” said Leoh. “But evidently Kanus hasn’t broken any laws or interstellar agreements. All that meets the eye is a disturbing pair of accidents, both of them accruing to Kanus’ benefit.”

“Do you believe they were accidents?”

“Certainly not. The dueling machine can’t cause physical or mental harm…unless someone’s tampered with it in some way.”

Spencer was silent for a moment, weighing the matter in his mind. “Very well. The Star Watch cannot act officially, but there’s nothing to prevent me from dispatching an officer to the Acquataine Cluster on detached duty, to serve as liaison between us.”

“Good. I think that will be the most effective way of handling the situation, at present.”

“It will be done.”

Sir Harold’s aide made a mental note of it.

“Thanks very much,” Leoh said. “Now go back to enjoying your vacation.”

“Vacation? This is no vacation. I happen to be celebrating my birthday.”

“So? Well, congratulations. I try not to remember mine,” said Leoh.

“Then you must be older than I,” Spencer replied, allowing only the faintest hint of a smile to appear.

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“But not very likely, eh?”

They laughed together and said good-bye. The Star Watch Commander tramped through the grassland until sunset, enjoying the sight of the greenery and the distant purple mountains he had known from childhood. As dusk closed in, he told the aide he was ready to leave.

The aide pressed a stud on his belt and a two-place air car skimmed silently from the far side of the hills and hovered beside them. Spencer climbed in laboriously while the aide stayed discreetly at his side. As the Commander settled his bulk into his seat the aide hurried around the car and hopped into his place. The car glided off toward Spencer’s planet ship, waiting for him at a nearby field.

“Don’t forget to assign an officer to Dr. Leoh,” Spencer muttered to his aide. Then he turned to watch the unmatchable beauty of an Earthly sunset.

The aide did not forget the assignment. That night, as Sir Harold’s ship spiraled out to a rendezvous with a star ship, the aide dictated the necessary order to an auto-dispatcher that immediately beamed it to the Star Watch’s nearest communications center, on Mars.

The order was scanned and routed automatically and finally beamed to the Star Watch unit commandant in charge of the area closest to the Acquataine Cluster, on the sixth planet circling the star Perseus Alpha. Here again the order was processed automatically and routed through the local headquarters to the personnel files. The automated files selected three microcard dossiers that matched the requirements of the order.

The three microcards and the order itself appeared simultaneously on the desktop viewer of the Star Watch personnel officer at Perseus Alpha VI. He looked at the order, then read the dossiers. He flicked a button that gave him an updated status report on each of the three men in question. One was due for leave after an extended period of duty. The second was the son of a personal friend of the local commandant. The third had just arrived a few weeks ago, fresh from the Star Watch Academy.

The personnel officer selected the third man, routed his dossier and Sir Harold’s order back into the automatic processing system, and returned to the film of primitive dancing girls that he had been watching before this matter of decision had arrived at his desk.

The space station that orbited Acquatainia’s capital planet served simultaneously as a transfer point from star ships to planet ships, a tourist resort, meteorological station, scientific laboratory, communications center, astronomical observatory, medical haven for allergy and cardiac patients, and military base. It was, in reality, a good-sized city with its own markets, government, and way of life.

Dr. Leoh had just stepped off the debarking ramp of the star ship from Szarno. The trip there had been pointless and fruitless. But he had gone anyway, in the slim hope that he might find something wrong with the dueling machine that had been used to murder a man. A shudder went through him as he edged through the automated customs scanners and identification checkers. What kind of people could these men of Kerak be? To actually kill a human being deliberately. To purposely plan the death of a fellow man. Worse than barbaric. Savage.