The Man Who Staked the Stars
Page 10
sir?"
"More ready than you are," Beldman said, his hands still on his hips.He amplified his remark with a few well chosen words that harked backto his truck driving days.
"How many shots?" Bryce asked more softly, beginning to want to kill.
"Until one of us is down with his gun out of his hand."
Bryce repeated the provision to the crowd that had drawn up discreetlyalong the side-lines. "We fire until one of us is both down anddisarmed."
There was a murmur of surprise among the crowd for that was an unusualand deadly provision for a formal duel. As Bryce paced backward therequired number of paces, counting aloud, two men volunteered asseconds. They came forward to compare the guns rapidly and show themto the duelists. It had to be done and finished rapidly, for lunchhour had begun with its flood of people into the corridors, and theywere holding up traffic.
Bryce's gun was a .42 magnomatic, working on an electricalacceleration of the slug by electromagnetic rings in the thick barrel.It was soundless except for a legal built-in radio yeep that announcedits firing and number to the police emergency receivers. Beldman's gunwas another maggy of the same make but heavier with a wide-mouthedbarrel apparently throwing a much heavier caliber slug.
"Ready?" The second stepped back to the edge of the crowd and begancounting off half a minute by seconds.
The faces of the crowd faded from his consciousness. Bryce stood withhis hands empty at his sides as the seconds were counted. "Thirty,twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven," came the voice, countingevenly and loudly. The world narrowed to a corridor of space with theblocky figure of Beldman at one end and himself at the other. Funny,Bryce thought, that he had never considered that bull-headedimpatience and strength as dangerous. He was a massive block of a man;where Bryce was thick with muscle, J. H. Beldman was so wide inshoulder and barrel and so thick in arm that he looked almost round.Like Bryce he had worked up from the bottom, Bryce remembered,starting as a truck driver and labor organizer, and then owning hisown line and giving UT a stiff battle before being bought out. Crude,but that didn't mean that there wasn't a lightning brain behind thatround face.
"Twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three--"
He had underestimated the deadliness of the man. Beldman was obviouslysubject to rages, and in the grip of one now, and if he had survivedall the duels and battles that his rages had brought long enough togrow as old as he was then his age was an indication not of weakness,but of the degree of his deadliness. The irritable thought came thathe might well be killed by this ox.
"Twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty, nineteen--"
He flexed his fingers restlessly, and felt in his mind the speed andsureness of his draw and firing. That big blocky figure was justanother obstacle standing in his way, to be blasted aside. A loudmouth to be shut.
"Ten, nine--" He concentrated on the counting, "--six, five, four--"sureness growing like a coiled spring in every muscle. "--three--" Hecrouched slightly. That blocky figure that was all the rest of theworld was no more than a target. A big target.
"Two--one--_fire_."
Something confusing happened. As the word came it seemed that agigantic blow hit him somewhere on his left shoulder, twisting himaround so he couldn't see his target. He spun back, willing himself toshoot again quickly, but his legs buckled oddly as he turned. Hereeled, finding his balance with great effort.
Heavy slug, he thought, seeing as delayed memory the coiled springspeed with which Beldman had moved. Bryce's left arm did not seem tohave any connection with his mind. Glancing down briefly he saw thatit dangled.
* * * * *
But the maggy was still there, held in the numb, unfeeling hand,pointed limply at the ground.
He wondered if he had fired it yet.
"Drop it and fall down," advised Pierce's clear voice from somewhere.
There was a stirring and whisper from the blur of the crowd who stoodwatching to see that the rules were observed. Beldman was walkingtowards him.
"Do you end the duel?" asked someone, probably the second.
"No," the blur of Beldman answered and suddenly he came into focus,walking up, his wide mouthed gun unwavering in his hand. Bryceremembered the provisions of the duel. Fire until one is down andweaponless. There was nothing said about remaining at a fixeddistance. Beldman intended to walk up close enough to shoot himbetween the eyes. It was too late to let himself fall and end theduel. Beldman would fire if he saw Bryce begin to fall now. He wasalready close enough for a sure head shot.
Feeling was returning to his left arm. It dangled abnormally far andprobably looked broken and useless, but there was nothing actuallywrong with it, only something in his shoulder was broken. After thefirst cold numbness of impact, sensation returned tingling in hisfingers, and pain was beginning to burn in his shoulder. Bryce waiteda few more seconds, feeling the control returning to his fingers, notchanging the glazed off focus of his eyes. How many duels had Beldmanwon like this? The impact of one of those heavy slugs hitting bone wasa dazing blow, enough to stun some men, and he probably counted onthat effect.
The square figure lumbered closer, a lumpish clumsy caricature of theself-made man, brutally strong, unashamedly misfit to the society ofthe smooth-wise, smiling, easy mannered people that he and Bryce hadjoined; a model of everything that Bryce was trying to destroy inhimself.
With a quick twist of the wrist Bryce swung his palm flat up flippingthe magnomatic muzzle into line with it and put a bullet into theround face.
In that position of his hand the back kick of the shot twisted his armback in its broken shoulder and pulled the maggy from his hand, but itdidn't matter. The duel was over.
The motionless crowd dissolved again into talking individuals going tolunch.
Pierce picked up the maggy and made the usual query of those who choseto remain.
"Which of you has any complaint of unfairness or advantage taken byeither party of this duel?"
Most of them were leaving, anticipating the arrival of the police withtheir time-consuming questions, but twenty or so crowded close aroundBryce and the corpse. "Press a thumb on your shoulder sub-clavian,man," someone advised Bryce. "You're bleeding like a faucet."
Pierce's clear voice said the standard words over the murmur andshuffle of feet. "No unfairness having been observed, when called togive testimony you can then say that he shot in self-defense and underduress."
A low wail of sirens was heard.
* * * * *
"Who was that character?" Pierce asked later, sitting beside the tablewhile a surgeon patiently pieced together the three or four shatteredpieces of Bryce's collarbone and fastened them with ingenious plasticbolts.
Bryce absently watched the process in a large tilted mirror slungoverhead. Medicine bored him. "J. H. Beldman, member of the Board ofDirectors," he explained, and for the benefit of the policemanstanding beside the door he added, "Bad tempered as they come." Helooked into the mirror uneasily, trying to focus on his face.
His clothes were being cleaned of blood and dried somewhere. When thedoctor had finished sewing and patching Bryce showered and dressed ina small dressing room beside the emergency ward, where he found hisclothes hanging neatly in a drying closet.
As he finished a man in plain clothes entered and dismissed the copwith a word, and handed Bryce a printed notice and his magnomatic;"You're clear," he said, leaving again with a friendly half salute."No charges." The police had already recorded the testimony of thewitnesses and inspected the weapons used. It had been a fair duel andthe survivor was clear with a standard case for self-defense. Theprinted notice called him to testify at the coroner's inquest into thedeath of J. H. Beldman during the next Saturday, but there would be nocharges and no investigation.
There would be no trouble from Beldman, but who else knew what he hadknown, that Bryce Carter was responsible for the corruption of UT? Howhad he learned it? If someone else knew, there was going to betrouble.<
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Coming out of the emergency ward, he checked his watch.
One-fifteen. Too late to find Sheila Wesley still at Geiger's Counter.But he knew he could see her another day--and with a good story toexplain why he had not turned up the first time.
They ate at the nearest stand and went back to work. Trying to writewas almost impossible, and even using his left hand for minor taskswas difficult. In spite of quick healing of muscle and flesh from theamino and nucleic acid powders the doctor had packed in, the shoulderached with a tightness that spoiled his coordination. He shifted towriting clumsily with his right hand.
After twenty minutes he abandoned the pretense of working and beganthoughtfully doing practice draws with his right hand. It was stiffand clumsy, and there was no holster in his right pocket to makegrasping easy. The second time the maggy caught on