The Dueling Machine

by Ben Bova

on on the otherside of that door, I'll bet. I mean ... they may be considering howto, uh, get rid of us ... permanently."

  Leoh shook his head, smiling wryly. "Undoubtedly the approach closestto their hearts--but highly improbable in the present situation. Theyhave been making most efficient and effective use of the duelingmachine to gain their ends."

  Odal picked this moment to open the door.

  "Dr. Leoh ... Lt. Hector ... you asked to see me?"

  "Thank you, Major Odal; I hope you will be able to help me," Leohsaid. "You are the only man living who may be able to give us someclues to the failure of the Dueling Machine."

  Odal's answering smile reminded Leoh of the best efforts of therobot-puppet designers to make a machine that smiled like a man. "Iam afraid I can be of no assistance, Dr. Leoh. My experiences in themachine are ... private."

  "Perhaps you don't fully understand the situation," Leoh said. "In thepast week, we have tested the dueling machine here on Acquatainiaexhaustively. We have learned that its performance can be greatlyinfluenced by a man's personality, and by training. You have foughtmany duels in the machines. Your background of experience, both as aprofessional soldier and in the machines, gives you a decidedadvantage over your opponents.

  "However, even with all this considered, I am convinced that youcannot kill a man in the machine--under normal circumstances. We havedemonstrated that fact in our tests. An unsabotaged machine cannotcause actual physical harm.

  "Yet you have already killed one man and incapacitated another. Wherewill it stop?"

  Odal's face remained calm, except for the faintest glitter of firedeep in his eyes. His voice was quiet, but had the edge of awell-honed blade to it: "I cannot be blamed for my background andexperience. And I have not tampered with your machines."

  The door to the room opened, and a short, thick-set, bullet-headed manentered. He was dressed in a dark street suit, so that it wasimpossible to guess his station at the Embassy.

  "Would the gentlemen care for refreshments?" he asked in a low-pitchedvoice.

  "No, thank you," Leoh said.

  "Some Kerak wine, perhaps?"

  "Well--"

  "I don't, uh, think we'd better, sir," Hector said. "Thanks all thesame."

  The man shrugged and sat at a chair next to the door.

  Odal turned back to Leoh. "Sir, I have my duty. Massan and I dueltomorrow. There is no possibility of postponing it."

  "Very well," Leoh said. "Will you at least allow us to place somespecial instrumentation into the booth with you, so that we canmonitor the duel more fully? We can do the same with Massan. I knowthe duels are normally private and you would be within your legalrights to refuse the request. But, morally--"

  The smile returned to Odal's face. "You wish to monitor my thoughts.To record them and see how I perform during the duel. Interesting.Very interesting--"

  The man at the door rose and said, "If you have no desire forrefreshments, gentlemen--"

  Odal turned to him. "Thank you for your attention."

  Their eyes met and locked for an instant. The man give a barelyperceptible shake of his head, then left.

  Odal returned his attention to Leoh, "I am sorry, professor, but Icannot allow you to monitor my thoughts during the duel."

  "But--"

  "I regret having to refuse you. But, as you yourself pointed out,there is no legal requirement for such a course of action. I mustrefuse. I hope you understand."

  Leoh rose from the couch, and Hector popped up beside him. "I'm afraidI do understand. And I, too, regret your decision."

  Odal escorted them out to their car. They drove away, and the Kerakmajor walked slowly back into the Embassy building. He was met in thehallway by the dark-suited man who had sat in on the conversation.

  "I could have let them monitor my thoughts and still crush Massan,"Odal said. "It would have been a good joke on them."

  The man grunted. "I have just spoken to the Chancellor on the tri-di,and obtained permission to make a slight adjustment in our plans."

  "An adjustment, Minister Kor?"

  "After your duel tomorrow, your next opponent will be the eminent Dr.Leoh," Kor said.

  X

  The mists swirled deep and impenetrable about Fernd Massan. He staredblindly through the useless viewplate in his helmet, then reached upslowly and carefully to place the infrared detector before his eyes.

  _I never realized an hallucination could seem so real_, Massanthought.

  Since the challenge by Odal, he realized, the actual world had seemedquite unreal. For a week, he had gone through the motions of life, butfelt as though he were standing aside, a spectator mind watching itsown body from a distance. The gathering of his friends and associateslast night, the night before the duel--that silent, funereal group ofpeople--it had seemed completely unreal to him.

  But now, in this manufactured dream, he seemed vibrantly alive. Everysensation was solid, stimulating. He could feel his pulse throbbingthrough him. Somewhere out in those mists, he knew, was Odal. And thethought of coming to grips with the assassin filled him with a strangesatisfaction.

  Massan had spent a good many years serving his government on the richbut inhospitable high-gravity planets of the Acquataine Cluster. Thiswas the environment he had chosen: crushing gravity; killingpressures; atmosphere of ammonia and hydrogen, laced with freeradicals of sulphur and other valuable but deadly chemicals; oceans ofliquid methane and ammonia; "solid ground" consisting of quicklycrumbling, eroding ice; howling superpowerful winds that could pick upa mountain of ice and hurl it halfway around the planet; darkness;danger; death.

  He was encased in a one-man protective outfit that was half armoredsuit, half vehicle. There was an internal grav field to keep himcomfortable in 3.7 gees, but still the suit was cumbersome, and a mancould move only very slowly in it, even with the aid of servomotors.

  The weapon he had chosen was simplicity itself--a hand-sized capsuleof oxygen. But in a hydrogen/ammonia atmosphere, oxygen could be adeadly explosive. Massan carried several of these "bombs"; so didOdal. _But the trick_, Massan thought to himself, _is to know how tothrow them under these conditions; the proper range, the propertrajectory. Not an easy thing to learn, without years of experience._

  The terms of the duel were simple: Massan and Odal were situated on arough-topped iceberg that was being swirled along one of themethane/ammonia ocean's vicious currents. The ice was rapidlycrumbling; the duel would end when the iceberg was completely brokenup.

  Massan edged along the ragged terrain. His suit's grippers and rollersautomatically adjusted to the roughness of the topography. Heconcentrated his attention on the infrared detector that hung beforehis viewplate.

  A chunk of ice the size of a man's head sailed through the murkyatmosphere in a steep glide peculiar to heavy gravity and banged intothe shoulder of Massan's suit. The force was enough to rock himslightly off-balance before the servos readjusted. Massan withdrew hisarm from the sleeve and felt the inside of the shoulder seam. _Dented,but not penetrated._ A leak would have been disastrous, possiblyfatal. Then he remembered: _Of course--I cannot be killed except bydirect action of my antagonist. That is one of the rules of the game._

  Still, he carefully fingered the dented shoulder to make certain itwas not leaking. The dueling machine and its rules seemed so veryremote and unsubstantial, compared to this freezing, howling inferno.

  He diligently set about combing the iceberg, determined to find Odaland kill him before their floating island disintegrated. He thoroughlyexplored every projection, every crevice, every slope, working his wayslowly from one end of the 'berg toward the other. Back and forth,cross and re-cross, with the infrared sensors scanning three hundredssixty-degrees around him.

  It was time-consuming. Even with the suit's servomotors and propulsionunits, motion across the ice, against the buffeting wind, was acumbersome business. But Massan continued to work his way across theiceberg, fighting down a gnawing, growing fear that Odal was not thereat all.

/>   And then he caught just the barest flicker of a shadow on hisdetector. Something, or someone, had darted behind a jutting rise ofthe ice, off by the edge of the iceberg.

  * * * * *

  Slowly and carefully, Massan made his way toward the base of the rise.He picked one of the oxy-bombs from his belt and held it in hisright-hand claw.

  Massan edged around the base of the ice cliff, and stood on a narrowledge between the cliff and the churning sea. He saw no one. Heextended the detector's range to maximum, and worked the scanners upthe sheer face of the cliff toward the top.

  There he was! The shadowy outline of a man etched itself on thedetector screen. And at the same time, Massan heard a muffled roar,then a rumbling, crashing noise, growing quickly louder and