by Ben Bova
Leoh spent as much of his spare time as possible with the other passengers of the ship. They were all enormously wealthy, as star-ship travelers had to be, or else they were traveling on government business—and expense. He was gregarious, a fine conversationalist, and had a nicely balanced sense of humor. Particularly, he was a favorite of the younger women, since he had reached the age where he could flatter them with his attention without making them feel endangered. But still, there were long hours when he was alone in his stateroom with nothing but memories. At times like these, it was impossible not to think back over the road he had been following.
Albert Robertus Leoh, Ph.D., professor of physics, professor of electronics, master of computer technology, inventor of the interstellar tri-di communications system. And more recently, student of psychology, professor of psychophysiology, founder of Psychonics, Incorporated, inventor of the dueling machine.
During his youthful years, with enthusiasm unbridled by experience, Leoh had envisioned himself as helping mankind to spread its colonies and civilizations throughout the galaxy. The bitter century of galactic war had ended in his childhood, and now human societies were linked together across the stars into a more-or-less peaceful coalition of nations.
There were two great motivating forces at work on those human societies, and these forces worked toward opposite goals. On the one hand was the urge to explore, to reach new stars, new planets, to expand the frontiers of man’s civilizations and found new colonies, new nations. Pitted against this drive to expand was an equally powerful force: the realization that technology had put an end to physical labor and almost to poverty itself on all the civilized worlds of man. The urge to move off to the frontier was penned in and buried alive under the enervating comforts of civilization.
The result was inescapable. The civilized worlds became constantly more crowded. They became jam-packed islands of humanity sprinkled thinly across a sea of space that was still studded with unpopulated islands. The expense and difficulty of interstellar travel was often cited as an excuse. The star ships were expensive: their power demands were frightful. They could be used for business, for the pleasure of the very rich, for government travel; but hauling whole colonies of farmers and workers was almost completely out of the question. Only the most determined (and best financed) groups of colonists could afford them. The rest of mankind accepted the ease and safety of civilization, lived in the bulging cities of the teeming planets.
Their lives were circumscribed by their neighbors and by their governments. Constantly more people crowded into a fixed living space meant constantly less freedom. The freedom to dream, to run free, to procreate, all became state-owned, state-controlled privileges.
And Leoh had contributed to this situation.
He had contributed his thoughts and his work. He had contributed often and regularly. The interstellar communications system was only one outstanding achievement in a long career of achievements.
Leoh had been nearly at the voluntary retirement age for scientists when he realized what he and his fellow scientists had done. Their efforts to make life richer and more rewarding had only made it less strenuous and more rigid. With every increase in physical comfort, Leoh discovered, came a corresponding increase in spiritual discomfort—in neuroses, in crimes of violence, in mental aberrations. Senseless wars of pride broke out between star-nations for the first time in generations. Outwardly, the peace of the galaxy was assured except for minor flare-ups; but beneath the glossy surface of man’s civilization smoldered the beginnings of a volcano. Police actions fought by the Star Watch were increasing ominously. Petty wars between once-stable peoples were flaring up steadily.
Once Leoh realized the part he had played in all this, he was confronted with two emotions: a deep sense of guilt, both personal and professional; and, countering this, a determination to do something, anything, to restore at least some balance to man’s collective mentality.
Leoh stepped out of physics and electronics, and entered the field of psychology. Instead of retiring, he applied for a beginner’s status in his new profession. It took considerable bending and straining of the Commonwealth’s rules, but for a man of Leoh’s stature the rules could sometimes be flexed a little. Leoh became a student once again, then a researcher, and finally a professor of psychophysiology.
Out of this came the dueling machine. A combination of electroencephalograph and autocomputer. A dream machine that amplified a man’s imagination until he could engulf himself in a world of his own making. Leoh envisioned it as a device to enable men to rid themselves of hostility and tension, safely. Certainly psychiatrists and psychotechnicians used the machines to treat their patients. But Leoh saw further, saw that—as a dueling machine—the psychonic device could be used to prevent mental tensions and disorders. And he convinced many governments to install dueling machines for that purpose.
When two men had a severe difference of opinion, deep enough to warrant legal action, they could go to the dueling machine instead of the courts. Instead of passively watching the machinations of the law grind impersonally through their differences, they could allow their imaginations free rein in the dueling machine. They could settle the argument as violently as they wished, without hurting themselves or anyone else. On most civilized worlds, the results of properly monitored duels were accepted as legally binding.
The tensions of civilized life could be escaped—temporarily—in the dueling machine. This was a powerful tool, much too powerful to allow it to be used indiscriminately. Therefore Leoh safeguarded his invention by forming a private company, Psychonics, Incorporated, and securing an exclusive license from the Terran Commonwealth to manufacture, sell, install, and maintain the machines. His customers were government health and legal agencies. His responsibilities were: legally, to the Commonwealth; morally, to all mankind; and finally to his own restless conscience.
The dueling machines succeeded. They worked as well, and often better, than Leoh had anticipated. But he knew that they were only a stopgap, only a temporary shoring of a constantly eroding dam. What was needed, really needed, was some method of exploding the status quo, some means of convincing people to reach out for those unoccupied, unexplored stars that filled the galaxy, some way of convincing men that they should leave the comforts of civilization for the excitement and freedom of new lands.
Leoh had been searching for that method when the news of Dulaq’s duel had reached him. Now he was speeding across light-years of space, praying to himself that the dueling machine had not failed.
The two-week flight ended. The star ship took up a parking orbit around the capital planet of the Acquataine Cluster. The passengers trans-shipped to the surface.
Dr. Leoh was met at the landing disk by an official delegation, headed by Massan, the Acting Prime Minister. They exchanged formal greetings at the base of the ship while the other passengers hurried by, curious, puzzled. As they rode the slideway toward a private entrance to the spaceport’s administration building, Leoh commented:
“As you probably know, I have checked your dueling machine quite thoroughly via tri-di for the past two weeks. I can find nothing wrong with it.”
Massan shrugged. “Perhaps you should have checked the machine on Szarno instead.”
“The Szarno Confederation? Their dueling machine?”
“Yes. This morning, Kanus’ assassin killed a man in it.”
“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-by. 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 autodispatcher 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 desk-top 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.
He felt tired as he left customs and took the slideway to the planetary shuttle ships. Even the civilized hubbub of travelers and tourists was bothering him, despite the sound-deadening plastics of the slideway corridor. He decided to check at the communications desk for messages. That Star Watch officer that Sir Harold had promised him a week ago should have arrived by now.
The communications desk consisted of a small booth that contained the output printer of a computer and an attractive dark-haired girl. Automation or not, Leoh decided, no machine can replace a girl’s smile.
A lanky, thin-faced youth was half-leaning on the booth’s counter, his legs crossed nervously. He was trying to talk to the girl. He had curly blond hair and crystal blue eyes; his clothes consisted of an ill-fitting pair of slacks and a tunic. A small traveler’s kit rested on the floor by his feet.
“So, I was sort of, well, thinking... maybe somebody might, uh, show me around... a little,” he was stammering to the girl. “I’ve never been, u
h here... I mean, on Acquatainia, that is... before...”
“It’s the most beautiful planet in the galaxy,” said the girl. “Its cities are the finest.”
“Yes... well, I was sort of thinking... that is, maybe you... eh...”
She smiled coolly. “I very seldom leave the station. There’s so much to see and do here.”
“Oh...”
“You’re making a mistake,” Leoh interrupted. “If you have such a beautiful planet for your home world, why in the name of the gods of intellect don’t you go down there and enjoy it? I’ll wager you haven’t been out in the natural beauty and fine cities you spoke of since you started working here at the station.”
“Why, you’re right,” she said, surprised.
“You see? You youngsters are all alike. You never think further than the ends of your noses. You should return to the planet, young lady, and see the sunshine again. Why don’t you visit the university at the capital city? Plenty of open space and greenery, lots of sunshine and available young men!”
Leoh was grinning broadly and the girl smiled back at him. “Perhaps I will,” she said.
“Ask for me when you get to the university. I’m Dr. Leoh. I’ll see to it that you’re introduced to some of the students.”
“Why... thank you, Doctor. I’ll do it this weekend.”
“Good. Now then, any messages for me? Anyone aboard the station looking for me?”
The girl turned and tapped a few keys on the computer’s control desk. A row of lights flicked briefly across the console’s face. She turned back to Leoh:
“No, sir, I’m sorry. Nothing.”
“Hmp. That’s strange. Well, thank you... And I’ll expect to see you this weekend.”
The girl smiled a farewell. Leoh started to walk away from the booth, back toward the slideway. The young man took a step toward him, stumbled on his own travel kit, and staggered across the floor for a half-dozen steps before regaining his balance. Leoh turned and saw that the youth’s face bore a somewhat ridiculous expression of mixed indecision and curiosity.
