by Ben Bova
Gazing around the warm dark paneling of the Men’s Bar, the judge said with some satisfaction, “Well, at least I got the committee to agree that we should dig in our heels and recommend that the board reject the women’s petition out of hand.”
“D’you think the board will have the guts to follow your recommendation?” Gorton asked.
“They caved in to the women before,” Nottingham recalled, clear distaste in his voice and face.
“They haven’t been particularly famous for their courage,” Franklin added.
With tight-lipped determination, Justice Halpern said, “The board will follow my rec—er, I mean, the committee’s recommendation, never fear.” He looked admiringly around the soothingly dark, pleasingly quiet room. “This old place will remain a male bastion.”
Franklin nodded knowingly, remembering that several key members of the club’s board had cases pending before Justice Halpern.
“That’s good news,” Franklin murmured.
“Indeed it is,” said Halpern, with a self-satisfied smile. He signaled the barkeep for his usual brandy and soda.
Franklin glanced at Gorton, who glanced in turn at Nottingham.
When neither of them said a word, Franklin spoke up. “When will the supreme court decide on the dueling-machine proposal?”
Halpern gave him a sharp look. “In two weeks, when we open the year’s hearings.”
Very gently, Franklin stepped on the toe of Gorton’s nearer shoe.
The patent attorney took the hint. “Y’know, your honor, it doesn’t seem right to make a decision on the case without trying a duel yourself.”
“Me?” The judge looked alarmed. “Fight a duel?”
“In virtual reality,” Gorton said. “Nobody gets hurt.”
“It’s all nonsense,” the judge grumbled.
Franklin nudged Gorton under the table again, harder, and the patent attorney said, “I could be your challenger. You could pick any setting you like. Choose your weapons.”
Halpern gave Gorton one of his well-known icy stares.
Nottingham came in with the line they had rehearsed earlier in the day. “You would be the only member of the court who has experienced the dueling machine. The other justices would have to look up to you, follow your example.”
“It’s all nonsense,” Halpern repeated.
Franklin nodded sagely. “I understand. It’s a little scary, fighting a duel—even in virtual reality.”
“You told me no one gets hurt,” the judge said.
“Nobody does,” Gorton said. “I’ve fought three duels so far. They’re fun!”
“Three duels?” Halpern asked.
With a pleasant grin, Gorton said, “Once I was a fighter pilot in a World War I biplane. And I was a knight fighting in a tournament, armor and lances and all that.” He added sheepishly, “I lost that one.”
“Your opponent unhorsed you?” Nottingham asked, on cue.
“He killed me,” Gorton said, still grinning. “Skewered me with his lance, right through my shield and armor and all.”
Halpern looked aghast. “You died?”
“In the VR simulation. Opened my eyes and I was back in the dueling machine booth, safe and sound. No blood.”
“That … that’s interesting,” said the judge.
“If you fought a duel,” Franklin asked, his bearded face all innocent curiosity, “what setting would you choose? What weapons?”
Trained psychologist that he was, Franklin had assessed Halpern wisely. It took only a few days of sophisticated arm-twisting to get the judge to agree to face Rick Gorton in a duel—under the conditions that Justice Halpern picked.
* * *
THE ONLY SIGN of apprehension that Halpern showed as the four men entered the VR Duels, Inc. facility was a barely discernable throbbing of the blue vein in his forehead, just above his left eye.
Gorton seemed perfectly at ease, his round face displaying his usual easygoing, lopsided smile. Franklin was quiet and very serious; Nottingham stiffly formal.
The dueling-machine office was located in a busy, noisy shopping mall, set between a music store thronged with teenagers and a pharmacy that catered to Medicare patients. Once the four men had pushed through the facility’s front doors, the place looked more like a medical clinic than the kind of gaming arcade that Halpern had expected. There was a small anteroom, its walls all hospital white and bare. Through an open doorway he could see a larger room that was filled with a row of booths, also in sterile white décor.
A pleasant-faced young man was sitting at the desk in the anteroom. He wore a white tunic and slacks, with a stylized pair of crossed sky-blue scimitars on the breast of the tunic.
“Justice Halpern?” said the young man, his smile showing perfect gleaming teeth. “Precisely on time.”
As the young man gestured them to the curved plastic chairs in front of his desk, a pair of slim young women stepped into the anteroom and stood on either side of the open doorway. They also wore white tunics with the blue crossed scimitars, and slacks. They too were smiling professionally.
“And you must be Mr. Richard Gorton, Esquire,” said the young man. Looking at Franklin and Nottingham, his expression grew a bit more serious. “And you gentlemen?”
“We are friends of the combatants,” said Nottingham.
“Seconds,” Franklin said.
“I see,” said the young man. “Well, we really have no need of seconds, but if you’d like to remain during the duel we have a seating area inside the main room.”
The man identified himself as the duel coordinator and briefly outlined the procedure: each of the duelists would be placed in a soundproofed, windowless booth, where the young women—who were simulations technicians—would help them into their sensor suits and helmets.
With a glance at the computer screen on his desk, the coordinator said, “I see that you have chosen the Battle of Waterloo as the setting for your duel. Your weapons are sabers and lances.”
“Correct,” Halpern said, his voice brittle with tension. Gorton merely rubbed his nose and nodded.
“Very well, gentlemen,” said the coordinator, rising from his desk. “If you will simply follow the technicians, they will prepare you for your duel. Good luck to each of you.”
Halpern waited for him to say May the better man win, but the coordinator refrained from that cliché.
He followed the slim young woman on his right into the inner room; she stopped at the first booth in the row that lined its wall. Gorton was led into the next booth, beside it.
“You’ll have to take off your outer clothing, sir,” said the technician, still smiling, “and put on the sensor suit that’s hanging inside the booth. You can call me when you’re ready.”
Halpern felt some alarm. No one had told him he’d have to strip. He glared at the young woman, who remained smilingly unperturbed as she held open the door to the booth.
Reluctantly, grumbling to himself, Justice Halpern stepped into the booth. Once the woman closed its door and he himself clicked its lock, he saw that the booth’s curving walls were bare. The only furniture inside was a stiff-backed chair. A set of what looked like old-fashioned long johns was hanging against the wall.
Justice Halpern scanned the claustrophobic little booth for a sign of hidden cameras. With some trepidation, he peeled down to his underwear as quickly as he could and pulled on the gray, nubby outfit. It felt fuzzy against his bare arms and legs, almost as if it were infested with vermin.
“Are you ready, sir?” came the technician’s voice through a speaker grill set into the ceiling of the booth.
Halpern nodded, then, realizing that she couldn’t see him (hoping that she couldn’t, actually), he said crisply, “I’m ready.”
The lock clicked and the door swung open. The young woman stepped inside and suddenly the booth felt very crowded to Halpern. He smelled the delicate scent of her perfume.
She was carrying a plastic helmet under one arm. It looked l
ike a biker’s helmet to Halpern. Resting the helmet on the chair, she pulled a white oblong object from her tunic pocket, about the size and shape of a TV remote controller, and ran it up and down Halpern’s fuzzy-suited body.
Nodding, she said, “Your suit is activated. Good.”
“No wires?” he asked.
Her smile returning, she replied, “Everything is wireless, sir.”
Halpern wished she wouldn’t call him sir. It made him feel a hundred years old.
She picked the helmet off the chair and handed it to him. “Put it on and pull down the visor. When the duel begins the visor will go totally black for a moment. Don’t panic. It’s only for a moment or two while we program the duel for you. When it clears you’ll see the place where your duel is set.”
Halpern wordlessly put on the helmet. It felt heavy, cumbersome.
“Now pull down the visor, please.”
He did. It was tinted, but he could see her clearly enough.
She looked him up and down one final time, then said, “Okay, you’re ready for your duel. You can sit down.” She turned to the door, stepped through, gave him a final gleaming smile, and closed the booth’s door.
Halpern sat down.
“Halpern-Gorton duel commencing in ten seconds,” came a man’s voice in his helmet earphones.
Then everything went black.
* * *
BEFORE HE COULD do anything more than gulp with fright, the darkness vanished in a swirl of colors and then the rolling hills of a green countryside appeared.
A trace of a cold smile curled Randolph Halpern’s thin lips. He was sitting astride his favorite mount, the chestnut mare that the Iron Duke himself had given him.
Gorton and the rest of them think they’re going to make a fool of me, Halpern said to himself as he patted the mare’s neck, gentling her. They don’t know that I’ve studied every aspect of the Battle of Waterloo since I was in prelaw.
Behind him, screened by the thick forest, the entire brigade was lined up and waiting eagerly for Halpern’s order to charge. It all seemed so very real! The smell of the grass, the distant rumble of artillery, even the warmth of the sun on his shoulders, now that the morning rain had drifted away. The simulation is well-nigh perfect, Halpern had to admit. Virtual reality, as seemingly real as the genuine thing.
He could hear his men’s horses snuffling impatiently, sense their eagerness to come to grips with their wily foe. Up on the sparsely wooded ridge ahead Halpern could see Bonaparte’s Frenchies, pennants flying from their lances, as they trotted toward the distant town of Waterloo.
He pulled his saber from its scabbard with the clean whisper of deadly steel, and a hundred other sabers slid from their scabbards behind him.
“England expects every man to do his best!” Halpern shouted. Then he pointed his saber at the enemy and spurred his mount into a charge.
The French lancers were caught completely by surprise, as Halpern had planned. His brigade charged into their flank in a wild screaming melee of flashing steel and dust and blood. Within moments it was over. The French had been routed.
All except their leader, who sat panting and sweating on his devil’s black stallion, gripping his bloodied lance in one big-knuckled hand and staring at Halpern, his chest heaving beneath his gaudy uniform.
It was Gorton, of course, big easy-going Rick Gorton, looking more like a frightened oversized child than one of Napoleon’s brave lancers.
“He’s mine, lads,” Halpern cried, and he charged straight at his opponent.
Who stood his ground and casually skewered the incautious Halpern on his lance. The pain was monumental. Halpern fought to remain conscious, to raise his saber, to strike the detested enemy in the name of God, Harry, and Saint George. Instead, he slipped into darkness.
And opened his eyes in the booth of the dueling machine. The same young technician had opened the booth’s door and was lifting the virtual reality helmet off Halpern’s bald head, which was glistening with perspiration.
“I’m afraid you lost, sir,” said the young woman, her earlier smile replaced by a sorrowful countenance. “Better luck next time.”
* * *
“YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED to beat him,” Herb Franklin growled.
Rick Gorton looked embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to, by golly. He just ran onto my lance.”
The two lawyers were sitting in a corner of the Men’s Bar. Franklin was scowling like a Santa Claus confronting a naughty boy.
“Now he’ll never vote in favor of making duels legally binding. Never.”
Gorton shrugged helplessly and ordered another scotch.
As the waiter brought his drink, John Nottingham entered the bar, scanned the mostly empty tables, and made straight for them.
“How’s the Sword of Justice this morning?” Franklin asked dismally.
“He’s busy persuading the other members of the board to turn down the women’s petition,” Nottingham said as he slid into the chair between the two men.
“What about the dueling machine?”
Nottingham shrugged elaborately. “I think that’s a hopeless cause. He fought a duel and lost. Got himself killed.”
Franklin shot a scowl toward Gorton.
“He’s certainly not going to decide in favor of allowing duels to be legally valid,” Nottingham concluded.
“Well, don’t blame me,” Gorton said. “I didn’t expect him to charge right into my lance.”
Franklin sank back in his chair, his normally jolly face clouded with thought. Nottingham ordered his usual rye and ginger ale while Gorton sat staring into his scotch like a little boy who’d been caught poaching cookies.
At last Franklin straightened up and asked, “When does the board vote on the women’s petition?”
“First of the month,” said Nottingham. “Monday.”
“And when does the supreme court hand down its decision about the dueling machine?”
“The fifteenth.”
Franklin nodded. His old smile returned to his bearded face, but this time there was something just the slightest bit crafty about it.
* * *
A CHILLY WIND was driving brittle leaves down the street as Justice Halpern left the Carleton Club. He bundled his topcoat around his body and peered down toward the taxi stand on the corner. No cabs, of course: during the rush hour they were all busy.
Standing at the top of the club’s entryway steps, wishing he hadn’t given his chauffeur the afternoon off, Halpern thought he might as well go back inside and have the doorman phone for a taxi. It would take at least a half hour, he knew. I’ll wait in the Men’s Bar, he thought.
But as he stepped through the glass front door and into the club’s foyer a tiny slip of a woman accosted him.
“Justice Halpern,” she said, as if she was pronouncing sentence over him.
Suppressing a frown, Halpern said frostily, “You have the advantage over me, miss.”
“Roxanne Harte, Esquire,” she said. “Ms. Roxanne Harte.” She pronounced the Ms. like a colony of bees swarming.
“How do you do?” Halpern noticed that Ms. Harte couldn’t have been out of law school for very long. She was a petite redhead, rather pretty, although her china-blue eyes seemed to be blazing with some inner fury.
“You are a member here?” he asked, feeling nettled.
“As much a member as you are, sir. And I’m very unhappy with you, your honor.”
“With me?”
“With you, sir.”
Halpern looked around the foyer. The uniformed doorman was standing by the cloakroom, chatting quietly with the attendant there. No one else in sight. Or earshot.
“I don’t understand,” he said to Ms. Harte. “Why should you be unhappy with me? What have I done—”
“You’re trying to convince the board to reject our petition.”
Halpern’s eyes went wide. “You’re one of—of those?”
“One of the women who want to end the chauvinistic m
onopoly you maintain over the Men’s Bar, yes, that’s me.”
Feeling almost embarrassed at this little snip of a woman’s arrogance, Halpern said, “This isn’t the place to discuss club matters, young lady.”
“I agree,” she snapped. “I know a much better way to settle this issue, once and for all.”
“How do you propose—”
She never let him finish his question. “I challenge you to a duel, sir.”
“A duel?”
“Choose your weapons!”
“This is nonsense,” Halpern said. He began to turn away from her.
But Roxanne Harte grabbed him by the sleeve and with her other hand delivered a resounding slap to Halpern’s face.
“Choose your weapons,” she repeated.
Halpern stood there, his cheek burning. The doorman and cloakroom attendant were staring at him. John Nottingham came through the door from the club’s interior and stopped, sensing instinctively that something was wrong.
“Well?” Ms. Harte demanded.
“I can’t fight a duel with you,” Halpern said. “You’re only a woman.”
“That’s the attitude that makes this duel necessary, isn’t it?” she said, practically snarling.
Drawing himself up to his full height, Halpern said, “I have every advantage over you. I am taller, heavier, stronger. You couldn’t stand up to me in a duel.”
“What about pistols?” Ms. Harte replied immediately. “Back in the Old West they called the Colt six-gun the Equalizer. How about a duel with pistols?”
Halpern was about to point out to her that he was the club’s champion pistol shot for the past three years running. But he stopped himself. Why should I tell her? She wants to fight a duel against me. She’s the one who suggested pistols.
Nodding, Justice Halpern said through clenched teeth, “Very well, then. Pistols it will be.” And he added silently, You little fool.
* * *
NEWS OF THE duel spread through the club almost instantly, of course. By the following afternoon, as Justice Halpern stepped into the Men’s Bar for his customary libation, every man there got to his feet and applauded.
