The Duelling Machine - Ben Bova, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 2
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The Dueling Machine
By Ben Bova
Scanned by BW-SciFi
Scan Date: May 8, 2002
The Perfect Warrior
Dulaq rode the slide to the upper pedestrian level, stepped off, and walked over to the
railing. The city stretched out all around him-broad avenues thronged with busy people,
pedestrian walks, vehicle thoroughfares, air cars gliding between the gleaming, towering
buildings.
And somewhere in this vast city was the man he must kill. The man who would kill
him, perhaps. It all seemed so real! The noise of the streets, the odors of the perfumed trees
lining the walks, even the warmth of the reddish sun on his back as he scanned the scene
before him.
It is an illusion,
Dulaq reminded himself.
A clever, man-made hallucination. A figment
of my own imagination amplified by a machine.
But it seemed so very real.
Real or not, he had to find Odal before the sun set. Find him and kill him. Those were
the terms of the duel. He fingered the stubby, cylindrical stat-wand in his tunic pocket. That
was the weapon that he had chosen, his weapon, his own invention. And this was the
environment he had picked: his city, busy, noisy, crowded. The metropolis Dulaq had known
and loved since childhood.
Dulaq turned, and glanced at the sun. It was halfway down toward the horizon. He had
about three hours to find Odal. And when he did-kill or be killed.
Of course no one is actually hurt. That is the beauty of the machine. It allows one to
settle a score, to work out aggressive feelings, without either mental or physical harm.
Dulaq shrugged. He was a roundish figure, moon-faced, slightly stoop-shouldered. He
had work to do. Unpleasant work for a civilized man, but the future of the Acquataine
Cluster and the entire alliance of neighboring star systems could well depend on the
outcome of this electronically synthesized dream.
He turned and walked down the elevated avenue, marveling at the sharp sensation of
solidity that met each footstep on the paving. Children dashed by and rushed up to a toyshop
window. Men of commerce strode along purposefully, but without missing a chance to eye
the girls sauntering by.
I
must have a marvelous imagination.
Dulaq smiled to himself.
Then he thought of Odal, the blond, icy professional he was pitted against. Odal was an
expert at all the weapons, a man of strength and cool precision, an emotionless tool in the
hands of a ruthless politician. But how expert could he be with a stat-wand, when the first
time he saw one was the moment before the duel began? And how well acquainted could he
be with the metropolis, when he had spent most of his life in the military camps on the dreary
planets of Kerak, sixty light-years from Acquatainia?
No, Odal would be helpless and lost in this situation. He would attempt to hide among
the throngs of people. All Dulaq had to do was to find him.
The terms of the duel limited both men to the pedestrian walks of the commercial
quarter of the city. Dulaq knew this area intimately, and he began a methodical search
through the crowds for the tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed Odal.
And he saw him! After only a few minutes of walking down the major thoroughfare, he
spotted his opponent, strolling calmly along a crosswalk, at the level below. Dulaq hurried
down the ramp, worked his way through the crowd, and saw the man again, tall and blond,
unmistakable. Dulaq edged along behind him quietly, easily. No disturbance. No pushing.
Plenty of time. They walked down the street for a quarter-hour while the distance between
them slowly shrank from fifty meters to five.
Finally Dulaq was directly behind him, within arm's reach. He grasped the stat-wand
and pulled it from his tunic. With one quick motion he touched it to the base of the man's
skull and started to thumb the button that would release a killing bolt of energy.
The man turned suddenly. It wasn't Odal!
 Dulaq jerked back in surprise. It couldn't be. He had seen his face. It was Odal... and
yet this man was a stranger. Dulaq felt the man's eyes on him as he turned and walked away
quickly.
A mistake,
he told himself.
You were overanxious. A good thing this is a hallucination,
or the autopolice would be taking you in by now.
And yet... he had been so certain that it was Odal. A chill shuddered through him. He
looked up, and there was his antagonist, on the thoroughfare above, at the precise spot where
he himself had been a few minutes earlier.
Their eyes met, and Odal's lips parted in a cold smile.
Dulaq hurried up the ramp. Odal was gone by the time he reached the upper level.
He
couldn't have gotten far.
Slowly, but very surely, Dulaq's hallucination crumbled into a nightmare. He'd spot
Odal in the crowd, only to have him melt away. He'd find him again, but when he'd get closer,
it would turn out to be another stranger. He felt the chill of the duelist's ice-blue eyes on him
again and again, but when he turned there was no one there except the impersonal crowd.
Odal's face appeared again and again. Dulaq struggled through the throngs to find his
opponent, only to have him vanish. The crowd seemed to be filled with tall blond men
crisscrossing before Dulaq's dismayed eyes:
The shadows lengthened. The sun was setting. Dulaq could feel his heart pounding
within him, and perspiration pouring from every square centimeter of his skin.
There he is! Yes, that is him. Definitely, positively him! Dulaq pushed through the
homeward-bound crowds toward the figure of a tall blond man leaning casually against the
safety railing of the city's main thoroughfare. It was Odal, the damned smiling confident
Odal.
Dulaq pulled the wand from his tunic and battled across the surging crowd to the spot
where Odal stood motionless, hands in pockets, watching him dispassionately. Dulaq came
within arm's reach....
"TIME, GENTLEMEN. TIME IS UP. THE DUEL IS ENDED."
The Acquataine Cluster was a rich jewel box of some three hundred stars, just outside
the borders of the Terran Commonwealth. More than a thousand inhabited planets circled
those stars. The capital planet-Acquatainia-held the Cluster's largest city. In this city was the
Cluster's oldest university. And in the university stood the dueling machine.
High above the floor of the antiseptic-white chamber that housed the dueling machine
was a narrow gallery. Before the machine had been installed, the chamber had been a lecture
hall in the university. Now the rows of students' seats, the lecturer's dais and rostrum were
gone. The room held only the machine, a grotesque collection of consoles, control desks,
power units, association circuits, and the two booths where the duelists sat.
In the gallery-empty during ordinary duels-sat a privileged handful of newsmen.
"Time limit's up, " one of them said. "Dulaq didn't get him. "
"Yeah, but he didn't get Dulaq either. "
The first one shrugged. "Now he'll have to fight Odal on
his terms. "
"Wait, they're coming out. "
Down on the floor below, Dulaq and his opponent emerged from their enclosed booths.
One of the newsmen whistled softly. "Look at Dulaq's face... it's positively gray. "
"I've never seen the Prime Minister so shaken. "
"And take a look at Kanus' hired assassin. " The newsmen turned toward Odal, who
stood before his booth, quietly chatting with his seconds.
"Hmp. There's a bucket of frozen ammonia for you. "
"He's enjoying this. "
One of the newsmen stood up. "I've got a deadline to meet. Save my seat. "
He made his way past the guarded door, down the rampway circling the outer wall of
the building, to the portable tri-di camera unit that the Acquatainian government had
permitted for the newsmen to make their reports.
The newsman huddled with his technicians for a few minutes, then stepped before the
camera.
"Emile Dulaq, Prime Minister of the Acquataine Cluster and acknowledged leader of
the coalition against Chancellor Kanus of the Kerak Worlds, has failed in the first part of his
 psychonic duel against Major Par Odal of Kerak. The two antagonists are now undergoing the
routine medical and psychological checks before renewing their duel.... "
By the time the newsman returned to his gallery seat, the duel was almost ready to
begin again.
Dulaq stood in the midst of his group of advisers before the looming impersonality of
the machine. Across the way, Odal remained with his two seconds.
"You needn't go through with the next phase of the duel immediately, " one of the
Prime Minister's advisers was saying. "Wait until tomorrow. Rest and calm yourself. "
Dulaq's round face puckered into a frown. He cocked an eye at the chief meditech,
hovering on the edge of the little group.
The meditech, one of the staff that ran the dueling machine, pointed out, "The Prime
Minister has passed the examinations. He is capable, within the rules of the duel, of
resuming."
"But he has the option of retiring for the day, doesn't he?"
"If Major Odal agrees. "
Dulaq shook his head impatiently. "No. I shall go through with it. Now. "
"But...."
The Prime Minister's expression hardened. His advisers lapsed into a respectful silence.
The chief meditech ushered Dulaq back into his booth. On the other side of the machine, Odal
glanced at the Acquatainians, grinned humorlessly, and strode into his own booth.
Dulaq sat and tried to blank out his mind while the meditechs adjusted the
neurocontacts to his head and torso. They finished and withdrew. He was alone in the booth
now, looking at the dead-white walls, completely bare except for the large view screen before
his eyes. The screen began to glow slightly, then brightened into a series of shifting colors.
The colors merged and changed, swirling across his field of view. Dulaq felt himself being
drawn into them, gradually, compellingly, completely immersed in them....
The mists slowly vanished and Dulaq found himself standing on an immense and
totally barren plain. Not a tree, not a blade of grass; nothing but bare, rocky ground stretching
in all directions to the horizon and a disturbingly harsh yellow sky. He looked down at his
feet and saw the weapon that Odal had chosen. A primitive club.
With a sense of dread, Dulaq picked up the club and hefted it in his hand. He scanned
the plain. Nothing. No hills or trees or bushes to hide in. No place to run to.
And off on the horizon he could see a tall, lithe figure holding a similar club walking
slowly and deliberately toward him.
The press gallery was practically empty. The duel had more than an hour to run, and
most of the newsmen were outside, broadcasting their hastily drawn guesses about Dulaq's
failure to win with his own choice of weapons and environment.
Then a curious thing happened.
On the master control panel of the dueling machine, a single light flashed red. The
chief meditech blinked at it in surprise, then pressed a series of buttons on his board. More
red lights appeared. The chief meditech reached out and flipped a single switch.
One of the newsmen turned to his partner. "What's going on down there?"
"I think it's all over.... Yeah, look, they're opening up the booths. Somebody's scored a
win. "
"But who?"
They watched intently while the other newsmen quickly filed back into the gallery.
"There's Odal. He looks happy. "
"Guess that means.... "
"Good lord! Look at Dulaq!"
More than two thousand light-years from Acquatainia was the star cluster called
Cannae. Although it was an even greater distance away from Earth, Carinae was still well
within the confines of the mammoth Terran Commonwealth. Dr. Leoh, inventor of the
dueling machine, was lecturing at the Carinae University when the news of Dulaq's duel
reached him. An assistant professor perpetrated the unthinkable breach of interrupting the
lecture to whisper the news in his ear.
Leoh nodded grimly, hurriedly finished his lecture, and then accompanied the assistant
 professor to the university president's office. They stood in silence as the slideway whisked
them through the strolling students and blossoming greenery of the quietly busy campus.
Leoh was balding and jowly, the oldest man at the university. The oldest man anyone
in the university knew, for that matter. But his face was creased from a smile that was almost
habitual, and his eyes were active and alert. He wasn't smiling, though, as they left the
slideway and entered the administration building.
They rode the lift tube to the president's office. Leoh asked the assistant professor as
they stepped through the president's open doorway, "You say he was in a state of catatonic
shock when they removed him from the machine?"
"He still is, " the president answered from his desk. "Completely withdrawn from the
real world. Cannot speak, hear, or even see. A living vegetable. "
Leoh plopped down in the nearest chair and ran a hand across his fleshy face. "I don't
understand it. Nothing like this has ever happened in a dueling machine before. "
The president said, "I don't understand it either. But, this is your business. " He put a
slight emphasis on the last word, unconsciously perhaps.
"Well, at least this won't reflect on the university. That's why I formed Psychonics as a
separate business enterprise. " Then Leoh grinned and added, "The money, of course, was
only a secondary consideration. "
The president managed a smile. "Of course. "
"I suppose the Acquatainians want to talk to me?" Leoh asked academically.
"They're on tri-di now, waiting for you. "
"They're holding a transmission frequency open over two thousand light-years?" Leoh
looked impressed.
"You're the inventor of the dueling machine and the head of Psychonics, Incorporated.
You're the only man who can tell them what went wrong. "
"Well, I suppose I shouldn't keep them waiting. "
"You can take the call here, " the president said, starting to get up from his chair.
"No, no, stay at your desk, " Leoh insisted. "There's no need for you to leave. Or you
either, " he added to the assistant professor.
The president touched a button on his desk communicator. The far wall of the office
glowed momentarily, then seemed to dissolve. They were looking into another office, this one
in distant Acquatainia. It was crowded with nervous-looking men in business clothes and
military uniforms.
"Gentlemen, " Dr. Leoh said.
Several of the Acquatainians tried to answer him at once. After a few seconds of
talking simultaneously, they all looked toward one of their members-a tall, determined,
shrewd-looking civilian who bore a neatly trimmed black beard.
"I am Fernd Massan, the Acting Prime Minister of Acquatainia. You realize, of course,
the crisis that has been precipitated in my government because of this duel?"
Leoh blinked. "I realize that there's apparently been some difficulty with one of the
dueling machines installed in your cluster. Political crises are not in my field. "
"But your dueling machine has incapacitated the Prime Minister, " one of the generals
bellowed.
"And at this particular moment, " a minister added, "in the midst of our difficulties with
the Kerak Worlds. "
Massan gestured them to silence.
"The dueling machine, " Leoh said calmly, "is nothing more than a psychonic device...
it's no more dangerous than a tri-di communicator. It merely allows two men to share a dream
world that they create together. They can do anything they want to in their dream world-settle
an argument as violently as they wish, and neither of them is physically hurt any more than a
normal dream can hurt you physically. Men can use the dueling machine as an outlet for their
aggressive feelings, for their tensions and hatreds, without hurting themselves or their society.
"Your own government tested one of the machines and approved its use on Acquatainia
more than three years ago. I see several of you who were among those to whom I personally
demonstrated the machine. Dueling machines are becoming commonplace through wide
portions of the Terran Commonwealth, and neighboring nations such as Acquatainia. I'm sure
that many of you have used the machine yourselves. You have, General, I'm certain. "
 The general flustered. "That has nothing to do with the matter at hand!"
"Admittedly, " Leoh conceded. "But I don't understand how a therapeutic machine can
possibly become entangled in a political crisis. "
Massan said, "Allow me to explain. Our government has been conducting extremely
delicate negotiations with the governments of our neighboring star-nations. These
negotiations concern the rearmament of the Kerak Worlds. You have heard of Kanus of
Kerak?"
"Vaguely, " Leoh said. "He's a political leader of some sort. "
"Of the worst sort. He has acquired complete dictatorship of the Kerak Worlds and is
now attempting to rearm them for war. This is in direct contravention of the Treaty of
Acquatainia, signed only thirty Terran years ago. "
"I see. The treaty was signed at the end of the Acquataine-Kerak War, wasn't it?"
"A war that we won, " the general pointed out.
"And now the Kerak Worlds want to rearm and try again, " Leoh said.
"Precisely. "
Leoh shrugged. "Why not call in the Star Watch? This is their type of police activity.
And what has all this to do with the dueling machine?"
"Let me explain, " Massan said patiently. He gestured to an aide, and on the wall
behind him a huge tri-di star map glowed into life.
Leoh recognized it immediately: the swirling spiral of the Milky Way galaxy. From the
rim of the galaxy, where the Sun and Earth were, in toward the star-rich heart of the Milky
Way, stretched the Terran Commonwealth- thousands of stars and myriads of planets. On
Massan's map the Commonwealth territory was shaded a delicate green. Just beyond its
border was the golden cluster of Acquatainia. Around it were names that Leoh knew only
vaguely: Safad, Szarno, Etra, and a pinpoint marked Kerak.
"Neither the Acquataine Cluster nor our neighboring nations, " said Massan, "have ever
joined the Terran Commonwealth. Nor has Kerak, for that matter. Therefore the Star Watch
can intervene only if all the nations concerned agree to intervention. Naturally Kanus would
never accept the Star Watch. He
wants
to rearm. "
Leoh shook his head.
"As for the dueling machine, " Massan went on, "Kanus has turned it into a political
weapon.... "
"But that's impossible. Your government passed strict laws concerning the Use of the
machines. The dueling machine may be used only for personal grievances. It's strictly outside
the realm of politics. "
Massan shook his head sadly. "My dear Professor, laws are one thing, people are
another. And politics consists of people, not words on tape. "
"I don't understand, " said Leoh.
"A little more than one Terran year ago, Kanus picked a quarrel with a neighboring
nation-the Safad Federation. He wanted an especially favorable trade agreement with them.
Their minister of trade objected most strenuously. One of the Kerak negotiators-a certain
Major Odal-got into a personal argument with the minister. Before anyone knew what had
happened, they had challenged each other to a duel. Odal won the duel, and the minister
resigned his post. He said he could no longer fight against the will of Odal and Kerak... he
was psychologically incapable of it. Two weeks later he was dead- apparently a suicide,
although I have my doubts. "
"That's... extremely interesting, " Leoh said.
"Three days ago, " Massan continued, "the same Major Odal engaged Prime Minister
Dulaq in a bitter personal argument. Odal is now a military attaché of the Kerak embassy here
on Acquatainia. The argument grew so loud before a large group at an embassy party that the
prime minister had no alternative but to challenge Odal. And now.... "
"And now Dulaq is in a state of shock, and your government is tottering. "
Massan's back stiffened. "Our government will not fall, nor shall the Acquataine
Cluster acquiesce to the rearmament of the Kerak Worlds. But... " his voice lowered, "without
Dulaq, our alliances with neighboring nations may dissolve. All our allies are smaller and
weaker than Acquatainia. Kanus could pressure each one individually and make certain that
they won't take steps to prevent his rearming Kerak. Alone, Acquatainia cannot stop Kanus. "
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