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Shaking his head in bitter resignation, Odal turned his back on the prostrate Hector and began walking
away.
Slowly the scene faded, and Hector found himself sit-ting in the booth of the dueling machine.
The door opened and Leoh squeezed into the booth. "You're all right?"
Hector blinked and refocused his eyes on reality. "I think so...."
"Everything went well? The Watchmen got through to you?"
"Good thing they did. I was nearly killed anyway."
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"But you survived."
"So far."
Across the room, Odal stood massaging his forearm while Kor demanded, "How could they possibly
have discovered the secret? Where was the leak? Who spoke to them?"
"That's not important now," Odal said quietly. "The primary fact is that they've not only discovered our
trick, but they've found a way to duplicate it."
The glistening dome of Kor's bullet-shaped head- which barely rose to the level of Odal's chin-was
glowing with rage.
"The sanctimonious hypocrites," Kor snarled, "accusing us of cheating, and then they do the very same
thing."
"Regardless of the moral values of our mutual behav-ior," Odal said dryly, "it's evident that there's no
longer any use in calling on telepathically guided assistants. I'll face the Watchman alone during the
second half of the duel."
"Can you trust them to do the same?"
"Yes. They easily defeated my aides, then stood aside and allowed the two of us to fight by ourselves."
"And you failed to defeat him?"
Odal frowned. "I was wounded by a fluke. He's a very .. . unusual opponent. I can't decide whether he's
actually as clumsy as he appears, or whether he's shamming and trying to confuse me. Either way, it's
impossible to predict what he's going to do." To himself he added,Could he be telepathic, also?
Kor's gray eyes became flat and emotionless. "You know, of course, how the Leader will react if you
fail to kill this Watchman. Not merely defeat him. He must be killed. The aura of invincibility must be
maintained."
"I'll do my best," Odal said.
"He must be killed."
The chime that marked the end of the rest period sounded. Odal and Hector returned to their booths.
Now it was Hector's choice of environment and weapons.
Odal found himself enveloped in darkness. Only gradu-ally did his eyes adjust. He was in a spacesuit.
For several minutes he stood motionless, peering into the darkness, every sense alert, every muscle
coiled for instant action. Dimly he could see the outlines of jagged rock against a background of
innumerable stars. Experimentally, he lift-ed one foot. It stuck, tacky, to the surface.Magnetized boots.
This must be a planetoid.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness he saw that he was right. It was a small planetoid, perhaps
a mile or so in diameter, he judged. Almost zero gravity. Airless.
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Odal swiveled his head inside the fish-bowl helmet of his suit and saw, over his right shoulder, the figure
of Hector- lank and ungainly even with the bulky suit. For a mo-ment, Odal puzzled over the weapon to
be used. Then Hector bent down, picked up a loose stone, straightened, and tossed it softly past Odal's
head. He watched it sail by and off into the darkness of space, never to return. A warning shot.
Pebbles?Odal thought to himself.Pebbles for a weap-on? He must be insane.
Then he remembered that
inertial mass was unaffected by gravity, or the lack of it. On this planetoid a fifty-kilogram rock might be easier to carry,
but it would be just as hard to throw-and it would do just as much damage when it hit, regardless of its gravita-tional
"weight."
Odal crouched down and selected a stone the size of his fist. He rose carefully, sighted Hector standing
a hundred meters or so away, and threw as hard as he could.
The effort of his throw sent him tumbling off balance and the stone was far off target. He fell to his hands
and knees, bounced lightly, and skipped to a stop. Immediately he drew his feet up under his body and
planted the magnetized soles of his boots firmly on the iron-rich sur-face.
But before he could stand again, a small stonepinged
lightly off his oxygen tank. The Star Watchman had his
range already! Probably he had spent some time on plane-toids. Odal scrambled to the nearest upjutting rocks and
Lucky I didn't rip open the suit,
crouched behind them. he told himself. Three stones, evidently hurled in salvo,
ticked off the top of the rock he was hunched behind. One of the Stones bounced off his fish-bowl helmet.
Odal scooped up a handful of pebbles and tossed them in Hector's general direction.That should make
him duck. Perhaps he'll stumble and crack his helmet open.
He grinned at that.That's it. Kor wants him dead, and that's the way to do it. Pin him under a big rock,
then bury him alive under more rocks. A few at a time, stretched out nicely. Break some of his bones in
the process, and let him sweat while his oxygen supply runs out. That should put enough strain on his
nervous system to hospitalize him, at least. Then he can be assassinated by more conventional means.
Perhaps he'll even be as oblig-ing as Massan, and have a fatal stroke.
A large rock. One that's light enough to lift and throw, yet also big enough to pin him for a few moments.
Once he's down, it will be easy enough to bury him under more rocks.
Odal spotted a boulder of the proper size, a few meters away. He backed toward it, throwing small
stones in Hector's direction to keep the Watchman busy. In return, a barrage of stones began striking all
around him. Several hit him, one hard enough to knock him slightly off bal-ance.
Slowly, patiently, Odal reached his chosen weapon: an oblong boulder, about the size of a small chair.
He crouched behind it and tugged at it experimentally. It moved slightly. Another stone zinged off his arm,
hard enough to hurt. Odal could see Hector clearly now, stand-ing atop a small rise, calmly firing stones
at him. He smiled as he coiled, cat-like, and tensed himself. He gripped the boulder with his outstretched
arms and hands.
Then in one vicious uncoiling motion he snatched it up, whirled around, and hurled it at Hector. The
violence of the action sent him tottering awkwardly as he released the boulder. He fell to the ground, but
kept his eyes fixed on the boulder as it tumbled end over end, directly at the Watchman.
For an eternally long instant Hector stood motionless, seemingly entranced. Then he leaped sideways,
floating dream-like in the low gravity as the stone bore inexorably past him.
Odal pounded his fist on the ground in fury. He started up, only to have a good-sized stone slam against
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his shoulder and knock him flat again. He looked up in time to see Hector fire again. A stone puffed into
the ground inches from Odal's helmet. The Kerak major flattened himself. Several more stones clattered
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