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 towardhim.
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 Carinae. 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.