Leoh stared at him. “You want to go on?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if I say no?”
Hector hesitated. Leoh sensed he was struggling with himself. “If you say no.” he answered dully, “then it’ll be no. I can’t argue against you any more.”
Leoh was silent for a long moment. Finally he opened a desk drawer and took a small bottle from it. “Here, take a sleep capsule. When you wake up we’ll try again.”
It was dawn when they began again. Leoh entered the dueling machine determined to let Hector win. He gave ie youthful Star Watchman his choice of weapons and environment. Hector picked one-man scout ships in planetary orbits. Their weapons were conventional laser beams.
But despite his own conscious desire, Leoh found himself winning! The ships spiraled around an unnamed planet, their paths intersecting at least once in every orbit. The problem was to estimate your opponent’s orbital position, and then program your own ship so that you would arrive at that position either behind or to one side of him. Then you could train your guns on him before he could turn on you.
The problem should have been an easy one for Hector, with his knack for intuitive mental calculation. But Leoh scored the first hit. Hector had piloted his ship into an excellent firing position, but his shot went wide. Leoh maneuvered clumsily, but he managed to register a trifling hit on the side of Hector’s ship.
In the next three passes, Leoh scored two more hits. Hector’s ship was badly damaged now. In return, the Star Watchman had landed one. glancing shot on Leoh’s ship. They came around again, and once more Leoh had outguessed his young opponent. He trained his guns on Hector’s ship, then hesitated with his hand poised above the firing button.