// 7 murder Kanus and survive the deed, Odal thought to himself. And if I am not then assassinated in turn by your friends.
To Romis he asked. “And if I don’t agree to join you?”
The Minister remained silent.
“I see,” Odal answered for himself. “I know too much now to be allowed the risk of living.”
“Unfortunately, the stakes are too high to let personal feelings intervene. If you do not agree to help us before leaving the dueling machine, the medical technician and sergeant are waiting outside for you. They have their orders.”
‘To murder me,” Odal said bluntly, “and make it seem as though I tried to escape.”
“Yes. I am sorry to be brutal, but that is your choice. Join or die.”
While Odal deliberated his choice in the midnight darkness of Kerak, it was sunset in the capita! city of Acquatainia.
High above the city. Hector circled warily in a rented air car that had been ready for the junk heap long ago. He kept his eyes riveted to the viewscreens on the control panel in front of him, sitting tensely in the pilot’s seat; the four-place cabin was otherwise empty.
Part of his circle carried him through one of the city’s busier traffic patterns, but he ignored other air cars and kept the autopilot locked on its circle while homewardbound commuters shrieked into their radios at him and odged around the Watchman’s vehicle. Hector had his radio off; every nerve in his body was concentrating on the viewscreens.
The car’s tri-di scanners were centered on Geri Dulaq’s house, on the outskirts of the city. As far as Hector was concerned, nothing else existed. Cars buzzed by his bubble-topped canopy and apoplectic-faced drivers shook their fists at him. He never saw them. Wind whistled suspiciously through what should have been a sealed cabin; the air car groaned and rattled when it should have hummed and soared. He never noticed.