“But is their dueling machine on?” Leoh asked. “We can’t make the jump unless the machine on the receiving end is under power.”
Odal thought a moment. “It might be. When Kor was … experimenting with me, they used the machine early each morning. It was always turned up to full power when I arrived for the day’s testing. They probably turn it on at dawn as a matter of routine.”
“There’s one way to find out.” said Leoh, gesturing to the dueling machine.
Odal nodded. The moment had come. He was returning to Kerak. To what fate? Death or glory? To which allegiance? Kor or Romis? Kill Hector or save him?
And the picture he held in his mind as they adjusted the neurocontacts and left him in the dueling machine’s ooth was the picture of Geri’s face. He tried to imagine how she would look smiling.
It was late at night, dark and wind swept, when Hector siddded the stolen shuttle craft to a bone-rattling stop deep in a ravine a few kilometers from the Intelligence Ministry.
He had come in low and fast, hoping to avoid detection by Kerak scannersNow, as he stood atop the dented shuttle craft, feeling the wind, hearing its keening through the dark trees in the ravine, he focused his gaze on the beetling towers of the Intelligence building, silhouetted darkly atop a hill against the star-bright sky-
Looks like an ancient castle. Hector thought, without knowing that it was.
He ducked back through the hatch into the equipment storage racks, pulled out a jet belt, and squirmed into it. Then he went forward to the pilot’s compartment and turned off all the power on the ship.