“What? Oh yes, fine. He played exactly by the rules,” Leoh said. He looked toward Odal, who was smiling icily, calm and confident. “He played extremely well… extremely well. There were a couple of times when I thought he’d really finish me off. And I never really put him into much trouble at all.”
The chief meditech was motioning for the two duelists to come to him at the main control desk. Hector accompanied Leoh.
“The first part of the duel has been a draw,” the chief meditech said. “You—both of you—now have the option of withdrawing for a day, or continuing the duel now.”
“I will continue,” Odal said unhesitatingly.
Leoh nodded, “Continue.”
“Very well,” said the chief meditech. Turning to Odal, “Yours is the choice of environment and weapon. Are there any special instructions necessary?”
Odal shook his head. “The Professor knows how to drive a ground car?” At Leoh’s affirming nod he said, “Then that is all the skill that is necessary.”
Leoh found himself sitting at the wheel of a sleek blue ground car: plastic-bubble canopy, two bucket seats, engine throbbing under an aerodynamically sculptured hood.
Ahead of him stretched a highway, arrow-straight to the horizon, where jagged bluish mountains rose against the harsh yellow sky. The car was pulled off to the side of the road, in neutral gear. The landscape around the highway was bleak desert—flat, featureless, cloudless, and hot.
Odal’s voice came from the radio in the dashboard. “I am parked about five kilometers behind you, Professor. You will pull out onto the highway and I will follow you.
These cars have wheels, not air cushions; there are no magnetic bumpers, no electronic controls to lock you onto the highway. A few kilometers ahead, as we enter the mountains, the road becomes quite interesting. The object of the game, of course, is to make the other fellow crash. But if you can outrun me for a half hour, I will acknowledge you as the winner.”
Leoh glanced at the controls, touched the drive button, and nudged the throttle. The turbine purred smoothly. He swung onto the highway and ran up to a hundred kilometers per hour. The rearview screen showed a blood-red car, exactly like his own except for its color, pulling up precisely ten car lengths behind him.
“I’ll let you get the feel of the car while we’re on the straightaway,” Odal’s voice came through the radio. “We won’t begin to play in earnest until we get into the mountains.”
The road was rising now, Leoh realized. A gentle grade, but at their speed they were soon well above the desert floor. The mountains were no longer distant blue wrinkles; they loomed close, high, and bareboned, with scraggy bushes and sparse patches of grass on them.
Leoh nearly missed the first curve, it came on him so quickly. He cut to the inside, slammed on the brakes, and skidded around.
“Not very good,” Odal laughed.
The red car was just off his left rear fender now, crowding him against the shoulder of the mountain rise that jutted up from the right side of the road. Leoh could hear pebbles clattering against the floorboards, over the whine of their two turbines. On the other side of the road, the cliff dropped away to the desert floor. And they were still climbing.
Leoh hugged the right side of the road, with Odal practically beside him. Suddenly the mountains fell away and a bridge, threaded dizzily between two cliffs, stood before them. It seemed to Leoh that the bridge was leaping toward him. He tried to get back toward the center of the road, but Odal rammed his side. The wheel ripped out of his hands, spinning wildly. The car skidded toward the road’s shoulder. Leoh grabbed at the wheel, steered out of the skid, and found himself on the bridge, the supporting suspension cables whizzing past. He was sweating hard and hunched, white-knuckled, over the wheel.
Odal was in front of him now. He must’ve passed me when I skidded, Leoh told himself. The red car was running smoothly, easily; Odal waved one hand back to his opponent.
On the other side of the bridge the road became a torturous series of curves, climbs, and drops. The grades were steep, the turns murderous, and at times the road narrowed so much that two cars could barely squeeze by. Sometimes they were flanked on both sides by looming masses of rock, rising up out of sight. Mostly, though, one side of the road was a sheer drop of a thousand meters or more.
Odal braked, swerved, pulled up alongside Leoh and slammed the two cars together with bone-rattling force. He was trying to force Leoh off the edge of the cliff. Leoh clung to the wheel, fighting for control. His one defense was that he could set the speed for the battle; but to his horror he found that not even this was under his real control. The car refused to slow much past seventy-five.
“You wish to stop and enjoy the scenery?” Odal called to him, banging the two cars together again, pushing Leoh dangerously close to the cliffs edge.
Desperately, Leoh leaned on the throttle with all his weight. The car spurted ahead, leaving Odal momentarily in a cloud of wheel-churned dirt.
“Ah-hah, now the turtle becomes a rabbit!” The red car streaked after him.
There was a tunnel ahead. Leoh raced for it, praying that it was long enough and narrow enough for him to stay ahead of Odal. The time must be running out. It’s got to be! It was hard for Leoh to keep his sweaty hands firm on the wheel. His back and head were hurting, his heart racing dangerously.
The tunnel was long and straight—and narrow! Hopefully, Leoh planted his car in the middle of the roadway and throttled down as much as he could. Still, the tunnel walls were a blur as he roared by, the turbine echoing shrilly against the encasing rock.
The red car was pulling close and now it was trying to pass him. Leoh swerved slightly to the left, to block it. The red car moved right. Leoh edged that way. Odal cut left again.
Got to keep ahead of him. Time must be almost over. Odal was insisting on his left. Leoh pushed farther to the left, staying ahead of him. But Odal kept coming, up off the roadway and onto the curving tunnel wall with his left wheels. Leoh stayed on the left of the road and Odal swung even farther up the wall just behind Leoh’s fender.
Glancing at the rearview screen, Leoh could see Odal’s face clenched grimly, determined to pass him. The red car seemed to climb halfway up the curving tunnel wall and…
And then fell over, out of control, smashing over upside down onto the roadway, exploding in a shower of sparks and fuel with a concussion that slammed Leoh so hard he nearly lost control of his car.
He found himself sitting in the dueling machine booth, the screen before him a calm flat gray, his body soaking wet, his hands pressed into aching fists in front of him, as though he were still gripping the car’s steering wheel.
The door jerked open and Hector ducked into the booth, his face anxious.
“You’re all right?”
Leoh’s arms dropped and his whole body relaxed.
“I beat him,” he said. “I beat Odal!”
They stepped outside the booth, Leoh smiling broadly now. Across the way, Odal’s thin face was deathly grim. The crowd was absolutely still, not daring to believe what it saw.
The chief meditech cleared his throat and announced loudly, “Professor Leoh is the victor!”
The crowd’s sudden roar burst through the room. They rose from their seats, swarmed down upon the machine and lifted Leoh and Hector to their shoulders. Jumping up and down on the main control desk, yelling louder than anyone, Was the white-coated chief meditech. Outside, the much larger throng was cheering even harder.
Within a few minutes no one was left in the chamber except a few of the uniformed policemen, Odal, and his seconds.