The White Stars

"Well, we'll see about that. What about the robots, will they obey anybody?"

"If so programmed," said Lord Shark.

"Okay" (of the automaton which had re-entered with a tray of food), "tell that one to obey me."

Lord Shark instructed the robot accordingly. "You will obey the soldiers," he said.

"There's some kind of vehicle arrived outside." O'Dwyer looked up from the screen. He addressed Lord Shark. "How come this equipment looks like it's out of a museum?"

"My companion," explained Lord Shark, "he built it."

"Fu

"It's going to be good to get back amongst the cold, clean stars," said Sergeant Martinez sentimentally, "where the only things a man's got to trust is himself and a few buddies, and he knows he's fighting for something important. Maybe you people don't understand that. Maybe there's no need for you to understand. But it's because there are men like us, prepared to go out there and get their guts shot out of them in order to keep the universe a safe place to live in, that the rest of you sleep well in your beds at night, dreaming your nice, comfortable dreams…"

"Hadn't we better get going, Sergeant?" asked Trooper O'Dwyer. "If we're going."

"It could be a trap," said Sergeant Martinez grimly, "so we'd better go out in groups of five. First five occupies the ship, checks for occupants, booby traps and so on, then signals to the next five, until we're all out. Trooper O'Dwyer, keep a watch on that screen until you see we're all aboard and nobody's shooting at us, then follow — oh, and bring that robot with you. We can use him."

"Yes, sir."

"And if there's any smell of a set-up, kill the hostages."

"Yes, sir," said Trooper O'Dwyer sceptically.

A bell began to ring.

"What does that mean?" demanded Sergeant Martinez.

"It means that I shall be able to keep my appointment with the Duke of Queens," Lord Shark told him.

10. The Duel

The remains of the Rocky Mountains were still smouldering in the background as, from a safe distance, the crowd watched the ship containing the troopers rise into the air. Behind the crowd, feeling a little upset by the lack of attention, the Duke of Queens stood, sword in hand, awaiting his antagonist. The Duke was early. He had no interest in these other events, which he regarded as an unwelcome interruption, threatening to diffuse the drama of his duel with Lord Shark the Unknown; he thought that Sergeant Martinez and his men had behaved rather badly. Certainly, at any other time, he would have been as diverted by their actions as anyone, but, as it was, they had confused the presentation and robbed it of some of its tension.

At last the duke noticed that heads were begi

"The Iron Orchid — Lord Shark — they emerge! They are saved!"

There came a chorus of self-conscious exultation.

The ranks parted; now the Iron Orchid, her slender fingers bare of rings, walked with a self-satisfied air beside Lord Shark the Unknown, stiff, sworded and stern.

They confronted each other over a narrow fissure in the earth. The Duke of Queens bowed. Lord Shark the Unknown, after a second's hesitation, bowed.

The Iron Orchid seemed reconciled. She took a step back. "May the best man win!" she said.

"My lord." The duke presented his sword. "To the death!"

Silently, Lord Shark the Unknown replied to the courtesy.

"En tou rage, mon coeur!" The Duke of Queens adopted the traditional stance, balancing on the balls of his feet, his body poised, one hand upon his hip, ready for the lunge. Lord Shark's body fell into the same position as precisely as that of one of his own automata.

The crowd moved forward, but kept its distance.

Lord Shark lunged. The Duke of Queens parried, at the same time leaning back to avoid the point of the blade. Lord Shark continued his forward movement, crossing the fissure, lunged again, was parried again. This time the Duke of Queens lunged and was parried. For a short while it was possible for the spectators to follow the stylized movements of the duellists, but gradually, as the combatants familiarized themselves with each other's method of fighting, the speed increased, until it was often impossible to see the thin blades, save for a gleaming blur as they met, parted, and met again.

Back and forth across the dry, dancing dust of that plain the two men moved, the duke's handsome, heavy features registering every escape, every minor victory, while the immobile mask of Lord Shark the Unknown gave no indication of how that strange, bleak recluse felt when his shoulder was grazed by the duke's blade, or when he came within a fraction of an inch of skewering his opponent's rapidly beating heart.

At first some of the crowd would applaud a near-miss or gasp as one of the duellists turned his body aside from a lunge which seemed unerring; soon, however, they fell silent, realizing that they must feel some of the tension the ancients had felt when they attended such games.

The duke, refusing in homage to those same ancestors to allow himself any energy boosts, understood that he was tiring much more than he had tired during his tuition, but he understood, also, that Lord Shark the Unknown had patterned his automata entirely after himself, for Lord Shark fought in exactly the same ma

Lord Shark was expectant, and the duke realized that he had forgotten to acknowledge the wound.

"Toujours gai, mon coeur!" He wondered if he were dying, but no, the pain faded and became an unpleasant ache. He was still able to continue. He drew himself upright, conscious of the Iron Orchid's high-pitched voice in the background.

"En tou rage!" he warned, and lunged before he had properly regained his balance, falling sideways against Lord Shark's sword, but able to step back in time, recall his training and position himself properly so that when Lord Shark lunged again, he parried the stroke, returned it, parried again and returned again.

The Duke of Queens wondered at the temperature changes in his body. He had felt uncomfortably warm and now he felt a chill throughout, from head to toe, with only his wound glowing hot, but no longer very painful.

And Lord Shark the Unknown pushed past the duke's defence and the point of his sword gouged flesh from the duke's left arm, just below the shoulder.

"Oh!" cried the duke, and then, "Toujours gai!"

In grim silence, Lord Shark the Unknown gave him a few moments in which to recover.

The Duke of Queens was surprised at his own reaction now, for he quickly resumed his stance, coolly gave his warning, and found that a new emotion directed him. He believed that the emotion must be "fear".

And his lunges became more precise, his parries swifter, firmer, so that Lord Shark the Unknown lost balance time after time and was hard-pressed to regain it. It seemed to some of those who watched that Lord Shark was nonplussed by this new, cold attack. He began to lose ground, backing further and further away under the momentum of the duke's new-found energy.