Part 2

"You've done a good job," Doctor Warren said, "and I'm certain you'll be commended by your superiors, but you've failed. I suggest we go home and sleep." His two sons were sleeping on his shoulders. They had been drugged, at their father's request, so they wouldn't see the attack on the crowd.

"Are you going to submit to this bullying?" Doctor Umbana demanded.

"I never was very interested in this project," Doctor Forbes said. "I'm only here because the rest of you want to go. And I've been listening to that helicopter. Some of that's true, you know. They must want us an awful lot to do all this."

"They don't want us," Doctor Umbana said. "They're greedy. Those people out there are only your employers. Are you going to let them treat you like a slave who doesn't have the right to change jobs? Don't you have any pride?"

"He has a point," Doctor Sani said.

"Suppose you go back now," MacFarland argued. "They'll know they can make you stay and they may not give you such good terms next time your contract is renewed."

"True," Forbes said, "but academic. You can't break their line. You might win a starvation match, but I'm not going to stay here that long. It isn't worth it to me."

"Is it worth a few more hours?" MacFarland asked. "You want to work on the starship. You know you meant it when you told me you want a chance to be on the ship. It's the biggest opportunity offered any group of scientists in history. And you admit you can't give in to this coercion without hurting your own self interest. So why not give me until dawn? There's another plane at six a.m. give me till then."

"What can you do?" Doctor Warren asked.

"I can challenge them to a duel. They won't refuse. No one ever refuses a duel."

* * * * *

All night the two sides harassed each other. Crawford Bell's technicians went up and down the enemy line, waking up any Belderkan who was sleeping on his feet. Sirens wailed. The crowd pleaded with the scientists, insulted the invaders and sang to itself. The girls, not yet battle fatigued, tried to tempt the Belderkan troops. The helicopters continued their sermons and denunciations.

MacFarland tried to sleep on a cot beside the command car. Crawford Bell gave him a mild sedative but it didn't do much good.

"Have you ever fought a duel?" Crawford Bell asked.

"No. This is only my third raid."

"What's happened up to now is a boy's game compared to that. That's for real."

"You don't have to tell me. It makes me sick to think about it."

"You don't have to do it. It's something no government can ask you to do."

"No, but the UN Secretariat approves of it and every honest psychologist approves of it, too. Let me rest. You get the junk ready."

He wondered if anything was worth a duel. The star ship wasn't. His career wasn't. So why bother? But he knew the answer and so did every soldier on the planet. Every duel fought made killing a little less likely; every duel decreased the danger modern knowledge, which hadn't been destroyed with the weapons it had made possible, would wipe out human life. It wasn't something you did for your own country. You did it for the whole human race and all the generations to come.

At five he arose from his cot. He felt groggy but that couldn't be helped.

In the chilly dawn he took off his jacket and shirt. Bare chested, he stepped into the space between his vehicles and the enemy line.

Crawford Bell handed him a public address system. "Good morning," his voice boomed. "I hope you've had a better sleep than I got. It's easy to be brave when you know your opponent won't kill you. It's easy to stand in line and look heroic and patriotic when you know I don't dare run you over with my vehicles. But how brave are you? Are you really willing to suffer for your country? I think the men of Belderkan are cowards. I think you would still be running if we had fought an old fashioned war last night."

* * * * *

He paused and stroked his mustache. Then he gestured and Crawford Bell rolled the instrument forward. It was a pole on a wheeled platform. Four handles stuck out from the pole; above each handle was a set of four dials.

"Do you know what a duel is?" He made himself look at the instrument. "Have you heard in this primitive country of the great duels fought all over the world these last few years? Have you heard of the champions produced by nations like Ghana, Israel, Costa Rica? Wouldn't you like to pretend you haven't?"

The youth he had tried to tempt the night before stepped out of the line. "I accept your challenge."

He doesn't know what he's doing, MacFarland thought. "We've got room for four at the pole. Who else accepts my challenge?"

Another man stepped forward. "I'm not afraid. I'll die if I have to."

The struggle on the faces of the men left in line was painful to watch. Three of them stepped forward at the same time. They looked at each other until, with a puzzled expression on his face, one of them waved the other two back.

MacFarland stepped up to the pole and grabbed a handle. Trying hard to keep their faces blank, the three Belderkans grabbed the other handles. One of them trembled.

Behind him the crowd murmured. He squeezed the handle. Pain shot up his arms and thudded through his body. His eyes closed. His face twisted. Holding back a scream, he made himself open his eyes and watch the dials over his handle. The dial marked by a red light was his. The other dials told him how much pain his opponents were enduring. Each man could end his agony by releasing his handle. Each man squeezed harder. Even as they screamed, they squeezed and made the needle move a little further right.

No job, no promotion, no scientific enterprise or national need, could have made him do this. Feeling the pain hammer through his bones, he knew how weak all those motivations were.

Through slitted eyelids he saw two of his opponents fall away from the post. His dial said he was enduring more than either of them.

* * * * *

He turned his face toward the other man. Clenching their handles, they grimaced at each other. MacFarland's grip tightened. His needle moved. The other needle edged past it. They hung there moaning and shaking.

Oh God, he thought. Oh God. He made himself squeeze.

Twin shrieks cut the air. Both men released their handles and fell away from the pole. MacFarland staggered in circles, bent over, clutching his stomach, trying to turn off the pain.

"Are you all right?" Crawford Bell asked.

"Look after him," he answered, still fighting the duel.

"Look after him," he heard the other man moan.

Hands grabbed him and he straightened up. When he saw the pole, he flinched. He couldn't do that again.

He grabbed the mike. "You saw that," he mumbled. "Who's next? Who wants to do that next?"

An aging man walked out of the line and took his position at the pole.

MacFarland stared at the old man's disciplined face. He had been thinking no one would dare come forward now that they had seen a duel. The old man looked tougher than any of the last group.

He stepped up to the pole and grabbed a handle.

"Relax," the Belderkan said. "This time you'll lose or the good thing will happen, but whichever it is, this will be the last time. Good luck."

Have you done this before? MacFarland squeezed to equal him. The old man squeezed his handle and his needle jumped a quarter of the way across the dial. MacFarland squeezed to equal him. Again pain hammered his bones. Again his face twisted and he moaned over his tortured body.

But it was necessary. It had to be done. This odd form of duelling had started twenty years before, when two groups of non-violent soldiers faced each other in the streets of Rio and tension mounted on both sides. Neither side could accept defeat. Neither side could return home and admit it had surrendered to unarmed men because it lacked patience. In wars fought with violence, men could lose with honor. There was no honor for the loser in a non-violent battle.

Then a man had slashed his wrists and let his blood drip onto the street. "I'll die before I'll leave here," he had said.

"I'll die before I'll give in to you," a man from the opposing group had said, slashing his own wrists.

According to the UN psychologists who had studied the phenomenon, duelling was a form of therapy for the people of the world, a necessary transition from the days when men had earned their manhood by fighting wars or belonging to groups which could be proud of their warriors. The pride of nations demanded some sacrifice.

* * * * *

The needle was halfway around the dial. Still the old man hung on. MacFarland squeezed harder. He was staying ahead. How much could he take? Why didn't he die of shock? He hoped for that release and fought to keep conscious and endure a little more.

His personal pride, the good of his country, and the safety of the world, demanded that he drive the contest beyond the limit of his endurance; that he lose, if he lost, not because _he_ had been afraid but because his flesh could endure no more.

He screamed and moaned and squeezed. The men in the enemy line moaned with him. He heard Crawford Bell shouting to him to let go. Was that Doctor Umbana he heard? Wasn't that the calm Doctor Warren shouting and pleading?

And the strangest of all sounds was his own voice mingling with the voice of his opponent, two screams with exactly the same pitch and intensity, the same rise and fall.

He was going to die. He wouldn't be the first. Sometimes the honor of the nation demanded that and it was necessary nations not be shamed by their citizens. Shamed nations were dangerous nations. And after all, he was only one soldier and in previous generations the sacrifice had been millions.

* * * * *

He lay on the cot. Crawford Bell and a medic worked on him with hypos. Vaguely, he realized the aging Belderkan lay beside him.

"It's about time you opened your eyes," Crawford Bell said. "Can you hear me?"

He nodded.

"We put you into therapeutic shock. You've been out an hour. You'll be all right."

"How's my friend there?"

"He's coming around."

A jet screamed. Lifting his head, he watched it rise into the morning.

"Doctor Warren's on it," Crawford Bell said. "So's Doctor Umbana. The Belderkans agreed to let any two of them through the line and Doctor Warren decided he didn't need all the rest of them after all. Your technique of persuasion isn't one I'd like to use, but it's effective."

He didn't have the strength to answer. It always worked out that way. After a duel, what had seemed beyond compromise suddenly became negotiable. That was the good thing the old man had spoken of. That was the knowledge which had given him that strength to endure.

THE END