The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dueling Machine, by
Benjamin William Bova and Myron R. Lewis

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Title: The Dueling Machine

Author: Benjamin William Bova
Myron R. Lewis

Illustrator: John Schoenherr

Release Date: December 29, 2009 [EBook #30796]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUELING MACHINE ***

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction May 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.

THE DUELING MACHINE

The trouble with great ideas is that someone is sure to
expend enormous effort and ingenuity figuring out how to
louse them up.

by BEN BOVA and MYRON R. LEWIS

ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN SCHOENHERR

[Illustration]

* * * * *

Dulaq rode the slide to the upper pedestrian level, stepped off and
walked over to the railing. The city stretched out all around
him--broad avenues thronged with busy people, pedestrian walks,
vehicle thoroughfares, aircars gliding between the gleaming, towering
buildings.

And somewhere in this vast city was the man he must kill. The man who
would kill him, perhaps.

It all seemed so real! The noise of the streets, the odors of the
perfumed trees lining the walks, even the warmth of the reddish sun on
his back as he scanned the scene before him.

_It is an illusion_, Dulaq reminded himself, _a clever man-made
hallucination. A figment of my own imagination amplified by a
machine._

But it seemed so very real.

Real or not, he had to find Odal before the sun set. Find him and kill
him. Those were the terms of the duel. He fingered the stubby
cylinderical stat-wind in his tunic pocket. That was the weapon he had
chosen, his weapon, his own invention. And this was the environment he
had picked: his city, busy, noisy, crowded, the metropo