egan pacing the big chamber. Finally, even that was too
confining. He left the building and started stalking through the
campus. He walked past a dozen buildings, turned and strode as far as
the decorative fence that marked the end of the main campus, ignoring
students and faculty alike.

_Campuses are all alike_, he muttered to himself, _on every human
planet, for all the centuries there have been universities. There must
be some fundamental reason for it._

Leoh was halfway back to the dueling machine facility when he spotted
Hector walking dazedly toward the same building. For once, the
Watchman was not whistling. Leoh cut across some lawn and pulled up
beside the youth.

"Well?" he asked.

Hector shook his head, as if to clear away an inner fog. "How did you
know she'd be at the hospital?"

"The wisdom of age. What happened?"

"She kissed me. Right there in the hallway of the--"

"Spare me the geography," Leoh cut in. "What did she say?"

"I bumped into her in the hallway. We, uh, started talking ... sort
of. She seemed, well ... worried about me. She got upset. Emotional.
You know? I guess I looked pretty forlorn and frightened. I am ... I
guess. When you get right down to it, I mean."

"You aroused her maternal instinct."

"I ... I don't think it was that ... exactly. Well, anyway, she said
that if I was willing to risk my life to save yours, she couldn't
protect her father any more. Said she was doing it out of selfishness,
really, since he's her only living relative. I don't believe she meant
that, but she said it anyway."

They had reached the building by now. Leoh grabbed Hector's arm and
steered him clear of a collision with the half-open door.

"She's agreed to let us put Dulaq in the dueling machine?"

"Sort of."

"Eh?"

"The medical staff doesn't want him to be moved from the hospital ...
especially not back to here. She agrees with them."

Leoh snorted. "All right. In fact, so much the better. I'd rather not
have the Kerak people see us bring Dulaq to the dueling machine. So
instead, we shall smuggle the dueling machine to Dulaq!"

XIII

They plunged to work immediately. Leoh preferred not to inform the
regular staff of the dueling machine about their plan, so he and
Hector had to work through the night and most of the next morning.
Hector barely understood what he was doing, but with Leoh's
supervision, he managed to dismantle part of the dueling machine's
central network, inse