The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stalemate, by Basil Eugene Wells

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Title: Stalemate

Author: Basil Eugene Wells

Illustrator: Leo Summers

Release Date: May 30, 2010 [EBook #32594]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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STALEMATE

BY BASIL WELLS

_Illustrated by Leo Summers_

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science
Fiction November 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Sidenote: _The rules of a duel between gentlemen are quite different
from the rules of war between nations. Is it because gentlemen do not
fight wars, or is it that men in war cease to be gentlemen?_]

The bullet slapped rotted leaves and dirt into Gram Treb's eyes. He
wormed backward to the bole of a small tree.

"Missed!" he shouted. He used English, the second tongue of them both.
"Throw away your carbine and use rocks."

"You tasted it anyhow," Harl Neilson's shrill young voice cried. "How
was the sample?"

"That leaves you two cartridges," taunted Treb. "Or is it only one?"

The sixth sense that had brought him safely through two of these bloody
war duels here in space made him fling his body to the left. He rolled
over once and lay huddled in a shallow depression. He knew all the tiny
hollows and ridges--they were his insurance on this mile-wide island
high above Earth.

Something thudded into the tree roots behind him. He hugged the ground,
body flattened. His breath eased raggedly outward, and caught. The
waiting--the seconds that became hours! If the grenade rolled after him,
down the slope into his shelter, he was finished.

There was nothing he could do. His palms oozed sweat....

The grenade exploded. It was like a fist slammed against his skull. He
was numbed for a long instant. Then he checked.

Unharmed. The depression had saved his neck this time. He wanted to
shout at Neilson, tell him he