afraid of that?"

"I have all the guns, grenades and needle-knives, Harl. I'll shoot you
if you attempt escape, of course, but I hope you'll listen to what I
propose first."

Neilson slowly stripped off his ragged tunic and trousers. There was the
scar of a recent bullet's path across his right shoulder blade. It was
crusted with blackened blood.

"I thought I heard you two days back, Harl," said Treb.

"Just a scratch." Neilson took up the soap and waded into the nearby
lake. "Start talking, Treb."

"I told you to think about Paul Hubble's Award, Harl. He's the American
industrialist who opposed violence in settling any issue."

"Sure. Heard about him in the lower grades. Fifty million dollars he
sunk in his worthless Peace Foundation. What about it?"

"Hear me out. Did you like what we just went through? Your friends and
comrades dying--my friends dead and wounded? And all to settle some
territorial dispute or to wipe out some imagined slur.

"Would you like to prevent your kid, or mine, from having to face this
again?"

"Stop sounding off, Treb, and say something." Neilson scrubbed
vigorously. "Of course I would--if I ever had a kid, I mean."

"We could help, Harl. By calling off the duel and making peace right
here. Of course there might be new balloting--even another battle
between our countries. But we would crack the theory that victory means
more than humanity."

Neilson snorted. He splashed water into his eyes and over his soapy
beard and hair.

"And go home penniless? To have every friend and neighbor avoid us?
What's eating you? You won. You'll get the quarter of a million."

"I want you to share equally. I want our two countries to know that
friendship means more than glory."

"I don't get it. If neither side wins we get nothing."

"You forget about the Hubble Award. Two hundred thousand to each member
of both sides, or their survivors, if they declare an armistice."

"I had forgotten. You'd give up fifty thousand so I could get the same
two hundred thousand! You're a prince, Treb.

"But I couldn't do it. Jane would turn against me. The radio, the
newswires, television and the magazines would crucify me--both of us."

"We'd ride it out. None of the participants in the twenty-two duels here
in Satellite has had the courage to admit he hates war. In years to come
our stand would be honored."

"It means losing Jane. I can't do it."

"You've lost her anyway, Harl, if she's the way you s