d you take
the grub out of some feller's mouth who might could help a little.
That's why--"

"Time!" announced the duelmaster with his face close to a large clock on
the wall. He opened the door. Two men carrying a body on a stretcher
passed. The body had four bullet wounds in it.

Dan said, "That drivel gives me a real reason to kill you, farmer. I'll
be good to her for a few days."

As prearranged, Dan took the right branch of the corridor and
Stonecypher, the left. A hooded man gave Stonecypher the Magnum revolver
and shut him into a space resembling a windowed closet with a door on
either side. Stonecypher secured the revolver in the clip holster. His
bony hands formed knotted fists.

The pen door slid back. Stonecypher stepped into a room thirty by ninety
feet with three bullet-marred concrete walls and a fourth wall of
bulletproof glass, behind which sat the ghoulish audience. Dan, crouched
and with his pistol in the crook of his left elbow, advanced. His right
hand fluttered an inch from the pistol butt.

Stonecypher, grotesque with thin chest exposed and overall bib wrapped
around belt, waited. Two photoelectric robot machine guns followed each
movement of the duelists. A buzzer sounded. Dan's index finger failed to
reach the trigger, for a guardian machine gun removed the hobbyist's
head in a short efficient burst. The noise of a louder buzzer punctuated
the execution.

When the soundproof inner door of the closet opened, the hooded man, who
had a pair of crossed pistols tattooed on the back of his right hand,
said, "He was too anxious."

"Yeah," Stonecypher grunted.

The man watched Stonecypher pass out to the street. Stonecypher snapped
up the bib of his overalls. An extremely rare bird, a robin, hopped from
his path and continued a fruitless search for insects. Stonecypher
walked down Watauga Street until the pavement vanished under the
brownish-green water of Kings Lake.

Catriona squealed when she saw him. Ignoring all Correct Procedures, she
almost knocked him down and attempted to smother him. "Ah told you it
just took practice!" she blubbered. "You did it, Stony!"

With muffled mumbles, Stonecypher managed to put her in the Tenite
canoe. The few people along the quay, who had witnessed the illegal
manner of their meeting, watched with shock, or with incredulity, or
with guarded admiration. When they saw that Stonecypher's hand rested on
a holstered revolver, they lost their curiosity.

Wa