him to the bend of the corridor people
were scattering hastily out of the firing line.

_Crook_ was the central word. Somehow Beldman had found out that Bryce
was responsible for the corruption of UT, and he was dealing with the
matter in the most direct way that it could be dealt with, for a death
in a private duel would be laid to a quarrel and not investigated.

How had he found out? Bryce forced down the question as he stiffly
reholstered his magnomatic. There was no use thinking of that until
the question of surviving the next five minutes was settled. He stood
with his hands empty, feeling curiously empty inside, oddly missing
the white rage and love of murder that usually carried him through
such things.

It seemed too good a day to spoil. He would rather have continued his
way to lunch with Sheila, and let the man live--or let himself live.
This would be no duel for a little bloodletting. Beldman's purpose was
to kill. And Beldman himself, knowing what he knew, had to die. "Do
you understand what you have said, sir?" Bryce used the formal words
of the dueling countries.

"You're damn well right I do!"

"Are you prepared to take the consequences, sir?"

"More ready than you are," Beldman said, his hands still on his hips.
He amplified his remark with a few well chosen words that harked back
to his truck driving days.

"How many shots?" Bryce asked more softly, beginning to want to kill.

"Until one of us is down with his gun out of his hand."

Bryce repeated the provision to the crowd that had drawn up discreetly
along the side-lines. "We fire until one of us is both down and
disarmed."

There was a murmur of surprise among the crowd for that was an unusual
and deadly provision for a formal duel. As Bryce paced backward the
required number of paces, counting aloud, two men volunteered as
seconds. They came forward to compare the guns rapidly and show them
to the duelists. It had to be done and finished rapidly, for lunch
hour had begun with its flood of people into the corridors, and they
were holding up traffic.

Bryce's gun was a .42 magnomatic, working on an electrical
acceleration of the slug by electromagnetic rings in the thick barrel.
It was soundless except for a legal built-in radio yeep that announced
its firing and number to the police emergency receivers. Beldman's gun
was another maggy of the same make but heavier with a wide-mouthed
barrel apparently throwing a much heavier caliber slu