In the near distance were men uniformed in high-tension ablative weave, bulletproof and beam-resistant, dialed to armor configurations, and dull with the blocky gray of urban camouflage. Their officers were dressed as Conquistadores. The ordinary logic of war should have had the officers blend among the men, camouflaged as they were, for fear of snipers, but the romance of war, at least in the era dominated by personalities like Del Azarchel, allowed officers to seek greater honor by exposing themselves to greater danger.
The soldiers nearer the door kept mostly out of the line of sight, but he could see the periscope-threads of their helmets poking around corners or peeking shyly over trench edges.
There was one figure who was not cowering, not taking cover, but standing bold as brass, dead in the middle of the empty street, right beneath a dark street-lamp. The burly figure was dressed in duelist armor from a dead century, massive as a gorilla, his helmet a faceless hemisphere. An oversized pistol hung crookedly from his armored fist, its foot-long barrel down to mid-shin.
The fear that stabbed through Montrose came as a surprise. A sensation like rolling through thorns crawled across his skin, leaving a wash of hot perspiration in its wake. He blinked and blinked again, but there was no way to get a hand inside his heavy helmet and wipe the sweat from his eyes. He clicked the air switch with his jaw, opening the vents, and wishing for cool.
A bad sign. Montrose never got an attack of nerves before. Had he lost the one thing that allowed him to fight and win? Perhaps it had slipped away when he fought his final fight, the duel with Mike Nails, way back when. That duel had put him in the hospital.
Montrose reminded himself that he was not fighting for himself this time, not for money, not for his family or his firm. This was for Rania.
That thought steadied him.
The squat figure of his opponent was not alone. From behind the armored shape emerged the thinner form of Narcís D’Aragó, spine straight, walking slowly to take up a position halfway between. He was dressed in his black silk shipsuit, and, now that the general population knew the secret of second youth, his hair was dark, his narrow face unwrinkled. But there was something in his footstep, the tilt of his head, that looked positively ancient and wizened: as a ghost of some dead octogenarian possessing the body of a youth might look.
D’Aragó approached across the empty street, his footsteps the only noise in the night. He had reached exactly halfway to Montrose, the position where Montrose’s second, in theory, was supposed to meet him.
He spoke aloud in his dry and colorless voice. “Learned Montrose, I don’t have much affection for you, and not really that much for him. I am supposed to meet your second—you cannot possibly have one—and talk about how to make the fight fair—which is a stupid concept no matter how you look at it. Why don’t you back out? Save yourself the trouble?”
“Licking him will trouble me no trouble ah-tall, partner.”
D’Aragó looked disgusted. “Why are you doing this?”
Montrose shouted back, “Why are you? I want Blackie to stop bothering my wife.”
D’Aragó shrugged. “I believe a man should find his own death in his own way. Your life belongs to you in fee simple, yours to spend or throw away. If I think it is damned foolishness, that’s just my opinion. Since you don’t have a second, according to the rules of this adventure in idiocy, I guess you’re allowed to call it off.”
“I have a second.”
“Who? Where is he?”
“His name is Ximen Del Azarchel.”
And a voice rang out from the metal armband on D’Aragó’s wrist. It was Exarchel.
D’Aragó looked shocked, and the look did not fade. He kept stealing nervous glances at the man version of Del Azarchel as he spoke with the machine version over his amulet.
Montrose turned up the gain on his helmet’s earphones, and could make out the voice of the machine, cold and majestic, dimly echoing, as it conversed with D’Aragó: “Having received in proper course the challenge offered by the friend of the honorable gentleman, and agreed as to time and place, let us establish the uniformity of weapons. My principle is shy a shot from his fourth secondary barrel…”
Del Azarchel must have also had his earphones turned up, because he raised his pistol to port arms, worked the action. With a clack of noise one of the eight shots, a slender micro-missile some nine inches in length, half inch in caliber, clattered, ringing, to the roadstones. He lowered the pistol again to its ready position.
The cold voice of the machine rang out again from D’Aragó’s wrist. “Let us establish the question of a judge. Sergei Vardanov surrendered himself and his men to your principle’s custody. Let him and two others act as the tribunal…”
Montrose spoke inside his helmet to turn on the phone in his wristband. “Hey, Exarchel!”
The machine could carry on two conversations at once. Or a thousand. Over Montrose’s amulet he said, “Yes…?”
“I don’t want Vardanov to be the judge. See if you can have him moved to a safe distance.”
“I thought she would appreciate if I freed three of her men from militia custody.”
“He can pick from his men: I trust him. Uh—for things like that, I trust him.”
“It will be Hermeticists. No one else is old enough to remember or respect the Code of Duels.”
“Fine.”
“The Spanish custom was to have three men, and abide by their vote.”
“Fine.”
Three black-garbed figures climbed from the trenches, and walked with slow deliberation over to the area midway between the two armored men. The three judges were none other than Reyes y Pastor, his chin high and eyes bright; Sarmento i Illa d’Or, like a mountain of muscle, but stepping lightly as a heifer, his face stoical and grim-lipped; and Melchor de Ulloa, slouching and looking embarrassed.
Father Reyes raised his hand and called out in a loud voice, “I must ask and abjure you that this quarrel should not proceed, for Our Heavenly Father has commanded all the faithful sons of His Church to peace. Gentlemen, I call upon you as baptized Christian men to turn aside from this wrath, to shake hands and make amends. Is there anything that can be done or said to reconcile you, that this contest might be resolved to the satisfaction of both parties, and with no dishonor?”
Reyes y Pastor was dressed in his priestly vestments, which he had nonchalantly worn to a battlefield, and seemed to show no discomfort in acting in his role as a judge over a duel, either. Montrose decided that the man must have no respect at all for his office.
Montrose said in a loud voice, “Blackie, if you can hear me, we don’t need to go through with this.”
The voice of Exarchel came from his wrist, “Learned Montrose, if you wish me to act as your second in this, please respect the forms. All communication must go through me.”
“Invite him.”
“Where?”
“Up! Tell him to come to the stars with us. The three of us, together again, aboard the Hermetic. He can use the Bellerophon to hold the world hostage, we can go to the Diamond Star together, and it will be a century or more Earth-time before we get back. He abdicates to the Advocacy, and the people will know there is more contraterrene on its way, and that should sooth things down. The world peace he wants is preserved, and he don’t have to trust his mechanical version, uh…”
“Meaning me.”
“Meaning you. Give D’Aragó the message.”
No doubt Del Azarchel heard the words from D’Aragó’s wrist as clearly as did Montrose, but D’Aragó nevertheless took the time to walk slowly back over to Del Azarchel, bend his head to the helmet, and exchange words with Del Azarchel.
D’Aragó walked too slowly. Montrose sighed, because there was no subtle way to do this, and he did not want to lift his pistol to use the muzzle camera, lest the gesture be mistaken. His helmet was not designed to turn, so he had to lift his heavy legs, and with clanking footsteps, turn his whole body in order to look behind him. The tether of the topless tower was bent, and from the curve it was clear that several cars were already climbing the cable.