Basil Wells

“ 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. ”

“ They were the last of the belligerents here within Earth Satellite. For two months, since what would be May on Earth, they had carried on this mad duel. Of the other eighteen who had started the war in November of the preceding year, only four had survived their wounds. The United Nations' supervisory seconds had transported them to their homes in Andilia and in Baryt....
Treb wormed his way as noiselessly as possible into the undergrowth, sprawling at last in the shelter of an earthen mound thirty feet from the grenade's raw splash. He waited—and thought.
Memories can be unpleasant. ”

“ In his latest dream an extremely shapely and smiling young woman with dark hair was heaving a grenade into a pit where he lay bound and helpless. The grenade swelled until it became a space ship heading directly toward the frail scout craft he piloted....
And a tiny blob of dislodged mud from the dugout spatted his face. He sat up.
Another day to hunt or be hunted. Or to lie here and try to rest and make plans. There was slight possibility that Neilson could find him here. ”

“ He donned his battered trousers again. The concealed knife was well hidden, although it did impede the freedom of his stride.
Then he went down to rejoin Neilson.
Neilson was just finishing hacking at his hair with the short-bladed safety razor. He scowled at Treb, his eyes on the carbine that the man from Baryt yet carried.
"Not taking any chances, eh, Treb?"
"Just in case you change your mind, Harl."
"My friend—my very dear friend—Gram Treb!" Neilson laughed. "What trust—what a faith in human nature!"
"Yes, Harl. Your friend." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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 say. How about your three wounded buddies: Wasson, Clark, and Thomason? Badly cut up aren't they? Clark blind. Wasson with no arms.
"Couldn't they use the two hundred thousand?"
Neilson was coming ashore. A sudden resolve hardened his face, and his blue eyes were dark and angry. His jaw jutted through the sandy fairness of his draggled beard. ”

“ There would be a thousand new opportunities for a career. And Jane could not refuse me then."
"It is wrong, Harl Neilson, to so worship a woman. Like alcohol or Venerian fire pollen—it is unnatural."
"I know. I have tried to forget, to put her memory aside. But it is like a disease. An incurable disease. I must have Jane."
Treb threw more wood on the little fire and checked over the lashings about Neilson's body.
"I am going to look at my rabbit snares," he said, "and to spring the other traps. We will eat and sleep, and in the morning try to shave and look decent before going to the locks." ”

“ He had no wish to kill Neilson. If he could capture him, very good. He could go back to Andilia and perhaps his Jane would be glad to take him. If she did not—it was worth knowing how little she really cared, was it not?
So he would try to trap the younger man and save his life.
It would be difficult. The other man had grenades, a carbine and a keen needle-knife. Perhaps, before the end, he would be forced to kill after all. But regretfully.
Treb dumped the last of the tsaftha antibiotic into his wound and lay back for a few more hours of rest before going out to prepare the traps. ”

“ Treb felt his vitals knot at what he sensed in Neilson's expression. He'd gambled on the essential fairness and sympathy of the Andilian's character. But now....
"I'll do it," Neilson said tonelessly.
"I hope you'll never regret what you are doing, Harl."
"Aw, lock valves!" snarled Neilson. "Get ready to go while I finish shaving."
So that was the way it was to be. Treb turned wearily away. He went back through the screen of flowering shrubs and trees to where the coals of their fire turned gray. ”

“ Time to check on his traps. The rabbit traps as well as the human traps.
He was approaching the net. And the awareness that this furtive game of hide-and-seek might go on for weeks oppressed him. He might lie here close by the net for days without sight of Neilson. They were too evenly matched—and Neilson was younger. It was Neilson's youth against his experience.
He found the thin rope of knotted nylon and plastic scraps that led to the four balanced rocks. One stout yank and the net would jerk upward four feet and tighten around its victim. ”

“ Neilson had moved again. His voice was lower but he was nearer.
"Stop around anytime, Harl." Treb moved a few feet deeper into a thicket. "We'll show you what real Baryt hospitality is."
"That's a promise, Treb."
Killing. That's what war was. So you had to kill. Or you volunteered to kill. But you didn't have to like it. All these little wars under UN supervision were needless—arbitration would serve as well. But the people, the leaders—someone—wanted blood. So ten or twelve or fifteen citizens of one nation fought an equal number of the other state's sons. ”

“ No overwhelming army could sweep, unchecked, over a helpless neighbor. It was fairer, too, for those involved. Equal numbers of men, guns, supplies. Wealth if your side won, and a fair sum if you lost. ”

“ In the fantasy stories of adventure in space that he enjoyed reading, the hero could always whip up a weird paralysis ray, a deadly, invisible robot bullet, or an intelligent gaseous ally from the void would appear. ”

“ Now that they had lost contact with one another it might require several days to find Neilson. A wooded platter, a mile in diameter, can afford many hiding places for one creature hiding from another hunting beast.
It was time to set some of the traps he had been contriving.
There were the two nooses, attached to bent-down triggered young trees that could not be set until darkness fell again. The net, too, would need darkness to conceal the four rough pulleys, and the rocks that a tug on his rope would spill. ”

“ But the almost invisible nylon cords, set at ankle height across the paths, and the ugly little pits with their sharpened stakes set three feet below, could trip up a man and cripple him. He must put out several of those. ”