‘‘I’ve seen that kind of thing pulled,” said Varris calmly. “Poison is illegal, but gimmicks of the kind you mention are accepted. However, the weapons must be identical. You’d have to get me with your switchblade the first try—and I don’t think you could—or I’d see what was going on and do the same. I assure you, the prospect doesn’t frighten me at all.

‘‘I’ll give you a few days here to see how hopeless your problem is. If you turn your flitter’s guns on the city, or on me…well, I have guns, too. If you aren’t out of the kingdom in a week—or if you begin to act suspiciously before that time—I’ll duel you.”

‘‘I’m a peaceable man,” said Alak. “It takes two to make a duel.”

“Not here, it doesn’t. If I insult you before witnesses, and you don’t challenge me, you lose knightly rank and are whipped out of the country. It’s a long walk to the border, with a bull whip lashing you all the way. You wouldn’t make it alive.”

“All right,” sighed Alak. “What do you want of me?”

“I want to be let alone.”

“So do the people you were going to make war on last year.”

“Good night.” Varris turned and went out the door. His men followed him.

Alak stood for a while in silence. Beyond the walls, he could hear the night wind of Ryfin’s Planet. Somehow, it was a foreign wind, it had another sound from the rushing air of Terra. Blowing through different trees, across an unearthly land—

“Have you any plan at all?” murmured Drogs.

“I had one.” Alak clasped nervous hands behind his back.

“He doesn’t know I won’t bushwhack him, or summon a force of gunners, or something lethal like that. I was figuring on a bluff—but it seems he has called me. He wants to be sure of taking at least one Patrolman to hell with him.”

“You could study the local code duello,” suggested Drogs. “You could let him kill you in a way which looked like a technical foul. Then the king would boot him out and I could arrest him with the help of a stun beam.”

“Thanks,” said Alak. “Your devotion to duty is really touching.”

‘‘I remember a Terran proverb,” said Drogs. Galmathian humor can be quite heavy at times. “ ‘The craven dies a thousand deaths, the hero dies but once.’ ”

“Yeh. But you see, I’m a craven from way back. I much prefer a thousand synthetic deaths to one genuine case. As far as I’m concerned, the live coward has it all over the dead hero—” Alak stopped. His jaw fell down and then snapped up again. He flopped into a chair and cocked his feet up on the windowsill and ran a hand through his ruddy hair.

Drogs returned to the water pipe and smoked imperturbably. He knew the signs. If the Patrol may not kill, it is allowed to do anything else—and sublimated murder can be most fascinatingly fiendish.