The late morning sun was streaming through the tall windows when Leoh finally explained it all to Hector. “A simple matter of technological improvisation,” he told the bewildered Watchman. “You have installed a short-range transceiver into the machine, and this headset is a portable transceiver for Dulaq. Now he can sit in his hospital bed and still be ‘in’ the dueling machine.” Only the three most trusted members of the hospital staff were taken into Leoh’s confidence, and they were hardly enthusiastic about Leoh’s plan. “It is a waste of time,” said the chief psychophysician, shaking his white-maned head vigorously. “You cannot expect a patient who has shown no positive response to drugs and therapy to respond to your machine.” Leoh argued, Geri Dulaq coaxed. Finally the doctors agreed. With only two days remaining before Hector’s duel with Odal, they began to probe Dulaq’s mind. Geri remained by her father’s bedside while the three doctors fitted the cumbersome transceiver to Dulaq’s head and attached the electrodes for the automatic hospital equipment that monitored his physical condition. Hector and Leoh remained at the dueling machine, communicating with the hospital by phone. Leoh made a final check of the controls and circuitry, then put in the last call to the tense little group in Dulaq’s room. All was ready. He walked out to the machine, with Hector beside him. Their footsteps echoed hollowly in the sepulchral chamber. Leoh stopped at the nearer booth. “Now remember,” he said, carefully, “I will be holding the emergency control unit in my hand. It will stop the duel the instant I set it off. However, if something should go wrong, you must be prepared to act quickly. Keep a close watch on my physical condition; I’ve shown you which instruments to check on the control board—” “Yes sir.” Leoh nodded and took a deep breath. “Very well then.” He stepped into the booth and sat down. The emergency control unit rested on a shelf at his side; he took it in his hands. He leaned back and waited for the semihypnotic effect to take hold. Dulaq’s choice of this very city and the stat-wand were known. But beyond that, everything was locked and sealed in Dulaq’s subconscious mind. Could the machine reach into that subconscious, probe past the lock and seal of catatonia, and stimulate Dulaq’s mind into repeating the duel? Slowly, lullingly, the dueling machine’s imaginary yet very real mists enveloped Leoh. When the mists cleared, he was standing on the upper pedestrian level of the main commercial street of the city. For a long moment, everything was still. _Have I made contact? Whose eyes am I seeing with, my own or Dulaq’s?_ And then he sensed it—an amused, somewhat astonished marveling at the reality of the illusion. Dulaq’s thoughts! _Make your mind a blank_, Leoh told himself. _Watch. Listen. Be passive._