Dulaq was directly behind him, within arm's reach. He grasped
the stat-wand and pulled it from his tunic. With one quick motion he
touched it to the base of the man's skull and started to thumb the
button that would release the killing bolt of energy ...

The man turned suddenly. It wasn't Odal!

Dulaq jerked back in surprise. It couldn't be. He had seen his face.
It was Odal--and yet this man was definitely a stranger.

He stared at Dulaq as the duelist backed away a few steps, then turned
and walked quickly from the place.

_A mistake_, Dulaq told himself. _You were overanxious. A good thing
this is an hallucination, or else the auto-police would be taking you
in by now._

And yet ... he had been so certain that it was Odal. A chill shuddered
through him. He looked up, and there was his antagonist, on the
thoroughfare above, at the precise spot where he himself had been a
few minutes earlier. Their eyes met, and Odal's lips parted in a cold
smile.

Dulaq hurried up the ramp. Odal was gone by the time he reached the
upper level. _He could not have gotten far_, Dulaq reasoned. Slowly,
but very surely, Dulaq's hallucination turned into a nightmare. He
spotted Odal in the crowd, only to have him melt away. He saw him
again, lolling in a small park, but when he got closer, the man turned
out to be another stranger. He felt the chill of the duelist's
ice-blue eyes on him again and again, but when he turned to find his
antagonist, no one was there but the impersonal crowd.

Odal's face appeared again and again. Dulaq struggled through the
throngs to find his opponent, only to have him vanish. The crowd
seemed to be filled with tall, blond men crisscrossing before Dulaq's
dismayed eyes.

The shadows lengthened. The sun was setting. Dulaq could feel his
heart pounding within him and perspiration pouring from every square
inch of his skin.

There he is! Definitely, positively him! Dulaq pushed through the
homeward-bound crowds toward the figure of a tall, blond man leaning
against the safety railing of the city's main thoroughfare. It was
Odal, the damned smiling confident Odal.

Dulaq pulled the wand from his tunic and battled across the surging
crowd to the spot where Odal stood motionless, hands in pockets,
watching him.

Dulaq came within arm's reach ...

"TIME, GENTLEMEN. TIME IS UP, THE DUEL IS ENDED."

* * * * *

High above the floor of the antiseptic-white chamber that h