nk.

"Psychology, perhaps?" Leoh suggested, hopefully, "Physiology?
Computer molectronics?"

"I'm pretty good at mathematics!"

"Yes, I know. Did you, by any chance, receive any training in
diplomatic affairs?"

"At the Star Watch Academy? No, sir."

Leah ran a hand through his thinning hair. "Then why did the Star
Watch select you for this job? I must confess, lieutenant, that I
can't understand the workings of a military organization."

Hector shook his head ruefully, "Neither do I, sir."

VII

The next week was an enervatingly slow one for Leoh, evenly divided
between tedious checking of each component of the dueling machine, and
shameless rouses to keep Hector as far away from the machine as
possible.

The Star Watchman certainly wanted to help, and he actually was little
short of brilliant in doing intricate mathematics completely in his
head. But he was, Leoh found, a clumsy, chattering, whistling,
scatterbrained, inexperienced bundle of noise and nerves. It was
impossible to do constructive work with him nearby.

_Perhaps you're judging him too harshly_, Leoh warned himself. _You
just might be letting your frustrations with the dueling machine get
the better of your sense of balance._

The professor was sitting in the office that the Acquatainians had
given him in one end of the former lecture hall that held the dueling
machine. Leoh could see its impassive metal hulk through the open
office door.

The room he was sitting in had been one of a suite of offices used by
the permanent staff of the machine. But they had moved out of the
building completely, in deference to Leoh, and the Acquatainian
government had turned the other cubbyhole offices into sleeping rooms
for the professor and the Star Watchman, and an auto-kitchen. A
combination cook-valet-handyman appeared twice each day--morning and
evening--to handle any special chores that the cleaning machines and
auto-kitchen might miss.

Leoh slouched back in his desk chair and cast a weary eye on the stack
of papers that recorded the latest performances of the machine.
Earlier that day he had taken the electroencephalographic records of
clinical cases of catatonia and run them through the machine's input
unit. The machine immediately rejected them, refused to process them
through the amplification units and association circuits.

In other words, the machine had recognized the EEG traces as something
harmful to a human being.

_Then how did