as any complaint of unfairness or advantage taken by
either party of this duel?"

Most of them were leaving, anticipating the arrival of the police with
their time-consuming questions, but twenty or so crowded close around
Bryce and the corpse. "Press a thumb on your shoulder sub-clavian,
man," someone advised Bryce. "You're bleeding like a faucet."

Pierce's clear voice said the standard words over the murmur and
shuffle of feet. "No unfairness having been observed, when called to
give testimony you can then say that he shot in self-defense and under
duress."

A low wail of sirens was heard.

* * * * *

"Who was that character?" Pierce asked later, sitting beside the table
while a surgeon patiently pieced together the three or four shattered
pieces of Bryce's collarbone and fastened them with ingenious plastic
bolts.

Bryce absently watched the process in a large tilted mirror slung
overhead. Medicine bored him. "J. H. Beldman, member of the Board of
Directors," he explained, and for the benefit of the policeman
standing beside the door he added, "Bad tempered as they come." He
looked into the mirror uneasily, trying to focus on his face.

His clothes were being cleaned of blood and dried somewhere. When the
doctor had finished sewing and patching Bryce showered and dressed in
a small dressing room beside the emergency ward, where he found his
clothes hanging neatly in a drying closet.

As he finished a man in plain clothes entered and dismissed the cop
with a word, and handed Bryce a printed notice and his magnomatic;
"You're clear," he said, leaving again with a friendly half salute.
"No charges." The police had already recorded the testimony of the
witnesses and inspected the weapons used. It had been a fair duel and
the survivor was clear with a standard case for self-defense. The
printed notice called him to testify at the coroner's inquest into the
death of J. H. Beldman during the next Saturday, but there would be no
charges and no investigation.

There would be no trouble from Beldman, but who else knew what he had
known, that Bryce Carter was responsible for the corruption of UT? How
had he learned it? If someone else knew, there was going to be
trouble.

Coming out of the emergency ward, he checked his watch.

One-fifteen. Too late to find Sheila Wesley still at Geiger's Counter.
But he knew he could see her another day--and with a good story to
explain why he had