Code Duello up-4 Read online

  Dr. Dorn Horsten said, “Thank the Holy Ultimate that she’s on our side.”

  “All right, all right,” Mextaxa said. “The point’s made. I suppose your makeup is a natural for eavesdropping and such.” He shook his head as she returned to her chair. “It’s just that…” He let the sentence fade away and looked at the others thus far silent, two special talents operatives.

  The one Lee Chang Chu had pointed out earlier as Zorro Juarez, the bullwhip artist from the planet Vacamundo, was a handsome man in the Latin tradition, evidently on the dour and quiet side by nature. He sat fiddling with an object that looked like a cross between a swagger stick and a foot and a half of sawed-off broom-handle. It seemed to be of highly decorated leather.

  Metaxa said, “Lee Chang has evidently seen your whip demonstrations. It all sounds very well, but where’s the whip?”

  Zorro Juarez said, “Wrapped around my waist.”

  Metaxa snorted. “Not exactly a weapon you could get into action in a hurry.”

  Zorro had been pounding his leather baton in the palm of his left hand. Suddenly—he must have touched a stud, or something—a section of plastic thong shot out from the end of that baton, which now proved to be the whip handle. He flicked it once and it snaked, to gently pluck out from the Commissioner’s breast pocket, the stylo he kept there. Another twist of wrist and the stylo was in the hand of Zorro Juarez. He tossed it on the desk.

  “I say, that’s a new one,” Dorn Horsten said enthusiastically.

  Zorro said, even as he touched the stud again, “We all carry them on Vacamundo.” The plastic thong disappeared back into the handle.

  Metaxa snorted. His eyes went to the fourth member of the party. Jerry Rhodes was slumped in his chair, in an easy-going attitude. His face was pleasantly vacant, almost to the point of being inane.

  “I suppose you’re going along to bring everybody luck,” Metaxa said.

  Jerry shrugged amiably. “It doesn’t work that way, sir. My luck is only for me. I have to be involved.”

  Metaxa stared at him. “Look, if you’re so lucky, why don’t you go to the planet Vegas, or one of the other worlds where they have free enterprise, and such things as gambling? You could clean up.”

  Jerry nodded, agreeably. “Actually, I’m persona non grata on Vegas. But that’s not the only thing. You see, you don’t have any particular need for money when you’re completely lucky. You get everything you need-”

  “How?”

  “Well—” Rhodes hesitated. “Somehow. You never know.”

  Ross Metaxa grunted, as though in despair. He fished absently in his desk and emerged with his squat brown bottle and several glasses. He said, as though not expecting an affirmative answer. “Would anybody like to try this Denebian tequila?”

  “Bit early for me,” Horsten murmured politely. The others except Helen, had evidently heard of Metaxa’s tequila; they shook their heads, even as the Commissioner poured one of the glasses full.

  Helen beat her superior to it. The drink went down as though it was fruit juice. “Um,” she said. “Smooth.” She put the glass back.

  “Smooth?” Metaxa said blankly. He looked at the brown bottle. “That’s the first time anybody called it that.” He looked at the seeming child, in her party dress, and shaking his head, he evidently decided against his own drink, as though already his senses where betraying him.

  He said, “Look, I’m feeling less optimistic about this assignment by the minute, but let’s go. Have any of you ever heard of a planet named Firenze?”

  Dorn Horsten said slowly, “I attended a conference on the phylum Thallophyta there, some years ago. Although at the time I wasn’t particularly interested in her institutions, it seemed a moderately progressive world.”

  “Not progressive enough. Firenze is a comparatively recently colonized planet. Most of the population came from Avalon, which in turn had been settled from Italy. Firenze, in a way, is still a frontier world and one would expect a wonderful atmosphere for the competent to develop. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked out that way.”

  “And,” Helen prompted, serious now, her voice adult, “our job will be to overthrow the politico-economic system and get things underway?”

  But Ross Metaxa was scowling denial. “No. To the contrary. The First Signore and his government have been plagued by an underground for decades. An underground so insidious that the measures that have had to be taken to contain it are what are holding up proper development. The planet can’t get underway because of the necessity to fight these subversives.”

  Horsten pushed his pince-nez glasses back onto the bridge of his nose in consideration. “We have a Section G representative there?”

  “We did until recently. An old hand named Bulchand. He was challenged by a Florentine and shot.”

  The four of them looked at him.

  Ross Metaxa shifted in his chair. “I mentioned that it was a frontier world. They built up a system of self-defense—or perhaps I should say offense, unrivaled, so far as I can think, since the frontier days of the old United States. Do you remember the saying, All men are created equal, Samuel Colt made ’em that way ?”

  Zorro Juarez said, “You mean they all go armed?”

  “I suppose so. A Florentine gentleman is always ready to defend his honor. Evidently, always. It leads to some strange complications. In politics, for instance.”

  Jerry Rhodes said, “How does that follow?”

  His superior twisted his less than handsome face. “Ordinarily, the only citizens not eligible to be called out, under their Code Duello, are the First Signore and his Council of Nine. However, no one is exempt during elections. No full citizens, that is; evidently, criminals and lower elements in general are not considered honorable enough to come under the code.”

  Jerry Rhodes said, “You mean that even during the heat of a political campaign these, uh, Florentines, challenge each other to duels, if they’re, uh, slighted?”

  “Evidently. It’s one of the reasons we’ve had such a time keeping our agents on the planet. Anyone not up on the niceties of their Code Duello winds up getting challenged before the week is out. And, of course, even a Section G agent can’t win all the time.”

  Zorro Juarez said slowly, “It seems to me that when election day rolled around, and the office of First Signore was up for grabs, it would be a matter of the quickest draw, or the best shot, winding up Chief of State.”

  “You have said it,” Metaxa said dryly.

  “And you mean we’re supporting such a system?” Helen demanded.

  Metaxa looked at her. “Don’t read more into Section G than is to be found. We’re interested in pushing progress. What socioeconomic system, religion or any other institution a planet might have is not our business if it works. Firenze is doing fine except for these damn subversives who are continually keeping the place in an uproar.”

  He looked from one to the other of the four. “For some reason, the Firenze authorities don’t seem to be able to crack the underground. Possibly their police methods are inadequate. Very well”—his voice turned insinuating—“you supposedly have special talents. Use them.”

  Chapter Two

  Irene Kasansky, as always, briskly efficient, had arranged their cover.

  Helen and Dorn Horsten were easy enough. She was to be his daughter. He was the noted algae specialist, making a tour of the member planets of United Planets, coordinating the most recent developments in the field. While on Firenze he would visit the larger universities.

  Helen had looked at him and snorted, “Daddy.”

  Jerry Rhodes said, “If you were only six inches taller, we could do you up like a mopsy and you could go as my mistress.”

  She glared at him. “If I was six inches taller, I’d clobber you. In fact, I’m thinking of doing it anyway.”

  Dorn Horsten chuckled. “I’ll never get used to it,” he said.

  She turned her glare on her pseudo-parent. “What’s so funny, you overgrown
ox?”

  “All right, all right,” Irene said. She looked at Zorro, twisted her mouth, looked down at the report on him once again. “You’ll go as a representative of the cattle industry of your home planet. You’ll attempt to sign up some of the Firenze entrepreneurs to import and breed cattle. On these free enterprise planets, especially, there’s always a luxury market for such things as real beef. It’s a status symbol.”

  Zorro had nodded. “Should be easy enough.”

  Irene Kasansky turned her eyes to Jerry Rhodes, who, after his little verbal bout with Helen, had lapsed back into easy-going bemusement. She said, “What excuse could you possibly have for going to a frontier world such as Firenze?”

  He thought about that. Finally, “For fun?”

  She didn’t bother to answer. She looked down at the dossier on him. “Where did Supervisor Chu ever locate you?” she muttered.

  “At a race track.”

  She looked up at him and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He said, as though in apology, “I had just bet on a horse.”

  All had their eyes on him now.

  He cleared his throat and said, as though this explained all, “It broke its leg.”

  No one said anything.

  He said, “However, it won.”

  “It won?” Zorro blurted. “You just said it broke its leg.”

  “Well, yes, but you see, well, worse things happened to the other horses and jockeys. It was, well, sort of a mess there at the end. But my horse, well, kind of limped over the finish line.”

  “Don’t tell me any more,” Irene Kasansky said. “I don’t want to hear it. How is this? You’re a rich young nincompoop from the planet Catalina. They’re taxing your family too much in building that Welfare State of theirs. So you’re coming to Firenze to look into the possibilities of transferring your father’s variable capital to that frontier world. No, mother’s would be better; a father wouldn’t leave it in your hands.”

  Jerry nodded, evidently not displeased by the implication. “Sort of a playboy, eh?”

  Helen snorted contempt.

  Irene thought about it. “I suppose you could handle that sort of cover. All right, a playboy, a kind of ne’er-do-well.” She became brisk again. “I’ll have Wardrobe and the others start working on it all. Be ready to be lobbed over to New Albuquerque Spaceport on the shuttle by Monday morning.”

  Their information on the subversive organization which was keeping Firenze in a state of dither was minimal. In fact, the agent who had been killed there had been due to make a lengthy report immediately before his demise. The report hadn’t been forthcoming, and this was one of the first matters Sid Takes had suggested they check.

  Not knowing what facilities the underground organization might have available, they had decided to take maximum security measures themselves, to the point of pretending on the space freighter Half Moon not to have known each other, previous to embarking.

  They went through the motions of meeting, somewhat stiffly at first. Went through, the pretense of Jerry and Zorro reacting negatively to each other. Went to the pretense of Helen getting a childish crush on Zorro.

  Only when there were none of the ship’s officers in the lounge did they relax to the point of discussing the ramifications of the assignment.

  On the third day out, Earth time, Dr. Horsten sat characteristically in a comfort chair, scanning a tape, oblivious to all. Helen had wriggled herself up onto Zorro’s lap. Jerry Rhodes had taken on the Second Officer, a burly and surly spaceman, at battle chess. The Second, Helmut Drinker by name, had made the mistake of insisting on stiff wagers, and was finding satisfaction in the fact that obviously his opponent hadn’t the advantage of long years of time killing, whilst off watch, devoted to the game.

  Jerry, dressed in his foppish Catalina playboy garb, couldn’t have cared less, on the face of it, but his men were in precipitate retreat before the onslaught of four of Blinker’s tanks.

  At the crucial moment, the ship gave an unprecedented lurch and the pieces on the board scrambled. The Second goggled at the disaster. He looked up at the door, toward the ship’s bridge, shook his head unbelievingly, stared down at the mess again. He looked up at Jerry accusingly, but then shook his head again.

  “It was a sure thing,” he said. “And that’s the second time.”

  Jerry said mildly, “The first time, you knocked them over yourself with your sleeve. This time I was just about to counterattack.”

  The Second goggled at the disaster. He looked up at Jerry.

  “I could reconstruct the game.”

  Jerry said sadly, “It’s not the bet, it’s the principle of the thing. I’m sure I couldn’t reconstruct it, and I doubt if you could.”

  Helmut came to his feet, poorly suppressed rage obvious. Without another word, he stomped from the lounge.

  Zorro said to Helen, “Look. You better get off my lap.”

  “Why, Uncle Zorro, whyever for?” She looked into his face, in childish innocence.

  “Get off my lap, you little witch. Maybe to that burro Brinker you look like a little girl, but I know better.”

  Jerry said, “Hey, Helen, you can sit on my lap if you want.”

  She snorted at him, even as she jumped to the floor. She went over to where Jerry was setting up the board again and stood there, her tiny fists on her hips.

  “How’d you do that?” she demanded.

  “Do what?”

  “Twice, when he had you clobbered, right when you didn’t have a move to your name, all the pieces fell off.”

  “Just luck, I guess.”

  “Just luck my foot.” She hopped up on the chair the Second Officer had vacated. “Listen, how do you explain it?”

  He put down the pawn he had in his hand and thought about that. “Well, I have one theory.”

  Horsten looked up from his tape. “I’d like to hear it.”

  Zorro said, “Me too.”

  Jerry said, “Well, it’s just luck.”

  The other three grunted in unison.

  Helen sneered at him. “Oh, great. Now we understand the whole thing. However, when we sit down to eat, all the steaks are tough except yours. How come?”

  “Luck,” Jerry said, his face serious.

  Helen snorted disgust.

  “No, I mean it,” he insisted. “There is luck, you know. Some people are luckier than others.”

  Dorn Horsten pushed his pince-nez glasses back higher on the bridge of his nose and said, “As a scientist, I have never seen data on the hypothesis.”

  Jerry Rhodes fished a coin from his pocket. “You’ve heard of the Laws of Chance?”

  “So-called.” Horsten nodded.

  “All right. Now suppose I flip this coin of mine a hundred men flipping coins. Out of them, some will—

  Zorro, his dark, handsome face interested, supplied the answer. “It comes up fifty times heads and fifty times tails, by the Laws of Chance.”

  “On an average,” Jerry said. “But suppose you have a hundred men flipping coins. Out of them, some will,, flip, say, forty-five heads and fifty-five tails. That doesn’t conflict with averages, since some of the others, say will come up with forty-five tails and fifty-five heads. The Laws of Chance are still working.”

  “What are you getting at?” Helen demanded.

  Jerry went on, a sort of dogged element in his argument. “Suppose, instead of a hundred men flipping coins, you have a billion men. Okay, now still not upsetting the Laws of Chance, you might well come up with a few of them flipping one hundred straight heads, and no tails at all. It would be balanced, of course, by others doing the exact opposite.”

  He looked around at them. “You see what I’m driving at?”

  “No,” Helen said flatly.

  “Well,” Jerry said. “That’s how it is with luck. Most people average out. That is, good and bad luck balance for them. One day, they’re lucky and find a valuable ring, or win at the races, or whatever. The next day, they lose something o
r have a setback of some type. It all averages out. Good luck and bad.”

  Dorn Horsten was scowling at him. “Go on.”

  “Well, it’s like flipping the coins. The Laws of Chance aren’t disturbed by the fact that some people are luckier than others. You know very well, from your own experience, that some people go through life as though the road had been paved to their particular specifications. Another has such lousy luck that he’ll break his arm picking his nose.”

  Zorro laughed sourly at that.

  Helen said, “Okay, what’s all this got to do with you?”

  Jerry held up his two hands as though all was explained. “There are more than a trillion persons now living on some three thousand United Planets worlds. It all averages out, but some have good luck, some have bad luck. In that whole number is the one person who has the best luck of all.”

  They looked at him.

  “Me.”

  Dom Horsten slumped back into his chair, a wry expression on his face.

  Helen snarled in disgust, “Yeah, but it could switch at any time, and you’d start flipping tails, you silly jerk.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m lucky.”

  Zorro cleared his throat. “Look,” he said. “Not to change the subject, but now we’re alone I’d like to bring up something.”

  “Please do,” Helen said, looking her disgust at Jerry Rhodes, who shrugged apologetically.

  Zorro Juarez said, “This is my first assignment for Section G and Supervisor Lee Chang Chu has sent me out on it before I got a lot of the orientation agents usually have. I know our department is awfully hush-hush, but, purely in the name of effectiveness on my part, I think I ought to be checked out on a couple of points.”

  “Such as what, Zorro?” Horsten said.

  “Well, what’s all this about the Dawnworld planets? I know that the raison detre of Section G is to spur progress on all the member worlds of United Planets, so that when the human race finally confronts intelligent alien life—if ever—it will be as strong as possible.”

  “Well, that’s it, friend,” Helen told him, her voice dead serious. “The time has come. We’re confronting it And, frankly, the race isn’t ready.”