One of the newsmen stood up. “I’ve got a deadline to meet. Save my seat.”
He made his way past the guarded door, down the rampway circling the outer walls of the building, to the portable tri-di transmitting unit that the Acquatainian government had permitted for the newsmen on the campus grounds outside the former lecture hall.
The newsman huddled with his technicians for a few minutes, then stepped before the transmitter.
“Emile Dulaq, Prime Minister of the Acquataine Cluster and acknowledged leader of the coalition against Chancellor Kanus of the Kerak Worlds, has failed in the first part of his psychonic duel against Major Par Odal of Kerak. The two antagonists are now undergoing the routine medical and psychological checks before renewing their duel.”
By the time the newsman returned to his gallery seat, the duel was almost ready to begin again.
Dulaq stood in the midst of a group of advisors before the looming impersonality of the machine.
“You need not go through with the next phase of the duel immediately,” his Minister of Defense was saying. “Wait until tomorrow. Rest and calm yourself.”
Dulaq’s round face puckered into a frown. He cocked an eye at the chief meditech, hovering at the edge of the little group.
The meditech, one of the staff that ran the dueling machine, pointed out, “The Prime Minister has passed the examinations. He is capable, within the agreed-upon rules of the contest, of resuming.”
“But he has the option of retiring for the day, does he not?”