Leoh snorted. “All right. In fact, so much the better. I’d rather not have the Kerak people see us bring Dulaq to the dueling machine. So instead, we shall smuggle the dueling machine to Dulaq!”
XIII
They plunged to work immediately. Leoh preferred not to inform the regular staff of the dueling machine about their plan, so he and Hector had to work through the night and most of the next morning. Hector barely understood what he was doing, but with Leoh’s supervision, he managed to dismantle part of the dueling machine’s central network, insert a few additional black boxes that the professor had conjured up from the spare parts bins in the basement, and then reconstruct the machine so that it looked exactly the same as before they had started.
In between his frequent trips to oversee Hector’s work, Leoh had jury-rigged a rather bulky headset and a hand-sized override control circuit.
The late morning sun was streaming through the tall windows when Leoh finally explained it all to Hector.
“A simple matter of technological improvisation,” he told the bewildered Watchman. “You have installed a short-range transceiver into the machine, and this headset is a portable transceiver for Dulaq. Now he can sit in his hospital bed and still be ‘in’ the dueling machine.”
Only the three most trusted members of the hospital staff were taken into Leoh’s confidence, and they were hardly enthusiastic about Leoh’s plan.
“It is a waste of time,” said the chief psychophysician, shaking his white-maned head vigorously. “You cannot expect a patient who has shown no positive response to drugs and therapy to respond to your machine.”
Leoh argued, Geri Dulaq coaxed. Finally the doctors agreed. With only two days remaining before Hector’s duel with Odal, they began to probe Dulaq’s mind. Geri remained by her father’s bedside while the three doctors fitted the cumbersome transceiver to Dulaq’s head and attached the electrodes for the automatic hospital equipment that monitored his physical condition. Hector and Leoh remained at the dueling machine, communicating with the hospital by phone.
Leoh made a final check of the controls and circuitry, then put in the last call to the tense little group in Dulaq’s room. All was ready.