They gripped right hands, each large and powerful. Ostby hoped that he had the sheer animal strength to cope with the Imperator's extra hundred pounds of weight.
The Imperator threw his full strength into a forward press, and they were locked in fierce, inarticulate conflict. Ostby felt the muscles in his forearm, his biceps, and into his shoulder protest against the violent strain. It took all his strength to meet the power that beat against him, wave upon wave, and he realized immediately that the best he could hope to do was hold his own. He set his muscles, with all his might behind them, and watched almost disinterestedly as the cords of his forearms swelled and pushed out the skin until they stood like taut wires. A dull ache came into the shoulder socket, and he felt perspiration gather in a cold drop in the pit of his arm and roll clammily down his ribs. He knew now that, whatever he might have said, the Imperator was not soft.
For a long minute, while the realities about them seemed to pause, they held their position, both straining every muscle. The Imperator's face turned slowly red. The red flowed down his cheeks and into the corded tendons of his neck. Ostby could feel a pulse pounding in his own temple.
Suddenly, though he felt no relaxation in the Imperator's arm, Ostby knew he had won. Something in the grip of the hands told him that from here in he was in command. The first concrete sign of it, however, showed in the Imperator's face. Ostby saw the first doubt creep into the cruel down-slanting corners of his mouth, and deep within the features of his face there was a sign of remote breakage. With the loss of certainty came a kind of shame into the man's face, and before Ostby's eyes he changed. Changed as the things he had lived for, all his life, were destroyed.
There was an excitement in Ostby now, and the excitement pleased him. He bent the Imperator's arm slowly back, until it was a few inches above the table top. He shot the adrenalin of his excitement into his arm and rapped the knuckles of the Imperator's hand sharply against the table.
For a moment they sat in a silence that carried more inflection than any noise. The Imperator's head was dropped as he went through his lonely thoughts. When he rose all reason had left him, and his face was twisted into a snarl of bottomless hate. Ostby knew he was facing a madman. A brutish roar rose from the Imperator's massive chest and rolled along the walls of the room. He reached for Ostby, and the table between them collapsed before his advance.
In the hall behind him Ostby heard the sound of running feet, and he knew he had to act, fast and forcefully. He set himself flat on his feet and brought his right arm around with fierce strength. His fist landed squarely against the Imperator's jaw.
The Imperator stood motionless and his eyes rolled slowly back. He swayed—with his body still unbending—and fell across the upturned table. He lay very still.
Ostby ran quickly to the balcony ledge and dived over.