Unless he did something.
He could drive up into Downing's ship right now. But that would be no solution as to whom was the better man. That would get Terra two corpses, but finely divided ones.
He could swerve.
And give Stellor Downing the right to say that he, Cliff Lane, had been bluffed?
Now if he were Stellor—?
Cliff Lane's dymodine sight was centered on the cross-hair of the scanner. He trained it slightly to the right and down, and then he touched the trigger.
Both dymodines blasted at once. Both beams raved out from positions one above the other, and both beams hit the knoll of rock in slightly different places. The splatter of energy from the coruscation ahead blinded both men, and set up shock-interference in the scanners.
A gout of flaming gas burst from the hit.
And within a few milliseconds of the hit, Cliff Lane arrived, with Stellor Downing almost on top of him.