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whipped it around as for a backhand stab, then back for an overhand. Park,
trying to follow the darting blade, felt as if something had exploded in his
own left arm. Darling's point was driven into it and into the bone. Before it
had a chance to bleed, Darling tried to pull it out. It didn't yield on the
first pull. Park leaned forward suddenly. Darling unwound his left arm from
Park's right to catch himself as he swayed backwards. Park stabbed at him.
Darling blocked the stab with his forearm, making Park feel as if his wrist
was broken.
He played his last improvised trick: tossed up the knife, caught it the other
way to, and brought it around in a quick up-and-out thrust. To his surprise,
Darling failed to block it at all the blade slid up under the parasite's ribs
to the hilt. Park, warm blood running over his hand, twisted and sliced his
way across
Darling's abdomen . . .
Trigvy Darling lay on his back, mouth open and sand in his sightless eyeballs.
The spectators looked in awe at the ten-inch wound. Park, feeling a bit
shaken, stood while they bandaged his arm. The knicks gravely took down the
vital information about the dead man, filling the last line of the blank with:
"Killed in fair fight with Allister Park, 125 Isleif St., N.B."
Then people were shaking his hand, slapping his bare back, and babbling
congratulations at him. "Had it coming to him . . ." ". . . never liked him
anyway, only we had to take him on account of Brahtz . . ."
"You'll make a better chairman . . ."
Park stole a hand to his upper lip. His mustache was a little loose on one
side, but a quick press fixed that. He gradually became aware that the duel,
so far from spoiling the party, had made a howling success of it.
* * *
Leading a double life is a strenuous business at best. It is particularly
difficult when both one's identities are fairly prominent people.
Nevertheless, Allister Park managed it, with single-minded determination to
let nothing stop his getting the person of Joseph Noggle in such a position
that he could make him give his, Park's, wheel of if another half-spin. It
might not be too late, even if the Antonini case was washed up, to
rehabilitate himself.
His next step was to cultivate Ivor MacSvensson, burg committee chairman for
the Diamond Party of the Burg of New Belfast. This was easy enough, as the
chairman of the hide committee was ex-officio a member of the burg committee.
They were dining in one of the small but expensive restaurants for which
MacSvensson had a weakness.
The burg chairman said: "We'll have to get Anlaaf off, that's all there is to
it. Those dim knicks should
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have known better than to pull him in it in the first place."
Park looked at the ceiling. "Even if it was Penda's daughter?"
"Even if it was Penda's daughter."
"After all, spoiling the morals of a ten-year-old "
"I know, I know," said MacSvensson impatiently. "I know he's a dirty bustard.
But what can I do? He's got the twenty-sixth hide in his fist, so I've got to
play cards with him. Especially with the thingly choosing coming up in three
months. It'll be close, even with Bishop Scoglund lying low the way he has
been. I had a little plan for shushing the dear bishop; it didn't work, but it
seems to have scared him into keeping quiet about the ricks of the Skrellings.
And the Thing meeting next month . . . If that damned equal-ricks changelet
goes through, it'll split the party wide open."
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"If it doesn't?" asked Park.
"That'll be all right."
"How about the Dakotians and the rest?"
MacSvensson shrugged. "No trouble for fifty years. They talk a lot, but I
never saw a Skrelling that would stand up and fick yet. And what if they did
try a war? New Belfast is a long way from the border;
and the choosing would be called off. Maybe by the time it was over people
would get some sense."
Park had his own ideas. His researches had told him something about the
unprepared state of the country. New Belfast had hundreds of miles between it
and the independent Skrellings; in case of a sea attack, they could count on
the friendly Northumbrian fleet, one of the world's largest, to come over and
help out. Hence the New Belfast machine had consistently plugged for more
money for harbor improvements and merchant-marine subsidies and less for
military purposes. . . . However, if the
Northumbrian fleet were immobilized by the threat of the navy of the Amirate
of Cordova, and the
Skrellings overran the hinterland of Vinland . . .
MacSvensson was speaking: ". . . you know, that youngest daughter of mine, she
wants to marry a school teacher
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