CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

MATHIAS' ADVISORS DIED in the first burst of fire as Sten and Alex charged through the double doors, into the conference room. The advisors had been too busy watching the debacle in the courtyard one-hundred meters below the balcony to hear the deathrattles of the guards outside the chamber. For which minor error they became very dead.

Mathias stood, looking unsurprised at the carnage, as Doc slid out of Alex's pack and unlimbered the hypo. Alex kept Mathias in the sights of his willygun as the Prophet walked slowly forward.

"I have been expecting you," Mathias said. "My best friend and my worst enemy."

He shrugged out of his red tunic and flexed his muscles. His hands knotted into fists. Sten waited.

"And now we decide the Truth of Talamein," Mathias said softly as he came in.

Sten thought of the careful reasonings and appeals to friendship that he'd come up with to avoid this confrontation.

Useless. He shrugged out of his pack and moved forward.

As Mathias' hand flashed back, behind him to his belt, and came out with a small projectile weapon. The pistol came up and Sten double-stepped into him, right foot coming up in a sweep-kick, and the weapon pin wheeled out of Mathias' hand.

Sten kept the kick moving, then recovered, his back to Mathias. Sensing Mathias was coming in he crouched, arm high, and half-spun back to face the Prophet, arm raised to block the snap-punch Mathias had launched.

Both men recovered and side-paced.

"You don't have to die," Sten said.

"Of course," Mathias agreed. "And I shall not. Not now, not here, not ever. This is the Test of the Flame." And, gymnast that he was, he came straight in, a mae-tobi-geri flying frontal attack.

Sten one-stepped under Mathias, snap-punched straight up into his thigh, rolled away as the Prophet crashed back down, then recovered as Mathias drove a knife hand toward Sten's head.

Sten flicked his head to the side, and Mathias' killing punch slammed across his temple and ear.

Sten knife-blocked before Mathias could recover and thudded a flat palm into Mathias' temple. Temporarily stunned, the Prophet back-rolled twice and came to his feet, half smiling.

"You are a worthy opponent." He drove in again. Sten blocked his swing-punch, and then Mathias' fist-strike came down on Sten's skull.

The world blurred and went double. Sten snapped his blocking hand into Mathias' gut and, contradicting conventional tactics, dove flat-forward, ball-rolling, rising, and turning as Mathias attacked.

A punching attack, blocked twice, in eye-blurring motion.

Sten snapped a knee up into Mathias' diaphragm, and the man sagged back.

Then Sten's single, half-cupped hand swung, slapping Mathias' eardrum. A two-hand stroke would have killed him, but the single blow merely sent his mind spinning, and, for the first time, Mathias lost his balance, stumbling backward.

And Sten paced in, step… punch… step… punch… knuckled fist turning and thudding in below the Prophet's rib-cage.

Mathias doubled.

A final feint as his fisted, coupled hands came up for Sten's face. Sten locked wrists, drove the strike up, and then, howling, leaped straight up into the air, his foot coming up and out and buried into the Prophet's chest.

Mathias back-flipped and struck the floor behind him with a

dull thud.

Then Doc was at Mathias' side, quickly checking his pulse.

"Adequate, adequate," he murmured, as he pressed the hypo's trigger and the drug sprayed into Mathias' veins.

"You probably broke some bones, but you didn't kill him."

Sten was not listening. He was dropped down into semilotus, lungs sucking in air as he recovered.