‘Tell me about it,’ Scarne said reasonably. ‘How do people use it where you come from?’
Pendragon flapped his extremities, a gesture conveying impatience. ‘You’re beginning to sound like Marguerite Dom. He pesters me sick on the subject.’ He paused, adding thoughtfully: ‘There, now, is a being who has luck. Plenty of it.’
‘He says he knows how to propitiate Lady.’
‘Lady?’
‘The goddess of luck.’
Pendragon paused again. ‘I don’t believe in any gods or goddesses. You’d better get out of here. Something tells me you’re trespassers.’
The creature released the stick-mike and retreated to the back of the tank. Cadence, who had heard of the alien but never seen him before, nudged Scarne urgently. ‘Go on, ask it!’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘It will know!’
Scarne decided he was wasting his time. He turned his back on the tank, took Cadence by the hand and led her away.
In the distance, the hum of a machine started up. They came to a series of signposts, all of them cryptic: MARK II STORE; EARMARKED CYTUS COMPONENTS; IDENTIFICATION DATA. Scarne lingered at the last, and might have followed it if he had not noticed the last of the signs, which bore a script written in randomatic symbols only. It pointed in the direction from which the machine hum emanated.
He turned to Cadence. ‘Look, you can go back if you like, and put yourself in the clear. I can take it from now on.’
‘No,’ she said, pale-faced. ‘We’ll stick together.’
‘Okay.’ Forcing himself not to break into a run, Scarne led the way.
The hum grew louder, and then seemed to subside somewhat. Without warning Scarne found, he believed, what he was looking for. They were suddenly on the threshold of a vault slightly different from those they had been passing through. In the centre of the vault several men were deep in conversation around a table, a computation unit in front of each. He recognized one of them as the tall negro who was a member of the mathematical cadre; the faces of the others were indistinct. The table was littered with papers.
The whole of the long wall behind them comprised a bank of machinery: a huge instrument panel, and a battery of smaller pieces of apparatus. It was one of these that was giving off the hum.
As soon as he spotted the scene Scarne drew Cadence into the cover of a pillar. He was not sure if one of the attendants standing at the instrument panel had seen him.
He peeped out. The negro rose and walked to the bank of instruments, saying something to the attendant. The latter began adjusting settings.
There was little doubt in Scarne’s mind that this was where the work on the luck equations was being done. Now was the time to withdraw, he told himself. He obviously couldn’t gain any definite data himself, for the moment. But he could tell the Legitimacy where to stage their raid, or whatever. The question was, could he calm Cadence’s doubts about him?
He was about to creep away when a bland computer voice spoke out of the air, seemingly right into his ear.
‘You are in a restricted area. Do you have proper authorization?’
‘Yes,’ Scarne muttered.
‘State it.’
Scarne fumbled in his mind for something to say. ‘You answer the description of no authorized person,’ the computer voice resumed. ‘Please do not move.’
Someone stepped into Scarne’s line of view. It was the black mathematician. The two of them stared at one another for some moments.
Scarne turned to Cadence. ‘Stay here. I’m going to talk to that man.’
He went forward. But before he had taken as much as a step unconsciousness came down on him like a curtain.
Mocking laughter. ‘Here he comes again. What a clown.’
Scarne returned to awareness for the third time. Dom’s method of interrogation was swift, relatively painless (though anything but pleasant), but the mind did tend to close down every few minutes or so.
He was strapped to a low table. The helmet-like cap on his skull, attached by wires to a nearby apparatus, reminded him of the skull-cap of an identity machine. Whenever Dom asked a question it delivered a brain charge, making it impossible for Scarne either to lie or to withhold. The sensation was as if his brain was being sucked out through a straw.
As well as Dom and two white-gowned assistants, Cadence was in the room. But as far as he knew she had not been on the interrogation-table. She stood pressed against the wall, ashen-faced.
‘See how easily gulled you are, my dear?’ Dom told her. He turned back to Scarne. ‘I confess to disappointment,’ he said petulantly. ‘I was coming to look on you as a valuable partner. Now it transpires you are a spy and a cheat! How could you do this to me, Cheyne?’
Scarne had already confessed that he was a Legitimacy recruit, set on the trail of the Wheel’s reported ability to control luck. The first part of his confession was nothing new; his conversation in the ledge restaurant earlier in the day had been recorded, as was nearly everything that went on in public in Chasm.
He heaved in his bonds and groaned, partly because of the helplessness of his position, partly because of his humiliation in front of Cadence. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he said in a weak voice. ‘They planted an addiction on me. I’m their creature.’
Dom leaned closer. ‘You said something this afternoon. Your aerosols …’
Scarne nodded, then let his sweat-dampened head fall back on the table. ‘My supply. The drug I have to take. Disguised as deodorant.’
Dom tutted. ‘Nasty. I had those aerosols opened. But whatever was in them instantly denatured.’
‘Yes,’ said Scarne, closing his eyes. Will they let me kill myself? he wondered. They must let me kill myself. Because otherwise –
‘It’s a special trick,’ he said. ‘The aerosols are a special environment that keeps the compound stable. Expel the drug or break them open, and it straight away decomposes – unless it can get into the one other environment where it can survive: my bloodstream, no one else’s.’
They weren’t using the brain charge on him now, evidently thinking it unnecessary. ‘They’ve got me every way,’ he finished. ‘The compound is specific, synthesized exclusively for myself.’
Dom drew back, his hands raised in astonishment, his expression solicitous. ‘Is that all that bothers you, Cheyne? But why didn’t you tell me?’
‘How could I tell you? I was stuck in the middle!’
‘But I could have had you cured!’
Scarne was surprised at Dom’s ignorance. ‘This poison is foolproof,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘It can’t be analysed.’
‘Faugh. That’s what they tell you – typical of them. I have some excellent biochemists here. They’ve dealt with this kind of thing before. I assure you they’ll rustle up an antidote in less than twenty-four hours.’
A surge of unbelievable hope rose in Scarne. He blinked, and almost didn’t notice the sternness with which Dom then spoke, turning to Cadence.
‘All right, you can get her out of here now.’
She was hustled from the room, a picture of demoralization. ‘Don’t take it out on her,’ Scarne said weakly. ‘I led her into it – she wasn’t willing.’
He stopped speaking as Dom turned back to face him, looming over his supine form. Dom’s eyes were hard.
‘What will happen to me now?’ Scarne asked.
‘Happen?’ Dom’s eyes widened. ‘Why, you have been bad, Cheyne. You will have to be punished.’ He raised a hand. A second door opened and before Scarne could say anything further he was borne helplessly away down a long rock corridor.
Scarne was an object, a rag doll, a mass of raw feeling forced to spend long hours in delirium and fear. The physicians who examined him beneath the glare of powerful lights never deigned to speak to him. They drew blood samples in heated phials. At intervals they came to him to subject him to medications which made him feverish, sick and deathly cold by turns.
He knew that they were experimenting on him to f
ind the right compound, and despite his position this knowledge gave him hope. Gradually, a feeling of calm began to pervade his body. Days later, though still feeling weak and ill, he walked again into the presence of Marguerite Dom.
In a small but exquisitely appointed room, filled with valuable objets d’art, the Wheel master lounged smoking in an armchair. It might have been some tiny living-room where an impecunious cognoscente of minor treasures had arranged his lifetime’s collection – though in fact it had probably been set up in a few hours.
Scarne entered, receiving from Dom a glance at once feral and tender.
‘Sit down, Cheyne. How are you feeling, hmmm?’
Moving into the glowing lamplight, Scarne hesitated before taking the only other chair available, intimidated by the other’s powerful presence in this cunning miniature of a room. The two of them fitted into the meticulously ordered space with an unnatural intimacy.
‘The prognosis is favourable, I’m glad to say,’ Dom congratulated, speaking softly. ‘How does it feel to be cured?’
‘I ought to be half-insane by now, without my shot,’ Scarne said. ‘It seems unbelievable, but your boys have apparently pulled it off.’
Dom nodded, murmuring. ‘And do you feel you can rely on me now?’
Bowing his head, Scarne muttered a reply. ‘So it seems.’
‘You should always tell me your problems, whatever they may be,’ Dom went on. ‘Now you are free of your slavery, free of the Legitimacy, and we can take stock of your position anew. The question is, can I rely on you? I am not a vengeful man, but just the same you have committed a serious transgression.’
Scarne did not answer. Dom drew on his cigarillo. ‘I’m aware you were never an enthusiastic Legitimacy agent – indeed you failed to apprise your contact of the true nature of our project, though for your information, that knowledge would never have gone beyond Chasm. Nevertheless, I appreciate your reticence in that regard.’
‘I have no allegiances,’ Scarne said. ‘Not to the Legitimacy, to the Wheel, to anything.’
Dom chuckled. ‘But to Earth?’ he responded. ‘To civilization – to mankind?’
Scarne stared at him.
‘All I need concern myself with,’ Dom continued, ‘is that you will play until your guts hang out – and play to win. That I am fairly confident you will do.’
‘So you’re pardoning me?’
Dom said nothing, puffing at his cigarette-holder, looking enigmatic and self-contained.
‘And what about Cadence Mellors?’ Scarne asked.
‘Silly young woman. This project gave her the only chance she’ll ever get of getting into something big. Now she’s finished. I’m taking your little girl-friend away, Cheyne, as a small punishment for your treachery towards me.’
‘What have you done to her?’
‘Packed her off to a work-camp club on one of the minor worlds. It’s a pretty rough place, I’m afraid. She’ll spend the rest of her days there as a club tart. Until she’s too old. I dare say they’ll end up using her as a cleaner.’
Dom sneered slightly, suddenly derisive and supercilious. Scarne clenched his fists. His feelings were confused. He felt a sudden surge of rage at Dom for his treatment of Cadence. At the same time he was filled with relief – and amazement – that Dom was letting him off so lightly.
Then it struck him. Dom’s total lack of normal feeling. He felt no vindictiveness towards Scarne, no resentment at the role he had played. Everything was a game to Dom, viewed with a slightly amused detachment. There were no loyalties, no recriminations.
‘None of it was the girl’s fault,’ he said painfully. ‘I led her into it – you should be more lenient with her.’
Dom snorted. ‘This sort of thing is your whole weakness, Cheyne. Think straight for once. Here you are worrying about a club girl when the fate of the worlds is at stake – when you stand on the brink of something almost too big to imagine. And not only that, but at the moment when you finally found what you were looking for.’ His eyes glistened. ‘Yes, Cheyne. A mathematical treatment of luck! We have it! Together with a practical technique to put it to use!’
‘Then the mugger jackpot –’
‘One of our practice shots.’
Scarne sighed, pondering.
‘I can make someone so lucky he hits a mugger jackpot first time,’ Dom went on. ‘Or conversely, so unlucky his arm drops off.’
‘You make it sound like magic.’
‘Manipulated luck is magic, more or less.’
‘Do you propose using it when we meet the Galactic Wheel? Is that what makes you so confident?’
Dom paused. ‘Not at first,’ he said. ‘The technique is still under development. Later we’ll probably use it. The important thing is that the galactics, as far as we know, don’t have this technique. We may have something completely original.’
‘Should they discover what you’re doing, they might well accuse you of cheating.’
Dom laughed. ‘Of course it’s not cheating! I never heard of a player yet who claimed it was cheating to be lucky. There are all kinds of charms, tokens and prayers aimed at attracting luck, and no one objects to them. This is the same thing, but applied through scientific method.’
Perplexed, Scarne frowned.
‘Of course, you disapprove of what we’re doing, don’t you?’ Dom said gently.
‘I think you’re taking an insane risk.’
‘Good! I like your attitude – it means you’ll do your utmost to win!’ Dom leaned across, peering closely at Scarne. ‘Yes, I have your measure. You’ll play, and play as never before.’
Scarne looked down at his clenched fists. He felt trapped in this tiny, golden room. Dom was right – he had him where he wanted him, giving his talents to the Wheel in spite of himself. He would play to win, because only in that way could he rescue humanity from the Wheel leader’s mad gamble.
TEN
Shane was whimpering, his head down on a table already wet with his tears. Hakandra watched sadly, aware that the boy’s faith in his own ability had been badly eroded.
‘You shouldn’t blame yourself,’ he said inadequately. ‘You’re in a new situation.’
Shane shook his head. Hakandra put a hand on his heaving shoulder, patting it gently.
He gazed through the window of the tent they shared, looking up into the sky. He could see a star, shining in the fading evening with a steady, cool light. In thirty years, as viewed from here, it would flare up and take on the vivid aspect of a nova.
In fact, the event had already occurred. Thirty years might seem a fair stretch of time in local terms, but when translated into stellar distances it was nothing. A star had gone nova, only thirty light years away, and Shane hadn’t known anything about it: that was the plain, irreducible fact. Hadn’t predicted it, hadn’t even felt it when the explosion came, though he did claim to have received a sudden, dramatic convulsion some hours later – probably that was hysterical in origin, Hakandra thought, since by then the news had already arrived over the narrowbeam.
Self-induced or not, Shane was reacting to his experience – and even more so to his failure – with a typical lack of resilience. Hakandra continued to watch while the youth’s high-pitched sobs subsided into sleepy sniffles under the action of the sedative he had been given. Soon he fell into a drowse.
Wishom entered the tent. He glanced at Shane.
‘Is he all right?’
‘For the moment. Help me get him to his couch.’
Shane’s body was unresisting as they eased it to the bunk bed at one end of the tent. The youth mumbled his way into a deeper sleep.
The scientist straightened and sighed. ‘Well, there doesn’t seem much doubt of it,’ he said, his clipped voice holding a repressed excitement. ‘It was the machine.’
Hakandra paced the floor, looking again out of the window before replying. ‘That machine caused the star to go nova?’
Wishom frowned. ‘It may be going too far to put
it quite like that. Cause and effect isn’t the correct law to apply where random effects are concerned. We would have to describe it in synchronistic terms.’
‘Please spare me the sophistries.’ Hakandra waved his hand. ‘I want concepts we can use.’
‘All right. We can definitely say that the machine had something to do with it. The nova coincided with that new jolt we fed in. We believe the machine operated so as to raise the probability of a nova in this area.’
‘My God!’ Hakandra sat down, suddenly weak. ‘We’re playing with fire. It could have been this sun. And Shane …’ He tailed off.
‘That’s what makes me certain the machine was responsible,’ Wishom said. ‘Shane would have predicted it otherwise. It isn’t that the machine’s influence overrides Shane’s talent – it doesn’t. But it produces synchronistic forces that are too wild for him to handle. Poor kid.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Hakandra’s face creased, showing the strain he was under.
His guilt feelings were beginning to get the better of him. He was aware that they were abusing Shane. They were no longer using him as a safety device, to predict novae, but as a research tool. Shane’s cold-senser ability picked up the probabilistic distortion emanating from the machine. Through him, they could know when they were getting a response from it.
The effect on Shane of the weird probability-field was cruel. It was steadily destroying him. Hakandra was not sure how much more of it the boy could take, and he himself was torn in an agonizing conflict of loyalties. The need to see the work through, urgent though it was, flew right in the face of his feeling of responsibility for Shane.
Yet in the end, the requirements of the Legitimacy came before everything.
‘The ability to trigger a nova isn’t quite what we’re after,’ he pointed out. ‘We want to be able to prevent them, to make the Cave safe for us to work in.’
Wishom gaped. He had not expected to be criticized. ‘The controlled production of novae might itself be of military interest,’ he said. ‘An enemy fleet might be lured into a position where the exploding sun would destroy it. Or a nova could be used as a safety screen behind which to withdraw.’
The Grand Wheel Page 10
