The Grand Wheel

by Barrington J. Bayley

  ‘No, Shane, we’re not leaving. We’ve a great deal of work to do yet. And please don’t let me hear any more talk about increasing your fee. That was all agreed back in Sol.’

  ‘You want my power to dry up, don’t you? You’re all of you going the right way about it to make my power dry up; it’s not absolutely reliable, you know. Where would you be then?’

  ‘Probably quite safe,’ Hakandra replied in a level voice. ‘But you’re not going to dry up, Shane – you’re not stupid. You know how important all this is.’ He stopped, looking around at the ochre sun and purple sky. ‘This is where the outcome of the war will be decided. Victory or defeat.’

  They entered the big starship, riding an elevator up through its many decks. Hakandra sent Shane to rest in his quarters. Then he made his way to the com room.

  Every day at about this time he spent a few minutes talking to other work-teams scattered about the Cave. As he entered the room the techs were accepting narrowbeams from here and there, holding them on-line. Hakandra sat down before a holo screen and had one put through to him. On the screen a lean face emerged, wearing a peaked uniform hat bearing Legitimacy markings. It was the leader of team D1.

  The team leader’s face was bleak, wavering slightly, the narrowbeam vacillating over the vast distance. ‘There’s been a nova on the outward side,’ he told Hakandra. ‘Team K5 was there – without a cold-senser.’

  ‘No survivors, then?’ Hakandra responded after a moment, his heart sinking.

  ‘No time to do anything. It’s so sudden.’ The team leader sounded desperate. ‘It’s terrifying how fast these things can blow. A star burns steadily for billions of years and then, in the space of minutes –’ He broke off, sighing. ‘Perhaps they didn’t die in vain. The automatic stations carried on transmitting data right up to the instant they were vapourized. Perhaps we’ll learn something.’

  Hakandra nodded. Knowledge of what made the stars in the Cave go nova at such a rate could be important in the impending struggle. As he had said to Shane, this was where the next stage of the war would be fought.

  ‘Any news from the front?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ve been routing whole streams of messages between there and High Command. There’s a big quarrel building up. The military people in the field are doing a good job of covering the evacuation, but Sol seems more concerned with getting out as many intact battleships as possible, and to hell with civilians.’

  ‘It’s a difficult decision,’ Hakandra said, aware that reserves were dangerously low.

  After a few further desultory comments he left D1 and talked to some of the other teams working in the Cave. So far their surveys had uncovered several hundred usable planets and soon the Legitimacy was gomg to have to decide which to invest in and which to destroy.

  Finally he killed the holo screen and sat brooding. The destruction of Team K5 had shaken him, despite himself.

  What a hell of a place to have to make a stand, he thought: in the Cave, which to anyone brought up in Legitimacy philosophy was a region of horror, a bastion of the enemies chance and randomness.

  The Cave of Caspar was so called not because it was empty, but because its thin scattering of stars made it comparatively empty. It had the form of a curved lozenge, bounded on its long sides by neighbouring spiral arms, and on the shorter ends by straggling limbs of stars that connected the spiral arms. It was now very nearly all that remained between the main bulk of human civilization and the advancing Hadranics; nearly all territory on the further side of the Cave had fallen, including the much-prized Hopula Cluster, and the thin margin of stars remaining were being hastily evacuated behind an improvised defensive screen.

  To attack the central regions of man-inhabited space the Hadranics would have to cross this immensity, with its lack of cover and its dearth of worlds. A defensive strategy was slowly being worked out and soon fresh forces would move in to take up their positions. But there was a peculiar difficulty involved in any kind of activity in the Cave. All the stars there were unstable, liable to go nova at any time, without warning.

  The reason for it was not understood – probably it had something to do with the unusual nucleonic resonance levels to be found in stellar material within the Cave. The problem was precisely identical to that of radioactive decay: one could calculate how many atoms would explode out of a given number in a given time, but it was impossible to say which particular atoms they would be. Yet it had been estimated that all stars in the Cave would have exploded in another hundred thousand years or less.

  Grand Wheel operatives might feel more at home here, Hakandra thought sourly.

  But the Legitimacy had found an answer – and that answer lay in people like Shane, a cold-senser. The term was a piece of jargon thought up by psychologists, mainly, Hakandra suspected, to cover up their own ignorance, but it meant that he was capable of perceptions that did not always have to be processed through the physical senses. More specifically, he had the ability to predict chance occurrences: how a pair of dice would fall, what number was due out of a sequence, even on a single throw.

  He was an extreme example of what had once been known as a callidetic. For some years the Legitimacy had been nurturing people like him as part of its eternal struggle against the Grand Wheel. All cold-sensers were now, however, employed in the Cave: in some manner they were able to predict when a star was about to blow, even though normal scientific observation would detect no difference in its activity. They could give just enough warning for a getaway. Cold-sensers were not completely reliable and the protection they gave was not absolutely dependable; moreover they were hopelessly neurotic – over-stimulation of the thyroid gland was part of the treatment that heightened their talents – but it gave Hakandra a warm feeling to have one on his team.

  After a while he left the com room and worked on some reports. Then he went up into the observation-room where he ate a sparse meal, afterwards sitting and watching the desert landscape through the glassite dome. The sun went down, its rim flickering and bubbling on the horizon in a way that made Hakandra nervous every night, even though it was only a trick of the atmosphere. Then the dark purple sky took over, filled with the misty swathe of the Milky Way and the great patches of darkness.

  A sound came from behind him. Shane entered the room, picking his way through the semi-darkness to lean against the glassite and peer into the sky.

  ‘There was a nova over on the other side,’ Hakandra told him after a long silence.

  Shane nodded calmly. ‘I’m not surprised. I had a … premonition. I thought there might be one going off somewhere …’

  Hakandra glanced at the youth. All his former neurosis seemed to have vanished. Hakandra had seen this transformation before: when Shane lost the almost psychopathic aspects of his personality and became collected, almost angelically graceful. But now he seemed, at the same time, depressed and fatalistic.

  ‘The Cave is a terrible place,’ the boy murmured. ‘It’s cursed.’

  Hakandra snorted. ‘Don’t be superstitious.’

  ‘I tell you it’s cursed. Lady has cursed it. How would you know? You have no sense for such things, but I can tell … It’s an accursed hole that the goddess has deserted. The very stars explode. Everything decays.’

  Hakandra was disturbed to hear Shane talk in this religious way, smacking as it did of the mystique adopted by the Grand Wheel. ‘There is no goddess,’ he said curtly. ‘Put that nonsense out of your head.’

  As the sky darkened there was a faint glow in the south. It came from some ruins Hakandra had visited. They were made of a light-retentive stone and glowed at night like phosphorescent bones. The race that had built them had died ages ago, when the planet dried up.

  It was the same story all over the Cave, which was littered with the ruins of dead civilizations, as though the force that generated life was insufficient to enable that life to survive the hazards of existence. There was not one example, as far as was known, of a living intelligence
still surviving in the Cave.

  It almost persuaded Hakandra to believe in Shane’s pessimistic mysticism. But he shook off the mood. It was unfitting, in an officer of the Legitimacy.

  FOUR

  Overhead, the sun beat down brilliantly on the extended wings of the shuttle. Below, visible through the vehicle’s windows once they were within the atmosphere, were spread out chessboard squares of cloud, land and sea: the pattern of Earth’s controlled weather areas.

  As they descended the chessboard effect was reinforced by the illusion of pieces standing on some of the squares. The pieces were in fact vertical tower cities, complete with coronas and lumpy protruberances, creating the impression of kings and queens, knights and castles.

  The shuttle planed down to the big dispersal centre. Here there was no automatic immigration count, as there would have been on, say, Mars, a Legitimacy-dominated world. They walked straight off the shuttle and on to the force network platforms. Soon Scarne’s escorts had procured a vehicle and they were hurtling through the air towards their destination, propelled by the invisible inertial guidelines.

  The landscape was mostly forest and empty plain, dotted here and there with vacation lodges. The population was all in the teeming colourful cities.

  It said much for the dichotomic nature of human civilization that Earth, the capital planet, was a Wheel world – one where the Grand Wheel’s influence was strong, unchecked by the Legitimacy’s repressive efforts. On Earth the game was the thing; it was the site of the original corruption, the birthplace of the Wheel. Here people spent their lives testing fortune, moving from one ingenious game of chance to another.

  A vast pile loomed up and became a blur as the inertial vehicle slammed towards it at ten thousand miles per hour, slowing to a mere sixty in the few seconds before entering the tower city. Briefly they sped through lighted tunnels, changing direction every now and then.

  When the inertial beam brought the vehicle to a stop they were in what seemed to be a largish office, or study. An untidy desk was littered with papers, tapes and box files. Around it were chairs, a couch, a service cabinet. One or two paintings, mediocre to moderately good, hung on the walls.

  Hervold folded down the front of the small vehicle. They clambered out, looking around them.

  ‘Where’s Soma?’ Caiman asked, disgruntled.

  ‘He ain’t here.’ Hervold crossed to the desk, glanced at a notepad there. ‘Well, we delivered, anyway.’

  He spoke to Scarne. ‘He’ll be along shortly. Make yourself comfortable.’

  He nodded to Caiman. The two of them climbed back into the inertial cab. It withdrew into the tunnel; a facing panel came down, leaving the wall smooth and unbroken. In a few hours they would probably be back on Io.

  Suddenly alone, Scarne put down his holdall. He went to the desk. Nothing there gave him any clue.

  A door opened behind him. Scarne turned to see a pale-eyed woman, aged about thirty-five, standing in sudden surprise in the doorway.

  She recovered herself quickly. ‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘The man from Io?’ She searched her mind. ‘Professor Scarne.’

  ‘Yes. Cheyne Scarne.’ He offered his hand. She shook it limply. She was still attractive, Scarne thought, but with the faded, slightly worn look of a woman who has lived perhaps a little too fast. Her face had something appealing, almost touching about it.

  ‘Welcome to the Make-Out Club,’ she said. ‘I’m Cadence Mellors. We’d better get to know one another, I guess. How long have you been synched?’

  ‘Synched?’

  A frown crossed her face. ‘How long have you been entitled to wear one of these?’ She held up her wrist to show him the dangling gridded wheel, similar to Hervold’s.

  He caught her meaning. There was probably a lot of jargon inside the Wheel organization. ‘Only since yesterday, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Oh.’ The new realization clouded her features, as if it disappointed her.

  ‘Who’s this man Soma?’ Scarne asked.

  ‘Jerry Soma? He’ll be your boss. This is his office. He runs the Make-Out.’ She crossed to the service unit and came back with two glasses, handing one to Scarne. ‘Have some refreshment.’

  She clinked her glass against his before they drank. ‘Good health,’ she said. While Scarne merely sipped the malt whisky, she knocked hers straight back. ‘I’d never get through the afternoon without a pick-me-up,’ she explained cheerfully.

  The door opened again, admitting a tall, lean man who walked with a slight slouch, head down. He ignored Cheyne and Cadence as he strode to the desk, where he sat down and quickly tapped something out on an integrator.

  ‘Jerry, this is Professor Scarne,’ Cadence said breathlessly.

  Soma didn’t look up until he had finished what he was doing. Then eyes went from Scarne to Cadence and back again, calculatingly, as though suspicious of their being together.

  ‘Scarne. You got here, then.’ His hand went to a piece of desk equipment, depressing a key. He read out loud from the show plate. ‘Lessee … born in Minnesota, Earth. A ground town.’

  ‘Not everyone likes to live in a tower,’ Scarne interrupted him.

  Soma didn’t seem to hear. ‘Your parents were cyb-clerks. Looks like they tried to give their son a start in life. You attended the University of Oceania, majored with honours in randomatics. Then you got drawn back to source, like a lot of randomaticians are: you became a full-time gambler. Your legit-type parents didn’t like that, did they? Still, it’s a professional hazard … the science of probability originally grew out of games of chance, didn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t see what my parents have got to do with anything,’ Scarne said stiffly. He hadn’t seen them for over a decade.

  ‘Ask any psychiatrist. Parents are the first cards you’re dealt. It’s in the Tarot, isn’t it? The Emperor, the Empress … Anyway, you haven’t made very good use of your talent. Drifting around solsystem … no concerted plan of action. Caught between two stools: science and gambling. Several times you’ve been in trouble for bad debts.’

  ‘I’ve always come out clean,’ Scarne said. He felt uncomfortable, being described in précis in front of the girl.

  ‘But that’s all you’ve done.’ Soma made a sudden, angry gesture. ‘Hell, if you’d used your abilities you could have had everything. Money, whatever you wanted. Entry into the Wheel. The Wheel really leaves it wide open for people like you – didn’t you know that? But only if you can find your own way. All these years you’ve stayed right there below the fifty-fifty line. You never got into even one weighted game.’

  Scarne didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘I’m surprised you want to use me now, if I’m such a loser.’

  Soma smiled sourly, contemptuously. ‘You’re a failure. But you’re not a loser. Losers we can’t use.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on him, Jerry,’ Cadence said tentatively. ‘You’ll make him lose confidence.’

  ‘He’d better not be that delicate. All right, Scarne, you’re working for us now. For the time being you’re assigned to the Make-Out while we check your performance. This is a special club, not the usual kind. We have special games, games you probably never heard of, new games, special clientèle – private list only, some of them high-ranking Legit officials who’ve got the bug, even. You’ll be learning to play against them.’ He paused. ‘One question I’m told to ask: can you play Kabala?’

  Scarne hesitated. ‘I think I probably could. I’ve studied the game, but I’ve never had an opportunity to play it.’

  ‘The report on you says the same.’ Soma made a note on his pad.

  ‘Will I be playing Kabala?’

  ‘Not here. Who knows, maybe Dom will want to try you out.’

  Searne’s mind thrilled at mention of the name. Marguerite Dom – chairman of the Grand Wheel! It excited him to think he might actually be that close to what he wanted.

  He coughed and spoke in an innocent tone. ‘Is this all you want me for
, as a player? I had hoped to be introduced to the planning side of things. After all, I am a highly qualified randomatician.’

  ‘Is this all we want you for?’ Soma mimicked unpleasantly. He leaned forward, his vulpine face glaring at Scarne. ‘We moved on past the three-card trick a long time ago. Here on Earth there are people whose whole lives are games of chance organized by the Wheel. There are people playing games just to win a chance to get into bigger games. It’s a study of life itself. There are people who don’t even know that they are playing. There are people who have a life-game set up for them before they are even born.’ He leaned back. ‘Don’t tell me it’s belittling to be a Wheel player.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Soma was a typical Wheel operative, Scarne thought. He had that odd combination that made the Grand Wheel so frightening. Intelligence, ability, even a certain amount of scientific knowledge, but along with it all the whiff of the hoodlum, the sinister influence of past Wheel history.

  Maybe the members of the mathematical cadre, academic randomaticians like himself, would be of a different sort, he told himself.

  He decided to ask a question of his own. ‘Last night on Io I hit a jackpot on the muggers. I’m curious to know how it was done.’

  ‘Are you implying the muggers are fixed?’ Soma asked sharply. ‘If so, forget it. All our fermats are inviolably random.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Scarne said, skirting clear of the dangerous subject. ‘It was the vision itself … I’d like to know how it was achieved.’

  ‘What vision?’

  ‘The vision of probabilities.’

  Soma looked puzzled for a moment. Then he glanced at Cadence, waving his hand at her peremptorily. ‘I’ll speak to the professor alone for a moment.’

  The girl left. Soma settled himself in his chair again, tilting his face to look Scarne directly in the eye. ‘Tell me about this vision.’

  Haltingly, as best he could, Scarne described what had happened to him when he took hold of the mugger handles. Soma listened attentively, asking a question now and then when Scarne’s account became vague.