The Grand Wheel

by Barrington J. Bayley

  ‘You did marvellously, in fact.’ She smiled, glancing up and down at him, and left.

  Exhausted, he undressed and dropped into bed, falling instantly asleep.

  He was awakened hours later by the sound of someone moving near him. The coverlet was lifted. A girl’s naked body slipped in beside him.

  ‘How are you feeling now?’ Cadence’s voice said softly.

  ‘Better,’ he said sleepily. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘My room’s right next to yours. Didn’t I tell you? I’m supposed to keep you happy. All part of the service.’

  ‘I thought you were Soma’s girl.’

  ‘Jerry? No.’ She chuckled, a trifle bitterly. ‘He has other girls, not like me at all.’

  Her hand stroked his chest. ‘Look,’ Scarne said, half-turning to her, ‘you don’t have to. If you don’t want.’

  ‘Suppose I do want?’ she said impishly, her hand straying lower. ‘Never let it be said my heart’s not in my job.’

  He reached out and ran his hand over her body. She was not bad, quite cute; a little bit flabby, not too much.

  They pressed themselves into one another’s arms.

  During the next few days Scarne continued his training at the Make-Out Club. Soma kept him off the numbers machine; but he practised on the other identity machines, gradually improving his performance.

  He was not always sure if he was engaged in pure practice runs or in actual games with outside players. Sometimes, though, Soma used him on club business, holding the bank in in-the-flesh games or entering as an additional player. Scarne slowly learned how the Grand Wheel operated from the inside.

  None of the club’s real business, however, seemed to warrant the process Soma was putting him through. It was as if Scarne was being tested against some other more advanced standard.

  Soma’s own remarks came seldom, but as far as they went he seemed satisfied with Scarne’s progress. ‘You’re more of a technician than a pure gambler,’ he said to him once.

  ‘Is that bad?’ Scarne asked.

  ‘Not at all. It means maybe we can use you. There are two kinds of players, the technician and the instinctive player, the guy that takes all the risks, who has flair. Take a partnership game, like bridge. A technician won’t give away anything, but he won’t bring in much, either. He’s the main defence. But he has to be complemented by an offensive player, a real gambler who takes the initiative. They need each other.’

  ‘Why does that mean, you can use me? Use me for what?’ He makes it sound as if they’re trying to get into something, he thought. But the Wheel already is everything.

  The nearest Soma came to giving an answer was two days later, when he called Scarne to his office. ‘I put in a report about what you told me happened on the jackpot,’ Scarne said. ‘Also about the incident on the numbers machine. You’re to go to Luna. There are people there want to talk to you.’

  ‘The mathematical cadre?’

  ‘I guess so.’ Soma paused, then looked at Scarne with burning black eyes. ‘All I know is I’m to send you to the demesne of Marguerite Dom. You’re going right to the top.’

  SIX

  Luna was an old, quaint, well-worn environment favoured by the wealthy and successful. Everything there seemed to be hundreds of years old. The sun-burnished towns and cities were luxuriously ancient, built in a rococo style fashionable half a millennium ago, and the planet’s dry, dead surface was criss-crossed with an antiquated tracked transport system.

  As before, Scarne travelled with a two-man escort. The conservationist-minded local government had steadfastly refused to install a modern atmosphere plant, and the shuttle descended through vacuum until entering the landing bay at Tycho, the oldest and largest of Luna’s cities.

  Tycho was not their destination, however; they left the shuttle and walked through concourses until coming to the track station adjoining the landing bay. Scarne found time to revel in the magnificence of the station’s baroque, cavernous interior, which glowed in the unique lunar light that fell through the high vaulted roof. Visiting Luna always made him feel good.

  His escort guided him through the bustling main area to a private carriage waiting in a small siding, tucked away under the lower edge of the cascading roof. Within, the carriage was plush and luxurious, upholstered with purple velvet. Immediately they had seated themselves the vehicle surged into motion. It rattled through the unlighted tunnel carved through the wall of Tycho crater, and when they emerged it was like a revelation, for suddenly they were in the midst of the arid landscape and Luna’s hard merciless sunlight.

  For about half an hour the track vehicle sped through the Lunar terrain. Then it climbed a range of hills, began a descent to the plain below, and the private manse of Marguerite Dom, chairman of the Grand Wheel, came in sight. Scarne studied it as they approached. He saw a style of architecture that was pure indulgence: a wandering maze of gables, domes and belvederes. Incongruous, he thought, that an airless medium should harbour so unfunctional a building.

  The track carriage slowed, coasted into the shadow of an overhanging pantile roof, and shuffled through an airlock. It halted in what appeared to be a reception foyer. The doors clicked back; they stepped out.

  The two Wheel men seemed nervous and tense. This is probably their Mecca, Scarne thought.

  An automatic glass door opened; a tall negro entered the foyer. His teeth flashed in a polite smile.

  ‘Mr Scarne?’

  ‘Here he is,’ said one of the Wheel men. ‘Delivered as per schedule.’

  The negro spoke to them, pointed to a door at the further end. ‘Go through there and take some refreshment. You will be informed.’ He turned to Scarne. ‘This way, if you please.’

  Scarne followed him through the glass door. They paused while the floor sank beneath their feet. When it steadied they were standing on a circular mosaic which resembled the centre of a three-dimensional spider’s web. Passages, trellised arbours, crooked stairways both ascending and descending, radiated from it in all directions. It was an architectural fancy, a folly.

  The negro turned to him again. ‘We are ready to see you now. But perhaps the journey has fatigued you. Would you prefer to rest, to refresh yourself?’

  Scarne steeled his nerve. ‘No. Now will be fine.’

  They walked down a corridor into the deepening silence of the rambling house. Finally the negro opened a timber door and entered a wood-panelled room, glancing at Scarne to follow.

  Five men, of all races and ages – one of them was scarcely more than a boy – sat around a horseshoe-shaped table. A sixth place was empty, while yet another chair, evidently intended for Scarne, stood in the gap of the horseshoe.

  Here he was, facing the Grand Wheel’s mathematical cadre at last – and he felt like an amateur. These people were all special, he realized; some of them prodigies, probably, gathered from all over man-inhabited space. Wordlessly he lowered himself into the solitary chair, aware that the interrogators were subjecting him to a chilling scrutiny. The tall negro, lank and self-controlled, walked around the table and took up the vacant sixth place. Somehow it took Scarne by surprise to learn that he, too, was a cadre member.

  ‘Now,’ the negro said, speaking in a deep, well-modulated voice, ‘tell us about this jackpot.’

  Self-consciously Scarne began slowly to repeat the account he had given to Jerry Soma. They stopped him before he got beyond the third sentence.

  His new listeners were of different mettle from the club manager. Merely verbal descriptions did not satisfy them at all. They wanted mathematics, the language of pure thought. The inquisition became arcane, almost bizarre, as they forced Scarne to sharpen and re-define every item of his experiences, probing and testing every concept he put forward as he plunged, in memory, back into what had happened while he held the handles of the mugger, and later, while he was under the identity machine.

  When the account was finally finished they put him to yet another examination. The
y fired prodigious equations at him from all directions, giving him but scant seconds to solve them in his head. They were testing out the limits of his ability.

  After an hour of the hardest work Scarne had ever known, it was over. He was asked to wait in an adjoining room.

  He left, and found himself in a long, narrow, musty-smelling annexe lined with shelves. It was given a vault-like appearance by the deep alcoves which punctuated the walls at intervals, and which also contained nothing but shelves, all loaded with files and papers. He was, apparently, in some sort of ill-ordered data library.

  Bending his ear to the door he had just closed, he heard the murmur of voices. He crossed to one of the shelves, pulled out a file, opened it and scanned its contents with frantic speed. It contained a dissertation on some particularly abstruse point in randomatics.

  Replacing it, he looked at another and then another. This was a storeroom of papers in randomatics, a kind of cellar, probably, of past and discarded work emanating from the cadre which now was discussing him in the next room.

  His heart beat rapidly. He dashed up and down the annexe, looking wildly at the shelves. But there was no ordering system, evidently, nothing to tell him where he might look to find a clue to the rumoured luck equations.

  He calmed down. It was highly unlikely that any reference to the equations – presuming they existed at all – would be found here, he reasoned. Glancing through the files, he finally settled on one whose meaning, at a cursory inspection, baffled even him. It was a prime example of rarefied speculative thought, containing no explanatory text at all. It might, he decided, keep an average mathematician guessing for a while. Taking a pen from his breast pocket he photographed several pages with its hidden vid recorder.

  He was still handling the file when the door opened and the tall negro walked in. Calmly Scarne replaced it on the shelf and turned to meet him.

  The cadre randomatician gave no sign that he saw anything improper in Scarne’s behaviour. ‘We’ve discussed your story, Mr Scarne,’ he said. ‘We found it quite interesting.’

  ‘But what does it mean?’

  ‘Your experience can only have been subjective, of course. We think you have a type of mind which has a particularly intuitive grasp of mathematical relations. The jackpot shot must have impinged on the faculty in some way, inducing an hallucination. It’s possible. The incident with the identity machine would be a hangover from that. In many ways you have a fortunate combination of qualities. You will make a good gamesman.’

  The negro hesitated, became reflective. ‘You have what we pure theoreticians lack, in fact.’

  ‘Really? I’ve always considered myself too much of a mathematician, not enough of a player,’ Scarne said dubiously.

  A faint smile came to the other’s lips. ‘Jerry Soma’s assessment shows you to be quite talented. You may be just the type of person we are looking for – but that’s by the way, for now.’ He straightened, self-consciously formal again. ‘The Chairman would be pleased if you would join him at breakfast, which he is about to take.’

  The invitation was so sudden that it sent a shock of anticipation through Scarne. ‘Yes, of course. I would be honoured,’ he murmured.

  The sound of a string quartet, weaving a melancholy pattern of melody, was the first impression Scarne received as his guide opened the door to Marguerite Dom’s breakfast-room. The cadre member did not follow him in; Scarne heard the door close softly behind him. He was alone with one of the most powerful men – in some eyes the most powerful man – in human-held space.

  The Wheel leader rose from a wrought-iron chair, one of two facing one another across a low table, to greet him. He wore a long soft jacket of green velvet; a foot-long cigarette holder dangled from one hand. ‘So pleased to meet you, Mr Scarne. Did you have a good journey? I do hope my couriers were courteous …’ He waved his hand, causing the music to stop, and pointed negligently to the table. ‘Shall we be seated?’

  Obediently Scarne took the chair opposite the grand master.

  Dom’s frame was spare, his height medium. His sparse black hair, slicked and combed back, failed to cover a balding pate. He had been born at a time when there had been a brief fashion for naming one’s children after members of the opposite sex – though usually with ancient-sounding names. Consequently Sol was replete with middle-aged male Marguerites, Pamelas and Elkas, and with female Arthurs, Yuris and Dwights. It so happened that Dom suited his first name perfectly. He was that ripe combination, the thoroughly masculine, camp, decadent male. His movements were almost feminine. When he spoke, an ingratiating and deceptively defensive smile was apt to come to his features, and the modulations of his voice were more exaggerated than those of the average man, giving the impression of a neurotic factor in his make-up.

  Although he seemed a far cry from the tough, solid types who had built up the Wheel centuries ago, Scarne needed to contemplate his face for scant moments to realize that there was only one vital difference between him and those legendary creators of the syndicate. As a rule, those men had not been addicted to the practices which brought them their wealth. But Dom’s face, with its creases and strain lines, its deep intensive eyes, told Scarne that he belonged to a highly specific human type: the compulsive gambler. It was a strong face: his was not a weakness, or a compulsion to lose, as it was with many. It was a need to win.

  A butler appeared and began serving coffee, steak and eggs. ‘I hear you have some unusual tendencies,’ Dom said lightly. ‘Glimpses into ultimate reality and so forth.’ His mouth creased into a tight smile, as though with nervousness or sarcasm.

  ‘Your cadre people assure me it was hallucinatory,’ Scarne said.

  ‘Oh, they always put everything down to delusion. But we know it’s not that simple, don’t we? After all, everything you saw is known scientifically. We know that matter is constructed of waves, and that these waves are waves of probability. We also know that below this quantum level there is another level, a level of pure randomness where no physical laws obtain. The material world floats on that, so to speak. But then it’s all in the Tarot, isn’t it?’ Dom flicked his hand; a card appeared in it, and he passed it to Scarne.

  Scarne bent his head to study the card. It was number Ten, the Wheel of Fortune. The card was of traditional design; an upright wheel mounted in a frame which was supported by boats, or pontoons, floating on water.

  ‘Somewhat cursory symbolism, but apt,’ Dom was saying. ‘In substance, that represents the content of your first vision, does it not?’

  Scarne felt slightly dizzy. Dom was right. The picture on the card seemed bland and ordinary – until one put one’s mind to work on it. The wheel stood for chance as it was manifested in the physical universe – in human life, for instance. But it floated on the waters of a greater randomness, the one he had perceived in his ‘black-out’ in the gaming-house.

  ‘Water symbolizes the foundation of the universe in several ancient mythologies,’ Dom continued. ‘Because it is fluid and formless, the ancients thought it a perfect symbol of randomness. In Hindu mythology, the world is supported by a series of animals standing on one another’s backs, all ultimately carried by a turtle swimming in an infinite sea. Sometimes the turtle is a fish, but again swimming in the sea of chaos. Charming, don’t you think?’

  ‘But not very scientific.’ Scarne laid down the card and attempted to tackle the food he had been given, feeling not at all hungry.

  Dom chuckled. ‘But what is science studying, after all? Don’t be put off by the mathematical cadre. The gods are greater than science – but purely scientific types can never understand that, can they? All they can do is calculate.’

  ‘You believe in the gods, then?’

  ‘Not as persons, of course. Not as actual entities.’

  It was the standard reply an educated person gave – often covering up for a more primitive acceptance of the gambler’s pantheon.

  ‘I’m glad you’re not superstitious,’ Scarne said.
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  Dom flicked his hand again, producing the card numbered zero: the Fool. ‘Do I look like one of these?’

  ‘No.’

  Scarne felt awkward. He was aware that Dom was watching him, that behind all his charm and camaraderie a cold shrewdness was at work.

  ‘I’ve gained the impression that I’m being groomed for a special project,’ he said boldly.

  ‘A game,’ Dom said, a veiled look coming over his face. ‘We’re setting up a new, very important game.’

  ‘Who’s playing?’

  Dom laughed.

  Having eaten all he could, Scarne pushed aside his plate. ‘Chairman, perhaps you can clear up a conundrum for me. The very same night I was introduced into the Wheel I hit a mugger jackpot. Now, I’ve made a simple calculation about that. The odds against hitting a jackpot are high enough, but the odds of its coinciding with another equally significant event … do you follow me? They are unbelievable. The gods may, as you say, be greater than science, but why should the gods be interested in me? I’m forced to the conclusion that your people rigged the mugger.’

  ‘Out of the question. Whatever you got, you got by chance.’

  ‘But it just doesn’t make sense.’

  Dom laughed again. ‘Then perhaps we have learned to propitiate Lady! You certainly were very lucky. And we do employ the very best mathematicians …’

  Dom continued to chuckle, and Scarne made no reply. He had gone as far as he dared in sounding the chairman out. Dom’s replies were meant to be cryptic, of course – he had no idea that Scarne had ever heard of the luck equations.

  But his answer was a final confirmation that luck was an authentic scientific principle, a universal quantity – and that the Wheel had derived equations that brought it within reach!

  Scarne wondered who was responsible for this awesome feat. The people who had just questioned him? And how was it done? Imagine a high-tension charge of luck, steered on to one individual so as to make him hit a billions-to-one shot … it was incredible.

  As the butler cleared away the breakfast things, Dom produced a fresh Tarot pack. ‘Well how about a game? I believe you have never played Kabala …’