The Grand Wheel

by Barrington J. Bayley

  Scarne sat near the edge of the semi-circular ledge, sipping coffee laced with rum, an extremely worried man.

  Though he had more than one problem, the most pressing of them was that his last spray-can of SIS drug would not last more than a few weeks now. Here in Chasm the holo numbers he had been given were useless, so he had no direct means of renewing his supply.

  But he had hope. There would be Legitimacy agents in Chasm, he reasoned. If they knew that Dom had brought him here they might contact him.

  During the starship journey he had come directly under Dom’s tutelage. The work was taxing; therefore every fourth day was his own. On these rest days he deserted Cadence and tried to make himself available, establishing a routine round of the city, visiting one or two of the big casinos, the displays, and a leisurely hour or two, always at the same time, at the Straight Flush.

  A shadow fell across him.

  ‘Mind if I sit here?’ a voice said.

  Scarne made a vague gesture. ‘Of course not.’

  His heart thumped as he studied the face of the man who sat down at the table. He didn’t recognize him.

  The stranger pointed into the gulf. ‘Weird, isn’t it? Some might say scary.’

  ‘A lot different from Earth, or Tycho,’ Scarne agreed.

  ‘Are you new to Chasm?’

  ‘Yes.’ The man leaned suddenly forward and rattled off one of Scarne’s holbooth numbers. ‘You’re moving fast, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

  Scarne shrugged, glancing around him, wondering for the thousandth time if the Wheel had tabs on him. ‘Marguerite Dom brought me out here. It wasn’t my idea to stage that raid on Luna. That was a real hick move, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Based on information supplied by you.’ The agent’s voice came to him in a metallic, bitter-tasting tone. ‘But nothing was found.’

  ‘Of course not! You ought to have known Dom’s own intelligence service is good enough to tip him off about any developments of that kind. He’s got people everywhere, he’s probably better informed than you are.’

  The Legitimacy agent took the sideswipe insult without overt reaction. ‘Did Dom bring the goods with him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We figure he must have. He’s making this place his base. The mathematical cadre is here.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Scarne said truthfully. There had been a lot of people on the ship; he had seen only a few of them.

  ‘Apparently you’re quite a protege. You’re right close to the centre.’

  ‘I’m only a trainee. Nothing’s definite yet.’

  ‘A trainee for what?’

  ‘A games player of some sort.’ He hesitated. ‘For one of their special clubs, or something, I think.’

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell his Legitimacy masters what the game really was, not if his suspicions, his horrible but all-too-probable suspicions were true. Because he knew what the Legitimacy’s reaction would be, once they had confirmed his story. Indeed they would see very little choice, desperate though the recourse would be. Chasm would be the first world to be delivered a planet-busting bomb. Other Wheel-dominated worlds would also be destroyed, in short order. It was fairly certain, too, that the Wheel would have some means of retaliating to all this. And the Hadranics would walk in to trample on what was left.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘I’ve been waiting for you to contact me. Did you bring me a supply?’

  ‘Supply?’

  ‘My supply! The aerosols!’ He became suddenly impatient, irritable.

  The agent chuckled mockingly. ‘You’ll be all right for a while yet. You know the arrangement.’ He bent his head forward, glaring at Scarne from beneath raised eyebrows. ‘Now you listen to me. All the Wheel big shots are in Chasm right now. It’s a regular convention – we reckon they’re making this the Grand Wheel’s capital. We’re certain the data is here, and the equipment to make it effective too, if any exists. Find it!’

  ‘You’ve got Chasm crawling with agents,’ Scarne retorted. ‘You find it.’

  The Legitimacy man spread his hands. ‘You don’t even have to procure it yourself. You only have to lead us to it.’

  Scarne grimaced. ‘How can you be sure there are any … there is the data you want?’

  ‘You know it as well as we do. There’s no doubt, at this stage.’ The agent gave a monitory tap on the table-top. ‘You’re the man who’s placed to get it – so get it. That’s an order that comes from high up, from way up, and you’re on the spot. Time’s running out for you, isn’t it, Scarne? You’ve got about two weeks, so I’m told. You’d better hear this – nothing else is coming to you. You either get released, or you get nothing.’

  ‘You really want this information bad, don’t you?’ Scarne said, the realization suddenly dawning on him.

  ‘That’s outside your brief – and mine,’ the other answered sternly, with a wave of his hand. ‘Just do what’s required of you.’

  Scarne nodded. ‘You really need it. Why, I wonder? It’s the war, isn’t it? We’re going to lose the war, unless the government can pull something out of the hat pretty soon.’

  The agent stiffened. He stared at Scarne in disgust. ‘You’re talking crap,’ he said. ‘The Legitimacy doesn’t lose wars. Ever.’

  Back at the five-level hotel, Scarne found Cadence in one of the lounges, talking with Soma and others of the retinue. She eyed him closely as he flopped down next to her.

  ‘Had a bad day? You look wiped out.’

  ‘This town depresses me,’ Scarne said. ‘I’ll be glad when it’s time to leave.’

  He called across to Soma. ‘Hey, Jerry! When are we leaving this dump? When’s the big game?’

  Soma raised one upright finger before his face, a recognized, final signal. ‘No info.’

  ‘That’s what they always say.’

  Hank Marem, another games player in Dom’s selected group, a heavily built, deceptively slow, lugubrious man, answered Scarne. ‘Well I’m as sure as hell not eager to leave yet. Hell …’ He trailed off, staring into his drink. ‘I’d like a million years before I feel ready,’ he finished.

  A door at the rear of the lounge opened. A hush fell on the gathering as the charismatic figure of Marguerite Dom entered, sauntering into the room. The Wheel boss’s gaze seemed to flick over them all, taking in every detail.

  A waiter hurried up as Dom casually seated himself at the table, offering him a cocktail. Dom sipped it, set it down, then turned to Scarne.

  ‘Have a relaxing day, Scarne? Ready for a few sessions tomorrow?’

  Dom’s fruity and idiosyncratic, slightly mocking voice was impossible to read. ‘Fairly, sir,’ Scarne said uneasily, feeling the other’s eyes on him. Dom’s presence was something he had learned to sense instinctively. It was something he could almost smell, a slightly rotting odour.

  ‘Jolly good,’ Dom murmured. ‘We don’t want to overstrain you, you know. How’s your health?’

  ‘I feel fine.’

  ‘Excellent.’ The Wheel master swallowed his cocktail. ‘See you tomorrow.’ He rose and sauntered away, making for the front of the hotel, an eccentric, confident, all-powerful figure.

  When he had gone Scarne breathed an inward sigh of relief, though he was not altogether sure why. Lately he had been getting to know Dom intimately; he was one of Dom’s favourites, and was being groomed by him as a games partner, in a kind of relationship that could only be compared with marriage. Scarne was finding it harder and harder to shake off the man’s clinging aura; his combination of smooth charm and total cynicism both fascinated and repelled him.

  Scarne was aware of how far he had come. He was at the end of a long process of selection that had screened both Wheel operatives and freelancers like himself – a process that was still going on. Scarne predicted that Marem would be dropped soon. The ever more vigorous tests were finding his limitations. Scarne, however, was almost certain of being included in the tea
m that would face the Galactic Wheel.

  He had only one black mark against him: his supposed ‘black-out’. En route to Chasm he had been given a thorough medical check and pronounced fit, the addictive substance in his bloodstream apparently evading detection. But Dom had warned him that any recurrence and he would be out. He wasn’t interested in anybody who was liable to flake out on him.

  Scarne spent much of his time playing Kabala, and related games, with Dom. He could beat him now, about one time in three. He had been unable to prevent a kind of perverse loyalty for Dom developing in him; but along with it, as he became more aware of Dom’s utter egotism, and more certain of his intentions for the coming game, there was a festering hatred.

  *

  He was in a state of agitation when he went with Cadence back to their suite. She watched him, her pale eyes wide, as he paced the main room, his face creased as if in pain.

  ‘Cheyne? What is it? Is it too much for you? The games? I thought –’ For a moment a foretaste of disappointment clouded her features.

  ‘No, it’s not that,’ he snapped irritably. He put his hand to his forehead. ‘I can’t do it alone,’ he muttered.

  ‘You want me to call Jerry or someone?’

  ‘No!’

  His exasperation softened as he looked at her and saw her concern. He was never sure how much of her growing attachment to him was professional and how much was due to her having genuinely fallen for him – or whatever passed for that in her Wheel-enclosed life. She was a Wheel creature, of course. It wouldn’t really be fair of him to try to divide her loyalties.

  But there wasn’t anyone else. And besides, as he gazed at her, taking in her worn, blameless face, Scarne realized that the gamble would be worth the risk. Cadence was a born loser. She would be almost sure to do the thing that went most against her own interests.

  He crossed to where she sat and knelt down beside her, taking her hand in his and looking at her imploringly. ‘You know more about this place than I do,’ he said. ‘Did the mathematical cadre leave Luna too?’ They must be here, he thought. They’d be needed.

  She nodded.

  ‘And all their material?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I want to take a look at some confidential material, Cadence. I want to do it secretly. And I want you to help me.’

  Her frown deepened. ‘What for?’ she said at length. Then she raised her eyebrows ingenuously. ‘Are you a spy?’

  Desperately he squeezed her hand. ‘This game,’ he said, ‘it’s got to be stopped.’

  She snatched her own hand away, staring at him now in complete, displeased puzzlement. ‘Stopped? What are you talking about? It’s supposed to be the greatest thing that’s happened for a million years.’ Ever since she had been let into the big secret, in fact, she had looked on her participation as a matter for personal pride.

  ‘Cadence, don’t you know what’s going on?’ He climbed to his feet, glowering down at her. ‘Don’t you know what Dom is setting up? He’s a maniac, an utterly ruthless lunatic. All he wants is some ultimate gamble to satisfy his lust as a gamesman. He plans to go for broke – with the whole of mankind in the centre of the table! We’re the stake – every man, woman and child alive!’

  ‘Has he told you this himself?’

  ‘Not in so many words.’ Scarne pulled a kerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. ‘But that’s what it will be, all right. He’s so sure of himself – so sure he can win. He won’t care what he has to put up to stay in the game – he’s made that abundantly clear. And either you put up a stake the galactics want, or you can’t play.’

  She folded her hands in her lap, staring at them. ‘If he says we’ll win …’

  ‘He’s a fool,’ Scarne told her curtly. ‘Unbalanced. He’s going in blind, without knowing anything about the galactics to speak of.’

  ‘But it isn’t just Dom’s decision,’ she said defensively. ‘It was the whole council’s.’

  ‘Oh yes, the council!’ Scarne laughed bitterly. ‘There’s been a purge in it recently, I hear. It’s pretty obvious the decision was by no means unanimous. Like all tyrants, Dom knows how to deal with councils.’

  He walked to the other side of the room and took a cigar from a box. He lit it and sat down, resting his head dejectedly on his hand, puffing out clouds of violet smoke.

  Two hours later Cadence said woodenly: ‘There are a lot of other excavations out back of this hotel. A lot of different sorts of stuff is kept there. I’ve seen cadre people go in and out, sometimes.’

  ‘Could we get in there?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Probably. I’ve been in there once, with Jerry. It’s not guarded, really. Nowhere is once you get past the hotel lobby.’

  I could just tell the Legit people it’s in there and let them do their stuff, he thought. But what if it’s not there? I wouldn’t have any more credibility left.

  ‘How about you and me having a look around?’ he said. ‘Maybe nobody would question us if we’re together.’ Then, seeing the fear on her face, he said: ‘Show me the way there, anyway.’

  She stood up, her shoulders bowed. ‘All right. Let’s go.’

  Scarne felt a quiet but pleasurable sense of triumph. Cadence had gone through an emotional crisis and had come through as he had predicted.

  He had to hand it to her. She was prepared to commit treason for the sake of conscience. There weren’t many people like that about, these days.

  Or perhaps his revelations about Dom’s stake had scared her as much as they scared him. Apart from that, he had lied to her, admitting he intended to pass information to the Legitimacy while strenuously denying he was an agent. All he wanted, he had said, was knowledge of where the impending game was to be held. The government would then be able to prevent it from taking place, even if Dom, himself, Cadence and everyone else involved were destroyed in the process.

  If only it were that simple, he thought wryly.

  They met no one they knew on their walk through the hotel’s long carpeted corridors. The place seemed quiet, most people having retired early so as to be fresh in the morning.

  Soon they had left behind the inhabited sections and entered a posterior region of storerooms and larders, gouged out of the bare rock. Hesitating only once or twice at intersections, Cadence led Scarne to an ordinary metal door at the end of a short tunnel.

  She stopped before going on, gazing at him coolly. ‘I don’t really know why I’m doing this,’ she said in a calmer tone than before. ‘I just want you to know one thing.’

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘I hope you’re telling me the truth. I belong to the Wheel. If Dom’s mad we all have to be protected from him. If not –’

  She didn’t finish, but fished in her pocket for a set of keys she carried, pressing several in turn against the door’s lock plate. The door didn’t budge.

  She looked back at him. ‘It’s locked. We can’t get in after all.’

  ‘Here, let me try.’ He produced a cigarette lighter and pressed it against the plate, flicking the switch a few times. The tube glowed as it should – but at the same time the lock hummed as the circuits in the base of the lighter sorted through its combinations.

  He tried the handle. The door swung open.

  Cadence was staring in fascination. ‘Where did you get that?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘This?’ Scarne smiled, showing her the lighter. ‘Never seen one of these before? You can get them, for a price. There aren’t many electronic locks this won’t open.’

  Behind the door the rock corridor continued, ending in a second door which bore no lock. Cautiously Scarne opened it.

  They crept into a rectangular vault, littered with metal-bonded crates, with arched openings on all sides. The place was dimly lit by glow-globes, but it was not dark enough to warrant the use of the lamp Scarne had brought with him.

  ‘Which way, do you think?’ he asked softly.

  She pointed. ‘Wh
en I came with Jerry we went that way, to collect a games machine.’ She looked around her. ‘I saw one of the cadre people go through that arch, over there.’

  She held back as he stepped forward. ‘But why are you asking about that? I thought you wanted to know the location of the game.’

  ‘It’s in the form of a special code,’ he told her. ‘The cadre has possession of it.’

  He knew his explanations were inadequate and that she was beginning to realize it. He also knew he was out on a limb, jumping off the board without seeing if there was any water in the pool. But it didn’t matter. Either he would be cured or he would be dead.

  The arched opening gave on to another, similar vault, and so on. It was a veritable maze of replicated units. Scarne pressed forward, past looming crates and enigmatic chests, sometimes past uncrated machinery. He had intended to bluff his way through if challenged, but in fact there seemed to be no one about.

  Occasionally there were closed doors, and deeper into the maze notices and directional arrows began to appear. Scarne pulled himself up short before one door which bore no legend, but instead an outline of an aquatic-looking, manta-like shape. The door was locked, but his electronic skeleton key soon dealt with that; he eased himself inside, followed by Cadence.

  The chamber was smaller than the cellar of Dom’s manse on Luna, but its contents were the same. Pendragon reposed in his murky tank, surrounded by his life-support equipment. At the sound of their entrance he stirred slightly, undulating a few feet to the stick-mike, which he grasped in a flapper-like limb.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘A friend,’ Scarne said, moving to stand squarely before the tank. ‘We’ve met before.’

  ‘I don’t have any friends here,’ Pendragon responded. ‘Still, you’ve already told me something about yourself. You crawl.’

  Cadence stayed close behind Scarne, hanging on to his shoulder and staring wide-eyed at the alien. ‘Sorry if I was too familiar,’ Scarne said. ‘Tell me, Pendragon, what do you know about luck?’

  ‘Ah, luck!’ hissed Pendragon. ‘That is what I do not have.’