“There’s plenty I can’t do,” Cartwright disagreed dryly. “I’ll try a few things, start some activity here and there, put an end to something else. But they’ll get me, before long.”
Rita was appalled. “How—can you say that?”
“I’m being realistic.” His voice was hard, almost savage. “Assassins have killed every unk the bottle ever twitched. How long do you think it’ll take them to get the Challenge Convention set up? The checks and balances of this system work to check us and balance them. As far as they’re concerned, I broke the rules by just wanting to play. Anything that happens to me from now on is my own fault.”
“Do they know about the ship?”
“I doubt it.” Morbidly, he added, “I hope not.”
“You can last that long, until the ship is safe. Isn’t that the—” Rita broke off, turning in fear.
From outside the building came the sound of jets. A ship was setting down on the roof, a sudden metallic whirr like that of a steel insect. There was a staggering thump, then voices and quick movements from the floors above, as the roof trap was yanked open. Rita saw the look on her uncle’s face, the momentary terror gleaming out, the brief flash of awareness. Then the benign weariness and quietude filmed over, and he smiled haltingly at her.
“They’re here,” he observed, in a faint, almost inaudible voice.
Heavy military boots showed in the corridor. The green-uniformed Directorate guards fanned out around the meeting chamber; after them came a calm-faced Directorate official with a locked briefcase gripped.
“You’re Leon Cartwright?” the official inquired. Leafing through the notebook he said, “Give me your papers. You have them with you?”
Cartwright slid his plastic tube from his inside coat pocket, unsnapped the seal, and spread out the thin metalfoil. One by one he laid them on the table. “Birth-certificate. School and training records. Psych-analysis. Medical certificate. Criminal record. Status permit. Statement of fealty history. Last fealty release. All the rest.” He pushed the heap toward the official and then removed his coat and rolled up his sleeve.
The official glanced briefly at the papers and then compared the identification tabs with the markings seared deep in the flesh of Cartwright’s forearm. “We’ll have to examine fingerprints and brain pattern later. Actually, this is superfluous; I know you’re Leon Cartwright.” He pushed back the papers. “I’m Major Shaeffer, from the Directorate teep Corps. There are other teeps nearby. There was a power shift this morning, a little after nine.”
“I see,” Cartwright said, rolling his sleeve down and putting on his coat again.
Major Shaeffer touched the smooth edge of Cartwright’s status permit. “You’re not classified, are you?”
“No.”
“I suppose your p-card was collected by your protector-Hill. That’s the usual system, isn’t it?”
“That’s the usual system,” Cartwright said. “But I’m not under fief to any Hill. As you’ll see on my paper, I was discharged earlier this year.”
Shaeffer shrugged. “Then, of course, you put your power card up for sale on the black market.” He closed his notebook with a snap. “Most twitches of the bottle bring up unclassifieds, since they outnumber classifieds by such a margin. But one way or another, classifieds manage to get hold of the power cards.”
Cartwright laid his power card on the table. “There’s mine.”
Shaeffer was astounded. “Incredible.” He rapidly scanned Cartwright’s mind, a suspicious, puzzled expression on his face. “You knew already. You knew this was coming.”
“Yes.”
“Impossible. It just occurred—we came instantly. The news hasn’t even reached Verrick; you’re the first person outside the Corps to know.” He moved close to Cartwright. “There’s something wrong here. How did you know it was coming?”
“That two-headed calf,” Cartwright said vaguely.
The teep official was lost in thought, still exploring Cartwright’s mind. Abruptly he broke away. “It doesn’t matter. I suppose you have some inside pipeline. I could find out; it’s in your mind, someplace deep down, carefully larded over.” He stuck out his hand. “Congratulations. If it’s all right with you, we’ll take up positions around here. In a few minutes Verrick will be informed. We want to be ready.” He pushed Cartwright’s p-card into his hand. “Hang on to this. It’s your sole claim to your new position.”
“I guess,” Cartwright said, beginning to breathe again, “I can count on you.” He pocketed the power card carefully.
“I guess you can.” Shaeffer licked his lip reflectively. “It seems strange. … You’re now our superior and Verrick is nothing. It may be some time before we can make the psychological change-over. Some of the younger Corps members who don’t remember any other Quizmaster …” He shrugged. “I suggest you place yourself in Corps hands for a while. We can’t stay here, and a lot of people at Batavia have personal fealties to Verrick, not to the position. We’ll have to screen everybody and systematically weed them out. Verrick has been using them to gain control over the Hills.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Verrick is shrewd.” Shaeffer measured Cartwright critically. “During his Quizmastership he was challenged repeatedly. There was always somebody filtering in. We were kept busy, but I suppose that’s what we’re for.”
“I’m glad you came,” Cartwright admitted. “When I heard the noise I thought it was—Verrick.”
“It would have been, if we had notified him.” There was grim amusement in Shaeffer’s eyes. “If it hadn’t been for the older teeps, we probably would have notified him first and taken our time getting here. Peter Wakeman made a big thing of it. Responsibility and duty, that sort of thing.”
Cartwright made a mental note. He could have to look up Peter Wakeman.
“As we approached,” Shaeffer continued slowly, “our first group picked up the thoughts of a large group of people, apparently leaving here. Your name was in their minds, and this location.”
Cartwright became instantly wary. “Oh?”
“They were moving away from us, so we couldn’t catch much. Something about a ship. Something to do with a long flight.”
“You sound like a Government fortuneteller.”
“There was an intense field around them of excitement and fear.”
“I can’t tell you anything,” Cartwright repeated, with emphasis. “I don’t know anything about it.” Ironically, he added: “Some creditors, perhaps.”
In the courtyard outside the Society building Rita O’Neill paced around in a small, aimless circle, feeling suddenly lost. The great moment had come and passed; now it was part of history.
Against the Society building rose the small, barren crypt in which the remains of John Preston lay. She could see his dark, ill-formed body suspended within the yellowed fly-specked plasti-cube, hands folded over his bird-like chest, eyes shut, glasses eternally superfluous. Small hands, crippled with arthritis, a hunched-over near-sighted creature. The crypt was dusty; trash and debris were littered around it. Stale rubbish the wind had blown there and left. Nobody came to see Preston’s remains. The crypt was a forgotten, lonely monument, housing a dismal shape of clay, impotent, discarded.
But half a mile away the fleet of archaic cars was unloading its passengers at the field. The battered GM ore freighter was jammed tight on the launcher; the people were clumsily climbing the narrow metal ramp into the unfamiliar hull.
The fanatics were on their way. They were setting out for deep space to locate and claim the mythical tenth planet of the Sol System, the legendary Flame Disc, John Preston’s fabulous world, beyond the known universe.
THREE
Before Cartwright reached the Directorate buildings at Batavia the word was out. He sat fixedly watching the tv screen, as the high-speed intercon rocket hurtled across the South Pacific sky. Below them were spread out blue ocean and endless black dots, conglomerations of metal and plastic house-boats
on which Asiatic families lived, fragile platforms stretched from Hawaii to Ceylon.
The tv screen was wild with excitement. Faces blinked on and off; scenes shifted with bewildering rapidity. The history of Verrick’s ten years was shown: shots of the massive, thick-browed ex-Quizmaster and résumés of what he had accomplished. There were vague reports on Cartwright.
He had to laugh, in a nervous aside that made the teeps start. Nothing was known about him, only that he was somehow connected with the Preston Society. The newsmachines had dug up as much as possible on the Society: it wasn’t much. There were fragments of the story of John Preston himself, the tiny frail man creeping from the Information Libraries to the observatories, writing his books, collecting endless facts, arguing futilely with the pundits, losing his precarious classification, and finally sinking down and dying in obscurity. The meager crypt was erected. The first meeting of the Society was held. The printing of Preston’s half-crazed, half-prophetic books was begun. …
Cartwright hoped that was all they knew. He kept his mental fingers crossed and his eyes on the tv screen.
He was now the supreme power of the nine-planet system. He was the Quizmaster, surrounded by a telepathic Corps, with a vast army and warfleet and police force at his disposal. He was unopposed administrator of the random bottle structure, the vast apparatus of classification, Quizzes, lotteries, and training schools.
On the other hand, there were the five Hills, the industrial framework that supported the social and political system.
“How far did Verrick get?” he asked Major Shaeffer.
Shaeffer glanced into his mind to see what he wanted. “Oh, he did fairly well. By August he would have eliminated the random twitch and the whole M-Game structure.”
“Where is Verrick now?”
“He left Batavia for the Farben Hill, where he’s strongest. He’ll operate from there; we caught some of his plans.”
“I can see your Corps is going to be valuable.”
“Up to a point. Our job is to protect you: that’s all we do. We’re not spies or secret agents. We merely guard your life.”
“What’s been the ratio in the past?”
“The Corps came into existence a hundred and sixty years ago. Since then we’ve protected fifty-nine Quizmasters. Of that number we’ve been able to save eleven from the Challenge.”
“How long did they last?”
“Some a few minutes, some several years. Verrick lasted about the longest, although there was old McRae, back in ’78, who ran his whole thirteen years. For him the Corps intercepted over three hundred Challengers; but we couldn’t have done it without McRae’s help. He was a wily bastard. Sometimes I think he was a teep.”
“A telepathic Corps,” Cartwright mused, “which protects me. And public assassins to murder me.”
“Only one assassin at a time. Of course, you could be murdered by an amateur unsanctioned by the Convention. Somebody with a personal grudge. But that’s rare. He wouldn’t get anything out of it except the loss of his p-card. He’d be politically neutralized; he’d be barred from becoming Quizmaster. And the bottle would have to be stepped ahead one twitch. A thoroughly unsatisfactory event.”
“Give me my length ratio.”
“Average, two weeks.”
Two weeks, and Verrick was shrewd. The Challenge Conventions wouldn’t be sporadic affairs put together by isolated individuals, hungry for power. Verrick would have everything organized. Efficient, concerted machinery would be turning out one assassin after another, creeping and crawling toward Batavia without end, until at last the goal was reached and Leon Cartwright was destroyed.
“In your mind,” Shaeffer said, “is an interesting vortex of the usual fear and a very unusual syndrome I can’t analyze. Something about a ship.”
“You’re permitted to scan whenever you feel like it?”
“I can’t help it. If I sat here mumbling and talking you couldn’t help hearing me. When I’m with a group their thoughts blur, like a party of people all babbling at once. But there’s just you and me here.”
“The ship is on its way,” Cartwright said.
“It won’t get far. The first planet it tries to squat, Mars or Jupiter or Ganymede—”
“The ship is going all the way out. We’re not setting up another squatters’ colony.”
“You’re counting a lot on that antiquated old ore-carrier.”
“Everything we have is there.”
“You think you can hold on long enough?”
“I hope so.”
“So do I,” Shaeffer said dispassionately. “By the way.” He gestured toward the blooming island coming into existence ahead and below. “When we land, there will be an agent of Verrick’s waiting for you.”
Cartwright moaned sharply. “Already?”
“Not an assassin. There’s been no Challenge Convention yet. This man is under fief to Verrick, a personal staff member named Herb Moore. He’s been searched for weapons and passed. He just wants to talk to you.”
“How do you know this?”
“Within the last few minutes I’ve been getting the Corps headquarters. It’s all processed information going around from one to the next. We’re a chain, actually. You have nothing to worry about: at least two of us will be with you when you talk to him.”
“Suppose I don’t want to talk to him?”
“That’s your privilege.”
Cartwright snapped off the tv set as the ship lowered over the magnetic grapples. “What do you recommend?”
“Talk to him. Hear what he has to say. It’ll give you more of an idea what you’re up against.”
Herbert Moore was a handsome blond-haired man in his early thirties. He arose gracefully as Cartwright, Shaeffer, and two other Corpsmen entered the main lounge of the Directorate building.
“Greetings,” Moore said to Shaeffer in a bright voice.
Shaeffer pushed open the doors to the inner offices and stood aside as Cartwright entered. This was the first time the new Quizmaster had seen his inheritance. He stood in the doorway, his coat over his arm, completely entranced by the sight.
“This is a long jump from the Society building,” he said finally. Wandering slowly over, he touched the polished mahogany surface of the desk. “It’s a strange thing … I had all the abstract significance figured out in terms of power to do this, power to do that. I had it all down in symbolized form, but the sight of these carpets and this big desk—”
“This isn’t your desk,” Major Shaeffer told him. “This is your secretary’s desk. Eleanor Stevens, an ex-teep.”
“Oh.” Cartwright reddened. “Well, then where is she?”
“She left with Verrick. An interesting situation.” Major Shaeffer slammed the door after them, leaving Herb Moore in the plush lounge outside. “She was new in the Corps; she came after Verrick was Quizmaster. She was just seventeen and Verrick was the only person she ever served. After a couple of years she changed her oath from what we call a positional oath to a personal oath. When Verrick left, she packed up her stuff and trailed along.”
“Then Verrick has use of a teep.”
“She loses her supralobe, according to law. Interesting, that such personal loyalty could be built up. As far as I know, there’s no sexual relationship. In fact she’s been the mistress of Moore, the young man waiting outside there.”
Cartwright roamed around the luxurious office examining file cabinets, the massive ipvic sets, the chairs, the desk, the shifting random-paintings on the walls. “Where’s my office?”
Shaeffer kicked open a heavy door. He and the two other Corpsmen followed Cartwright past a series of check-points and thick protective stages into a bleak solid-rexeroid chamber. “Big, but not as lush,” Shaeffer said. “Verrick was a realist. When he came this was a sort of Arabian erotic house: bed girls lying around on all sides, plenty of liquor to drink, couches, music and colors going constantly. Verrick ripped all the bric-a-brac out, sent the girls to the Martian
work-camps, tore down the fixtures and gingerbread, and built this.” Shaeffer rapped on the wall; it echoed dully. “A good twenty feet of rexeroid. It’s bomb-proof, bore-proof, shielded from radiation, has its own air-pumping system, its own temperature and humidity controls, its own food supply.” He opened a closet. “Look.”
The closet was a small arsenal.
“Verrick could handle every kind of gun known. Once a week we all went out in the jungle and shot up everything in sight. Nobody can get into this room except through the regular door. Or—” He ran his hands over one of the walls. “Verrick never missed a trick. He designed this and supervised every inch of it. When it was finished, all the workmen went off to the camps, like Pharaoh and his tombs. During the final hours the Corps was excluded.”
“Why?”
“Verrick had equipment installed he didn’t plan to use while Quizmaster. However, we teeped some of the workmen as they were being loaded aboard transports. Teeps are always curious when someone tries to exclude them.” He slid a section of wall aside. “This is Verrick’s special passage. Ostensibly, it leads out. Realistically, it leads in.”
Cartwright tried to ignore the chill perspiration coming out on his palms and armpits. The passage opened up behind the big steel desk; it wasn’t hard to picture the rexeroid wall sliding back and the assassin emerging directly behind the new Quizmaster. “What do you suggest? Should I have it sealed?”
“The strategy we’ve worked out doesn’t involve this apparatus. We’ll sow gas capsules under the flooring, the length of the passage, and forget about it. The assassin will be dead before he reaches this inner lock.” Shaeffer shrugged. “But this is minor.”
“I’ll take your advice,” Cartwright managed to say. “Is there anything else I ought to know at this point?”
“You ought to hear Moore. $$He’s a top-flight biochemist, a genius in his own way. He controls the Farben research labs; this is the first time he’s been around here in years. We’ve been trying to scan something on his work, but frankly, the information is too technical for us.”
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