Solar Lottery

by Philip K. Dick

  “So that’s the method,” Benteley said, half to himself. “Successive.”

  “Let’s see them prove a Challenge violation,” Moore said spiritedly. “We’ve had our legal staff going over all the where-fores and aforesaids. There’s nothing they can get us on. The law specifies one assassin at a time, chosen by public Convention. Keith Pellig was chosen by public Convention, and there won’t be more than one of him.”

  “I don’t see what purpose it serves.”

  “You will,” Eleanor said. “Moore has a long story that goes with it.”

  “After I’ve eaten,” Benteley said.

  The three of them walked slowly along the thick-carpeted hall toward the dining room. Benteley froze at the doorway; there was Pellig sitting placidly at Verrick’s table, a plate of veal cutlets and mashed potatoes in front of him, a glass of water at his pale, bloodless lips.

  “What’s wrong?” Eleanor asked.

  “Who’s in it?”

  Eleanor shrugged indifferently. “One of the lab technicians. We keep somebody in it all the time; the more familiar we are with it the better chance we’ll have.”

  Benteley moved toward the far end from Pellig. Its waxen pallor made him uncomfortable; it was like some insect newly out of its shell, not yet hardened and dried by the sun.

  And then it came back to him.

  “Listen,” he said huskily. “There’s something more.”

  Moore and Eleanor Stevens glanced sharply at each other. “Take it easy, Benteley,” Moore said.

  “The flying. I left the ground. And I wasn’t just running.” His voice rose fearfully. “Something happened to me. On and on, like a ghost. Until the fireplace.” He rubbed his forehead, but there was no bump, no scar.

  Of course not. It was another body.

  “Explain,” he demanded hoarsely. “What happened to me?”

  “Something to do with the lighter weight,” Moore said. “The body’s more efficient than a natural human body.”

  Benteley’s face must have showed his disbelief, because Eleanor put in, “Pellig may have accepted a drug-cocktail before you entered the body. They were passing them out; I saw some of the women take them.”

  Verrick’s gruff voice interrupted them. “Moore, you’re good at abstract questions.” He pushed a heap of metalfoil across to Moore’s place. “I’ve been studying our confidential report-tapes on this crackpot Cartwright. There’s nothing to him of importance, but I’m worried.”

  “Why?” Moore asked, as he took his seat.

  “First of all, he had his p-card. That’s unusual, for an unk. The chance of any one p-card coming up in a person’s lifetime is so microscopically small, so utterly worthless—”

  “There’s always the statistical possibility.”

  Verrick snorted scornfully. “The bottle is the biggest racket ever thought up. The damn thing’s a lottery and everybody alive holds a ticket. Why keep a card that gives you one chance in six billion, a chance that’ll never come? The unks are smart enough to peddle their cards, if they’re not taken from them by their Hills. What’s a card worth these days?”

  “About two bucks. Used to be more.”

  “All right. But this Cartwright keeps his. And that isn’t all.”

  A cunning look spread over Verrick’s massive face. “According to my reports, Cartwright purchased—not sold—at least half a dozen p-cards within the last month.”

  Moore sat up straight. “Really?”

  “Maybe,” Eleanor said thoughtfully, “Cartwright finally found a charm that works.”

  Verrick roared like a gored ox. “Quack that talk! Those damn fool miserable charms.” He jabbed a furious finger at the girl’s bare breasts. “What’s that, you have one of those little bags of eye of newt hanging there? Take it off and throw it away. It’s a waste of time.”

  Eleanor smiled gently; everybody was used to Verrick’s eccentricity, his disbelief in good-luck charms.

  “What else?” Moore demanded. “You have more information?”

  “The day the bottle twitched, there was a meeting of the Preston Society.” Verrick’s knuckles were white. “Maybe he’s got what I was after. What everybody’s after—a way to beat the bottle. A dope-sheet to plot out its future moves. If I thought Cartwright was sitting there that day waiting for notification to come …”

  “What would you do?” Eleanor asked.

  Verrick was silent. A strange twisted grimace knifed over his features, an agonized stir that surprised Benteley and made the others halt rigid. Abruptly, Verrick turned his attention to his plate of food, and the others quickly did the same.

  When they were through eating, Verrick pushed back his coffee cup and lit a cigar. “Now listen,” he said to Benteley. “You said you wanted to know our strategy; here it is. Once a teep locks minds with the assassin he has him. The Corps never lets the assassin break off; he’s passed from one to the next all along the multiple rings. They know exactly what he’s going to do as soon as he thinks of it. No strategy works; he’s teeped constantly, right up to the moment they get bored and pop out his gizzard.”

  “That’s why teeps forced us to take up Minimax,” Moore put in. “You can’t have a strategy against telepaths: you have to act randomly. You have to not know what you’re going to do next. You have to shut your eyes and run blindly. The problem is: how can you randomize your strategy, yet move purposefully toward your goal?”

  “Assassins in the past,” Verrick continued,” tried to find ways of making random decisions. Plimp helped them. Essentially, plimp is assassin-practice. The pocket boards turn up random combinations by which any complexity of decisions can be made. The assassin threw on his board, read the number, and acted according to a prearranged agreement. The teep wouldn’t know in advance what the board was going to show, any more than the assassin would.

  “But that wasn’t good enough. The assassin played this damn M-game but he still lost. He lost because the teeps were playing it, too, and there were eighty of them and only one of him. He got squeezed out statistically, except once in a long while. Assassins have occasionally got in. DeFalla made it by opening Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire at random and making some kind of complicated utilization of the material presented.”

  “Pellig is obviously the answer,” Moore burst in. “We have twenty-four different minds. There’ll be no contact between them. Each of the twenty-four sits in a different cube here at Farben. Each is hooked to the implementation machinery. At random intervals we switch in a different mind—picked at random. Each mind has a fully developed strategy. But nobody knows which mind is coming up next, or when. Nobody knows which strategy, which pattern of action, is about to start. The teeps won’t know from one minute to the next what the Pellig body is going to do.”

  Benteley felt a chill of admiration for this ruthless, superlogical technician. “Not bad,” he admitted.

  “You see,” Moore said proudly, “Pellig is Heisenberg’s random particle. The teeps can trace his path: directly to Cartwright. But not his velocity. Where Keith Pellig will be along that path at a given moment nobody knows.”

  EIGHT

  Eleanor Stevens’ apartment was a series of attractive rooms in the classified living quarters of the Farben Hill. Benteley gazed around appreciatively, as Eleanor closed the door and moved around turning on lights and straightening things.

  “I just moved in,” she explained. “It’s a mess.”

  “Where’s Moore?”

  “Somewhere in the building, I suppose.”

  “I thought you were living with him.”

  “Not now.” Eleanor lowered the translucent filter over the view-wall of the apartment. The night sky with its cold host of stars, the glittering sparks and shapes that made up the Hill, dimmed and faded. Eleanor glanced at him sideways, a little embarrassed, and said, “To tell you the truth, I’m not living with anybody right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Benteley said awkwardly. “I didn’
t know.”

  Eleanor shrugged and smiled bright-eyed, red lips twitching. “It’s a heck of a thing, isn’t it? After I lived with Moore, I lived with one of the other research technicians, a friend of his, and then somebody in the planning board. I was a teep, remember? A lot of non-teeps won’t live with a teep, and I never got along with the Corps.”

  “That’s over with now.”

  “It sure is.” She strolled around the room, hands deep in her pockets, suddenly solemn and thoughtful. “I guess I’ve wasted my life. I never saw anything in being telepathic; it meant I had to be trained for the Corps or submit to a removal probe. I signed up to keep out of the work-camps … I don’t have a classification. Did you know that? If Verrick drops me, that’s the end. I can’t go back to the Corps and I can’t really do anything to beat the Quiz.” She glanced appealingly at Benteley. “Do you think differently about me because I’m unattached?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I feel so damn funny, loose like this.” She gestured tensely. “I’m completely cut off. On my own. This is a terrible ordeal for me, Ted. I had to go with Verrick; he’s the only man I’ve ever felt completely safe with. But it cut me off from my family.” She gazed up at him pathetically. “I hate being alone. I get so frightened.”

  “Don’t get frightened. Spit in their eye.”

  Eleanor shuddered. “I couldn’t do that. How can you live like that? You’ve got to have people you can depend on, somebody strong, somebody to take care of you. This is a big frigid world, completely bleak and hostile and empty of warmth. You know what happens to you if you let go and fall?”

  “I know.” He nodded. “They pack them off by the million.”

  “I’d stay with the Corps, I guess. But I hate the Corps. Prying, listening, always knowing what’s going on in your mind. You don’t really live, not as a separate individual. You’re a sort of collective organism. You can’t really love, you can’t really hate. All you have is your job. Even that isn’t yours. You share it with eighty other people, people like Wakeman.”

  “You want to be alone but you’re afraid,” Benteley said.

  “I want to be me! I don’t want to be alone. I hate waking up in the morning and finding nobody beside me. I hate coming home to an empty apartment. Dinner alone, cooking and keeping the place fixed up for myself. Turning on the lights at night, pulling down the shades. Watching tv. Just sitting. Thinking.”

  “You’re young. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I’m not going to get used to it!” She brightened. “Of course, I’ve done better than some.” She tossed her flame-red mane of hair and her eyes clouded, green and luxurious and cunning. “I’ve lived with a lot of men, since I was sixteen. I can’t remember how many; I meet them the way I met you, at work or at parties, sometimes through friends. We live together awhile, and then we quarrel. Something always goes wrong; it never lasts.” Her terror shivered back, violent and overwhelming. “They leave! They stay around awhile and then they take off, they let me down. Or they … throw me out.”

  “It happens,” Benteley said. He hardly heard her; he was thinking his own thoughts.

  “I’ll find the one, someday,” Eleanor said fervently. “Won’t I? And I’m only nineteen. Haven’t I done all right for nineteen? That’s not very long. And Verrick’s my protector: I can always depend on him.”

  Benteley roused himself. “Are you asking me to live with you?”

  Eleanor blushed. “Well, would you mind?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked quickly, hurt-eyed and urgent.

  “Nothing to do with you.” Benteley turned his back to her and wandered over to the translucent view-wall. He restored it to transparency. “The Hill looks pretty at night,” he said, gazing moodily out. “You wouldn’t know, to look at it now, what it really is.”

  “Forget the Hill!” Eleanor snapped the gray mist back. “It isn’t me? Then it’s Verrick. I know—it’s Reese Verrick. Oh, God. You were so eager that day, when you came bursting into the office with your briefcase clutched like a chastity belt.” She smiled a little. “You were so excited. Like a Christian finally getting into heaven. You had waited so long … you expected so much. There was something terribly appealing about you. I hoped to see you around.”

  “I wanted to get out of the Hill system. I wanted to get to something better. To the Directorate.”

  “The Directorate!” Eleanor laughed. “What’s that? An abstraction! What do you think makes up the Directorate?” She breathed rapidly, eyes wide, pulse throbbing. “It’s people who are real, not institutions and offices. How can you be loyal to a—thing? New men come in, the old ones die, faces change. Does your loyalty remain? Why? To what? Superstition! You’re loyal to a word, a name. Not to a living entity of flesh and blood.”

  “There’s more than that,” Benteley said. “It isn’t just offices and desks. It represents something.”

  “What does it represent?”

  “It stands above all of us. It’s bigger than any man or any group of men. Yet, in a way it’s everybody.”

  “It’s nobody. When you have a friend he’s a particular person, not a class or a work-group, isn’t he? You don’t have class 4–7 as your friend, do you? When you go to bed with a woman, it’s a particular woman, isn’t it? Everything else in the universe has collapsed … shifting, random, purposeless gray smoke you can’t put your hands on. The only thing that’s left is people; your family, your friends, your mistress, your protector. You can touch them, be close to them … breathing life that’s warm and solid. Perspiration, skin and hair, saliva, breath, bodies. Taste, touch, smell, colors. Good God, there has to be something you can grab hold of! What is there, beyond people? What is there you can depend on besides your protector?”

  “Depend on yourself.”

  “Reese takes care of me! He’s big and strong.”

  “He’s your father,” Benteley said. “And I hate fathers.”

  “You’re—psychotic. There’s something wrong with you.”

  “I know,” Benteley agreed. “I’m a sick man. And the more I see, the sicker I get. I’m so sick I think everybody else is sick and I’m the only healthy person. That’s pretty bad off, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Eleanor said breathlessly.

  “I’d like to pull this whole thing down with a big loud crash. But I don’t have to; it’s collapsing by itself. Everything is thin and empty and metallic. Games, lotteries—a bright kid’s toy! All that holds it together is the oath. Positions for sale, cynicism, luxury and poverty, indifference … noisy tv sets shrilling away. A man goes out to murder another man and everybody claps their hands and watches. What do we believe in? What do we have? Brilliant criminals working for powerful criminals. Loyalty we swear away to plastic busts.”

  “The bust is a symbol. And it’s not for sale. That’s one thing you can’t buy and sell.” Her green eyes flashed triumphantly. “You know that, Ted. It’s the most precious thing we have. Loyalty between us, between protector and serf, between a man and his mistress.”

  “Maybe,” Benteley said slowly, “a person should be loyal to an ideal.”

  “An ideal what?”

  Benteley’s mind refused to turn out an answer. The wheels, the gears and rods, were stuck. Unfamiliar, incomprehensible thoughts were crowding in, unwanted and unasked-for, throwing the mechanism into grinding uncertainty. Where had the torrent come from? He didn’t know. “That’s all we have left,” he said finally. “Our oaths. Our loyalty. That’s the cement that keeps this whole thing from collapsing. And what’s it worth? How good is it? Not much good. It’s crumbling away while we stand here.”

  Eleanor gasped. “It isn’t!”

  “Is Moore loyal to Verrick?”

  “No! That’s why I left him. Him and his theories. That’s all he’s loyal to, them and Herb Moore.” Her good-luck charms danced furiously. “I loathe that!”

  “Verrick isn’t loyal,” Ben
teley said carefully. He tried to measure the girl’s reaction; her face was stunned and colorless. “It isn’t Moore; don’t blame him. He’s out for what he can get. So is everybody else. So is Reese Verrick. Any one of them would throw away his oath to get hold of a little more loot, a little more pull. It’s one big scramble for the top. They’re all struggling to get up there—and nothing is going to stand in their way. When all the cards are turned up, you’ll see how little loyalty counts.”

  “Verrick would never break his oath! He wouldn’t let down the people depending on him!”

  “He already has. He broke a moral code when he let me swear on. You were mixed up with it; you knew. I took my oath in good faith.”

  “Oh, God,” Eleanor said wearily. “You’ll never forget that, will you? You’re angry because you think you were made a fool of.”

  “It’s more than that; don’t kid yourself. It’s the whole weak miserable structure showing through. You’ll find out, someday. I know now; I’m all prepared. What else can you expect in a society of games and quizzes and assassination?”

  “Don’t blame Verrick. The Challenge was set up years ago when the whole bottle system, the whole M-game, was worked out and set into motion.”

  “Verrick’s not even playing the M-game square. He’s trying to beat it with this Pellig strategy.”

  “It’ll work, won’t it?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well, then what are you complaining about? Isn’t that what’s important?” Eleanor grabbed his arm fiercely. “Come on, forget it. You worry too damn much. Moore talks too much and you worry too much. Enjoy yourself—tomorrow’s the big day.”

  She poured drinks and brought Benteley his. He sat sipping moodily, Eleanor beside him on the couch. In the half-light of the apartment the girl’s crimson hair glowed and sparkled. She had drawn her legs up under her. Above each ear the lead-gray spot had faded slightly; but they were still there. Leaning against Benteley, her eyes closed, glass cupped in her red-tipped fingers, she said softly, “I want you to tell me. Are you going along with us?”