Solar Lottery

SEVENTEEN

RITA O'NEILL was on her feet, when Benteley and Cartwright entered the infirmary. "I'm all right," she said huskily. "What happened?"

"Verrick's dead," Benteley said.

"Yes, we're all finished," Cartwright added. He went up to his niece and kissed the pale transparent halo of bandage that covered the woman's face. "You've lost some of your hair."

"It'll grow back," Rita said. "Is he really dead?" She sat down shakily on a glistening medical table. "You killed him and came out with your own life?"

"I came out with everything but my power card," Cartwright said. He explained what had happened.

"Now there's no Quizmaster. The bottle will have to be twitched ahead. It'll take a day or so to set the mechanism forward." He grinned wryly. "I should know; I've worked on it often enough."

"It's hard to believe," Rita said. "It seems as if there's always been a Reese Verrick."

"It's true, though." Cartwright searched his pockets and brought out a dog-eared black notebook. He made a check mark and then closed it. "Everything but Herb Moore. We still have that to worry about. The ship hasn't yet landed, and the Pellig body is somewhere in the area, somewhere within a few hundred thousand miles of Flame Disc." He hesitated, then continued, "As a matter of fact, the ipvic monitor says Moore reached Preston's ship and entered it."

There was an uneasy silence.

"Could he destroy our ship?" Rita asked.

"Easily," Benteley said. "He could probably wreck a good part of the Disc at the same time."

"Maybe John Preston will do something to him," Rita suggested hopefully. But there was no conviction in her voice.

"Part of this depends on the next Quizmaster," Benteley pointed out. "Some kind of a work-crew should go out and try to round up Moore. The body will be deteriorating; we might be able to destroy him some way."

"Not after he reaches Preston," Cartwright said gloomily.

"I think we should approach the next Quizmaster on it," Benteley persisted. "Moore will be a menace to the system."

"Very easily."

"You think the next Quizmaster would agree?"

"I think so," Cartwright said, "since you're the next Quizmaster. That is, assuming you've still got the power card I gave you."

Benteley had the card. Unbelievingly, he got it out and examined it. The card slipped from his trembling fingers; he pounced on it and swept it jerkily up. "You expect me to believe this?"

"No, not for another twenty-four hours."

Benteley turned the card over and studied every part of it. The p-card looked like any other; the same shape and size and color and texture. "Where the hell did you get it?"

"The original owner thought five dollars was a good price for it, considering market conditions. I forget his name."

"You've been carrying this around?"

"I've been carrying a whole packet of them around," Cartwright answered. "I took a loss on that one, but I wanted to make sure you accepted it. And I wanted to be sure it was a legal, binding transaction. Not a loan but a regular sale, the kind that goes on constantly."

"Give me awhile to adjust." Benteley managed to get the p-card back in his pocket. "Is this really on the level?"

"Yes," Cartwright said. "And don't lose it."

"Then you've worked out a system of prediction. The thing everyone has been looking for. That's how you got to be Quizmaster."

"No," Cartwright answered. "I can't predict the bottle twitches any better than the next person. I have no formula."

"But you had this card! You know what's coming upl"

"What I did," Cartwright admitted, "was tamper with the bottle machinery. During my lifetime I've had access to Geneva a thousand times. I threw a bias on it. I can't predict what it's going to do, so I did the next best thing. I set up the numbers of the power cards I had been able to buy, in such a way that they constitute the next nine twitches. If you think a minute, I got to be Quizmaster on my own power card, not one I bought. I should have worked that out better; that gives me away, if anybody stops long enough to analyze it."

"How long ago did you begin to work on this?" Benteley asked.

"When I was a young man. Like everybody else I wanted a fool-proof system by which I could predict the twitches. I studied all the papers on bottle construction, Heisenberg's Principle, everything related to randomness and prediction, cause and effect. I got in as a general repairman of electronic equipment. When I was in my late thirties I worked on the bottle at Geneva, down in the basic controls. By that time I realized I couldn't predict it. Nobody could. The Uncertainty Principle is on the level; the movement of subatomic particles on which the twitches are based is beyond human calculation."

"Was that ethical?" Benteley asked. "That kicks over the board, doesn't it?"

"I played the game for years," Cartwright said. "Most people go on playing the game all their lives. Then I began to realize the rules were set up so I couldn't win. Who wants to play that kind of game? We're betting against the house, and the house always wins."

"That's true," Benteley agreed. After a time he said, "No, there's no point in playing a rigged game. But what's your answer? What do you do when you discover the rules are fixed so you can't win?"

"You do what I did: you draw up new rules and play by them. Rules by which all the players have the same odds. And the M-game doesn't give those odds. The M-game, the whole classification system, is stacked against us. So I said to myself, what sort of rules would be better? I sat down and worked them out. From then on I played according to them, as if they were already in operation." He added, "And I joined the Preston Society."

"Why?"

"Because Preston saw through the rules, too. He wanted what I wanted, a game in which everybody stood a chance of winning. Not that I expect everybody to carry off the same size pot at the end of the game. I don't intend to divide the winnings evenly. But I think everybody ought to have his chance at those winnings."

"Then you knew you were Quizmaster even before they came to notify you."

"I knew weeks in advance. I had set a bias on the bottle the last time I was called to repair it. Every time I worked on the mechanism I threw more and more bias on it. The last time I was able to get complete control. At this moment it doesn't operate randomly at all. I have it stacked years ahead... But that won't be necessary, now. I didn't have anybody to take over, in those days."

"What are you going to do now?" Benteley asked. "You can't hold power again."

"I told you: I'm going to retire. Rita and I never really stopped work long enough to enjoy ourselves. I'm going to spend the rest of my days sunning myself in some modern leisure resort, like this one. I'm looking forward to sleeping, contemplating, printing leaflets."

"What kind of leaflets?"

"On the Care and Maintenance of Electronic Equipment," Cartwright said. "My specialty."

Rita spoke up. "You have about twenty-four hours, Ted. Then you're Quizmaster. You're where my uncle was, a few days ago. You'll be waiting for them to come and notify you. That was quite a moment, when we heard them landing on the roof. And Major Shaeffer came clumping in with his briefcase."

"Shaeffer knows," Cartwright said. "He and I worked it out before I gave you the card."

"Then the Corps will respect the twitch?"

"The Corps will respect you" Cartwright answered quietly. "It's going to be a big job. Things are happening. The stars are opening up like roses. The Disc is out there... a half-way point. The whole system will be changing."

"You think you can handle it?" Rita asked Benteley.

"I think so," Benteley said thoughtfully. "I wanted to get where I could make changes; here I am." Suddenly he laughed. "I'm probably the first person who was ever under oath to himself. I'm both protector and serf at the same time. I have the power of life and death over myself."

"Maybe," Cartwright said, impressed, "that might catch on. It sounds like a good kind of oath, to me. You take full responsibility for protection and for carrying out the work. You have nobody to answer to but your own—conscience. Is that the right word?"

Major Shaeffer hurried into the room. "That's the right word, according to the history tapes. I have some information. The ipvic monitor's in with a final report on Moore."

It took a moment. Then Cartwright responded. "Final?"

"The ipvic people followed the synthetic body to the point it entered Preston's ship; you knew that. The body entered the ship, spoke to Preston, and began investigating the machinery that maintains Preston. At that point the image cut off."

"Cut off? Why?"

"According to the repair technicians, the synthetic body detonated itself. Moore, the ship, John Preston and his machinery, were blow to ash. A direct visual image has already been picked up by innerplan astronomers."

"Did some kind of field trigger the bomb?" Benteley asked. "It was critical as hell."

"The ipvic image showed Moore deliberately opening the synthetic's chest and shorting the bomb-leads." Shaeffer shrugged. "It would be interesting to find out why. I think we better send out a crew to see what can be put back together. I'm not really going to sleep easily until I know the whole story."

"I agree," Benteley said feelingly.

Cartwright got out his black notebook. With a look of bewilderment on his seamed, aged face, he checked off the last item and restored it to his pocket. "Well, that takes care of that. We can pick over the ash later; right now we have other things to think about." He examined his heavy pocket watch. "The ship should be landing, soon. If nothing has gone wrong, Groves will presently be setting down on Flame Disc."

The Disc was big. Brake-jets screamed shrilly against the rising tug of gravity. Bits of metal paint flaked down around Groves; an indicator smashed and somewhere within the hull a feed-line snapped.

"We're about to collapse," Konklin grated.

Groves reached up and twisted off the overhead light. The control bubble faded into darkness.

"What the hell?" Konklin began. And then he saw it

From the viewscreen a soft light radiated, a pale, cold fire that glittered in a moist sheen over the figures of Groves and Konklin and the control machinery. No stars, no black emptiness of space were visible: the immense face of the planet had silently expanded until it filled everything. Flame Disc lay directly below. The long flight was over.

"It's eerie," Konklin muttered.

"That's what Preston saw."

"What is it? Some kind of algae?"

"Not this far out. Probably radioactive minerals."

"Where is Preston?" Konklin demanded. "I thought his ship was going to guide us all the way."

Groves hesitated, then answered reluctantly. "My meters picked up a thermonuclear explosion about three hours ago. Distance from us, perhaps ten thousand miles. Since the explosion Preston's ship hasn't registered on my gravity indicators. Of course, with the Disc so close a tiny mass like that might not-"

Jereti came hurrying into the control bubble. He saw the screen and halted. "Good God. That's it!"

"That's our new home," Konklin said. "Big, isn't it?"

"What makes that funny light? It's like a seance in here. You're sure that's a planet? Maybe it really is a space serpent. I don't think I'd like to live around a space serpent, no matter how big it is."

Konklin left the bubble and hurried down the vibrating thundering corridor. The silent green glow seemed to follow him as he descended a ramp and came out on the main level At the door of his cabin, he halted and stood a moment listening.

Down in the cargo hold meager possessions were being assembled. Pots and pans, bedding, food, clothing, were being gathered up and collected. A murmur of excited, subdued voices filtered up over the din of the brake-jets. Gardener, the jet stoker, was starting to give out Dodds pressure suits and helmets.

Konklin pushed open the cabin door and entered.

Mary glanced quickly up. "Are we there?"

"Not quite. All ready to step out on our new world?"

Mary indicated their heap of possessions. "I'm packing."

Konklin laughed. "You and everybody else. Put that stuff back where it was; we're going to live here until we get the subsurface domes set up."

"Oh," Mary said. Abashed, she began carrying things back to drawers and cupboards and storage lockers. "Aren't we even going to set up some sort of—colony?"

"Sure we are." Konklin slapped the bulkhead above his Shoulder. "And this is it-Mary lingered with an armload of clothes.

"Bill, it'll be nice, won't it? I mean, it'll be hard at first but later on it won't be so bad. Well be living mostly underground, the way they do on Uranus and Neptune. That's pretty nice, isn't it?"

"We'll make out all right." Konklin gently took the clothes from her arms. "Let's get down to the cargo hold and find ourselves Dodds suits. Gardner's giving them out."

Janet Sibley greeted them, nervous and fluttering with excitement "I can't get into mine," she gasped. "It's too small!"

Konklin helped her zap the heavy material. "Remember for God's sake, when you're outside be careful and don't trip. These are the old type suits. You can puncture them on sharp rocks and be dead in a second."

"Who gets to step out first?" Mary asked, as she slowly zipped up her bulky suit "Captain Groves?"

"Whoever's closest to the hatch."

"Maybe it'll be me," Jereti said, coming into the hold and grabbing up his suit. "Maybe I'll be the first human being to set foot on Flame Disc."

They were still fastening their suits and talking together in small nervous groups when the landing sirens shrieked into life. "Grab hold!" Konklin shouted above the wailing din. "Hang onto something and get your suits going!"

The ship struck with a roar that tossed them about like dry leaves. Supplies and possessions pitched everywhere, as the hull twisted and bucked violently. The brake-jets moaned and fought to slow the rocking ship as it plowed hideously into the ice-hard surface of the planet The lights flickered and faded out In the blackness the thunder of the jets and the ear-splitting squeal of metal against rock deafened the scattered passengers into paralysis.

Konklin was thrown against a heap of bedding. Pots and pans rained down on him; in the gloom he fought his way up until his fingers closed around a hull support. "Mary!" he shouted. "Where are you?"

In the darkness nearby he felt her moving. "I'm here," she answered faintly. "I think my helmet's cracked; it's leaking air."

Konklin caught hold of her. "You're all right." The ship was still moving, an inferno of sound and protesting metal that gradually slowed to a reluctant, uneven halt. The lights flickered, came on for a brief moment, and then again faded out. Somewhere moisture dripped slow and steady. Down the corridor a fire crackled among heaps of supplies that had tumbled from a locker.

"Get that fire out," Groves ordered.

With an extinguisher Jereti made his way unsteadily into the corridor. "I guess we're there," he said shakily, as he covered the fire. His voice vibrated thinly in their helmet phones.

Somebody lit a flashlight "The hull must have stood up," Konldin said. "I don't hear any important leaks."

"Let's get out," Mary said intensely. "Let's see it."

Groves was already at the hatch. He stood waiting stonily until everybody was around him and then he began unsealing the heavy locks by hand. "The power is dead," he explained. "Leads snapped someplace."

The hatch slid back. Air whooshed out and Groves moved forward, wide-eyed and immediately silent. The others crowded onto the ramp after him; for a moment they stood awed and hesitant. Then as a group they descended.

Half-way down Mary stumbled and Jereti halted to catch hold of her. One of the Japanese optical workers touched the surface first. Agilely, he slid over the side and dropped to the hard-frozen rock, face excited and eager within his bulging helmet. Grinning up at them, he waved them on.

"It's okay," he shouted. "No monsters in sight."

Mary held back. "Look," she whispered. "Look at it glow."

The planet was a single plain of green light. Wherever they looked there was the faint, unwinking sheen of color, soft and unfocused, on the rocks and boulders, on the ground itself. In the dim green phosphorescence the group of men and women were strange opaque shapes, black columns of metal and plastic stepping awkwardly and hesitantly down.

"It's been here all this time," Jereti said wonderingly. "And nobody to look at it." He kicked at the frozen rock. "We're the first to set foot here."

"Maybe not," Groves said thoughtfully. "As we landed I saw something. I tried to come as close as possible without hitting it." He undipped his heavy-duty shoulder weapon. "Preston thought the Disc might be a stray from another system."

It was a building, a structure of some kind, resting on the smooth surface ahead. It was a sphere of some dull metal, without features or ornaments. Green crystals of frozen gas drifted and blew around them as they apprehensively approached the sphere.

"How the hell do we get in it?" Konklin demanded.

Groves lifted his weapon. "I don't see any other way," his voice came in their phones. He squeezed the trigger and moved the muzzle in a slow circle. "This material looks like stainless steel. This thing may be man-made."

Through the sizzling, dripping rent, Konklin and Groves crawled. A dull throbbing reached their ears as they climbed down to the floor of the globe. They were in a single chamber of whirring machinery. Air shrieked out past them as they stood peering around.

"Plug it up," Groves said.

Together they managed to get a patch over the leak then-weapon had cut. Then they turned to examine the humming bank of machinery and wiring.

"Welcome," a dry, dusty voice said mildly.

They spun quickly, the weapon high.

"Don't be afraid," the old man continued. "I'm only another human being like yourself."

Konklin and Groves stood rooted to the metal floor. "Good God," Groves said thickly. "But I thought-"

"I," the old man said, "am John Preston."

A shudder rolled up Konklin's spine. His teeth began to chatter. "You said his ship was destroyed. Look at him; he must be a million years old. And he's in that solution."

As if in agreement, the paper-thin lips moved, and from the mechanical speakers the dry whisper sounded again. "I am very old," Preston said. "I am almost completely deaf and paralyzed." The mouth twisted in a half-smile. "I have arthritis, as you probably know. And some place along the line I lost my glasses. So I can't really make you out too clearly."

"This is your ship?" Konklin demanded. "You landed here ahead of us?"

The ancient head, within its supporting hoop, nodded.

"He's watching us," Groves said. "It's frightening. It's not natural."

"How long have you been here?" Konklin asked the ancient withered creature suspended in its nourishing bath.

"You will have to excuse me," Preston answered. "I can't come down and shake hands with you."

Konklin blinked. "I guess he didn't hear me," he said uneasily.

"We represent the Preston Society," Groves said awkwardly. "We're following your work. Are you—"

"It has been a long wait," the old man interrupted him. "It's been many weary years. Many, many long days alone."

"Something's wrong!" Konklin snapped fearfully. "Something's the matter with him!"

"He's deaf and blind."

Konklin moved toward the banks of machinery. "This isn't a ship. It's something else, similar to a ship but not a ship. I think—"

"I want to tell you about Flame Disc," John Preston's dry, harsh words interrupted him. "That's what I'm interested in. That's what I consider important."

"So do we," Groves said, baffled and confused.

Konklin was feverishly examining the smooth inner surface of the sphere. "This has no drive jets! It can't go anywhere! It has some sort of anti-grav shield, like a marker buoy." He leaped away from the machinery. "Groves, _this is a buoy_. I'm beginning to get it."

"You must hear me out," Preston was saying. "I have to tell you about the Disc."

"There must be more of these buoys," Konklin said. "This one must have drifted down here; pulled down by the intense gravity. There must be thousands of them, all exactly alike."

It came slowly to Groves. "We came in contact with a series of buoys, not a ship. Each one directed us to the next. We followed a trail of buoys all the way here, step by step."

"Do whatever you want," the dry, inexorable voice broke in. "But listen to what I have to say."

"Shut up!" Konklin shouted.

"I have to remain here," Preston said, slowly and painfully, picking his words with infinite care. "I don't dare leave. If I-"

"Preston," Konklin shouted wildly. "What's the sum of two and two?"

"I know nothing about you," the relentless whisper continued.

"Repeat after me!" Konklin shouted. "Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow!"

"Stop it," Groves snarled, on the verge of hysteria. "Have you gone crazy?"

"The search has been long," Preston's withered whisper rasped on monotonously. "And it has brought me nothing. Nothing at all."

Konklin sagged. He moved away, back toward the rent they had cut. "It's not alive. That isn't a nourishing bath. That's some kind of volatile substance on which a vid image is being projected. Vid and aud tapes synchronized to form a replica. He's been dead a hundred and fifty years."

There was silence, except for the dry, whispering voice of Preston and it went on and on.

Konklin tore away the patch and scrambled out of the sphere. "Come on," he signalled to the others. "Come on in."

"We got most of that on our phones," Jereti said, as he struggled into the sphere. "What was it all about? What the hell was that Mary had a little lamb?"

He saw the replica of John Preston and his voice stopped. The others scrambled in after him, excited and breathless. One by one they came to a halt as they saw the old man, and heard the faint, dry words whispering through the thinning air of the sphere.

"Seal it up," Groves ordered, when the last of the Japanese optical workers was in.

"Is it—" Mary began doubtfully. "But why's he talking like that? Just sort of... reciting."

Konldin put his stiff pressure-glove on the girl's shoulder. "It's only an image. He left hundreds of them, maybe thousands, scattered through space, all around here. To attract ships and lead them to the Disc."

"Then he's dead!"

"He died a long time ago," Konldin said. "You can tell by looking at him that he died a very old man. Probably a few years after he found the Disc. He knew ships would be coming out in this direction, someday. He wanted to bring one of them here, to his world."

"I guess he didn't know there would be a Society," Mary said sadly. "He didn't realize anybody would actually be looking for the Disc."

"No," Konldin agreed. "But he knew there would be ships heading out this way."

"It's sort of... disappointing."

"No," Groves corrected. "I don't think so. Don't feel bad about it. It's only the physical part of John Preston that's dead, and that part isn't really very important."

"I guess so," Mary said. She brightened. "It's sort of wonderful, too. In a way, it's sort of a miracle."

"Shut up and listen," Konklin said softly.

They all became silent and listened.

"It isn't senseless drive," the withered image of the old man was saying. Its blind eyes gazed out over the group of people, not seeing them, not hearing them, not aware of their presence. It was speaking, instead, to listeners far off, watchers far away. "It isn't a brute instinct that keeps us restless and dissatisfied. I'll tell you what it is: it's the highest goal of man—the need to grow and advance... to find new things... to expand. To spread out, reach areas, experiences, comprehend and live in an evolving fashion. To push aside routine and repetition, to break out of mindless monotony and thrust forward. To keep moving on..."