Solar Lottery

SIX

BENTELEY'S head had begun to ache. The constant din of voices mixed with the flash of bright clothing and the movement of bodies. The floor was littered with squashed cigarette butts and debris; the whole chamber had a disheveled cast, as if it were slowly settling on its side. His eyes hurt from the glare of the overhead lights that wavered and altered shape and value each moment. A man pushing by jabbed him hard in the ribs. Leaning against the wall, a cigarette dangling between her lips, a young woman was removing her sandals and gratefully rubbing her red-nailed toes.

"What do you want?" Eleanor asked him.

"I want to leave."

Eleanor led him expertly through the drifting groups of people toward one of the exits. Sipping her drink as she walked she said, "All this may seem pointless, but actually it serves a function. Verrick is able to—"

Herb Moore blocked their way. His face was flushed dark and unhealthy red. With him was the pale, silent Keith Pellig. "Here you are," Moore muttered thickly, teetering unsteadily, his glass sloshing over. He focused on Benteley and harshly announced, "You wanted to get in on it." He slammed Pellig on the back. "This is the greatest event in the world. This is the most important person alive. Feast your eyes, Benteley."

Pellig said nothing. He gazed impassively at Benteley and Eleanor, his thin body relaxed and supple. There was almost no color to him. His eyes, his hair, his skin, even his nails, were bleached and translucent. He had a washed, hygienic appearance. He was odorless, colorless, tasteless, an empty cipher.

Benteley put out his hand. "Hello, Pellig. Shake."

Pellig shook. His hand was cool and faintly moist with no life or strength.

"What do you think of him?" Moore demanded aggressively. "Isn't he something? Isn't he the greatest discovery since the wheel?"

"Where's Verrick?" Eleanor said. "Pellig isn't supposed to be out of his sight."

Moore flushed darker. "That's a laugh! Who—"

"You've had too much to drink." Eleanor peered sharply around. "Damn Reese; he's probably still arguing with somebody."

Benteley gazed at Pellig with dulled fascination. There was something repellent about the listless, slender shape, a sexless juiceless hermaphrodite quality. Pellig didn't even have a glass in his hand. He had nothing.

"You're not drinking," Benteley's voice rolled out.

Pellig shook his head.

"Why not? Have some _methane gale_." Benteley fumbled a glass from the tray of a passing MacMillan robot; three crashed to the floor, spiffing and splintering under the robot's gliding treads. It instantly halted and began an intricate cleaning and sweeping operation.

"Here." Benteley thrust the glass at Pellig. "Eat, drink, and be merry. Tomorrow somebody, certainly not you, will die."

"Cut it," Eleanor grated in his ear.

"Pellig," Benteley said, "how does it feel to be a professional killer? You don't look like a professional killer. You don't look like anything at all. Not even a man. Certainly not a human being."

The remaining people had begun to collect around. Eleanor tugged furiously at his arm. "Ted, for Christ's sake! Verrick's coming!"

"Let go." Benteley yanked loose. "That's my sleeve." He brushed his sleeve with numb fingers. "That's about all I have left; leave me that much." He focused on the vacant face of Keith Pellig. There was a constant roaring in his brain; his nose and throat stung. "Pellig, how's it feel to murder a man you never saw? A man who never did anything' to you? A harmless crackpot, accidentally in the way of a lot of big people. A temporary bottle-neck—"

"What do you mean?" Moore interrupted in a dangerous mumble of confused resentment. "You mean to imply there's something wrong with Pellig?" He snickered grotesquely. "My pal Pellig."

Verrick appeared from the side room, pushing people out of his way. "Moore, take him out of here. I told you to go upstairs." He waved the group of people brusquely toward the double doors. "The party's over. Get going. You'll be contacted when you're needed."

The people began separating and moving reluctantly toward the exits. Robots found coats and wraps for them. In small groups they lingered here and there, talking together, watching Verrick and Pellig curiously.

Verrick took hold of Pellig. "Get out of here. Go on upstairs. Christ, it's late." He started for the wide staircase, hunched over, his shaggy head turned to one side. "Well, in spite of everything, we've accomplished a lot today. I'm going to bed."

Balancing himself carefully, Benteley said clearly after him, "Look here, Verrick. I have an idea. Why don't you murder Cartwright yourself? Eliminate the middle-man. It's more scientific."

Verrick snorted with unexpected laughter and kept on going, without slowing or looking back. "I'll talk to you tomorrow," he said over his shoulder. "Go home and get some sleep."

"I'm not going home," Benteley said stubbornly. "I came here to learn what the strategy is, and I'm staying until I learn it."

At the first step Verrick halted and turned. There was a queer look on his massive hard-ridged features. "What's that?"

"You heard me," Benteley said. He closed his eyes and stood with his feet apart, balancing himself as the room tilted and shifted. When he looked again, Verrick had gone up the stairs and Eleanor Stevens was pulling frantically at his arm.

"You damn fool!" she shrilled. "What's the matter?"

"He's a creep," Moore said unsteadily. He moved Pellig toward the stairs. "Better get him out of here, Eleanor. Hell start chewing up the carpet pretty soon."

Benteley was baffled. He opened his mouth numbly but no sound came. "He's gone," he managed to say finally. "They're all gone. Verrick and Moore and that thing of wax." Eleanor led him out into a side room and closed the door after them. The room was small and in half-shadow, its edges merged in hazy darkness. She shakily lit a cigarette and stood puffing furiously, smoke streaming from her dilated nostrils. "Benteley, you're a lunatic."

"I'm drunk. This Callistan beetle-juice. Is it true a thousand slaves are sweating and dying in a methane atmosphere so Verrick can have his whiskey?"

"Sit down." She pushed him down in a chair and paced in a jerky little circle directly in front of him, taut as a marionette on a wire. "Everything's going to pieces. Moore is so damn proud of Pellig he can't stop showing him off. Verrick can't adjust to being quacked; he thinks he still has his teeps to hold him together. Oh, God." She spun on her heel and buried her face bitterly in her hands.

Benteley gazed up at her without comprehension until she had hold of herself again and was dabbing miserably at her swollen eyes. "Can I do something?" he asked hopefully.

Eleanor found a decanter of cold water on a low table in the shadows. She emptied a shallow glazed-china dish of petite hard candies over one of the chairs and filled the dish with water. Very rapidly she doused her face, hands and arms, then yanked down an embroidered cloth from the window case and dried herself.

"Come on, Benteley," she muttered. "Let's get out of here." She started blindly from the room, and Benteley struggled to his feet and after her. Her small bare-breasted shape glided like a phantom between the gloomy objects that made up Verrick's possessions, huge ponderous statues and glass cases, up short dark-carpeted stairs and around corners where immobile robot servants stood waiting silently for instructions.

They came out on a deserted floor, draped in shadows and dust-thick darkness. Eleanor waited for him to catch up with her. "I'm going to bed," she said bluntly. "You can come if you want, or you can go home."

"My home's gone. I have no home." He followed after her, down a corridor past a series of half-closed doors. Lights showed here and there. He heard voices. He thought he recognized some of them. Men's voices mixed with sleepy, half-swallowed women's murmur. Abruptly Eleanor vanished and he was alone.

He felt his way through a haze of remote movement and wavering shapes. Once he crashed violently against something. A hail of shattered objects cascaded down around him. Stunned, he blundered off away again and stood foolishly.

"What are you doing here?" a hard voice demanded. It was Herb Moore, someplace close by. His face flickered and rose, illuminated like a spectre's, without sound or support. "You don't belong here!" The voice mushroomed until it and the flushed, puffy face filled his vision. "Get the hell out of here! Go where you belong, you third-rate derelict. Class 8-8? Don't make me laugh. Who said you—"

Benteley smashed Moore. The face crumpled and spurted liquid and fragments, utterly destroyed. Something slammed into him and he was bowled over. Choked and imprisoned by a rolling, slobbering mass, he fought his way upward, struggling to catch hold of something solid.

"Pipe down," Eleanor whispered urgently. "Both of you, for God's sake! Be quiet"

Benteley became inert. Beside him Moore puffed and panted and wiped at his bleeding face. "I'll kill you, you creep bastard." Sobbing with pain and rage he bellowed, "You'll be sorry you hit me!"

The next thing he knew he was sitting on something low, bending down and fumbling for his shoes. His coat was lying on the floor in front of him. Then his shoes lay lifeless, separated from each other by an expanse of luxurious carpet. There was no sound; the room was utterly silent and cold. A dim lamp flickered off in a distant corner.

"Lock the door," Eleanor's voice came, from nearby. "I think Moore's gone off his rocker or something. He's out there in the hall shambling around like a berserker."

Benteley found the door and locked its old-fashioned manual bolt. Eleanor was standing in the center of the room, one leg pulled up, foot thrust behind her, carefully unlacing the thongs of her sandals. As Benteley watched in dazed silence, awed and astonished, she kicked off her sandals, unzipped her slacks, and stepped from them. For a moment bare ankles gleamed in the lamplight. Pale, shimmering calves; the sight danced in front of him until overcome, he closed his eyes tight. The slim lines, small-boned, delicate perfectly smooth legs, all the way up to her knees, at which point her undergarment began...

Then he was stumbling his way down, and she was reaching up for him. Moist arms, quivering breasts and dark red nipples full and solid under him. She gasped and shuddered and locked her arms around him. The roaring in his head boiled up and over; he closed his eyes and peacefully allowed himself to sink down into the torrent.

Much later he awoke. The room was deathly cold. Nothing stirred. There was no sound, no life. He struggled stiffly up, bewildered, his mind broken in vague fragments. Through the open window gray early-morning light filtered, and a cold ominous wind whipped icily around him. He backed away, halted, tried to collect himself.

Figures lay sprawled out, mixed with disordered clothing and covers, in heaps here and there. He stumbled between outstretched limbs, half-covered arms, stark-white legs that shocked and horrified him. He distinguished Eleanor, lying against the wall, on her side, one arm thrust out, thin fingers curled, legs drawn up under her, breathing restlessly between half-parted lips. He wandered on—and stopped dead.

The gray light filtered over another face and figure, his old friend Al Davis, peaceful and content in the arms of his soundly sleeping wife. The two of them were pressed tight together, both oblivious to everything else.

A little further on were more persons, some of them snoring dully, one stirring into fitful wakefulness. Another groaned and groped feebly for some covering. His foot crushed a glass; splinters and a pool of dark liquid leaked out. Another face ahead was familiar. Who was it? A man, dark-haired, good features...

It was his own face!

He stumbled against a door and found himself in a yellow-lit hall. Terror seized him and he began running blindly. Silently, his bare feet carried him down vast carpeted corridors, endless and deserted, past stone-gray windows, up noiseless flights of steps that never seemed to 'end. He blundered wildly around a corner and found himself caught in an alcove, a full-length mirror rising up ahead of him, blocking his way.

A wavering figure hovered within the mirror. An empty, lifeless insect-thing caught momentarily, suspended in the yellowed, watery depths. He gazed mutely at it, at the waxen hair, the vapid mouth and lips, the colorless eyes. Arms limp and boneless at its sides; a spineless, bleached thing that blinked vacantly back at him, without sound or motion.

He screamed—and the image winked out. He plunged on along the gray-lit corridors, feet barely skimming the dust-thick carpets. He felt nothing under him. He was rising, carried upward by his great terror, a screaming, streaking thing that hurtled toward the high-domed roof above.

Arms out, he shot soundlessly, through walls and panels, in and out of empty rooms, down deserted passages, a blinded, terrorized thing that flashed and wheeled desperately, beat against lead-sealed windows in desperate, futile efforts to escape.

With a violent crash he struck stunningly against a brick fireplace. Broken, cracked, he fluttered helplessly down to the soft dust-heavy carpet. For a moment he lay bewildered, and then he was stumbling on, hurrying frantically, mindlessly, hurrying anywhere, hands in front of his face, eyes closed, mouth open.

There were sounds ahead. A glowing yellow light filtered through a half-opened doorway. In a room a handful of men were sitting around a table spilled over with tapes and reports. An atronic bulb burned in the center, a warm, unwavering miniature sun that pulled him hypnotically. Surrounded with coffee cups were writers, the men murmuring and poring over their work. There was one huge heavy-set man with massive, sloping shoulders.

"Verrick!" he shouted at the man. His voice came out thin and tiny, a feeble, fluttering insect-voice. "Verrick, help me!"

Reese Verrick glanced up angrily. "What do you want? I'm busy. This has to be done before we can begin moving."

"Verrick!" he screamed, pulsing with terror and mindless panic. _"Who am I?"_

"You're Keith Pellig," Verrick answered irritably, wiping his forehead with one immense paw and pushing his tapes away. "You're the assassin picked by the Convention. You have to be ready to go to work in less than two hours. You have a job to do."