The Game-Players Of Titan

XIV

THE NEXT HE knew Joseph Schilling stood on a desert, and feeling the reassuring tug of Terra's gravity once more. The sun, blinding him, spilled down in gold-hot familiar torrents and he squinted, trying to see, holding up his hand to ward off its rays.

"Don't stop," a voice said.

He opened his eyes and saw, walking beside him across the uneven sand, Doctor Philipson; the elderly, sprightly little doctor was smiling.

"Keep moving," Doctor Philipson said in a pleasant, conventional tone of voice, "or we'll die out here. And you wouldn't like that."

"Explain it to me," Joe Schilling said. But he kept on

walking. Doctor Philipson remained beside him, walking with easy, long strides.

"You certainly broke up The Game." Doctor Philipson chuckled. "It never occurred to them that you'd cheat."

"They cheated first. They changed the value of the card!"

"To them, that's legitimate, a basic move in The Game. It's a favorite play by the Titanian Game-players to exert their extra-sensory faculties on the card; it's supposed to be a contest between the sides; the one who's drawn the card struggles to keep its value constant, you see? By yielding to the altered value you lost, but by moving your piece in conformity to it you thwarted them."

"What happened to the stake?"

"Detroit?" Doctor Philipson laughed. "It remains a stake, unclaimed. You see, the Titanian Game-players believe in following the rules. You may not believe that but it's true. Their rules, yes; but rules nonetheless. Now I, don't know what they'll do; they've been waiting to play against you in particular for a long time, but I'm sure they won't try again after what just happened. It must have been psychically unnerving for them; it'll be a great while before they recover."

"What faction do they represent? The extremists?"

"Oh no; the Titanian Game-players are exceptionally moderate in their political thinking."

"What about you?" Schilling said.

Doctor Philipson said, "I admit to being an extremist. That's why I'm here on Terra." In the blinding mid-day sunlight his heat-needle sparkled as it rose and fell with his long strides. "We're almost there, Mr. Schilling. One more hill and you'll see it. It's built low to the ground, attracts little attention."

"Are all the vugs here on Earth extremists?"

"No," Doctor Philipson said.

"What about E. B. Black, the detective?"

Doctor Philipson said nothing.

"Not of your party," Schilling decided.

There was no answer; Philipson was not going to say.

"I should have trusted it when I had the chance," Schilling said.

"Perhaps so," Doctor Philipson said, nodding.

Ahead, Schilling saw a Spanish-style building with tile roof and pale adobe walls, contained by an ornamental railing of black iron. The Dig Inn Motel, the neon sign-turned off and inert—read.

"Is Laird Sharp here?" Schilling asked.

"Sharp is on Titan," Doctor Philipson said. "Perhaps I will bring him back, but certainly not at this time." Doctor Philipson, briefly, scowled. "An agile-brained creature, that Sharp. I must admit I don't care for him." With a white linen handkerchief he mopped his red and perspiring fore-head, slowing down a little now, as they came up onto the flagstone path of the motel. "And as for your cheating, I didn't much care for that either." He seemed tense and irritable, now. Schilling wondered why.

The door of the motel office was open, and Doctor Philip-son went toward it, peering into the darkness within. "Roth-man?" he said, in a hesitant, questioning voice.

A figure appeared, a woman. It was Patrician McClain.

"Sorry I'm late," Doctor Philipson began. "But this man here and a companion showed up at the—"

Patricia McClain said, "She's out of control. Alien couldn't help. Get away." She ran past Doctor Philipson and Joe Schilling, across the parking lot toward a car parked there. Then all at once she was gone. Doctor Philipson grunted, cursed, stepped back from the motel door as swiftly as if he had been seared.

High in the mid-day sky Joe Schilling saw a dot, rising and then disappearing toward invisibility. On and on it rushed, away from Earth, away from the ground until finally he could no longer see it. His head ached from the glare and the effort of seeing, and he turned to Doctor Philipson "My god, was that—" he started to say.

"Look," Doctor Philipson said. He pointed, with his heat-needle, at the motel office, and Joe Schilling looked inside; he could not see at first and then by degrees his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom.

On the floor lay twisted bodies of men and women, tangled together like multi-armed monsters, as if they had been shaken and then dropped there, discarded, the remains jammed together, forced into an impossible fusion. Mary Anne

McClain sat on the floor in the corner, curled up, her face buried in her hands. Pete Garden and a well-dressed middle-aged man whom Schilling did not know stood together, silently, their faces blank.

"Rothman," Doctor Philipson choked, staring at one of the shattered bodies. He turned toward Pete Garden. "When?" he said.

"She just now did it," Pete murmured.

"You're lucky," the well-dressed middle-aged man said to Doctor Philipson. "If you had been here she would have killed you, too. You're fortunate; you missed your appointment."

Doctor Philipson, shaking, lifted his heat-needle and pointed it unsteadily at Mary Anne McClain.

"Don't," Pete Garden said. "They tried that. At the end."

"Mutreaux," Doctor Philipson said, "why didn't she—"

"He's a Terran," Pete Garden said. "The only one of you who was. So she didn't touch him."

"The best thing," the well-dressed man, Mutreaux, said, "is for none of us to do anything. Move as little as possible-that's the safest." He kept his eyes fixed on the huddled shape of Mary Anne McClain. "She didn't even miss her father," Mutreaux said. "But Patricia got away; I don't know what happened to her."

"The girl got her, too," Doctor Philipson said. "We watched; we didn't understand, then." He tossed the heat-needle away; it rolled across the floor and came to rest against the far wall. His face was gray. "Does she understand what she's done?"

Pete Garden said, "She knows. She understands the dangerousness of her talent and she doesn't want to use it again." To Joe Schilling he said, "They couldn't seem to manage her; they had partial control but it kept slipping away. I watched the struggle. It's been going on here in this room for the last few hours. Even when their last member came." He pointed to a squashed, crumpled body, a man with glasses and light hair. "Don, they called him. They thought he'd turn the tide, but Mutreaux threw his talent in with hers. It all happened in a second; one minute they were sitting in their chairs, the next she just simply began

flinging them around like rag dolls." He added, "It wasn't pleasant. But," he shrugged, "anyhow, that's what happened."

Doctor Philipson said, "A dreadful loss." He glanced at Mary Anne with hatred. "Poltergeist," he said. "Unmanageable. We knew but because of Patricia and Alien we accepted her as she was. Well, we'll have to begin all over again, from the start. Of course I have nothing personally to fear from her; I can return to my primary nexus, Titan, whenever I wish. Presumably, her talent doesn't extend that far, and if it does there's not much we can do. I'll take the chance. I have to."

"I think she can freeze you here, if she wants to," Mutreaux said. "Mary Anne," he said sharply. In the corner the girl raised her head; her cheeks, Joe Schilling saw, were tear-stained. "Do you have any objection if this last one returns to Titan?"

"I don't know," she said listlessly.

Joe Schilling said, "They've got Sharp there."

"I see," Mutreaux said. "Well, that makes a difference." To Mary Anne he said, "Don't let Philipson go."

"All right," she murmured, nodding.

Doctor Philipson shrugged. "A good point. Well, it's agreeable to me. Sharp can return here, I'll go to Titan." His tone was calm but, Schilling saw, the man's eyes were opaque with shock and tension.

"Arrange for it now," Mutreaux said.

"Of course," Doctor Philipson said. "I don't want to be around this girl; that must be obvious even to you. And I can hardly say I envy you and your people, depending on a crude, erratic power of this sort; it's apt to rebound or be turned deliberately against you any moment." He added, "Sharp is now back from Titan. At my clinic in Idaho."

"Can that be verified?" Mutreaux said to Joe Schilling.

"Place a call to your car, there," Doctor Philipson said. "He should be in it or close by it, by now."

Going outdoors, Joe Schilling found a parked car. "Whose are you?" he asked it, opening its door.

"Mr. and Mrs. McClain's," the Rushmore Effect stated. "I want to use your vidphone." Seated within the sun-

scorched interior of the car, Joe Schilling placed a call to his own car at Doctor Philipson's clinic in the outskirts of Pocatello, Idaho.

"What the hell do you want now?" the voice of Max, his car, answered after a wait.

"Is Laird Sharp there?" Joe Schilling asked.

"Who cares."

"Listen," Schilling began, but all at once Laird Sharp's features formed on the small vidscreen. "You're okay?" Schilling asked him.

Sharp curtly nodded. "Did you see the Titanian Game-players, Joe? How many were there? I couldn't seem to count them."

"I not only saw them, I conned them," Joe Schilling said. "So they right away bumped me back here. Take Max—you know, my car—and fly back to San Francisco; I'll meet you there." To the old, sullen car he said, "Max, you cooperate with Laird Sharp, goddam it."

"All right!" Max said irritably. "I'm cooperating!"

Joe Schilling returned to the motel room.

"I previewed your narration about the attorney," Mutreaux said. "We let Philipson go."

Schilling looked around. It was so. There was no sign of Doctor E. G. Philipson.

"It's not over," Pete Garden said. "Philipson is back on Titan, Hawthorne is dead."

"But their organization," Mutreaux said. "It's abolished. Mary Anne and I are the only ones remaining. I couldn't believe it when I saw her destroy Rothman; he was the pivot of the organization's power." He now bent down beside Rothman's body, touching it.

"What's the wisest thing to do now?" Joe Schilling said to Pete. "We can't pursue them to Titan, can we?" He did not want to face the Game-players of Titan again. And yet—

Pete said, "We'd better bring in E. B. Black. It's the only thing I can think of at this point that might help. Otherwise, we're finished."

"We can trust Black, can we?" Mutreaux said.

Schilling said, "Doctor Philipson implied that we could." He hesitated. "Yes, I vote we take the chance."

"So do I," Pete said, and Mutreaux, after a pause, brusquely nodded. "What about you, Mary?" Pete turned to the girl, who still sat curled up in a rigid, stricken ball.

"I don't know," she said, finally. "I don't know who to believe in or trust any more; I don't even know about myself."

"It's got to be done," Joe Schilling said to Pete. "In my opinion, anyhow. He or it is looking for you; he's with Carol. If he's not reliable—" Schilling broke off and scowled.

"Then he's got Carol," Pete agreed, stonily.

"Yes." Schilling nodded.

Pete said, "Call him. From here."

Together, they went outside to the McClains' parked car. Joe Schilling placed the call to the apartment in San Rafael. If we're making a mistake, Joe Schilling thought, it probably means Carol's death and the death of their baby. I wonder which it is? he asked himself. A boy or a girl? They have those tests now; they can tell after the third week. Pete, of course, would accept either. He smiled a little.

Pete said tensely, "I've got him." On the screen the image of a vug formed, and Joe Schilling reflected that it looked— to him at least—like any other vug. This is what Doctor Philipson really looks like, he knew. What Pete saw. And he thought he was hallucinating.

"Where are you, Mr. Garden?" the vug's query came to them from the speaker. "I see you have Mr. Schilling there with you. What do you require from the Coast police authority? We are ready to dispatch a ship when and where you tell us."

"We're coming back," Pete said. "We don't need any ship. How is Carol?"

"Mrs. Garden is anxiously concerned, but physically in satisfactory condition."

"There are nine dead vugs here," Joe Schilling said.

E. B. Black said instantly, "Of the Wa Pei Nan? The extremist party?"

"Yes," Schilling said. "One returned to Titan; he had been here as Doctor E. G. Philipson of Pocatello, Idaho. You

know, the well-known psychiatrist. We urge you to take his clinic at once; there could be others entrenched there."

"We will shortly do that," E. B. Black promised. "Are the killers of my colleague, Wade Hawthorne, among the dead?"

"Yes," Joe Schilling said.

"A relief," E. B. Black said. "Give us your location and we will send someone out to undertake whatever dispositionary chores are necessary."

Pete gave him the information.

"That's that," Schilling said, as the screen faded. He did not know how to feel. Had they done the right thing? We will know before very long, he said to himself. Together, they walked back to the motel room, neither of them saying anything.

"If they get us," Pete said, pausing at the door of the room, "I still say we did the best we could. You can't know everything. This is all—" He gestured. "Blurred and twisting, people and things merging back and forth into each other. Maybe I haven't recovered from last night."

Joe Schilling said, "Pete, 1 saw the Game-players of Titan. It was enough."

"What should we do?" Pete said.

"Get Pretty Blue Fox back into being."

"And then what?"

Joe Schilling said, "Play."

"Against?"

"The Titanian Game-players," Joe Schilling said. "We have to; they're not going to give us any choice."

Together, they re-entered the motel room.

As they flew back to San Francisco, Mary Anne said faintly, "I don't feel their control over me as strongly as I did. It's waned."

Mutreaux glanced at her. "Let's hope so." He looked utterly tired. "I preview," he said to Pete Garden, "your efforts to get your group restored. Want to know the outcome?"

"Yes," Pete said.

"The police will grant it. By tonight you'll be a legal Game-playing body again, as before. You will meet at your

condominium apartment in Carmel and plan your strategy. At this point there is a division into parallel futures. They hinge in a disputed fact. Whether your group permits you to bring Mary Anne McClain in as a new Game-playing Bindman."

"What are the two futures branching from that?" Pete asked.

"I can see the one without her very clearly. Let's simply say it's not good. The other—it's blurred because Mary is a variable and can't be previewed within causal frameworks; she introduces the acausal principle of synchronicity." Mutreaux was silent a moment. "I think, on the basis of what I preview, I would advise you to make the attempt to bring her into the group. Even though it's illegal."

"That's right," Joe Schilling said, nodding. "It's strictly against the bylaws of Bluff-playing entities. No Psi of any description can be admitted. But our antagonists aren't non-Psi humans; they're Titans and telepaths. I see her value. With her in our group the telepath factor is balanced. Otherwise, they hold an absolute advantage." He recalled the alteration in the card which he had drawn, its change from twelve to eleven. We couldn't win against that, he realized. And even with Mary—

"I should be admitted, too, if possible," Mutreaux said. "Although, again, legally I'm also admissible. Pretty Blue Fox must be made to comprehend the issues involved, what the stakes are this time. It's not just an exchange of property deeds, not a competition among Bindmen to see who's top man. It's our old struggle with an enemy, renewed after all these years. If it ever ceased in the first place."

"It never did cease," Mary Anne spoke up. "We knew that, the people in our organization. Whether we were vugs or Terrans; we agreed on that."

"What can you see us obtaining from E. B. Black and the police power?" Pete asked Mutreaux.

"I preview a meeting between the Area Commissioner, U. S. Cummings, and E. B. Black. But I can't seem to foresee the outcome. There is something which U. S. Cummings is involved in that introduces another variable. I wonder. U. S. Cummings may be an extremist. What is it called?"

"The Wa Pei Nan," Joe Schilling said. "That's what E. B. Black called it." He had never heard the words before the vug detective had said them; he rolled them around in his mind, trying to get the flavor of them. But they were impenetrable, shut tight to him. He gave up. He could not imagine what such a party was like or how it felt to belong to it.

I can't empathize with them, he realized. And that's bad because if we can't put ourselves in their places we can't predict what they're going to do. Even with the use of our pre-cog.

He did not feel very confident. However, he did not tell that to the people in the car with him.

Soon, he thought, we—the augmented Game-playing group Pretty Blue Fox—will make our first move against the Titanians. We'll have, perhaps, the help of Mutreaux and Mary Anne McClain; will that be enough? Mutreaux can't see, and no one can count on Mary Anne, as Doctor Philip-son pointed out. And yet he was glad they had her. Without Mary Anne, he thought caustically, Pete and I would be back there at that motel, in the middle of the Nevada Desert. Sitting in on Titanian strategy.

I'll be glad to contribute title deeds to both of you," Pete said to Mary Anne and Dave Mutreaux. "Mary, you can have San Rafael. Mutreaux, you can have San Anselmo. Those will bring you to the table. I hope."

No one spoke; no one felt optimistic enough to.

"How do you bluff?" Pete said, "against telepaths?"

It was a good question. It was, in fact, the question on which everything depended.

And none of them could answer it. They can't alter the values of the cards we draw, Schilling said to himself, because we've got Mary Anne to exert a contra-pressure stabilizing them as we hold them. But—

"If we can develop a strategy," Pete said, "we'll need the collective minds of everyone in Pretty Blue Fox. Among all of us there must be an idea we can use."

"You think so?" Schilling said.

"It's got to be," Pete said, harshly.