The Game-Players Of Titan

II

PETE GARDEN was awakened the next morning by a sound so wonderfully impossible that he jumped from the bed and stood rigid, listening. He heard children. They were quarreling, somewhere outside the window of his San Rafael apartment.

It was a boy and a girl, and Pete thought, So there have been births in this county since I was last here. And of parents who are non-B, not Bindmen. Without property which would enable them to play The Game. He could hardly believe it, and he thought, I ought to deed the parents a small town... San Anselmo or Ross, even both. They deserve an opportunity to play. But maybe they don't want to.

"You're one," the girl was declaring angrily.

"You're another." The boy's voice, laden with accusation.

"Gimme that." Sounds of a physical scuffle.

He lit a cigarette, then found his clothes and began to dress.

In the corner of the room, leaning against the wall, an MV-3 rifle ... he caught sight of it and paused, remembering in a rush everything that the great old weapon had meant. Once, he had been prepared to stand off the Red Chinese

with this rifle. But it had never seen use because the Red Chinese had never shown up ... at least not in person. Their representatives, in the form of Hinkel Radiation, had arrived, however, but no amount of MV-3s doled out to California's citizen army could fight and conquer that. The radiation, from a Wasp-C satellite, had done the job expected and the United States had lost. But People's China had not won. No one had. Hinkel Radiation waves, distributed on a worldwide basis, saw to that, god bless 'em.

Going over, Pete picked up the MV-3 and held it as he had long ago, in his youth. This gun, he realized, is one hundred and thirty years old, almost. An antique twice over. Would it still fire? Who cared... there was no one to kill with it, now. Only a psychotic could find grounds to kill in the nearly-empty cities of Earth. And even a psychotic might think it over and change his mind. After all, with fewer than ten thousand people in all California ... he set the gun back down, carefully.

Anyhow the gun had not been primarily an anti-personnel weapon; its tiny A-cartridges had been intended to penetrate the armor plating of Soviet TL-90 tanks and cripple them. Remembering the training films they had been shown by Sixth Army brass, Pete thought, I'd like to catch sight of a "human sea" these days. Chinese or not... we could use it.

I salute you, Bernhardt Hinkel, he thought caustically. The humane inventor of the ultimate in painless weapons... no, it hadn't hurt; you were correct. We felt nothing, didn't even know. And then-Removal of the Hynes Gland in as many people as possible had been instigated, and it hadn't been a waste of effort; because of it there were people alive today. And certain combinations of male and female -were not sterile; it was not an absolute condition but rather a relative one. We can, in theory, have children; in fact, a few of us do.

The children outside his window, for instance... Along the street a homeostatic maintenance vehicle swished collecting trash and checking on the growth of lawns, first on one side of the street and then on the other. The

steady whirring of the machine rose above the children's voices.

The empty city is kept tidy, Pete said to himself as the machine halted to send out pseudopodia to grope peevishly at a camellia bush. Or rather, virtually empty city—a dozen or so non-B people lived here, at least according to the census he had last been shown.

Behind the maintenance vehicle came a second construct, this one even more elaborate; like a great twenty-legged bug it propelled itself down a driveway, hot on the scent of decay. The repair vehicle would rebuild whatever had fallen into ruin, Pete knew; it would bind up the wounds of the city, halt deterioration before it began. And for what? For whom? Good questions. Perhaps the vugs liked to look down from their observation satellites and see an intact civilization, rather than mere ruins.

Putting out his cigarette, Pete went into the kitchen, hoping to find food for breakfast. He had not inhabited this apartment for several years, but nonetheless he opened the vacuum-sealed refrigerator and found in it bacon and milk and eggs, bread and jam, all in good shape, everything he needed for breakfast. Antonio Nardi had been Bindman in Residence here before Pete; undoubtedly he had left these, not knowing that he was going to lose his title in The Game, would never be coming back.

But there was something more important than breakfast, something Pete had to do first.

Clicking on the vidphone he said, "I'd like Walter Remington in Contra Costa County."

"Yes, Mr. Garden," the vidphone said. And the screen, after a pause, lit up.

"Hi." Walt Remington's dour, elongated features appeared and he gazed dully at Pete. Walt had not shaved yet this morning; stubble coated his jowls, and his eyes, small and red-rimmed, were puffy from lack of sleep. "Why so early?" he mumbled. He was still in his pajamas.

Pete said, "Do you remember what happened last night?"

"Oh yeah. Sure." Walt nodded, smoothing his disordered hair in place.

"I lost Berkeley to you. I don't know why I put it up. It's been my bind, my residence, you know."

"I know," Walt said.

Taking a deep breath, Pete said, "I'll trade you three cities in Marin County for it. Ross, San Rafael and San Anselmo. I want it back; I want to live there."

Walt pointed out, "You can live in Berkeley. As a non-B resident, of course; not as Bindman."

"I can't live like that," Pete said. "I want to own it, not just be a squatter. Come on, Walt; you don't intend to live in Berkeley. I know you. It's too cold and foggy for you. You like the hot valley climate, like Sacramento. Where you are now, in Walnut Creek."

"That's true," Walt said. "But—I can't trade Berkeley back to you, Pete." The admission was dragged out of him, then. "I don't have it. When I got home last night a broker was waiting for me; don't ask me how he knew I'd acquired it from you, but he did. A big wheeler and dealer from the East, Matt Pendleton Associates." Walt looked glum.

"And you sold Berkeley to them?" Pete could hardly believe it. It meant that someone who was not part of their group had managed to buy into California. "Why'd you do it?" he demanded.

"They traded me Salt Lake City for it," Walt said, with morose pride. "How could I turn that down? Now I can join Colonel Kitchener's group; they play in Provo, Utah. Sorry, Pete." He looked guilty. "I was still a little stewed, I guess. Anyhow it sounded too good to turn down at the time."

Pete said, "Who'd Pendleton Associates acquire it for?"

"They didn't say."

"And you didn't ask?"

"No," Walt admitted morosely. "I didn't. I guess I should have."

Pete said, "I want Berkeley back. I'm going to track the deed down and get it back, even if I have to trade off all of Marin County. And in the meantime, I'll be looking forward to beating you at Game-time; look for me to take away everything you've got—no matter who your partner is."

Savagely, he clicked off the vidphone. The screen became dark.

How could Walt do it? he asked himself. Turn the title right over to someone outside the group—someone from the East.

I've got to know who Pendleton Associates would be representing in a deal like that, he said to himself.

He had a feeling, acute and ominous, that he knew.