The Grand Wheel

FIFTEEN

Some order had been put back into the Wheel camp by the time they returned. The burned-out tents had been bulldozed out into the desert and those still serviceable regrouped. Control had been re-established, too, over the camp’s twin – the Legitimacy site a couple of miles away.

Dom learned immediately, however, that Hakandra and Shane had both vanished, and could not be found.

He put the matter out of his mind for the moment and made his way directly to one special tent whose interior was completely screened from the outside by a long vestibule.

He was met by Haskand. ‘Well, are you ready?’ Dom asked the scientist sharply. ‘Can it be done?’

‘We’re as ready as we are likely to be.’

‘Then let’s waste no more time.’

There were others besides Haskand in the tent: a few members of the mathematical cadre, and some very special technicians. The reason for their presence lay in the three consoles that occupied the centre of the tent: machinery that Dom believed was unique in the galaxy, if not in the universe.

The luck equations had not been obtained easily. They had been derived, after centuries of effort, from the work of the wayward genius Georgius Velikosk. Unfortunately Velikosk had committed little of his knowledge to record (he had, in fact, killed himself when the Grand Wheel tried to wrest his knowledge from him) and even now Wheel technicians did not understand how the single practical device he had built, the Velikosk roulette machine, functioned. Nevertheless his original machine formed the basis of the apparatus that now faced Dom – none other had been devised capable of handling the luck equations.

Dom sat in the straight-backed chair and let the techs tape leads to the palms of his hands. He was now part of the circuit.

He nodded, giving the signal to go ahead, and relaxed. He was aware that the procedure was not entirely safe. There was even a small risk that the Velikosk part of the equipment would inadvertently perform the only other use the Wheel had ever found for it, and dissipate his being, drawing him down into the region of pure randomness.

In silence the apparatus went into operation. A ghostly nimbus, the same that had raced round the table from man to man at the last Wheel council meeting on Luna, surrounded Dom. It seemed to everyone that an awesome, numinous power entered the tent; even the most hardened scientists among them were able to interpret it only one way: it was the presence of Lady.

The nimbus faded as the apparatus switched itself off. The leads were detached from Dom’s hands. He rose. He had been aware of no special sensation but he, too, had felt that presence. He was satisfied that the goddess had entered into him.

Haskand spoke deferentially. ‘You understand, sir, that no charge of this strength has ever been administered before? It cannot be compared with any of our practice shots.’

Dom looked at him in supercilious, amused fashion, the way a favourite of the gods might look at a mere mortal. ‘All is clear,’ he murmured.

Scarne had never been told what lay within the specially guarded tent, but after visiting his own quarters he had been watching curiously for Dom to come out. The Wheel leader walked straight towards him.

‘I want you to accompany me back up to the asteroid, Cheyne,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to be in on the final act. But first let’s take a little trip.’

Someone emerged from the tent where was kept the narrowbeam equipment that had been commandeered from the Legit archaeologists. He hurried up to Dom. ‘We’ve been getting news in the past hour, sir. The Hadranics are massing at the far end of the Cave. It looks like their big push.’

Dom raised his eyebrows. ‘Then this place may not be too safe shortly,’ he remarked casually. ‘But no matter, we should be away from here before anything drastic happens.’

He pointed to the edge of the camp, ushering Scarne in that direction, and beyond the pattern of tents climbed into one of the ground cars parked there. As Scarne joined him he took the controls and, raising the car a few yards above ground level, sent it shooting out into the desert.

Soon the camp was out of sight. Dom criss-crossed the terrain in wide sweeps. Half an hour later he settled the car down on the desert and brought it to a stop. For a while the two men sat staring in silence out over the wilderness. Then Dom twisted round in his seat to look directly at Scarne.

‘Why don’t you do it now, Cheyne?’

‘Huh?’ Scarne looked back at him with an expression half-blank, half of fright.

‘Come, come, Cheyne, I know, or at least I am almost sure, that you have once again decided to kill me, this time without giving me an honourable chance, before I am able to play the last game. Is it not true that you have a weapon of some sort secreted about your person?’

There was a long pause before Scarne could bring himself to reply. ‘Yes,’ he said then, thickly. ‘At least we’d be left with half…’

‘Well, go ahead,’ Dom invited. ‘Try to kill me.’

Why not? thought Cheyne. Dazedly he brought forth the handgun he had picked up earlier. It was a small-aperture Borges beamer, an ideal gun for close quarters and more commonly a woman’s weapon.

‘It’s obvious you had a reason for returning here before continuing the game,’ he said, holding the Borges uncertainly. ‘What were you doing in that tent?’

Dom did not answer, but continued smiling while Scarne raised the beamer and pressed the stud.

Nothing happened.

Scarne turned the gun over and opened the inspection plate. ‘The charge failed,’ he announced, peering in. ‘It’s burned out.’

‘What are you going to do now, Cheyne? You could try strangling me, I suppose. You’d probably fall over and break your neck.’

Now Scarne’s suspicions were confirmed. ‘Luck,’ he said. ‘You’ve given yourself artificial luck.’

‘You asked me why we came back here. You knew already, unless you’re a fool.’

‘I thought you said the technique hadn’t been developed enough to be reliable?’

‘We’ve taken it to the point where we can risk using it, in an emergency. It would have been better,’ Dom added affably, ‘if matters had gone otherwise, of course.’

Scarne reflected. ‘I reckon you’ve already badly miscalculated once. The galactics’ gamesmanship was better than you anticipated. Now you’re using the luck equations. What if that goes wrong somehow, too?’

‘One must estimate the likely outcome. It raises an interesting conundrum. Can one be invested with luck and be unlucky enough to lose it?’

Scarne sighed. ‘You’ve certainly got nerve, I’ll say that. Did you bring me out here just for this little demonstration?’

‘No.’ Dom’s eyes scanned the horizon. ‘I’m looking for Shane. He’s got to be out here somewhere. Probably underground.’

‘And you can find him where others couldn’t?’

‘I’m lucky.’

He put the car in motion again and drove it on its wheels for about a mile, apparently in a direction chosen at random. Then he stopped and pointed to a rise in the ground some distance away.

‘See that bank – a sort of hillock? That could hide something.’

‘It’s far from being a unique feature.’

‘Just the same I think I’ll get somebody to fly over that hillock and take a heat reading,’ Dom said thoughtfully.

He seemed satisfied. He turned the car round and took it off the ground again. They went skimming over the terrain back towards the camp.

‘I think I’ll soon have him back again,’ he exclaimed gladly. ‘The dear boy.’

‘What for?’ Scarne asked in a sudden passion. ‘To make him as corrupt and evil as yourself? Why don’t you leave him alone and give him a chance to live decently?’

‘What’s this, my dear fellow?’ said Dom, affecting surprise. ‘Jealousy?’

‘Jealousy? No…’

‘No, it’s real hatred, real disgust, I can see that. And all based on a misconception, too! All because you think I’ve been gambling away Sol civilization. Putting up humankind as a stake in the game!’

‘Well, haven’t you?’ Scarne asked, puzzled.

‘Why, no, of course not!’ Dom, in high spirits, was laughing at him. ‘Allow me to destroy your delusions, Cheyne. I admit I did nothing to discourage them, but after all I wanted you to have an incentive to play. But did I ever actually say I was putting civilization at risk? The real truth is, I would have done it without a qualm – the higher the stakes, the more we stood to win. But the galactics wouldn’t accept anything we didn’t actually own. We would have had to be in possession of the Legitimacy, and that was something we couldn’t obtain. So it would have been like passing a dud cheque. The galactics don’t let you get away with that.’

‘Then what are the stakes we put up?’ Scarne wanted to know.

‘The Grand Wheel. All our tangible assets, and all our influence. The galactics regard it as a pitch which we operate. Should we lose, it will become theirs.’

‘They will run the Grand Wheel?’

‘Yes. Or do whatever it is they aim to do with it.’

There was silence for a while, except for the rush of air past the speeding car. ‘You’re just as bad as I said,’ Scarne said eventually. ‘You would have done it if you could.’

‘Face facts. We are going to win. I have luck, Cheyne! The goddess’s rays are blazing down on me. Instead of heaping recriminations on me, you should be feeling relief that your fears were groundless.’

But Scarne felt himself too confused to feel such relief. He no longer knew whether he could trust anything Dom said.

The Chairman did not drive back to the camp but instead put the car down near to the glassy travel-globe, which was still waiting for them. Scarne held back when Dom left the car and made for it.

‘Why are you taking me along?’

In comradely fashion Dom put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You are my favourite, Cheyne. You’ve gone through the whole thing with me. I want your moral support.’ Then he took his hand away and sighed. ‘But you may stay behind if that’s what you want.’

‘No,’ Scarne decided, ‘I’ll come.’

Fearfully, he walked towards the majestically shimmering sphere.

‘Has it occurred to you that this planetoid is a bit tatty?’ Scarne asked Dom as the sphere descended towards the coldly glowing surface. ‘It seems to me we’re not too important a customer.’

‘They’re handling deals like this all the time,’ Dom agreed. ‘They’re big. Very big.’

‘Doesn’t that make you feel insignificant?’

‘No. It’s our way in, that’s all. The first rung of the ladder. Once inside we’ll have immortality, power, knowledge – but you know something about gaining knowledge already, don’t you, eh, Cheyne?’ He shot Scarne an enquiring glance. ‘Maybe I’ll try a shot of that drug of yours myself.’

With the odd, disconcerting effect that caused them to brace themselves needlessly, the sphere embedded itself in the earth. This time they had not come down near the games village. The small landscape was empty except for what appeared to be a hut just short of the horizon. Dom and Scarne trudged towards it over the cinders-like ground, reaching it in five minutes or so.

The hut had a crude makeshift appearance. It was constructed of planks of a fibrous material resembling wood and was windowless. After looking it over, Dom knocked on the door.

Immediately the door swung open. Within, the hut looked more comfortable but by no means luxurious. There was a table, and two chairs, one of them large and peculiar-looking, built for something other than a human.

That something beckoned them in from the opposite side of the table. Only by a considerable stretching of definitions could it have been described as humanoid. It stood on two legs, but these were hinged partway up a sloping body, which balanced its weight by means of a thick tail as in some dinosaurs. The head, however, lacked any kind of snout. It was skull-like, covered with horny grey skin and looked upon them with staring, deep-set eyes.

They entered, Scarne closing the door behind them. The air of the hut was close and stuffy, with a dog-like odour which Scarne found unpleasant. The alien took the larger chair, seating himself in it with a flick of his tail, which rested on a curved groove, and with a surprisingly long and slender arm motioned Dom to do likewise. There apparently being nowhere for Scarne to sit, he remained standing to one side.

The alien’s head turned to regard him. ‘I am sorry,’ he said in well-modulated, civilized-sounding tones which Scarne guessed came from an artificial voice-box, ‘you will wish to sit.’

He made a motion with a long, multi-jointed hand. Some mechanism apparently responded to the signal, for a part of the wall came adrift and folded itself into a serviceable straight-backed chair which crept across the floor to Scarne.

‘Thank you.’ Scarne sat down.

The galactic player turned his attention to Dom. He placed a deck of cards on the table.

‘Our proposal is this. This deck is of the same type that was used in the earlier games. No two cards have the same value, as you are aware. We will cut for a card, and play three times. Two winning cards out of three wins all.’

‘Highest takes it?’

‘Correct. I need hardly add that these cards are specially treated against any kind of legerdemain, which is superfluous in any case since they will be machine-shuffled. If there are to be subsequent games we can proceed by gentlemen’s agreement.’

‘What about change-cards?’

‘For this game, all cards are immutable,’ the alien answered in a slightly surprised tone, as though the point was obvious.

Dom nodded slowly. Scarne found himself wondering, not for the first time, why Dom seemed to trust the galactics when they were in a position to perpetrate all kinds of trickery on him. But suddenly the answer came to him. For decades Dom had managed the Grand Wheel, and he knew the ethics and habits by which such organizations operated. The Galactic Wheel would not cheat him – or so he believed. It could, Scarne told himself, be another case of occupational delusion.

Ever since the incident with the failed gun, Scarne had been feeling unwell. Now his head began to ache; he felt as if he was stifling in the hot atmosphere of the hut.

Hot? It had not seemed hot when he entered a few minutes ago. He put his hand to his brow. He was feverish.

The skull-headed galactic took the deck from the shuffling-machine, laid it on the table and invited Dom to cut.

As Dom reached for the cards a choking pain seized Scarne in the chest. He fell off his chair, clutching the region of his heart, and then passed out.

He must have been unconscious for only moments, because when he came round Dom and the alien were both helping him back on to his chair. He realized he had suffered a minor heart attack. He sat breathing in gasps, the pain subsiding.

The two players returned to their places. Dom had already drawn a trump card: the Wheel, one of the most powerful in the pack. Now the galactic cut: the Six of Planets.

Blearily gazing at Marguerite Dom in the first moments of his triumph, Scarne was reminded of the Wheel Chairman as he had first met him. There was the same insouciance, the same charm, the over-powering presence, the fastidiousness as to dress; but within it all, hidden from the casual eye, there was the reptilian coldness. Dom was a predator on a large scale, a suave intellectual giant empty of shame or any sense of guilt.

Deftly the galactic inserted the deck in the shuffling-machine again. Scarne became aware of tingling pains in various parts of his body. He put his hand to his neck, the site of one of these pains. A large nodule had suddenly formed there.

He was sprouting instant cancers.

The air of the hut was suffocating him. He sensed that he was dying, rapidly and inexplicably. He forced himself to his feet. ‘Excuse me,’ he mumbled. ‘I… need some fresh air.’

Dom glanced up to him. ‘I wouldn’t go outside if I were you. There’s a lot of interstellar debris in the Cave.’

‘What… do you mean by that?’

Dom shrugged. Scarne staggered to the door, pushed it open, and stepped outside.

He walked a few steps away from the hut, feeling giddy, and looked towards the horizon which was so close that this might have been a toy planet. Then he looked up at the sky; if he had not done so at that moment he might never have seen it.

In fact he was never quite sure afterwards that he had. It was no more than a glimmer, a faint flash as the meteor whizzed through the planetoid’s shallow atmosphere.

The odds against it must have been billions to one. The meteor fell down from space and sheared off Scarne’s left arm.

He stood staring stupidly at the blood-spouting stump. Then, as he felt his knees buckling, he turned to the door and fell back into the hut. The alien rose calmly and came over to him, reaching out to him with his long arms and lifting him into his chair. The creature inspected the stump; Scarne felt him tie something on the flesh.

‘The bleeding has stopped,’ the galactic announced. In a thoughtful tone he added: ‘You are very unlucky.’

‘Yes,’ said a dazed Scarne.

In his shock, his thoughts were calm, piecing it all together. He could see clearly exactly how – and why – Dom was using him.

Luck was not probability, but it acted through probability. It was, so to speak, quantities of probability, a quantitative average throughout the universe. And, like any other fixed quantity, it could only be concentrated or increased at the cost of a diminution elsewhere.

For someone to be made lucky, someone else had to be made unlucky. Dom was using him as the ‘negative pole’ of the process of attracting luck.

So I end up as a dupe, Scarne thought dismally. And Dom, charming, ambitious Dom, wins.

It was the second round: the galactic cut first. The Star Blaze, a reasonably good card, a member of the Minor Superior Set.

Dom cut. The Neutron Ring, a lower card in the same set. Dom frowned, clearly taken aback.

And Scarne suddenly began to feel physically better. He looked at his severed stump. The blood was coagulating with unusual rapidity, sealing off the stump. Soon he would be able, if he wished, to remove the alien’s tourniquet.

‘We cut once more,’ the galactic said to the nonplussed Dom.

The alien shuffled the cards in the machine. Scarne noticed that his cancers had undergone spontaneous remission: the lumps had disappeared. A sense of well-being was flowing through him. He looked at Dom, and saw that the Wheel master had become unnaturally pale.

Dom’s gaze flickered around the hut, resting ferally for a moment on Scarne. Hastily he cut, but did not show or look at the card, motioning instead for the alien to cut for his card.

The galactic cut, and with no outward reaction displayed his card. It was the Dissolver, a card whose surface was made up of a close-grained tracery, or hatchwork, in which images formed according to how it was held. And it was the highest card in the entire deck.

Dom’s face became rigid as he saw the card. He bent to look at his own, then let it drop to the table from limp fingers. It was a card called the Trivia, showing a single drooping flower. It belonged to no set, no suit or grouping, and was the lowest card of the deck, being assigned no positive value.

Something bad was happening to Dom. He tried to rise from his chair but could not; it was as if his abdomen had congested and seized up. His flesh was almost bubbling as the rogue cells of cancer attacked his body at ferocious speed. His skin began to rot. He was falling apart before their eyes.

Rising, Scarne stared down at him, feeling pity but also indignation. ‘You tricked me,’ he accused the dying man. ‘Tried to sacrifice my life for your own ends.’

From his doubled-up position Dom peered up at him. ‘But your life is mine, Cheyne,’ he groaned. ‘You owe it to me. Don’t you remember? A gambling debt. I told you I would remind you of it.’

Remembering the duel, Scarne stepped back. Was Dom trying cynically to justify his treachery, or did he really believe in such a system of morality?

His inner debate was cut short. Dom gave a great groan of agony and fell from his chair. Neither Scarne nor the alien went to his assistance, and while they watched his body began to disintegrate, to dissolve.

In a few seconds not a trace of it remained.

‘He has been drawn into pure randomness,’ the galactic told Scarne. ‘It is sometimes a consequence of the process he was using.’

‘You knew about it?’

The alien rose, put away the cards, and moved the table to one side. ‘It quickly became evident. Were we generous, we might have warned him of the dangers of trying to force luck. If it is manipulated, then it is no longer luck in the proper sense; it becomes a physical force, involving, like all physical forces, action and reaction. The swing of the pendulum can come swiftly.’

‘His good luck turned to bad, in like proportion,’ Scarne observed.

‘That is why we never use any luck-manipulating process.’ While he spoke, the alien seemed to be tidying up the hut, as if preparing to leave. ‘Luck is perhaps the most powerful force that exists, and for that reason the most dangerous. It is in fact the basic force, or glue, that forms entities out of the preternatural randomness. Probability came later.’

‘What happens now?’ Scarne asked.

‘Your master lost; therefore all holdings known as the Grand Wheel become ours. We shall use them, naturally, for our own benefit.’

‘Will people be aware of it?’

‘I can’t say.’

The galactic opened the door and went outside. Scarne followed him.

His arm should be hurting more, he thought. He was scarcely aware of the ache. But then he saw his severed arm, lying on the ground, and turned aside in nausea.

The galactic spoke again. ‘You seem to have come out of all this rather well,’ he said. ‘When the process reversed itself the good luck which Marguerite Dom concentrated on himself passed to you. Luck is magic; practically anything can be achieved with it, simply by wishing.’

Scarne gestured back to the hut. ‘Is that going to happen to me, too?’

‘I would think not. You didn’t initiate the sequence; the charge will simply seep from you gradually. Goodbye, then. Use your good fortune well.’

With a loping gait the galactic left him and set off towards the horizon. Scarne closed his eyes.

Simply by wishing.