The Grand Wheel

NINE

Chasm was a Wheel world; the only such world where the Legitimacy had no vestige of authority. Not that the Legitimacy minded that too much, for Chasm had but one city – also called Chasm – which was what Las Vegas had once been: a place wholly given to gambling, and associated pleasures.

Addicts and pleasure-seekers flocked here from all over man-inhabited space. It was possible to arrive in Chasm’s colourful caverns with a penny and leave a wealthy man. Conversely, games were played here that could never have been staged elsewhere: games in which irresistible prizes were balanced against the risk of serious life impairments – disease, drug addiction, decades-long bondage.

The Wheel ruled here: there was no law except the law of wins and losses.

The name Chasm was a descriptive one. The city was carved into the sides of a deep natural abyss, the only shelter the planet offered from the hundred-mile-per-hour winds which swept its lifeless, rocky surface, and against which Dom’s starship battled as it descended towards the mouth of the chasm.

Below the gaping lip, the air was remarkably calm. The starship rolled into a cavern in the first level of excavations, just under the surface. Scarne disembarked to see the ship disgorging the rest of its passengers and cargo: some dozens of top Wheel operatives, big crates of equipment (and, probably, Pendragon). He saw no sign of Dom, unless he was in the covered hover-litter that hummed towards the elevator shafts and disappeared.

Jerry Soma joined him with Cadence in tow, picking his way through the scattered boxes and loading-trolleys.

‘Ever been to Chasm before?’ he asked.

Scarne shook his head. ‘I’ve never been out of Sol.’

‘Come on, I’ll show you the town.’

They emerged from the cavern on to a broad stone promenade. Chasm’s opposite wall reared massively half a mile away. Scarne looked up and saw what looked like a racing flood leaping across the top of the canyon. The broad-fronted river was wind-borne dust, flowing in complicated streams and tendrils on the surface.

A balustrade, only waist-high, bounded the promenade. He walked to it, peered down – and caught his breath. The abyss simply went down and down, criss-crossed with bridges that merged into a cobweb-like tangle, the walls glowing with coloured lights.

Soma laughed. ‘Quite a sight, huh?’

Scarne drew back. ‘How deep is it?’

‘Five miles. But the city itself only goes down a mile and a half. After that the air gets too thick. Let’s take a dive.’

He led the way to an elevator station. They swooped down with sickening speed – it was like being in a tower city – coming to a stop in a tiled tunnel-like area. Passing through a proscenium arch, they came out on to what was, to all intents and purposes, a crowded street. On one side, the gulf; on the other, an endless procession of gaudy entrances, animated light-signs and barkers.

Cadence hung on Scarne’s arm as he gaped around him. The sky was no more than a crack far above. Seen from here, deep among Chasm’s numerous levels, the plummeting walls were less sheer. Not only were they carved and tunnelled into, they also supported jutting piers, daring walkways, slender bridges, all of which made up a seemingly rickety maze hanging over the abyss.

Out into that abyss, too, floated noise and music, drifting from the levels of the city above and below. Chasm fulfilled its reputation: it was fantastic, and unique.

Then Scarne gave a cry of horror. ‘Look!’

Someone had fallen from one of the overhanging structures. The figure came tumbling through the air, narrowly missing an arched bridge, limbs flailing. Scarne saw the victim’s face – a man’s – as it swept past them barely yards away, eyes staring and the mouth drawn into the Oh of a soundless scream. Then it was gone.

Soma cackled. ‘Oh, you’ll soon get used to that. It happens all the time. Every few minutes, in fact.’

Scarne stared at him blankly. ‘But why?’

‘Just the natural accident rate. Don’t look so shocked, Cheyne, it isn’t any greater than the rate for automobile accidents on Mars or somewhere like that. It’s just more visible, that’s all. Think about it: Chasm has a population at any average time of a third of a million people. They slip off a bridge or something occasionally; and then there’s suicides. The point is, there’s only one way for them to go, and that’s down this narrow chasm where everybody can see them.’

‘But why not have safety nets?’

‘This is Chasm,’ Soma answered, his mouth firming. ‘Come on, we have to get to our quarters. There’s a lot to sort out.’

They walked along the street. Scarne had already noticed, in point of fact, that, as on the top level, all balustrades protecting pedestrians from the gulf were only waist-high.

Cadence seemed to notice his questioning stares. She gave his arm a squeeze.

‘It’s like he says,’ she told him. ‘Just a normal accident rate. You soon get used to it.’

Do you? he wondered. But people who came here, he reflected, had attuned themselves to the idea of risk. They were looking to win; some were looking to lose. But other people’s losses were a matter of indifference.

They turned into the lobby of a hotel. Scarne took a last look up into the gulf. Far above, falling fast, were two small figures, one a woman’s, the other, even smaller, probably a child’s. Still holding hands, tipped upside down, they went hurtling together towards the depths.

The Straight Flush restaurant was built on a platform that extended out over emptiness and gave an excellent overall view of the chasm city. Here, while eating or whiling away his time over drinks or beverages, the customer could gaze down into the ever-busy gambling metropolis and, protected from falling objects and bodies by a transparent sloping roof, drink in the lurid scene that was like a visionary’s painting of one of the minor departments of Hades.

Scarne sat near the edge of the semi-circular ledge, sipping coffee laced with rum, an extremely worried man.

Though he had more than one problem, the most pressing of them was that his last spray-can of SIS drug would not last more than a few weeks now. Here in Chasm the holo numbers he had been given were useless, so he had no direct means of renewing his supply.

But he had hope. There would be Legitimacy agents in Chasm, he reasoned. If they knew that Dom had brought him here they might contact him.

During the starship journey he had come directly under Dom’s tutelage. The work was taxing; therefore every fourth day was his own. On these rest days he deserted Cadence and tried to make himself available, establishing a routine round of the city, visiting one or two of the big casinos, the displays, and a leisurely hour or two, always at the same time, at the Straight Flush.

A shadow fell across him.

‘Mind if I sit here?’ a voice said.

Scarne made a vague gesture. ‘Of course not.’

His heart thumped as he studied the face of the man who sat down at the table. He didn’t recognize him.

The stranger pointed into the gulf. ‘Weird, isn’t it? Some might say scary.’

‘A lot different from Earth, or Tycho,’ Scarne agreed.

‘Are you new to Chasm?’

‘Yes.’ The man leaned suddenly forward and rattled off one of Scarne’s holbooth numbers. ‘You’re moving fast, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

Scarne shrugged, glancing around him, wondering for the thousandth time if the Wheel had tabs on him. ‘Marguerite Dom brought me out here. It wasn’t my idea to stage that raid on Luna. That was a real hick move, wasn’t it?’

‘Based on information supplied by you.’ The agent’s voice came to him in a metallic, bitter-tasting tone. ‘But nothing was found.’

‘Of course not! You ought to have known Dom’s own intelligence service is good enough to tip him off about any developments of that kind. He’s got people everywhere, he’s probably better informed than you are.’

The Legitimacy agent took the sideswipe insult without overt reaction. ‘Did Dom bring the goods with him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘We figure he must have. He’s making this place his base. The mathematical cadre is here.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Scarne said truthfully. There had been a lot of people on the ship; he had seen only a few of them.

‘Apparently you’re quite a protege. You’re right close to the centre.’

‘I’m only a trainee. Nothing’s definite yet.’

‘A trainee for what?’

‘A games player of some sort.’ He hesitated. ‘For one of their special clubs, or something, I think.’

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell his Legitimacy masters what the game really was, not if his suspicions, his horrible but all-too-probable suspicions were true. Because he knew what the Legitimacy’s reaction would be, once they had confirmed his story. Indeed they would see very little choice, desperate though the recourse would be. Chasm would be the first world to be delivered a planet-busting bomb. Other Wheel-dominated worlds would also be destroyed, in short order. It was fairly certain, too, that the Wheel would have some means of retaliating to all this. And the Hadranics would walk in to trample on what was left.

‘Listen,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘I’ve been waiting for you to contact me. Did you bring me a supply?’

‘Supply?’

‘My supply! The aerosols!’ He became suddenly impatient, irritable.

The agent chuckled mockingly. ‘You’ll be all right for a while yet. You know the arrangement.’ He bent his head forward, glaring at Scarne from beneath raised eyebrows. ‘Now you listen to me. All the Wheel big shots are in Chasm right now. It’s a regular convention – we reckon they’re making this the Grand Wheel’s capital. We’re certain the data is here, and the equipment to make it effective too, if any exists. Find it!’

‘You’ve got Chasm crawling with agents,’ Scarne retorted. ‘You find it.’

The Legitimacy man spread his hands. ‘You don’t even have to procure it yourself. You only have to lead us to it.’

Scarne grimaced. ‘How can you be sure there are any… there is the data you want?’

‘You know it as well as we do. There’s no doubt, at this stage.’ The agent gave a monitory tap on the table-top. ‘You’re the man who’s placed to get it – so get it. That’s an order that comes from high up, from way up, and you’re on the spot. Time’s running out for you, isn’t it, Scarne? You’ve got about two weeks, so I’m told. You’d better hear this – nothing else is coming to you. You either get released, or you get nothing.’

‘You really want this information bad, don’t you?’ Scarne said, the realization suddenly dawning on him.

‘That’s outside your brief – and mine,’ the other answered sternly, with a wave of his hand. ‘Just do what’s required of you.’

Scarne nodded. ‘You really need it. Why, I wonder? It’s the war, isn’t it? We’re going to lose the war, unless the government can pull something out of the hat pretty soon.’

The agent stiffened. He stared at Scarne in disgust. ‘You’re talking crap,’ he said. ‘The Legitimacy doesn’t lose wars. Ever.’

Back at the five-level hotel, Scarne found Cadence in one of the lounges, talking with Soma and others of the retinue. She eyed him closely as he flopped down next to her.

‘Had a bad day? You look wiped out.’

‘This town depresses me,’ Scarne said. ‘I’ll be glad when it’s time to leave.’

He called across to Soma. ‘Hey, Jerry! When are we leaving this dump? When’s the big game?’

Soma raised one upright finger before his face, a recognized, final signal. ‘No info.’

‘That’s what they always say.’

Hank Marem, another games player in Dom’s selected group, a heavily built, deceptively slow, lugubrious man, answered Scarne. ‘Well I’m as sure as hell not eager to leave yet. Hell…’ He trailed off, staring into his drink. ‘I’d like a million years before I feel ready,’ he finished.

A door at the rear of the lounge opened. A hush fell on the gathering as the charismatic figure of Marguerite Dom entered, sauntering into the room. The Wheel boss’s gaze seemed to flick over them all, taking in every detail.

A waiter hurried up as Dom casually seated himself at the table, offering him a cocktail. Dom sipped it, set it down, then turned to Scarne.

‘Have a relaxing day, Scarne? Ready for a few sessions tomorrow?’

Dom’s fruity and idiosyncratic, slightly mocking voice was impossible to read. ‘Fairly, sir,’ Scarne said uneasily, feeling the other’s eyes on him. Dom’s presence was something he had learned to sense instinctively. It was something he could almost smell, a slightly rotting odour.

‘Jolly good,’ Dom murmured. ‘We don’t want to overstrain you, you know. How’s your health?’

‘I feel fine.’

‘Excellent.’ The Wheel master swallowed his cocktail. ‘See you tomorrow.’ He rose and sauntered away, making for the front of the hotel, an eccentric, confident, all-powerful figure.

When he had gone Scarne breathed an inward sigh of relief, though he was not altogether sure why. Lately he had been getting to know Dom intimately; he was one of Dom’s favourites, and was being groomed by him as a games partner, in a kind of relationship that could only be compared with marriage. Scarne was finding it harder and harder to shake off the man’s clinging aura; his combination of smooth charm and total cynicism both fascinated and repelled him.

Scarne was aware of how far he had come. He was at the end of a long process of selection that had screened both Wheel operatives and freelancers like himself – a process that was still going on. Scarne predicted that Marem would be dropped soon. The ever more vigorous tests were finding his limitations. Scarne, however, was almost certain of being included in the team that would face the Galactic Wheel.

He had only one black mark against him: his supposed ‘black-out’. En route to Chasm he had been given a thorough medical check and pronounced fit, the addictive substance in his bloodstream apparently evading detection. But Dom had warned him that any recurrence and he would be out. He wasn’t interested in anybody who was liable to flake out on him.

Scarne spent much of his time playing Kabala, and related games, with Dom. He could beat him now, about one time in three. He had been unable to prevent a kind of perverse loyalty for Dom developing in him; but along with it, as he became more aware of Dom’s utter egotism, and more certain of his intentions for the coming game, there was a festering hatred.

He was in a state of agitation when he went with Cadence back to their suite. She watched him, her pale eyes wide, as he paced the main room, his face creased as if in pain.

‘Cheyne? What is it? Is it too much for you? The games? I thought—’ For a moment a foretaste of disappointment clouded her features.

‘No, it’s not that,’ he snapped irritably. He put his hand to his forehead. ‘I can’t do it alone,’ he muttered.

‘You want me to call Jerry or someone?’

‘No!’

His exasperation softened as he looked at her and saw her concern. He was never sure how much of her growing attachment to him was professional and how much was due to her having genuinely fallen for him – or whatever passed for that in her Wheel-enclosed life. She was a Wheel creature, of course. It wouldn’t really be fair of him to try to divide her loyalties.

But there wasn’t anyone else. And besides, as he gazed at her, taking in her worn, blameless face, Scarne realized that the gamble would be worth the risk. Cadence was a born loser. She would be almost sure to do the thing that went most against her own interests.

He crossed to where she sat and knelt down beside her, taking her hand in his and looking at her imploringly. ‘You know more about this place than I do,’ he said. ‘Did the mathematical cadre leave Luna too?’ They must be here, he thought. They’d be needed.

She nodded.

‘And all their material?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I want to take a look at some confidential material, Cadence. I want to do it secretly. And I want you to help me.’

Her frown deepened. ‘What for?’ she said at length. Then she raised her eyebrows ingenuously. ‘Are you a spy?’

Desperately he squeezed her hand. ‘This game,’ he said, ‘it’s got to be stopped.’

She snatched her own hand away, staring at him now in complete, displeased puzzlement. ‘Stopped? What are you talking about? It’s supposed to be the greatest thing that’s happened for a million years.’ Ever since she had been let into the big secret, in fact, she had looked on her participation as a matter for personal pride.

‘Cadence, don’t you know what’s going on?’ He climbed to his feet, glowering down at her. ‘Don’t you know what Dom is setting up? He’s a maniac, an utterly ruthless lunatic. All he wants is some ultimate gamble to satisfy his lust as a gamesman. He plans to go for broke – with the whole of mankind in the centre of the table! We’re the stake – every man, woman and child alive!’

‘Has he told you this himself?’

‘Not in so many words.’ Scarne pulled a kerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. ‘But that’s what it will be, all right. He’s so sure of himself – so sure he can win. He won’t care what he has to put up to stay in the game – he’s made that abundantly clear. And either you put up a stake the galactics want, or you can’t play.’

She folded her hands in her lap, staring at them. ‘If he says we’ll win…’

‘He’s a fool,’ Scarne told her curtly. ‘Unbalanced. He’s going in blind, without knowing anything about the galactics to speak of.’

‘But it isn’t just Dom’s decision,’ she said defensively. ‘It was the whole council’s.’

‘Oh yes, the council!’ Scarne laughed bitterly. ‘There’s been a purge in it recently, I hear. It’s pretty obvious the decision was by no means unanimous. Like all tyrants, Dom knows how to deal with councils.’

He walked to the other side of the room and took a cigar from a box. He lit it and sat down, resting his head dejectedly on his hand, puffing out clouds of violet smoke.

Two hours later Cadence said woodenly: ‘There are a lot of other excavations out back of this hotel. A lot of different sorts of stuff is kept there. I’ve seen cadre people go in and out, sometimes.’

‘Could we get in there?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Probably. I’ve been in there once, with Jerry. It’s not guarded, really. Nowhere is once you get past the hotel lobby.’

I could just tell the Legit people it’s in there and let them do their stuff, he thought. But what if it’s not there? I wouldn’t have any more credibility left.

‘How about you and me having a look around?’ he said. ‘Maybe nobody would question us if we’re together.’ Then, seeing the fear on her face, he said: ‘Show me the way there, anyway.’

She stood up, her shoulders bowed. ‘All right. Let’s go.’

Scarne felt a quiet but pleasurable sense of triumph. Cadence had gone through an emotional crisis and had come through as he had predicted.

He had to hand it to her. She was prepared to commit treason for the sake of conscience. There weren’t many people like that about, these days.

Or perhaps his revelations about Dom’s stake had scared her as much as they scared him. Apart from that, he had lied to her, admitting he intended to pass information to the Legitimacy while strenuously denying he was an agent. All he wanted, he had said, was knowledge of where the impending game was to be held. The government would then be able to prevent it from taking place, even if Dom, himself, Cadence and everyone else involved were destroyed in the process.

If only it were that simple, he thought wryly.

They met no one they knew on their walk through the hotel’s long carpeted corridors. The place seemed quiet, most people having retired early so as to be fresh in the morning.

Soon they had left behind the inhabited sections and entered a posterior region of storerooms and larders, gouged out of the bare rock. Hesitating only once or twice at intersections, Cadence led Scarne to an ordinary metal door at the end of a short tunnel.

She stopped before going on, gazing at him coolly. ‘I don’t really know why I’m doing this,’ she said in a calmer tone than before. ‘I just want you to know one thing.’

‘What?’ he asked.

‘I hope you’re telling me the truth. I belong to the Wheel. If Dom’s mad we all have to be protected from him. If not—’

She didn’t finish, but fished in her pocket for a set of keys she carried, pressing several in turn against the door’s lock plate. The door didn’t budge.

She looked back at him. ‘It’s locked. We can’t get in after all.’

‘Here, let me try.’ He produced a cigarette lighter and pressed it against the plate, flicking the switch a few times. The tube glowed as it should – but at the same time the lock hummed as the circuits in the base of the lighter sorted through its combinations.

He tried the handle. The door swung open.

Cadence was staring in fascination. ‘Where did you get that?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘This?’ Scarne smiled, showing her the lighter. ‘Never seen one of these before? You can get them, for a price. There aren’t many electronic locks this won’t open.’

Behind the door the rock corridor continued, ending in a second door which bore no lock. Cautiously Scarne opened it.

They crept into a rectangular vault, littered with metal-bonded crates, with arched openings on all sides. The place was dimly lit by glow-globes, but it was not dark enough to warrant the use of the lamp Scarne had brought with him.

‘Which way, do you think?’ he asked softly.

She pointed. ‘When I came with Jerry we went that way, to collect a games machine.’ She looked around her. ‘I saw one of the cadre people go through that arch, over there.’

She held back as he stepped forward. ‘But why are you asking about that? I thought you wanted to know the location of the game.’

‘It’s in the form of a special code,’ he told her. ‘The cadre has possession of it.’

He knew his explanations were inadequate and that she was beginning to realize it. He also knew he was out on a limb, jumping off the board without seeing if there was any water in the pool. But it didn’t matter. Either he would be cured or he would be dead.

The arched opening gave on to another, similar vault, and so on. It was a veritable maze of replicated units. Scarne pressed forward, past looming crates and enigmatic chests, sometimes past uncrated machinery. He had intended to bluff his way through if challenged, but in fact there seemed to be no one about.

Occasionally there were closed doors, and deeper into the maze notices and directional arrows began to appear. Scarne pulled himself up short before one door which bore no legend, but instead an outline of an aquatic-looking, manta-like shape. The door was locked, but his electronic skeleton key soon dealt with that; he eased himself inside, followed by Cadence.

The chamber was smaller than the cellar of Dom’s manse on Luna, but its contents were the same. Pendragon reposed in his murky tank, surrounded by his life-support equipment. At the sound of their entrance he stirred slightly, undulating a few feet to the stick-mike, which he grasped in a flapper-like limb.

‘Who is it?’

‘A friend,’ Scarne said, moving to stand squarely before the tank. ‘We’ve met before.’

‘I don’t have any friends here,’ Pendragon responded. ‘Still, you’ve already told me something about yourself. You crawl.’

Cadence stayed close behind Scarne, hanging on to his shoulder and staring wide-eyed at the alien. ‘Sorry if I was too familiar,’ Scarne said. ‘Tell me, Pendragon, what do you know about luck?’

‘Ah, luck!’ hissed Pendragon. ‘That is what I do not have.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Scarne said reasonably. ‘How do people use it where you come from?’

Pendragon flapped his extremities, a gesture conveying impatience. ‘You’re beginning to sound like Marguerite Dom. He pesters me sick on the subject.’ He paused, adding thoughtfully: ‘There, now, is a being who has luck. Plenty of it.’

‘He says he knows how to propitiate Lady.’

‘Lady?’

‘The goddess of luck.’

Pendragon paused again. ‘I don’t believe in any gods or goddesses. You’d better get out of here. Something tells me you’re trespassers.’

The creature released the stick-mike and retreated to the back of the tank. Cadence, who had heard of the alien but never seen him before, nudged Scarne urgently. ‘Go on, ask it!’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘It will know!’

Scarne decided he was wasting his time. He turned his back on the tank, took Cadence by the hand and led her away.

In the distance, the hum of a machine started up. They came to a series of signposts, all of them cryptic: MARK II STORE; EARMARKED CYTUS COMPONENTS; IDENTIFICATION DATA. Scarne lingered at the last, and might have followed it if he had not noticed the last of the signs, which bore a script written in randomatic symbols only. It pointed in the direction from which the machine hum emanated.

He turned to Cadence. ‘Look, you can go back if you like, and put yourself in the clear. I can take it from now on.’

‘No,’ she said, pale-faced. ‘We’ll stick together.’

‘Okay.’ Forcing himself not to break into a run, Scarne led the way.

The hum grew louder, and then seemed to subside somewhat. Without warning Scarne found, he believed, what he was looking for. They were suddenly on the threshold of a vault slightly different from those they had been passing through. In the centre of the vault several men were deep in conversation around a table, a computation unit in front of each. He recognized one of them as the tall negro who was a member of the mathematical cadre; the faces of the others were indistinct. The table was littered with papers.

The whole of the long wall behind them comprised a bank of machinery: a huge instrument panel, and a battery of smaller pieces of apparatus. It was one of these that was giving off the hum.

As soon as he spotted the scene Scarne drew Cadence into the cover of a pillar. He was not sure if one of the attendants standing at the instrument panel had seen him.

He peeped out. The negro rose and walked to the bank of instruments, saying something to the attendant. The latter began adjusting settings.

There was little doubt in Scarne’s mind that this was where the work on the luck equations was being done. Now was the time to withdraw, he told himself. He obviously couldn’t gain any definite data himself, for the moment. But he could tell the Legitimacy where to stage their raid, or whatever. The question was, could he calm Cadence’s doubts about him?

He was about to creep away when a bland computer voice spoke out of the air, seemingly right into his ear.

‘You are in a restricted area. Do you have proper authorization?’

‘Yes,’ Scarne muttered.

‘State it.’

Scarne fumbled in his mind for something to say. ‘You answer the description of no authorized person,’ the computer voice resumed. ‘Please do not move.’

Someone stepped into Scarne’s line of view. It was the black mathematician. The two of them stared at one another for some moments.

Scarne turned to Cadence. ‘Stay here. I’m going to talk to that man.’

He went forward. But before he had taken as much as a step unconsciousness came down on him like a curtain.

Mocking laughter. ‘Here he comes again. What a clown.’

Scarne returned to awareness for the third time. Dom’s method of interrogation was swift, relatively painless (though anything but pleasant), but the mind did tend to close down every few minutes or so.

He was strapped to a low table. The helmet-like cap on his skull, attached by wires to a nearby apparatus, reminded him of the skull-cap of an identity machine. Whenever Dom asked a question it delivered a brain charge, making it impossible for Scarne either to lie or to withhold. The sensation was as if his brain was being sucked out through a straw.

As well as Dom and two white-gowned assistants, Cadence was in the room. But as far as he knew she had not been on the interrogation-table. She stood pressed against the wall, ashen-faced.

‘See how easily gulled you are, my dear?’ Dom told her. He turned back to Scarne. ‘I confess to disappointment,’ he said petulantly. ‘I was coming to look on you as a valuable partner. Now it transpires you are a spy and a cheat! How could you do this to me, Cheyne?’

Scarne had already confessed that he was a Legitimacy recruit, set on the trail of the Wheel’s reported ability to control luck. The first part of his confession was nothing new; his conversation in the ledge restaurant earlier in the day had been recorded, as was nearly everything that went on in public in Chasm.

He heaved in his bonds and groaned, partly because of the helplessness of his position, partly because of his humiliation in front of Cadence. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he said in a weak voice. ‘They planted an addiction on me. I’m their creature.’

Dom leaned closer. ‘You said something this afternoon. Your aerosols…’

Scarne nodded, then let his sweat-dampened head fall back on the table. ‘My supply. The drug I have to take. Disguised as deodorant.’

Dom tutted. ‘Nasty. I had those aerosols opened. But whatever was in them instantly denatured.’

‘Yes,’ said Scarne, closing his eyes. Will they let me kill myself? he wondered. They must let me kill myself. Because otherwise –

‘It’s a special trick,’ he said. ‘The aerosols are a special environment that keeps the compound stable. Expel the drug or break them open, and it straight away decomposes – unless it can get into the one other environment where it can survive: my bloodstream, no one else’s.’

They weren’t using the brain charge on him now, evidently thinking it unnecessary. ‘They’ve got me every way,’ he finished. ‘The compound is specific, synthesized exclusively for myself.’

Dom drew back, his hands raised in astonishment, his expression solicitous. ‘Is that all that bothers you, Cheyne? But why didn’t you tell me?’

‘How could I tell you? I was stuck in the middle!’

‘But I could have had you cured!’

Scarne was surprised at Dom’s ignorance. ‘This poison is foolproof,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘It can’t be analysed.’

‘Faugh. That’s what they tell you – typical of them. I have some excellent biochemists here. They’ve dealt with this kind of thing before. I assure you they’ll rustle up an antidote in less than twenty-four hours.’

A surge of unbelievable hope rose in Scarne. He blinked, and almost didn’t notice the sternness with which Dom then spoke, turning to Cadence.

‘All right, you can get her out of here now.’

She was hustled from the room, a picture of demoralization. ‘Don’t take it out on her,’ Scarne said weakly. ‘I led her into it – she wasn’t willing.’

He stopped speaking as Dom turned back to face him, looming over his supine form. Dom’s eyes were hard.

‘What will happen to me now?’ Scarne asked.

‘Happen?’ Dom’s eyes widened. ‘Why, you have been bad, Cheyne. You will have to be punished.’ He raised a hand. A second door opened and before Scarne could say anything further he was borne helplessly away down a long rock corridor.

Scarne was an object, a rag doll, a mass of raw feeling forced to spend long hours in delirium and fear. The physicians who examined him beneath the glare of powerful lights never deigned to speak to him. They drew blood samples in heated phials. At intervals they came to him to subject him to medications which made him feverish, sick and deathly cold by turns.

He knew that they were experimenting on him to find the right compound, and despite his position this knowledge gave him hope. Gradually, a feeling of calm began to pervade his body. Days later, though still feeling weak and ill, he walked again into the presence of Marguerite Dom.

In a small but exquisitely appointed room, filled with valuable objets d’art, the Wheel master lounged smoking in an armchair. It might have been some tiny living-room where an impecunious cognoscente of minor treasures had arranged his lifetime’s collection – though in fact it had probably been set up in a few hours.

Scarne entered, receiving from Dom a glance at once feral and tender.

‘Sit down, Cheyne. How are you feeling, hmmm?’

Moving into the glowing lamplight, Scarne hesitated before taking the only other chair available, intimidated by the other’s powerful presence in this cunning miniature of a room. The two of them fitted into the meticulously ordered space with an unnatural intimacy.

‘The prognosis is favourable, I’m glad to say,’ Dom congratulated, speaking softly. ‘How does it feel to be cured?’

‘I ought to be half-insane by now, without my shot,’ Scarne said. ‘It seems unbelievable, but your boys have apparently pulled it off.’

Dom nodded, murmuring. ‘And do you feel you can rely on me now?’

Bowing his head, Scarne muttered a reply. ‘So it seems.’

‘You should always tell me your problems, whatever they may be,’ Dom went on. ‘Now you are free of your slavery, free of the Legitimacy, and we can take stock of your position anew. The question is, can I rely on you? I am not a vengeful man, but just the same you have committed a serious transgression.’

Scarne did not answer. Dom drew on his cigarillo. ‘I’m aware you were never an enthusiastic Legitimacy agent – indeed you failed to apprise your contact of the true nature of our project, though for your information, that knowledge would never have gone beyond Chasm. Nevertheless, I appreciate your reticence in that regard.’

‘I have no allegiances,’ Scarne said. ‘Not to the Legitimacy, to the Wheel, to anything.’

Dom chuckled. ‘But to Earth?’ he responded. ‘To civilization – to mankind?’

Scarne stared at him.

‘All I need concern myself with,’ Dom continued, ‘is that you will play until your guts hang out – and play to win. That I am fairly confident you will do.’

‘So you’re pardoning me?’

Dom said nothing, puffing at his cigarette-holder, looking enigmatic and self-contained.

‘And what about Cadence Mellors?’ Scarne asked.

‘Silly young woman. This project gave her the only chance she’ll ever get of getting into something big. Now she’s finished. I’m taking your little girl-friend away, Cheyne, as a small punishment for your treachery towards me.’

‘What have you done to her?’

‘Packed her off to a work-camp club on one of the minor worlds. It’s a pretty rough place, I’m afraid. She’ll spend the rest of her days there as a club tart. Until she’s too old. I dare say they’ll end up using her as a cleaner.’

Dom sneered slightly, suddenly derisive and supercilious. Scarne clenched his fists. His feelings were confused. He felt a sudden surge of rage at Dom for his treatment of Cadence. At the same time he was filled with relief – and amazement – that Dom was letting him off so lightly.

Then it struck him. Dom’s total lack of normal feeling. He felt no vindictiveness towards Scarne, no resentment at the role he had played. Everything was a game to Dom, viewed with a slightly amused detachment. There were no loyalties, no recriminations.

‘None of it was the girl’s fault,’ he said painfully. ‘I led her into it – you should be more lenient with her.’

Dom snorted. ‘This sort of thing is your whole weakness, Cheyne. Think straight for once. Here you are worrying about a club girl when the fate of the worlds is at stake – when you stand on the brink of something almost too big to imagine. And not only that, but at the moment when you finally found what you were looking for.’ His eyes glistened. ‘Yes, Cheyne. A mathematical treatment of luck! We have it! Together with a practical technique to put it to use!’

‘Then the mugger jackpot—’

‘One of our practice shots.’

Scarne sighed, pondering.

‘I can make someone so lucky he hits a mugger jackpot first time,’ Dom went on. ‘Or conversely, so unlucky his arm drops off.’

‘You make it sound like magic.’

‘Manipulated luck is magic, more or less.’

‘Do you propose using it when we meet the Galactic Wheel? Is that what makes you so confident?’

Dom paused. ‘Not at first,’ he said. ‘The technique is still under development. Later we’ll probably use it. The important thing is that the galactics, as far as we know, don’t have this technique. We may have something completely original.’

‘Should they discover what you’re doing, they might well accuse you of cheating.’

Dom laughed. ‘Of course it’s not cheating! I never heard of a player yet who claimed it was cheating to be lucky. There are all kinds of charms, tokens and prayers aimed at attracting luck, and no one objects to them. This is the same thing, but applied through scientific method.’

Perplexed, Scarne frowned.

‘Of course, you disapprove of what we’re doing, don’t you?’ Dom said gently.

‘I think you’re taking an insane risk.’

‘Good! I like your attitude – it means you’ll do your utmost to win!’ Dom leaned across, peering closely at Scarne. ‘Yes, I have your measure. You’ll play, and play as never before.’

Scarne looked down at his clenched fists. He felt trapped in this tiny, golden room. Dom was right – he had him where he wanted him, giving his talents to the Wheel in spite of himself. He would play to win, because only in that way could he rescue humanity from the Wheel leader’s mad gamble.