World of Chance Read online

  The burnished wisp of grey slid silently in front of Ted Benteley. Its doors rolled back and a slim shape stepped out into darkness.

  "Who is it?" Benteley demanded. Wind lashed through the moist foliage on the Davis house. Far-off sounds of activity echoed hollowly, and the Chemie Hill factories boomed dully.

  "Where in God's name have you been?" a girl's clipped, anxious contralto asked. "Verrick sent for you an hour ago."

  "I was here," Benteley answered.

  Eleanor Stevens emerged quickly from the shadows. "You should have kept in touch when the ship landed. He's furious." She glanced nervously around. "Where's Davis? Inside?"

  "Of course. What's all this about?"

  "Don't get excited." The girl's voice was as taut as the frozen stars shining overhead. "Go back and get Davis and his wife. I'll wait in the car."

  Al Davis gaped in amazement as he pushed open the front door and entered the room. "He wants us," Benteley said. "Tell Laura; he wants her, too."

  Laura was sitting on the edge of the bed, unstrapping her sandals. She quickly smoothed her slacks down over her ankles as Al entered the bedroom. "Come on, honey," Al bade his wife.

  "Is something wrong?" Laura leaped quickly up.

  The three of them moved out into the chill night. Eleanor started up the car and rolled the doors shut; the car glided out on to the road and instantly gained speed. Dark houses and trees flashed past. Abruptly, with a sickening whoosh, the car rose above the pavement. It skimmed briefly, then arced high over a row of tension cables. A few minutes later it was gaining altitude over the sprawling mass of buildings and streets that made up the parasitic clusters round the Chemie Hill.

  "What's this all about?" Benteley demanded. The car shuddered as magnetic grapple-beams caught it and lowered it towards the winking buildings below. "We have a right to know something."

  "We're going to have a party," Eleanor said, with a smile that barely moved her lips. She allowed the car to come to rest against a magnetic disc; then she cut the power and threw open the doors. "Get out. We're here."

  Their heels clattered in the deserted corridor as Eleanor led them from one level to the next. A few silent uniformed guards stood at regular intervals, their faces sleepy and impassive.

  Eleanor waved open a double-sealed door and nodded them briskly inside. Fragrant air greeted them as they pushed uncertainly past her.

  Reese Verrick stood with his back to them. He was fumbling angrily with something, his massive arms moving in rage.

  "How the hell do you work this thing?" he bellowed. There came a protesting shriek of torn metal. "Damn, I think I've broken it."

  He turned, a huge hunched bear, with shaggy brows protruding belligerently. His blazing eyes bored into the three newcomers as they stood uneasily together. Eleanor Stevens unzipped her greatcoat and tossed it over the back of a luxurious couch.

  "Here they are," she said to Verrick. "They were all together, enjoying themselves." She stalked over, long legged in her velvet slacks and leather sandals, and stood before the fire. In the flickering light her flesh glowed a deep luminous red.

  Verrick turned without ceremony to Benteley. "Always be where I can find you." He spat his words out con­temptuously. "I don't have any more teeps around to thought-wave people in. I have to find them the hard way." He jerked his thumb at Eleanor. "She came along, but minus ability."

  Eleanor smiled bleakly and said nothing.

  Verrick spun round and shouted at Herb Moore, who had emerged from a deep chair in the corner. "Is that damn thing fixed yet?"

  "Almost."

  Verrick grunted. "This is a sort of celebration," he said to Benteley, "although I don't know what about."

  Herb Moore strolled over, confident and full of talk, a sleek little model of an interplan star rocket in his hands.

  "We've got plenty to celebrate. This is the first time a Quizmaster chose an assassin. Pellig isn't somebody chosen by a bunch of senile fogies; Verrick has had him on tap and——"

  "You talk too much," Verrick cut in. "You're too full of easy words."

  Benteley moved uncomfortably away. Verrick was slightly drunk, but behind his clumsy movements was a mind that missed nothing.

  The chamber was high-ceilinged and like a church, domed and ribbed, its roof dissolving in amber gloom.

  Laura was examining tapestries that hung dead and heavy over the windows. On a mantel over the huge fire­place were battered Saxon cups. Benteley gingerly took one down. It was a ponderous lump in his hands.

  "You'll meet Pellig in a few minutes," Verrick an­nounced. "Eleanor and Moore have already met him."

  Moore laughed, an offensive sharp bark, like that of a thin-toothed dog.

  "I've met him, all right," he said.

  "He's cute," Eleanor said tonelessly.

  Verrick continued: "Talk to him, stay with him. I want everybody to see him. I plan to send out only one assassin."

  He strode to the closed double-doors at the end of the room and waved them open. Sound and rolling volumes of light billowed out.

  "Get in there," Verrick ordered. "I'll find Pellig."

  "A drink, sir or madam?"

  Eleanor Stevens accepted a glass from the tray passed by a MacMillan robot. "What about you?" she said to Benteley. She brought the robot back and took a second glass. "Try it. Some kind of berry that grows on the sun­ward side of Callisto, in the cracks of a certain kind of shale. Verrick has a special work-camp to collect it."

  Benteley took the glass. "Thanks."

  "And cheer up."

  "What's this all about?" Benteley indicated the packed cavern of murmuring people. They were all well dressed; every top-level class was represented. "I expect to see them start dancing."

  "There was dinner and dancing earlier." Eleanor began to move off, her eyes intent on something. "Here they come."

  A sudden rustle swept over the nearby people. They were all watching nervously, avidly, as Reese Verrick approached. With him was a slender man with arms loose at his sides, his face blank and expressionless. A ripple of sound swirled after him, the exclamations of tribute.

  "That's him," Eleanor grated between her white teeth, eyes flashing. She grabbed fiercely at Benteley's arm. "That's Pellig. Look at him."

  Pellig said nothing. His hair was straw-yellow, moist and limp. His features were uncertain, almost nondescript. A colourless, silent person almost lost from sight as the rolling giant beside him propelled him among the watching couples. After a moment the two of them were swallowed up by satin slacks and floor-length gowns, and the buzz of conversation was resumed.

  Eleanor shivered.

  "He gives me the creeps." She smiled up quickly at Benteley, still holding tight to his arm. "What do you think of him?"

  "I didn't get any impression." In the distance Verrick was surrounded by a group of people, and Herb Moore's voice rose above the blur of sound: he was expounding again. Annoyed, Benteley moved a few steps away.

  "Where are you going?" Eleanor asked.

  "Home." The word slipped out involuntarily.

  "Where do you mean?" Eleanor smiled wryly. "I can't analyse you any more. I gave all that up." She lifted her crimson hair to show the two dead circles above her ears, lead-grey spots that marred the smooth whiteness of her skin.

  "I can't understand you," Benteley said, "discarding an ability you were born with."

  "You sound like Wakeman. If I had stayed with the Corps I would have had to use my ability against Reese. So what else could I do but leave?" There was agony in her eyes. "You know, it's really gone. It's like being blinded. I screamed and cried a long time afterwards. I broke down completely."

  "How are you now?"

  She gestured shakily. "I'll live. Anyhow, I can't get it back. So forget it. Drink your drink and relax." She clinked glasses with him. "It's called methane gale. I suppose Callisto has a methane atmosphere."

  "Have you ever been to one of the colony planets?" Benteley asked. He sipp
ed at the amber liquid; it was strong stuff. "Have you ever seen one of the work-camps, or one of the squatters' colonies after a police patrol has finished with it?"

  "I've never been off Earth. I was born in San Francisco nineteen years ago. All telepaths come from there, re­member. During the Final War the big research installa­tions at Livermore were hit by a soviet missile. Those who survived were badly injured. We're all descendants of one family, Earl and Verna Phillips. The whole Corps is related. I was trained all the time I was growing up."

  Music had started up at one end of the chamber. A music robot of random combinations of sound, har­monic colours and shades that flitted agilely. Some couples started dancing listlessly. A group of men had gathered together and were arguing.

  Near the double doors a few people were seeking their wraps and wandering away, dull-faced, vacant-eyed, mouths slack with fatigue and boredom.

  Verrick's deep tones boomed out over everybody else's; he was dominating an argument. People nearby stopped talking and began filtering over to listen. A tight knot of men formed, grim-faced and serious, as Verrick and Moore waxed louder and hotter.

  "Our problems are of our own making," Verrick asserted. "They're not real, like problems of supply and labour surplus. This M-game was invented by a couple of mathe­maticians during the early phase of the Final War."

  "You mean discovered," Moore said. "They saw that social situations are analogues of strategy games, like poker. A system that works in a poker game will work in a social situation, like business or war."

  "What's the difference between a game of chance and a strategy game?" Laura Davis asked, from where she and Al stood.

  Annoyed, Moore snapped: "Everything! In a game of chance no deception is involved; in a poker game every player has a deliberate strategy of bluff, false leads, mis­leading signs."

  Moore turned back to Verrick. "You want to deny that society operates like a strategy game? Minimax was a brilliant hypothesis. It gave us a rational, scientific method of cracking any strategy and transforming the strategy game into a chance game, where the regular statistical methods of the exact sciences function."

  "All the same," Verrick rumbled, "this chance business deposes a man for no reason and elevates an ass, a crack­pot, picked at random, without regard to ability or class."

  "Our whole system is built on Minimax. Everybody is compelled to play a Minimax game or be squashed; we're forced to give up deception and adopt a rational pro­cedure."

  "There's nothing rational in chance," Verrick answered angrily.

  "The chance factor is a function of an overall rational pattern. In the face of random changes, no administrator can be a schemer. Everybody is forced to adopt a ran­domized reasoning: analysis of the possibilities of certain events tempered by the assumption that any machinations will be found out in advance."

  "So we're a bunch of superstitious fools?" Verrick complained. "Everybody trying to read signs and har­bingers. Two-headed calves and flocks of white crows! Dependent on chance, we're losing control because we can't plan."

  "How can you plan with telepaths around? They find out every move."

  Verrick pointed to his great barrel chest. "There are no charms hanging round by neck. I play a game of skill, not chance. What about Pellig—that's strategy, isn't it?"

  "Strategy involves deception and with Pellig nobody is going to be deceived."

  "Absurd!" Verrick growled. "You've been knocking yourself out keeping the Corps from knowing about Pellig."

  "That was your idea." Moore flushed angrily. "I said then, and I say now: let them all know because there's nothing they can do. If I had my way I'd announce it over television tomorrow."

  "You fool," Verrick rasped, "you certainly would!"

  "Pellig is unbeatable." Moore was furious at being humiliated in front of everybody. "We've combined the essence of Minimax. Taking the bottle twitch as my start­ing point I've evolved a———"

  "Shut up, Moore," Verrick muttered, moving a few steps away; people hurriedly stepped aside for him. "This chance stuff has got to go. You can't plan anything with it hanging over your head."

  "That's why we have it!" Moore shouted after him.

  "Then get rid of it."

  "Minimax isn't something you turn on and off. It's like gravity; it's a law, a pragmatic law."

  Benteley had moved over to listen. "You believe in natural law?" he asked.

  "Who's this fellow?" Moore snarled, glaring furiously at Benteley. "What's his idea in butting in?"

  Verrick swelled another foot taller. "This is Ted Benteley. Class eight-eight, same as you. We recently took him on."

  Moore blanched. "Eight-eight! We don't need any more eight-eights!" His face became an ugly yellow. "Benteley? You're one of the Oiseau-Lyre throw-outs."

  "That's right," Benteley said evenly. "And I came straight here."

  "Why?"

  "I'm interested in what you're doing."

  "What I'm doing is none of your business!"

  Verrick said hoarsely to Moore: "Shut up or get out. Benteley's working with you from now on, whether you like it or not."

  "Nobody gets into the project but me!" Hatred, fear, and professional jealousy blazed on Moore's face. "If he can't hang on at a third-rate Hill like Oiseau-Lyre he isn't good enough to———"

  "We'll see," Benteley said coolly. "I'm itching to get my hands on your notes and papers. I'll enjoy going over your work,"

  "I want a drink," Verrick muttered.

  Moore shot Benteley a last glance of resentment and then hurried after Verrick. Their voices trailed off as a door was slammed. The crowd of people shifted and began to murmur wearily and break apart.

  With a shade of bitterness Eleanor said: "Well, there goes our host. Quite a party, wasn't it?"

  Benteley's head had begun to ache. His eyes hurt from the glare of the overhead lights. A man pushing by had jabbed him hard in the ribs. Leaning against the wall, a young woman was removing her sandals and rubbing her red-nailed toes.

  "What do you want?" Eleanor asked him.

  "I want to leave."

  She led him expertly through the drifting groups of people towards one of the exits—sipping her drink as she walked.

  Herb Moore blocked their way. His face was a dark, unhealthy red. With him was the pale, silent Keith Pellig.

  "Here you are," Moore muttered thickly, teetering unsteadily, his glass sloshing over. He slapped Pellig on the back. "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 colour about him. His eyes, his hair, his skin, even his nails, were bleached and translucent.

  Benteley put out his hand; Pellig shook it. His hand was cool and faintly moist.

  Benteley gazed at Pellig with dulled fascination. There was something repellent about the listless, slender shape. A sexless, juiceless, hermaphroditic quality.

  "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.

  Benteley thrust the glass at Pellig. "Eat, drink and be merry. Tomorrow somebody, certainly not you, will die. Pellig, how does it feel to be a professional killer? You don't look like one. You don't look like anything at all, not even a man."

  Eleanor tugged furiously at his arm. "Ted, Verrick's coming?"

  "Let go!" Benteley broke loose and gazed at the vacant face of Keith Pellig. "Pellig, how will it feel to murder a man you've never seen, a man who never did anything to you? A harmless crank, accidentally in the way of a lot of big people..."

  Moore interrupted in a mumble of resentment. "You mean to imply there's something wrong with Pellig?"

  Verrick appeared from the side room, pushing people out of his way. "Moore, take Pellig out of here." He waved the group of people brusquely towards the d
ouble doors. "The party's over. Get going! You'll be con­tacted when you're needed."

  Verrick started for the wide staircase, his shaggy head turned to one side. "I'm going to bed."

  Balancing himself carefully, Benteley said clearly after him: "Look here, Verrick, why don't you murder Cartwright yourself? Eliminate the middle-man. More scientific."

  Verrick snorted with unexpected laughter and kept on his way. "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 face.

  Benteley 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?"

  She led him into a side room, closed the door, shakily lit a cigarette and stood puffing furiously. "Benteley, you're a lunatic."

  "I'm drunk. This Callistoan beetle-juice..."

  She pushed him down in a chair and paced in a jerky little circle in front of him, taut as a marionette on a wire.

  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.

  Eleanor found a decanter of cold water on a low table in the shadows. She emptied a shallow dish of sweets and filled it with water. Very rapidly she doused her face, hands and arms, then yanked down an embroidered cloth from the window 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 followed. Her slim shape glided like a phantom between the gloomy objects that made up Verrick's possessions, up dark stairs and round corners where immobile robot servants waited silently for instruc­tions.

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