“You talk too much,” Verrick cut in. “You’re too damn full of easy words. Half of them don’t mean a thing.”
Moore laughed gaily. “That’s what the Corps found out.”
Benteley moved uncomfortably away. Verrick was slightly drunk; he was as menacing and ominous as a bear let out of its cage. But behind his clumsy movements was a slick-edged mind that missed nothing.
The chamber was high-ceilinged, done in ancient wood panels, probably from some ancient monastery. The whole structure was much like a church, domed and ribbed, its upper limits dissolving in amber gloom, thick beams charred and hard-smoked from countless fires roaring in the stone fireplace below. Everything was massive and heavy. There were rich deep colors; the stones themselves were rubbed black with ingrained ash, the upright supports as thick as tree-logs. Benteley touched a dully-gleaming panel. The wood was corroded, but strangely smooth, as if a layer of cloudy light had settled over it and worked its way into the material.
“This wood,” Verrick said, noticing Benteley, “is from a medieval bawdy house.”
Laura was examining stone-weighted tapestries that hung dead and heavy over the lead-sealed windows. On a mantel over the huge fireplace were battered, dented cups. Benteley gingerly took one down. It was a ponderous lump in his hands, an ancient thick-rimmed cup, heavy and simple and oblique, medieval Saxon.
“You’ll meet Pellig in a few minutes,” Verrick said to them. “Eleanor and Moore have already met him.”
Moore laughed again, his offensive sharp bark, like a thin-toothed dog. “I’ve met him, all right,” he said.
“He’s cute,” Eleanor said tonelessly.
“Pellig is circulating around,” Verrick continued. “Talk to him, stay with him. I want everybody to see him. I only plan to send out one assassin.” He waved his hand impatiently. “There’s no point in sending out an endless stream.”
Eleanor glanced at him sharply.
“Let’s lay it on the line and get it over with.” Verrick strode to the closed double-doors at the end of the room and waved them open. Sound, rolling volumes of light and the flickering movement of many people billowed out. “Get in there,” Verrick ordered. “I’ll locate Pellig.”
“A drink, sir or madam?”
Eleanor Stevens accepted a glass from the tray passed by a blank-faced MacMillan robot. “What about you?” she said to Benteley. She nodded the robot back and took a second glass. “Try it. It’s smooth stuff. It’s some kind of berry that grows on the sunward side of Callisto, in the cracks of a certain kind of shale, one month out of the year. 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, laughing people. They were all well dressed, in a variety of color combinations; every top-level class was represented. “I expect to hear music and see them start dancing.”
“There was dinner and dancing earlier. Good grief, it’s almost two a.m. A lot has happened, today. The twitch, the Challenge Convention, all the excitement.” Eleanor moved off, eyes intent on something. “Here they come.”
A sudden rustle of nervous silence swept over the nearby people. Benteley turned and so did everyone else. They were all watching nervously, avidly, as Reese Verrick approached. With him was another man. The latter was a slender man in an ordinary gray-green suit, his arms loose at his sides, his face blank and expressionless. A taut ripple of sound swirled after him; there were hushed exclamations and a burst of appreciative 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 limply combed. His features were uncertain, almost non-descript. He was a colorless, silent person almost lost from sight as the rolling giant beside him propelled him among the alertly-watching couples. After a moment the two of them were swallowed up by satin slacks and floor length gowns, and the buzz of animated conversation around Benteley resumed.
“They’ll be over here later,” Eleanor said. She shivered. “He gives me the creeps. Well?” She smiled up quickly at Benteley, still holding on tight to his arm. “What do you think of him?”
“I didn’t get any impression.” Off in the distance Verrick was surrounded by a group of people. Herb Moore’s enthusiastic voice lifted above the uniform blur of sound: he was expounding again. Annoyed, Benteley pulled 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 teep you any more, darling. I gave all that up.” She lifted her flaming crimson hair to show the two dead circles above her ears, lead-gray spots that marred the smooth whiteness of her skin.
“I can’t understand you,” Benteley said. “An ability you were born with, a unique gift.”
“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 tight agony in her eyes. “You know, it’s really gone. It’s like being blinded. I screamed and cried a long time afterward. I couldn’t face it. I broke down completely.”
“How are you now?”
She gestured shakily. “I’ll live. Anyhow, I can’t get it back. So forget it, darling. 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 sipped 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?”
“No,” Eleanor said simply. “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 bathed. We’re all descendants of one family, Earl and Verna Phillips. The whole Corps is related. I was trained for it all the time I was growing up: my destiny.”
A vague blur of music had started up at one end of the chamber. A music robot, creating random combinations of sound, harmonic colors and shades that flitted agilely, too subtle to pin down. Some couples started dancing listlessly. A group of men had gathered together and were arguing in loud, angry tones. Snatches of words carried to Benteley.
“Out of the lab in June, they say.”
“Would you make a cat wear trousers? It’s inhuman.”
“Plow into something at that velocity? Personally, I’ll stick to plain old sub-C.”
Near the double doors a few people were seeking out their wraps and wandering away, dull-faced, vacant-eyed, mouths slack with fatigue and boredom.
“It gets like this,” Eleanor said. “The women wander off to the powder room. The men start arguing some point.”
“What does Verrick do?”
“You’re hearing it now.”
Verrick’s deep tones rolled out over everybody else’s; he was dominating the argument. People nearby gradually stopped talking and began filtering over to listen. A tight knot of men formed, grim-faced and serious, as Verrick and Moore waved louder and hotter.
“Our problems are of our own making,” Verrick asserted. “They’re not real, like problems of supply and labor surplus.”
“How do you figure?” Moore demanded.
“This whole system is artificial. This M-game was invented by a couple of mathematicians during the early phase of the Second World War.”
“You mean discovered. 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 strat
egy game?” Laura Davis asked, from where she and Al stood.
Annoyed, Moore answered, “Everything. In a game of chance no conscious deception is involved; in a poker game every player has a deliberate strategy of bluff, false leads, putting out misleading verbal reports and visual horse-play to confuse the other players as to his real position and intentions. He has a pattern of misrepresentation by which he traps them into acting foolishly.”
“You mean like saying he has a good hand when he hasn’t?”
Moore ignored her and turned back to Verrick. “You want to deny society operates like a strategy game? Minimax was a brilliant hypothesis. It gave us a rational scientific method to crack any strategy and transform the strategy game into a chance game, where the regular statistical methods of the exact sciences function.”
“All the same,” Verrick rumbled, “this damn bottle throws a man out for no reason and elevates an ass, a crackpot, picked at random, without regard to his ability or class.”
“Sure,” Moore exclaimed, wildly excited. “Our whole system is built on Minimax. The bottle forces everybody 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 this random twitching,” Verrick answered angrily. “How can random machinery be rational?”
“The random factor is a function of an overall rational pattern. In the face of random twitches, no one can have a strategy. It forces everybody to adopt a randomized method: best analysis of the statistical possibilities of certain events plus the pessimistic assumption that any plans will be found out in advance. Assuming you’re found out in advance frees you of the danger of being discovered. If you act randomly your opponent can find out nothing about you because even you don’t know what you’re going to do.”
“So we’re all a bunch of superstitious fools,” Verrick complained. “Everybody’s trying to read signs and harbingers. Everybody’s trying to explain two-headed calves and flocks of white crows. We’re all dependent on random chance; we’re losing control because we can’t plan.”
“How can you plan with teeps around? Teeps perfectly fulfill the pessimistic expectations of Minimax: they find out every strategy. They discover you as soon as you begin playing.”
Verrick pointed to his great barrel chest. “There are no sissy-kissing charms hanging around my neck. No rose petals and ox dung and boiled owl spit. I play a game of skill, not chance and maybe not strategy, when you pin me down. I never did go by a lot of theoretical abstractions. I go by rule of thumb.” He displayed his thumb. “I do what each situation demands. That’s skill. I’ve got it.”
“Skill is a function of chance. It’s an intuitive best-use of chance situations. You’re so goddamn old you’ve been in enough situations to know in advance the pragmatic—”
“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 tv tomorrow.”
“You goddamn 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, turning his back. “You talk too much.” He moved a few steps away; people hurriedly stepped aside from him. “This random 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 drop it. 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 demanded. “An 8–8 like you?”
“Who’s this fellow?” Moore snarled, glaring furiously at Benteley. “What’s the idea of butting into our conversation?”
Verrick swelled another foot taller. “This is Ted Benteley. Class 8–8, same as you. We just now took him on.”
Moore blanched. “8–8! We don’t need any more 8–8’s!” His face glowed an ugly yellow. “Benteley? You’re someone Oiseau-Lyre tossed out. A derelict.”
“That’s right,” Benteley said evenly. “And I came directly here.”
“Why?”
“I’m interested in what you’re doing.”
“What I’m doing is none of your business!”
“All right,” Verrick said hoarsely to Moore. “Shut up or get out of here. 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. It sounds like just what I want.”
“I want a drink,” Verrick muttered. “I’ve got too much to do, to stand here talking.”
Moore shot Benteley a last glance of resentment and then hurried off 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?”
SIX
Benteley’s head had begun to ache. The constant din of voices mixed with the flash of bright clothing and the movements of bodies. The floor was littered with squashed cigarette butts and debris; the whole chamber had a disheveled cast, as if it were slowly settling on its side. His eyes hurt from the glare of the overhead lights that wavered and altered shape and value each moment. A man pushing by jabbed him hard in the ribs. Leaning against the wall, a cigarette dangling between her lips, a young woman was removing her sandals and gratefully rubbing her red-nailed toes.
“What do you want?” Eleanor asked him.
“I want to leave.”
Eleanor led him expertly through the drifting groups of people toward one of the exits. Sipping her drink as she walked she said, “All this may seem pointless, but actually it serves a function. Verrick is able to—”
Herb Moore blocked their way. His face was flushed dark and unhealthy red. With him was the pale, silent Keith Pellig. “Here you are,” Moore muttered thickly, teetering unsteadily, his glass sloshing over. He focused on Benteley and harshly announced, “You wanted to get in on it.” He slammed Pellig on the back. “This is the greatest event in the world. 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 color to him. His eyes, his hair, his skin, even his nails, were bleached and translucent. He had a washed hygienic appearance. He was odorless, colorless, tasteless, an empty cipher.
Benteley put out his hand. “Hello, Pellig. Shake.”
Pellig shook. His hand was cool and faintly moist with no life or strength.
“What do you think of him?” Moore demanded aggressively. “Isn’t he something? Isn’t he the greatest discovery since the wheel?”
“Where’s Verrick?” Eleanor said. “Pellig isn’t supposed to be out of his sight.”
Moore flushed darker. “That’s a laugh! Who—”
“You’ve had too much to drink.” Eleanor peered sharply around. “Damn Reese; he’s probably still arguing with somebody.”
Benteley gazed at Pellig with dulled fascination. There was something repellent about the listless, slender shape, a sexless juicele
ss hermaphrodite quality. Pellig didn’t even have a glass in his hand. He had nothing.
“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; three crashed to the floor, spilling and splintering under the robot’s gliding treads. It instantly halted and began an intricate cleaning and sweeping operation.
“Here.” Benteley thrust the glass at Pellig. “Eat, drink, and be merry. Tomorrow somebody, certainly not you, will die.”
“Cut it,” Eleanor grated in his ear.
“Pellig,” Benteley said, “how does it feel to be a professional killer? You don’t look like a professional killer. You don’t look like anything at all. Not even a man. Certainly not a human being.”
The remaining people had begun to collect around. Eleanor tugged furiously at his arm. “Ted, for Christ’s sake! Verrick’s coming!”
“Let go.” Benteley yanked loose. “That’s my sleeve.” He brushed his sleeve with numb fingers. “That’s about all I have left; leave me that much.” He focused on the vacant face of Keith Pellig. There was a constant roaring in his brain; his nose and throat stung. “Pellig, how’s it feel to murder a man you never saw? A man who never did anything to you? A harmless crackpot, accidentally in the way of a lot of big people. A temporary bottle-neck—”
“What do you mean?” Moore interrupted in a dangerous mumble of confused resentment. “You mean to imply there’s something wrong with Pellig?” He snickered grotesquely. “My pal Pellig.”
Verrick appeared from the side room, pushing people out of his way. “Moore, take him out of here. I told you to go upstairs.” He waved the group of people brusquely toward the double doors. “The party’s over. Get going. You’ll be contacted when you’re needed.”
The people began separating and moving reluctantly toward the exits. Robots found coats and wraps for them. In small groups they lingered here and there, talking together, watching Verrick and Pellig curiously.