“What?” Joe Schilling said. “Wait!” But the transforming activity had begun; it was already too late.
The room trembled and became hazed over. And the simulacra seated opposite them had, Pete thought, begun to attain a disrupted, oblique quality. As if, he thought, their physical shapes no longer functioned adequately, as if, like archaic, malformed exoskeletons, they were now in the process of being discarded.
His simulacrum, seated directly across from him, all at once lurched hideously. Its head lolled and its eyes became glazed, empty of light, filmed over with a destructive membrane. The simulacrum shivered, and then, up its side, a long rent appeared.
The same process was occurring in the other simulacra.
The Pete Garden simulacrum quivered, vibrated, and then, from the head-to-foot rent, something tentative popped quaveringly.
Out of the rent squeezed the protoplasmic organism within. The vug, in authentic shape, no longer requiring the artificial hull, was emerging. Forcing its way out into the gray-yellow light of the weakened sun.
Out of each discarded human husk a vug emerged, and the husks teetered and one by one, as if blown by an impalpable wind, writhed and then danced away, weightless, already without color. Bits and flakes of the discarded husks blew in the air; particles drifted across the Game-board, and Pete Garden, horrified, hurriedly brushed them away.
The Titanian Game-players had appeared in their actual shapes, at last. The business of The Game had begun in earnest. The fraud of the simulated Terran appearance had been abolished; it was no longer needed because The Game was no longer being played on Earth.
They were now on Titan.
In as calm a voice as possible, Pete Garden said, “All our plays will be made by David Mutreaux. Although we will, in turn, draw the cards and perform the other chores of The Game.”
The vugs, opposite them, seemed to thought-propagate a derisive, meaningless laughter. Why? Pete wondered. It was as if, once the simulacra shapes had been discarded, communication between the two races had at once suffered an impairment.
“Joe,” he said to Joe Schilling, “if it’s all right with Bill Calumine, I’d like you to move our pieces.”
“Okay,” Joe Schilling said, nodding.
Tendrils of gray smoke, cold and damp, sifted onto the Game table and the vug shapes opposite them dimmed into an irregular obscurity. Even physically, the Titanians had retreated, as if desiring as little contact with the Terrans as possible. And it was not out of animosity; it seemed to be a spontaneous withdrawal.
Maybe, Pete thought, we were doomed to this encounter from the very start. It was the absolutely-determined outcome of the initial meeting of our two cultures. He felt hollow and grim. More determined than ever to win The Game before them.
“Draw a card,” the vugs declared, and their propagations seemed to merge, as if there was in actuality only one vug against whom the group played. One massive, inert organism opposing them, ancient and slow in its actions, but infinitely determined.
And wise.
Pete Garden hated it. And feared it.
Mary Anne said aloud, “They are beginning to exert influence on the deck of cards!”
“All right,” Pete said. “Keep your attention as fully formed as you can.” He himself felt overwhelmingly tired. Have we lost already? he wondered. It felt like it. It felt as if they had been playing for an endless time now. And yet they had barely begun.
Reaching out, Bill Calumine drew a card.
“Don’t look at it,” Pete warned.
“I understand,” Bill Calumine said irritably. He slid the card, unexamined, to Dave Mutreaux.
Mutreaux, in the flickering half-light, sat with the card face down before him, his face wrinkled with concentration.
“Seven squares,” he said, then.
Joe Schilling, on signal from Calumine, moved their piece ahead, seven squares. The square on which it came to rest read: Rise in fuel costs. Pay bill to utility company of $50.
Raising his head, Joe Schilling faced the Titanian authority squatting opposite them on the far side of the board.
There was no call. The Titanians had decided to allow the move to pass; they did not believe it to consist of a bluff.
All at once Dave Mutreaux turned to Pete Garden and said, “We’ve lost. That is, we’re going to lose; I preview it absolutely, it’s there in every alternative future.”
Pete Garden stared at him.
“But your ability,” Joe Schilling pointed out. “Have you forgotten? It’s now highly impaired. A new experience for you; you’re disoriented. Isn’t that it?”
Mutreaux said haltingly, “But it does not feel impaired.”
The vug authority facing them said, “Do you wish to withdraw from The Game?”
“Not at this point,” Pete answered, and Bill Calumine, white and stricken, reflexively nodded in agreement.
What is this? Pete asked himself. What’s going on? Has Dave Mutreaux, despite the threat from Mary Anne, betrayed us?
Mutreax said, “I spoke aloud because they—” He indicated the vug opponent. “They can read my mind anyhow.”
That was true; Pete nodded, his mind laboring furiously. What can we salvage here? he asked himself. He tried to control his plunging panic, his intuition of defeat.
Joe Schilling, lighting a cigar, leaned back and said, “I think we’d better go on.” He did not appear worried. And yet of course he was. But Joe Schilling, Pete realized, was a great Game-player; he would not show his emotions or capitulate in any way. Joe would go on to the end, and the rest of them would, too. Because they had to. It was as simple as that.
“If we win,” Pete said to the vug opponent, “we obtain control of Titan. You have as much to lose. You have as much at stake as we do.”
The vug drew itself up, shivered, replied, “Play.”
“It’s your turn to draw a card,” Joe Schilling reminded it.
“True.” Admonished, the vug now drew a card. It paused, and then on the board its piece advanced one, two, three … nine squares in all.
The square read: Planetoid rich in archeological treasures, discovered by your scouts. Win $70,000.
Was it a bluff? Pete Garden turned toward Joe Schilling, and now Bill Calumine leaned over to confer. The others of the group, too, bent closer, murmuring.
Joe Schilling said, “I’d call it.”
Up and down the table the members of Pretty Blue Fox hesitantly voted. The vote ran in favor of calling the move as a bluff. But it was close.
“Bluff,” Joe Schilling stated, aloud.
The vug’s card at once flipped over. It was a nine.
“It’s fair,” Mary Anne said in a leaden voice. “I’m sorry, but it is; no Psi-force that I could detect was exerted on it.”
The vug said, “Prepare your payment, please.” And again it laughed, or seemed to laugh; Pete could not be certain which.
In any case it was a violent and quick defeat for Pretty Blue Fox. The vuggish side had won $70,000 from the bank for having landed on the square and an additional $70,000 from the group’s funds due to the inaccurate call of bluff. $140,000 in all. Dazed, Pete sat back, trying to keep himself composed, at least externally. For the sake of the others in the group he had to.
“Again,” the vug said, “I ask your party to concede.”
“No, no,” Joe Schilling said, as Jack Blau shakily counted out the group’s funds and passed them over.
“This is a calamity,” Bill Calumine stated quietly.
“Haven’t you survived such losses in The Game before?” Joe Schilling asked him, scowling.
“Have you?” Calumine retorted.
“Yes,” Schilling said.
“But not in the end,” Calumine said. “In the end, Schilling, you didn’t survive; in the end you were defeated. Exactly as you’re losing for us, now, here at this table.”
Schilling said nothing. But his face was pale.
“Let’s continue,” Pete said
.
Calumine said bitterly, “It was your idea to bring this jinx here; we never would have had this bad luck without him. As spinner—”
“But you’re not our spinner any longer,” Mrs. Angst spoke up in a low voice.
“Play,” Stuart Marks snapped.
Another card was drawn, passed unread to Dave Mutreaux; he sat with it face down before him and then, slowly, he moved their piece ahead eleven places. The square read: Pet cat uncovers valuable old stamp album in attic. You win $3,000.
The vug said, “Bluff.”
Dave Mutreaux, after a pause, turned over the card. It was an eleven; the vug had lost and therefore had to pay. It was not a huge sum but it proved something to Pete that made him tremble. The vug could be wrong, too.
The phenothiazine-crippling was working effectively.
The group had a chance.
Now the vug drew a card, examined it, and its piece moved ahead nine spaces. Error in old tax return. Assessed by Federal Government for $80,000.
The vug shuddered convulsively. And a faint, barely audible moan seemed to escape from it.
This, Pete knew at once, could be a bluff. If it was, and they did not call it, the vug—instead of losing that sum—collected it. All it had to do was turn over its card, show that it had not drawn a nine.
The vote of Pretty Blue Fox, member by member, was taken.
It was in favor of not calling the move as a bluff.
“We decline to call,” Joe Schilling stated.
Reluctantly, with agonized slowness, the vug paid from its pile of money $80,000 to the bank. It had not been a bluff, and Pete gasped with relief. The vug had now lost back over half of what it had won on its great previous move. It was in no sense whatsoever an infallible player.
And, like Pretty Blue Fox, the vug could not conceal its dismay at a major setback. It was not human, but it was alive and it had goals and desires and anxieties. It was mortal.
Pete felt sorry for it.
“You’re wasting your affect,” the vug said tartly to him, “if you pity me. I still hold the edge over you, Terran.”
“For now,” Pete agreed. “But you’re involved in a declining process. The process of losing.”
Pretty Blue Fox drew another card, which, as before, was passed to Dave Mutreaux. He sat, this time, for an interval that seemed forever.
“Call it!” Bill Calumine blurted, at last.
Mutreaux murmured, “Three.”
The Terran piece was moved by Joe Schilling. And Pete read: Mud slide endangers house foundations. Fee to construction firm: $14,000.
The vug did not stir. And then, suddenly, it stated, “I—do not call.”
Dave Mutreaux glanced at Pete. He reached out and turned over the card. It was not a three. It was a four.
The group had won—not lost—$14,000. The vug had failed to call the bluff.
“Astonishing,” the vug said, presently, “that such a handicapping of your ability would actually enable you to win. That you could profit by it.” It savagely drew a card, then shoved its piece ahead seven squares. Postman injured on your front walk. Protracted lawsuit settled out of court for the sum of $300,000.
Good god in heaven, Pete thought. It was a sum so staggering that The Game certainly hinged on it. He scrutinized the vug, as everyone else in Pretty Blue Fox was doing, trying to discover some indication. Was it bluffing or was it not?
If we had one single telepath, he thought bitterly. If only—
But they could never have had Patricia, and Hawthorne was dead. And, had they possessed a telepath, the vug authority would undoubtedly have summoned up some system of neutralizing it, just as they had neutralized its telepathic factor; that was obvious. Both sides had played The Game too long to be snared as simply as that; both were prepared.
If we lose, Pete said to himself, I will kill myself before I let myself fall into the hands of the Titanians. He reached into his pocket, wondering what he had there. Only a couple of methamphetamines, perhaps left over from his luck-binge. How long ago had it been? One day? Two? It seemed like months ago, now. Another world away.
Methamphetamine hydrochloride.
On his binge it had made him temporarily into an involuntary telepath; a meager one, but to a decisive degree. Methamphetamine was a thalamic stimulator; its effect was precisely the opposite from that of the phenothiazines.
He thought, Yes!
Without water he managed—gagging—to gulp down the two small pink methamphetamine tablets.
“Wait,” he said hoarsely to the group. “Listen; I want to make the decision on this play. Wait!” They would wait at least ten minutes, he knew, for the methamphetamine to take effect.
The vug said, “There is cheating on your side. One member of your group has ingested drug-stimulants.”
At once, Joe Schilling said, “You previously accepted the phenothiazine class; in principle you accepted the use of medication in this Game.”
“But I am not prepared to deal with a telepathic faculty emanating from your side,” the vug protested. “I scanned your group initially and saw none in evidence. And no plan to obtain such a faculty.”
Joe Schilling said, “That appears to have been an acute error on your part.” He turned to watch Pete; all the members of Pretty Blue Fox were watching Pete now. “Well?” Joe asked him, tensely.
Pete Garden sat waiting, fists clenched, for the drug to take effect.
Five minutes passed. No one spoke. The only sound was Joe Schilling drawing on his cigar.
“Pete,” Bill Calumine said abruptly, “we can’t wait any longer. We can’t stand the strain.”
“That’s true,” Joe Schilling said. His face was wet and florid, shiny with perspiration; now, his cigar had gone out, too. “Make your decision. Even if it’s the wrong one.”
Mary Anne said, “Pete! The vug is attempting to shift the value of its card!”
“Then it was a bluff,” Pete said, instantly. It had to be, or the vug would have left the value strictly alone. To the vug he said, “We call your bluff.” The vug did not stir. And then, at last, it turned over the card.
The card was a six.
It had been a bluff.
Pete said, “It gave itself away. And,” he was shaking wildly, “the amphetamines didn’t help me and the vug can tell that; it can read my mind, so I’m happy to say it aloud. It turned out to be a bluff on our part, on my part. I didn’t have enough of the amphetamines and there wasn’t any alcohol to speak of in my system. I was not successfully developing a telepathic faculty in my system; I wouldn’t have been able to call it. But I had no way of knowing that.”
The vug, palpitating and a dark slate color, now, bill by bill paid over the sum of $300,000 to Pretty Blue Fox.
The group was extremely close to winning The Game. They knew it and the vug opposing them knew it. It did not have to be said.
Joe Schilling murmured, “If it hadn’t lost its nerve—” With trembling fingers he managed to relight his cigar. “It would at least have had a fifty-fifty chance. First it got greedy and then it got scared.” He smiled at the members of the group on both sides of him. “A bad combination, in Bluff.” His voice was low, intense. “It was the combination in me, many years ago, that helped wipe me out. In my final play against Bindman Lucky Luckman.”
The vug said, “It seems to me that I have, for all intents and purposes, lost this Game against you Terrans.”
“You don’t intend to continue?” Joe Schilling demanded, removing his cigar from his lips and scrutinizing the vug; he had himself completely under control. His face was hard.
To him, the vug said, “Yes, I intend to continue.”
Everything burst in Pete Garden’s face; the board dissolved and he felt dreadful pain and at the same time he knew what had happened. The vug had given up, and in its agony it intended to destroy them along with it. It was continuing—but in another dimension. Another context entirely.
And they were here
with it, on Titan. On its world, not their own.
Their luck had been bad in that respect.
Decisively so.
17
Mary Anne’s voice reached him, coolly and placidly. “It’s attempting to manipulate reality, Pete. Using the faculty by which it brought us to Titan. Shall I do what I can?”
“Yes,” he agreed. He could not see her; he lay in darkness, in a darkened pool which was not the presence of matter around him but its absence. Where are the others? he wondered. Scattered, everywhere. Perhaps over millions of miles of vacant, meaningless space. And—over millennia.
There was silence.
“Mary,” he said aloud.
No answer.
“Mary!” he shouted in desperation, scratching at the darkness. “Are you gone, too?” He listened. There was no response.
And then he heard something, or rather felt it. In the darkness, some living entity was probing in his direction. Some sensory extension of it, a device feeling its way; it was aware of him. Curious about him in a dim, limited, but shrewd, way.
Something even older than the vug against which they had played.
He thought, It’s something that lives here between the worlds. Between the layers of reality which make up our experience, ours and the vugs’. Get away from me, he thought. He tried to scramble, to move rapidly or at least repel it.
The creature, interested even more now, came closer.
“Joe Schilling,” he called. “Help me!”
“I am Joe Schilling,” the creature said. And it made its way toward him urgently, now, unwinding and extending itself greedily. “Greed and fear,” it said. “A bad combination.”
“The hell you’re Joe Schilling,” he said in terror; he slapped at it, twisting, trying to roll away.
“But greed alone,” the thing continued, “is not so bad; it’s the prime motivating pressure of the self-system. Psychologically speaking.”
Pete Garden shut his eyes. “God in heaven,” he said. It was Joe Schilling. What had the vugs done to him?