Solar Lottery (10 page)

The MacMillan robot moved languidly up and down the aisle collecting tickets. Overhead, the midsummer sun beat down and was reflected from the gleaming silver hull of the sleek intercon rocket liner. Below, the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean lay sprawled out, an eternal surface of color and light.

“It really looks nice,” the straw-haired young man said to the pretty girl in the seat next to him. “The ocean, I mean. The way it mixes with the sky. Earth is about the most beautiful planet in the system.”

The girl lowered her portable tv-lenses, blinked in the sudden glare of natural sunlight, and glanced in confusion out the window. “Yes, it’s nice,” she admitted shyly.

She was a very young girl, not over eighteen at the most. Her breasts were small and up-tilted; her hair was curly and short, a halo of dark orange—the latest color style—around her slim neck and finely-cut features. She blushed and returned hastily to her tv-lenses.

Beside her, the harmless, pale-eyed young man got out his
package of cigarettes, took one, and then politely offered her the gold-encased pack.

“Thanks,” she said nervously, in a throaty quaver, as her long crimson-tipped fingernails grappled with the cigarette. “Thanks,” she said again, as he applied his gold cigarette lighter in her behalf.

“How far are you going?” the young man inquired presently.

“To Peking. I have a job at the Soong Hill—I think. I mean, I got a notice for an interview.” She fluttered with her miniature purse. “I have it somewhere. Maybe you can look at it and tell me what it means; I don’t understand all those legal phrases they use.” She added quickly, “Of course, when I get to Batavia, then Walter can …”

“You’re classified?”

The girl’s blush deepened. “Yes, class 11–76. It isn’t much, but it helps.” Hurriedly, she brushed ashes from her silk embroidered neck scarf and right breast. “I just got my classification last month.” After a hesitation, she asked: “Are you classified? I know some people are touchy, especially those who aren’t …”

The young man indicated his sleeve. “Class 56–3.”

“You sound so … cynical.”

The young man laughed his thin colorless laugh. “Maybe I am.” He eyed the girl benignly. “What’s your name?”

“Margaret Lloyd.” She lowered her eyes shyly.

“My name’s Keith Pellig,” the young man said, and his voice was even thinner and drier than before.

The girl thought about it a moment. “Keith Pellig?” For an instant her smooth forehead wrinkled unnaturally. “I think I’ve heard that name, haven’t I?”

“You may have.” There was ironic amusement in the toneless voice. “It isn’t important, though. Don’t worry about it.”

“It always bothers me when I don’t remember things.” Now that she knew the young man’s name, it was permissible
to speak openly. “I wouldn’t have got my classification except that I’m living with a very important person. He’s meeting me at Batavia.” Pride mixed with modesty showed on her guileless face. “Walter fixed things up for me. Otherwise I never would have made it.”

“Good for him,” Keith Pellig said.

The MacMillan robot slid up beside them and extended its grapple. Margaret Lloyd quickly passed over her ticket and Keith Pellig did the same.

“Greetings, brother,” Pellig said cryptically to the robot, as his ticket stub was punched and returned.

After the robot was gone Margaret Lloyd said to him, “Where are you going?”

“Batavia.”

“On business?”

“I’d call it business.” Pellig smiled humorlessly. “When I’ve been there awhile, I may start calling it pleasure. My attitude varies.”

“You talk so strangely,” the girl said, puzzled and more than somewhat awed by the complexities of an older man.

“I’m a strange person. Sometimes I hardly know what I’m going to do or say next. Sometimes I seem a stranger to myself. Sometimes what I do surprises me and I can’t understand why I do it.” Pellig stubbed out his cigarette and lit another; the ironic smile had left his face and he scowled dark and troubled. His words slowed down until they came out painfully, intensely. “It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.”

“What does that mean? I never heard that before.”

“A phrase from an old manuscript.” Pellig peered past her, out the wide window at the ocean below. “We’ll be there soon. Come upstairs to the bar and I’ll buy you a drink.”

Margaret Lloyd fluttered with fear and excitement. “Is it all right?” She was terribly flattered. “I mean, since I’m living with Walter and—”

“It’s all right,” Pellig said, getting to his feet and moving
moodily down the aisle, his hands deep in his pockets. “I’ll even buy you two drinks. Assuming I still know who you are, after we get up there.”

    Peter Wakeman gulped down a glass of tomato juice, shuddered, and pushed the analysis across the breakfast table to Cartwright. “It really is Preston. It’s no supernatural being from another system.”

Cartwright’s numb fingers played aimlessly with his coffee cup. “I can’t believe it.”

Rita O’Neill touched his arm. “That’s what he meant in the book. He planned to be there to guide us. The Voices.”

Wakeman was deep in thought. “What interests me is something else. A few minutes before our call reached the Information Library, another call was received for an identical analysis.”

Cartwright sat up with a jerk. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. They claim aud and vid tapes were shot to them for analysis, substantially the same material we sent over. But they don’t know who it was from.”

“Can’t you tell anything?” Rita O’Neill asked uneasily.

“First of all, they actually know who sent in the prior informational request. But they’re not telling. That gives me plenty to think about right there. I’m toying with the idea of sending a few Corpsmen over to scan the officials who had access to the face-to-face request.”

Cartwright waved his hand impatiently. “Forget that. We have more important things to worry about. Any news on Pellig?”

Wakeman looked surprised. “Only that he’s supposed to have left the Farben Hill.”

Cartwright’s face twitched. “You haven’t been able to make contact?”

Rita’s hand gripped soothingly around his. “They’ll make
contact when he enters the protected zone. He’s still outside.”

“For God’s sake, can’t you go out and get him? Are you just going to sit there and wait for him?” Cartwright shook his head wearily. “Sorry, Wakeman. I know we’ve gone over this a thousand times.”

Wakeman was embarrassed, but not for himself so much. He was embarrassed for Leon Cartwright. In the few days since Cartwright had become Quizmaster there had been a corrosive change in him. Cartwright sat twitching and fumbling at his coffee cup, a hunched, aged, and very frightened man. His face was dark and lined with fatigue. His pale blue eyes glinted with apprehension. Again and again he started to speak, then changed his mind and descended into a cloud of silence.

“Cartwright,” Wakeman said softly, “you’re in bad shape.”

Cartwright glared at him. “A man’s coming here to kill me, publicly and in broad daylight, with the whole-hearted approval of the system. Everybody in the world’s sitting and cheering him, propped up in front of their tv sets, watching and waiting for the results. The winner of this … national sport. How the hell am I supposed to feel?”

“It’s only one man,” Wakeman said quietly. “He has no more power than you. In fact, you’ve got the whole Corps behind you, and all the resources of the Directorate.”

“If we get him, there’ll be another. An endless stream of them.”

“Each Quizmaster has had to face this.” Wakeman raised an eyebrow. “I thought all you wanted was to stay alive until your ship was safe.”

Cartwright’s gray, exhausted face was answer enough. “I want to stay alive. Is there anything wrong with that?” Cartwright pulled himself up and forced his hands to stay quiet. “But you’re right, of course.” He smiled shakily, half-apologetically. “Try to see my side of it. You’ve been dealing
with these assassins all your life. To me it’s a new thing; I’ve been a trivial, anonymous entity, completely out of the public eye. Now I’m chained here under a ten billion watt searchlight. A perfect target—” His voice rose. “And they’re trying to kill me! What in the name of God is this strategy of yours? What are you going to do?”

He’s pitifully scared, Wakeman thought to himself. He’s falling apart. He doesn’t care a damn about his ship. Yet that’s why he’s here in the first place.

In Wakeman’s mind, Shaeffer’s answering thoughts came. Shaeffer was at his desk on the other side of the Directorate building, acting as the nexus between Wakeman and the Corps. “This is the time to get him over there. Although I don’t really think Pellig is very close. But in view of Verrick’s sponsorship we should leave a wide margin for error.”

“True,” Wakeman thought back. “Interesting: at any other time Cartwright would be overwhelmed to learn that John Preston is alive. Now he pays only passing attention. And he can assume his ship has reached its destination.”

“You assume there is a Flame Disc?”

“Evidently. But that’s no concern of ours.” Dryly, Wakeman thought, “And apparently no concern of Cartwright’s. He managed to get himself in as Quizmaster—as a function of slamming the ship all the way out to Flame Disc. But now that he’s actually face to face with the situation he sees it as a death trap.”

Wakeman turned to Cartwright and spoke to him aloud.

“All right, Leon. Get ready: we’re taking you out of here. We have plenty of time. No report on Pellig yet.”

Cartwright blinked and then eyed him suspiciously. “Out where? I thought the protective chamber Verrick fixed up—”

“Verrick assumes you’ll use that; he’ll try there first. We’re taking you off Earth entirely. The Corps has arranged a retreat on Luna. It’s registered as a conventional psycho-health resort. Actually, it’s somewhat more elaborate than
Verrick’s installations here at Batavia. While the Corps battles it out with Pellig, you’ll be 239,000 miles away.”

Cartwright gazed helplessly at Rita O’Neill. “What should I do? Should I go?”

“Here at Batavia,” Wakeman said, “a hundred ships land every hour. Thousands of people pour in and out of the Islands; this is the most populated spot in the universe. Christ, this is the functional center of the nine-planet system. But on Luna, a human being literally stands out. Our resort is set apart from the others; our front-organization bought land in an undesirable section. You’ll be surrounded by thousands of miles of bleak, airless space. If Keith Pellig should manage to trace you to Luna and comes walking along in his bulky Farley suit, geiger counter, radar cone and popper and helmet, I think we’ll spot him.”

Wakeman was trying to joke, but Cartwright didn’t smile. “In other words you can’t defend me here.”

Wakeman sighed. “We can defend you better if you’re on Luna. It’s nice there. We have it fixed up attractively. You can swim, play games, bask in the sun, relax, even sleep. We can put you in suspended animation until this blows over.”

“I might never wake up again,” Cartwright said cunningly.

It was like talking to a child. Frightened, helpless, the old man had ceased to reason. He had plunged all the way down to stubborn, archaic, infantile thalamic processes. Wakeman wished like hell it was late enough in the day for a drink. He got to his feet and examined his watch. “Miss O’Neill will be coming along with you.” He made his voice patient but firm. “So will I. Any time you want to come back to Earth, you can. But I suggest you see our lay-out there; make up your own mind after you’ve seen it.”

Cartwright hesitated in an agony of doubt. “You say Verrick doesn’t know about it? You’re positive?”

“Better tell him we’re sure,” Shaeffer’s thoughts came to
Wakeman. “He needs certitude. No use handing him a bunch of statistics at a time like this.”

“We’re positive,” Wakeman said aloud, and it was a cold-blooded lie. To Shaeffer he silently thought, “I hope we’re doing the right thing. Verrick probably knows. But it doesn’t matter; if everything goes right Pellig will never get out of Batavia.”

“And if he does?” the thought came back wryly.

“He can’t. It’s your job to stop him. I’m not really worried, but I’d feel better if Verrick’s Hills didn’t hold the land on three sides of our resort.”

    The lounge of the intercon liner was swank and glittering with chrome. Keith Pellig stood by Miss Lloyd as she seated herself awkwardly in one of the deep thick-plush chairs and folded her nervous hands together on the surface of the null-legged plastic table. Pellig then sat down opposite her.

“What’s the matter?” the girl asked. “Is anything wrong?”

“No.” Pellig moodily examined the menu. “What do you want to drink? Make it snappy; we’re almost there.”

Miss Lloyd recoiled and her cheeks burned. The nice-looking man was grim-faced and sullen; she repressed a sudden desire to leap up and hurry downstairs to her seat. He was acting badly, insulting and nasty … but the needling fear that it was something she had done dissolved her resentment and made her fearful instead. “What Hill are you under fief to?” she asked timidly.

There was no answer.

The MacMillan waiter glided up. “What do you wish, sir or madam?”

Within the Pellig body, Ted Benteley was deep in stormy thought. He ordered bourbon and water for himself and a Tom Collins for Margaret Lloyd. He scarcely noticed the two glasses the MacMillan slid before them; he paid the chit automatically and began to sip.

Miss Lloyd was babbling youthful nonsense; she was excited with anticipation, her eyes shone, white teeth sparkled, orange hair glowed like a candle flame. It was wasted on the man opposite her. Benteley allowed the Pellig fingers to take the bourbon and water back to the table; he fooled with the glass and continued reflecting.

While he was reflecting, the mechanism switched. Silently, instantly, he was back at the Farben labs.

It was a shock. He closed his eyes and hung on tight to the circular metal band that enclosed his body, a combination support and focus. On his ipvic-engineered vidscreen the scene he had just left glimmered brightly. The body cast a microwave sheet that bounced at close range and was relayed by ipvic along the control channel to Farben in the form of a visual image. A miniature Margaret Lloyd was seated across from a miniature Keith Pellig, in a microscopic lounge. Tiny sounds filtered from the aud end of the system, as Miss Lloyd bubbled away.