Solar Lottery (4 page)

“The word’s gone out on the ipvic. The Convention will probably be held at the Westinghouse Hill; there’s more hotel space there.”

“Yes,” Wakeman was saying tightly. “That’s the usual place for the murderers to collect. There’s plenty of rooms at low rates.”

Wakeman and Moore were discussing the Challenge Convention.

Cartwright got unsteadily to his feet. “I want to talk to Moore. You two clear out of here. Go someplace else.”

The teeps conferred silently, then moved toward the door. “Be careful,” Wakeman warned him. “You’ve had a lot of emotional shocks today. Your thalamic index is too high.”

Cartwright closed the door after them and turned to face Moore. “Now we can get this settled once and for all.”

Moore smiled confidently. “Anything you say, Mr. Cartwright. You’re the boss.”

“I’m not your boss.”

“No, that’s so. A few of us stayed loyal to Reese. A few of us didn’t let him down.”

“You must think a lot of him.”

Moore’s expression showed that he did. “Reese Verrick is a big man, Mr. Cartwright. He’s done a lot of big things. He works on a vast scale.” He glowed happily. “He’s fully rational.”

“What do you want me to do? Give him back his position?”
Cartwright heard his own voice waver with emotion. “I’m not giving this up. I don’t care how irrational this is. I’m here and I’m staying here. You can’t intimidate me! You can’t laugh me out!”

His voice echoed; he was shouting. He forced himself to calm down. Herb Moore smiled brightly and basked in his own warmth.

He’s young enough to be my son, Cartwright found himself thinking. He can’t be over thirty, and I’m sixty-three. He’s just a boy, a child prodigy. Cartwright tried to keep his hands from shaking, but he couldn’t. He was excited, too excited. He could hardly speak. He was all wrought up. And he was afraid.

“You can’t operate this,” Moore said quietly. “This isn’t your line. What are you? I examined the records. You were born October 5, 2140, outside the Imperial Hill. You’ve lived there all your life; this is the first time you’ve been on this side of Earth, let alone on another planet. You had ten years of nominal schooling in the charity department of the Imperial Hill. You never excelled in anything. From high school on you dropped courses that dealt with symbolization and took manual shop courses. You took welding and electronic repair, that sort of thing. You tried printing, for a while. After you got out of school you worked in a turret factory as a mechanic. You designed a few circuit improvements in plimp board design, but the Directorate rejected your patents as trivial.”

“The improvements,” Cartwright said with difficulty, “were incorporated in the bottle itself, a year later.”

“From then on you were bitter. You serviced the bottle at Geneva and saw your own designs in operation. You tried over five thousand times to win a classification, but you never had enough theoretical knowledge. When you were forty-nine you gave up. When you were fifty you joined this crackpot outfit, this Preston Society.”

“I had been attending meetings six years.”

“There weren’t many members at the time, and you finally
were elected president of the Society. You put all your money and time into the crazy thing. It’s become your driving conviction, your mania.” Moore beamed happily, as if cracking an intricate equation. “And now you hold this position, Quizmaster, over a whole race, billions of people, endless quantities of men and material, maybe the sole civilization in the universe. And you see all this only as a means of expanding your Society.”

Cartwright choked futilely.

“What are you going to do?” Moore persisted. “Print a few trillion copies of Preston’s tracts? Distribute immense 3-D pictures of him and spread them all over the system? Supply statues, vast museums full of his clothing, false teeth, shoes, fingernail parings, buttons, shrines for the faithful to visit? You already have
one
monument to go to: his worldly remains, in a broken-down wooden building in the Imperial slums, his bones on exhibit, the remains of the saint, to be touched and prayed over.

“Is that what you’re planning: a new religion, a new god to worship? Are you going to organize vast fleets of ships, send out endless armadas to search for his mystic planet?” Moore saw Cartwright flinch white; he plowed on, “Are we all going to spend our time combing space for his Flame Disc, or whatever he called it? Remember Robin Pitt, Quizmaster number thirty-four? He was nineteen years old, a homosexual, a psychotic. He lived with his mother and sister all his life. He read ancient books, painted pictures, wrote psychiatric stream-of-consciousness material.”

“Poetry.”

“He was Quizmaster one week; then the Challenge got him—thank God. He was wandering around the jungle back of these buildings, gathering wild flowers and writing sonnets. You’ve read about that. Maybe you were alive; you’re certainly old enough.”

“I was thirteen when he was murdered.”

“Remember what he had planned for mankind? Think back. Why does the Challenge-process exist? The whole bottle system is to protect us; it elevates and deprives at random, chooses random individuals at random intervals. Nobody can gain power and hold it; nobody knows what his status will be next year, next week. Nobody can plan to be a dictator: it comes and goes according to subatomic random particles. The Challenge protects us from something else. It protects us from incompetents, from fools and madmen. We’re completely safe: no despots and no crackpots.”

“I’m not a crackpot,” Cartwright muttered hoarsely. The sound of his own voice amazed him. It was weak and forlorn, without conviction. Moore’s broad smile increased; there was no doubt in his mind. “It’ll take me awhile to adjust,” he finished lamely. “I need time.”

“You think you can adjust?” Moore asked.

“Yes!”

“I don’t. You have approximately twenty-four hours. That’s about how long it takes to convene a Challenge Convention and pick the first candidate. There should be a lot to choose from.”

Cartwright’s thin body jerked. “Why?”

“Verrick has put up a million gold dollars to the one who gets you. The offer is good until won, until you’re dead.”

Cartwright heard the words, but they didn’t register. He was vaguely aware that Wakeman had come into the lounge and was moving up to Moore. The two of them walked away talking in low tones. He hardly heard them.

Like a frigid nightmare, the phrase “a million gold dollars” dripped and leaked into his brain. There’d be plenty of takers. With that much money an unk could buy a variety of classifications on the black market. The best minds in the system would gamble their lives for that, in a society that was a constant gamble, an unceasing lottery.

Wakeman came over to him shaking his head. “What a
hopped-up mind. There was a lot of wild stuff we couldn’t catch. Something about bodies and bombs and assassins and randomness. He’s gone, now. We sent him off.”

“What he said is true,” Cartwright gasped. “He’s right; I have no place here. I don’t belong here.”

“His strategy is to make you think that.”

“But it’s true!”

Wakeman nodded reluctantly. “I know. That’s why it’s such a good strategy. We have a good strategy, too, I think. When the time comes, you’ll know about it.” He suddenly grabbed Cartwright by the shoulder. “Better sit down. I’ll pour you a drink; Verrick left some genuine Scotch around here, a couple of full cases.”

Cartwright shook his head mutely.

“Suit yourself.” Wakeman got out his pocket handkerchief and mopped his forehead. His hands were shaking. “I think I’ll have one, if you don’t mind. After teeping that high-powered blur of pathological drive, I can use a drink, myself.”

Ted Benteley stood by the kitchen door inhaling warm smells of cooking food. The Davis house was pleasant and bright. Al Davis, minus his shoes, was sitting contentedly before the tv set in the living room, gazing earnestly at the ads. His pretty brown-haired wife Laura was preparing dinner.

“If that’s protine,” Benteley said to her, “it’s the best job of adulteration I’ve smelled.”

“We never have protine,” Laura answered briskly. “We tried it the first year we were married, but you can taste it no matter how they fix it up. It’s terribly costly to buy natural foods, of course, but it’s worth it. Protine is for the unks.”

“If it wasn’t for protine,” Al said, overhearing her, “the unks would have starved to death back in the twentieth century. You’re always passing out typical layman-type misinformation. Allow me to give you the straight dope.”

“Please do,” Laura said.

“Protine isn’t a natural algae. It’s a mutant that started out in culture tanks in the Middle East and gradually crept onto a variety of fresh-water surfaces.”

“I know that. When I go into the bathroom in the morning don’t I find the darn stuff growing all over the wash basin and the pipes and in the tub and in the—fixture?”

“It also grows over the Great Lakes,” Al said scientifically.

“Well, this isn’t protine,” Laura said to Ted. “This is a real beef roast, real spring potatoes and green peas and white rolls.”

“You two are living better than when I last saw you,” Benteley said. “What happened?”

A complex look crossed Laura’s dainty face. “Didn’t you hear? Al jumped a whole class. He beat the Government Quiz; he and I studied together every night after he got home from work.”

“I never heard of anybody beating the Quizzes. Was it mentioned on tv?”

“As a matter of fact it was.” Laura frowned resentfully. “That awful Sam Oster talked about it the whole length of a program. He’s that rabble-rouser who has such a big following among the unks.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know him,” Benteley admitted.

On the tv, glorious ads played back and forth like liquid fire. One after another they rose, hung for an instant, and then dropped away. Ads were the highest art-form; the finest creative talent was at work behind them. Ads combined color, balance, rhythm, and a restless aliveness that pulsed from the screen and into the cozy Davis living room. From hidden hi-fi speakers mounted within the walls random combinations of accompanying sound drifted.

“The Convention,” Davis said, indicating the screen. “They’re advertising for applicants and giving quite a bonus.”

A vortex of foaming light and color-texture lapping across the screen symbolized the Challenge Convention. The billowing mass broke apart, held, and reformed in new combinations.
A pattern of unusually excited spheres danced their way across, and the accompanying music rose to a fever pitch.

“What’s it saying?” Benteley asked.

“I can switch to the l-Channel, if you want. Then you’ll have it straight.”

Laura hurried in with silver and china for the table. “Don’t put that l-Channel on; all the unks watch that. That’s why they have it both ways, this for us and the literal for them.”

“You’re wrong, honey,” Al said seriously. “The l-Channel is for news and factual information. The s-Channel is for pleasure. I enjoy watching it this way, but—” He waved his hand and the circuit switched abruptly. The vivid swirls of color and sound winked out. In their place the placid features of the Westinghouse news announcer appeared. “Here’s the same thing.”

Laura set the table and returned to the kitchen in a flurry of activity. The living room was friendly and comfortable. One wall was transparent; below the house stretched out the city of Berlin clustered around the Farben Hill, a vast towering center cone, black against the night sky. Bits of cold light drifted and rushed in the gloom: surface cars dancing like yellow sparks in the chill night shadows, disappearing into the vast cone like incandescent moths into the chimney of a cosmic lamp.

“How long have you been in fealty to Verrick?” Benteley asked Al Davis.

Al tore himself away from the tv screen; it was now describing new experiments in C-plus reactors. “What’s that, Ted? I guess about three or four years.”

“You’re satisfied?”

“Sure, why not?” Al gestured around the pleasant, well-furnished living room. “Who wouldn’t be satisfied?”

“I’m not talking about this. I had the same thing over at Oiseau-Lyre; most classified people have set-ups like this. I’m talking about Verrick.”

Al Davis struggled to catch Benteley’s drift. “I never see Verrick. He’s been at Batavia, up until today.”

“You knew I’d sworn in to Verrick?”

“You told me this afternoon.” Davis’ kindly face beamed up at Benteley, relaxed and untroubled. “I hope that means you’ll be moving over here.”

“Why?”

Davis blinked. “Well, because then we’ll see more of you and Julie.”

“I haven’t been living with Julie for six months,” Benteley said impatiently. “That’s all off. She’s on Jupiter as some sort of work-camp official.”

“Well, I didn’t know. I haven’t seen you for a couple of years. I was as surprised as hell to see your face on the ipvic.”

“I came over with Verrick and his staff.” Benteley’s voice hardened with irony. “When Oiseau-Lyre released me I headed directly for Batavia. I wanted to get out of the Hill system once and for all. I went straight to Reese Verrick.”

“You did the right thing.”

“Verrick tricked me! He was quacked, out of the Directorate completely. I knew somebody was bidding up the Hills, somebody with plenty of funds. I wanted nothing to do with it—and now look.” Benteley’s resentment increased. “Instead of getting away from it, I’m where it’s dirtiest. It’s the last place on Earth I wanted to be.”

Indignation crept into Davis’ tolerant face. “Some of the nicest people I know are Verrick’s serfs.”

“They’re people who don’t care how they make their money.”

“You want to penalize Verrick because he’s a success? He’s made this Hill
run.
Is it his fault nobody else can operate like he can? There’s a natural selection and evolution. Those who can’t survive fall by the way.”

“Verrick fired our research labs.”

“Our? Say, you’re with Verrick, now.” Davis’ indignation
boiled over. “That’s a hell of a way to talk! Verrick is your protector and you’re standing here—”

“All right, boys,” Laura exclaimed, cheeks flushed with domestic prowess. “Dinner’s on the table, and I want you to go get some chairs for us to sit on. Al, you wash your hands before we eat. And put on your shoes.”

“Sure, honey,” Davis said obediently, getting to his feet.

“Can I help?” Benteley asked.

“Just find yourself a chair and sit down. We have real coffee. Do you take cream? I can’t remember.”

“Yes,” Benteley said. “Thanks.” He pulled up a couple of chairs and sat down moodily.

“Don’t look so sad,” Laura said to him. “See what you’re getting to eat. Aren’t you living with Julie any more? I’ll bet you eat out all the time, at restaurants where they serve that awful protine stuff.”

Benteley toyed with his knife and fork. “You have a nice place here,” he said presently. “When I saw you last you were living in a Hill dorm. But you weren’t married then.”

“Remember when you and I were living together?” Laura began cutting the twine that held the rolled-roast together.

“That wasn’t more than a month, as I remember.”

“A little under a month,” Benteley agreed, remembering back. He relaxed somewhat, thawed by the smell of hot food, the bright living room, the pretty woman sitting across from him. “That’s when you were still under fealty to Oiseau-Lyre, before you lost your classification.”

Al appeared, sat down, unfolded his napkin, and rubbed his hands together with anticipation. “It sure smells good,” he announced. “Let’s get going; I’m starved.”

    While they ate, the tv murmured and spilled out a flickering tide of light into the living room. Benteley listened between conversations, his mind only half on what Laura and Al were saying.

“… Quizmaster Cartwright has announced the dismissal of two hundred Directorate employees,” the announcer was saying. “The reason given is b.s.r.”

“Bad security risk,” Laura murmured, sipping her coffee. “That’s what they always say.”

The announcer continued:

“You bet,” Al said. “Verrick has that Hill under lock. He’ll have this thing humming.”

“Is old Judge Waring still sitting on the Board?” Laura asked him. “He must be a hundred years old, by now.”

“He’s still on the Board. He won’t resign, not until he’s dead. That crusty old fossil! He ought to get out of the way and let somebody younger take over.”

“But he knows everything about the Challenge,” Laura said. “He’s kept it all on a high moral plane. I remember when I was a little girl still in school; that Quizmaster was quacked, that funny one who stuttered. And that good-looking young man got in, that black-haired assassin who made such a wonderful Quizmaster. And old Judge Waring set up the Board and ruled over the Convention like Jehovah in the old Christian myths.”

“He has a beard,” Benteley said.

“A long white beard.”

The tv set had changed announcers. A view of the massive auditorium in which the Convention was being formed swam into focus. Seats were already set up, and the huge platform at
which the Board sat in judgment. People milled back and forth; the auditorium boomed and echoed with sounds of furious activity and shouted instructions.

“Just think,” Laura said. “All that momentous business going on while we sit here quietly eating our dinner.”

“It’s a long way off,” Al said indifferently.

“How about you?” Laura said suddenly to Benteley. “Why don’t you put in your application? You don’t have an assignment, right now.”

“It’s out of my line.”

Laura laughed. “Make it your line! Al, don’t we have that big tape they put out, all the successful assassins of the past, their lives and everything about them? Show it to Ted.”

“I’ve seen it,” Benteley said curtly.

“When you were a boy, didn’t you dream of growing up to be a successful assassin?” Laura’s brown eyes were dim with nostalgia. “I remember how I hated being a girl because then I couldn’t be an assassin when I grew up. I bought a lot of charms, but they didn’t turn me into a boy.”

Al Davis pushed his empty plate away with a gratified belch. “Can I let out my belt?”

“Sure,” Laura said.

Al let out his belt. “That was a good meal, honey. I wouldn’t mind eating like that every day.”

“You do, practically.” Laura finished her coffee and daintily touched her napkin to her lips. “More coffee, Ted?”

“There’s already a lot of private betting,” Laura said. She leaned contentedly back, a cigarette between her fingers, and smiled at Benteley. “It’s good to have you come by again. You think you’ll move your things here to Farben? You could stay with us for a while, until you find a decent place.”

“A lot of places that used to be good are being taken over by unks,” Al observed.

“They’re moving everywhere,” Laura agreed. “Ted, remember that wonderful area near the synthetics research lab? All those new housing units, those green and pink buildings? Unks are living there, and naturally it’s all run down and dirty and bad-smelling. It’s a disgrace; why don’t they sign up for work-camps? That’s where they belong, not loafing around here.”

Al yawned. “I’m sleepy.” He picked a date from the bowl in the center of the table. “A date. What the hell’s a date?” He
ate it slowly. “Too sweet. What planet’s it from? Venus? It tastes like one of those pulpy Venusian fruits.”

“It’s from Asia Minor,” Laura said.

“Here on Earth? Who muted it?”

“Nobody. It’s a natural fruit. From a palm tree.”

Al shook his head wonderingly. “The infinite diversity of God’s creations.”

Laura was shocked. “Suppose somebody at work heard you talk like that!”

“Let them hear me.” Al stretched and yawned again. “I don’t care.”

“They might think you were a Christian.”

Benteley got slowly to his feet. “Laura, I have to get going.”

Al rose in amazement. “Why?”

“I have to collect my things and get them over here from Oiseau-Lyre.”

Al thumped him on the shoulder. “Farben’ll transport them. You’re one of Verrick’s serfs now—remember? Give the Hill traffic office a call and they’ll arrange it. No charge.”

“I’d rather do it myself,” Benteley said.

“Why?” Laura asked, surprised.