Barrington Bayley - The Grand Wheel

Back at the five-level hotel, Scarne found Cadence in one of the lounges, talking with Soma and others of the retinue. She eyed him closely as he flopped down next to her.

‘Had a bad day? You look wiped out.’

‘This town depresses me,’ Scarne said. ‘I’ll be glad when it’s time to leave.’

He called across to Soma. ‘Hey, Jerry! When are we leaving this dump? When’s the big game?’

Soma raised one upright finger before his face, a recognized, final signal. ‘No info.’

‘That’s what they always say.’

Hank Marem, another games player in Dom’s selected group, a heavily built, deceptively slow, lugubrious man, answered Scarne. ‘Well I’m as sure as hell not eager to leave yet. Hell…’ He trailed off, staring into his drink. ‘I’d like a million years before I feel ready,’ he finished.

A door at the rear of the lounge opened. A hush fell on the gathering as the charismatic figure of Marguerite Dom entered, sauntering into the room. The Wheel boss’s gaze seemed to flick over them all, taking in every detail.

A waiter hurried up as Dom casually seated himself at the table, offering him a cocktail. Dom sipped it, set it down, then turned to Scarne.

‘Have a relaxing day, Scarne? Ready for a few sessions tomorrow?’

Dom’s fruity and idiosyncratic, slightly mocking voice was impossible to read. ‘Fairly, sir,’ Scarne said uneasily, feeling the other’s eyes on him. Dom’s presence was something he had learned to sense instinctively. It was something he could almost smell , a slightly rotting odour.

‘Jolly good,’ Dom murmured. ‘We don’t want to overstrain you, you know. How’s your health?’

‘I feel fine.’

‘Excellent.’ The Wheel master swallowed his cocktail. ‘See you tomorrow.’ He rose and sauntered away, making for the front of the hotel, an eccentric, confident, all-powerful figure.

When he had gone Scarne breathed an inward sigh of relief, though he was not altogether sure why. Lately he had been getting to know Dom intimately; he was one of Dom’s favourites, and was being groomed by him as a games partner, in a kind of relationship that could only be compared with marriage. Scarne was finding it harder and harder to shake off the man’s clinging aura; his combination of smooth charm and total cynicism both fascinated and repelled him.

Scarne was aware of how far he had come. He was at the end of a long process of selection that had screened both Wheel operatives and freelancers like himself – a process that was still going on. Scarne predicted that Marem would be dropped soon. The ever more vigorous tests were finding his limitations. Scarne, however, was almost certain of being included in the team that would face the Galactic Wheel.

He had only one black mark against him: his supposed ‘black-out’. En route to Chasm he had been given a thorough medical check and pronounced fit, the addictive substance in his bloodstream apparently evading detection. But Dom had warned him that any recurrence and he would be out. He wasn’t interested in anybody who was liable to flake out on him.

Scarne spent much of his time playing Kabala, and related games, with Dom. He could beat him now, about one time in three. He had been unable to prevent a kind of perverse loyalty for Dom developing in him; but along with it, as he became more aware of Dom’s utter egotism, and more certain of his intentions for the coming game, there was a festering hatred.

He was in a state of agitation when he went with Cadence back to their suite. She watched him, her pale eyes wide, as he paced the main room, his face creased as if in pain.

‘Cheyne? What is it? Is it too much for you? The games? I thought—’ For a moment a foretaste of disappointment clouded her features.

‘No, it’s not that,’ he snapped irritably. He put his hand to his forehead. ‘I can’t do it alone,’ he muttered.

‘You want me to call Jerry or someone?’

‘No!’

His exasperation softened as he looked at her and saw her concern. He was never sure how much of her growing attachment to him was professional and how much was due to her having genuinely fallen for him – or whatever passed for that in her Wheel-enclosed life. She was a Wheel creature, of course. It wouldn’t really be fair of him to try to divide her loyalties.

But there wasn’t anyone else. And besides, as he gazed at her, taking in her worn, blameless face, Scarne realized that the gamble would be worth the risk. Cadence was a born loser. She would be almost sure to do the thing that went most against her own interests.

He crossed to where she sat and knelt down beside her, taking her hand in his and looking at her imploringly. ‘You know more about this place than I do,’ he said. ‘Did the mathematical cadre leave Luna too?’ They must be here, he thought. They’d be needed.

She nodded.

‘And all their material?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I want to take a look at some confidential material, Cadence. I want to do it secretly. And I want you to help me.’

Her frown deepened. ‘What for?’ she said at length. Then she raised her eyebrows ingenuously. ‘Are you a spy?’

Desperately he squeezed her hand. ‘This game,’ he said, ‘it’s got to be stopped.’

She snatched her own hand away, staring at him now in complete, displeased puzzlement. ‘Stopped? What are you talking about? It’s supposed to be the greatest thing that’s happened for a million years.’ Ever since she had been let into the big secret, in fact, she had looked on her participation as a matter for personal pride.

‘Cadence, don’t you know what’s going on?’ He climbed to his feet, glowering down at her. ‘Don’t you know what Dom is setting up? He’s a maniac, an utterly ruthless lunatic. All he wants is some ultimate gamble to satisfy his lust as a gamesman. He plans to go for broke – with the whole of mankind in the centre of the table! We’re the stake – every man, woman and child alive!’

‘Has he told you this himself?’

‘Not in so many words.’ Scarne pulled a kerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. ‘But that’s what it will be, all right. He’s so sure of himself – so sure he can win. He won’t care what he has to put up to stay in the game – he’s made that abundantly clear. And either you put up a stake the galactics want, or you can’t play.’

She folded her hands in her lap, staring at them. ‘If he says we’ll win…’

‘He’s a fool,’ Scarne told her curtly. ‘Unbalanced. He’s going in blind, without knowing anything about the galactics to speak of.’

‘But it isn’t just Dom’s decision,’ she said defensively. ‘It was the whole council’s.’

‘Oh yes, the council!’ Scarne laughed bitterly. ‘There’s been a purge in it recently, I hear. It’s pretty obvious the decision was by no means unanimous. Like all tyrants, Dom knows how to deal with councils.’

He walked to the other side of the room and took a cigar from a box. He lit it and sat down, resting his head dejectedly on his hand, puffing out clouds of violet smoke.

Two hours later Cadence said woodenly: ‘There are a lot of other excavations out back of this hotel. A lot of different sorts of stuff is kept there. I’ve seen cadre people go in and out, sometimes.’

‘Could we get in there?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Probably. I’ve been in there once, with Jerry. It’s not guarded, really. Nowhere is once you get past the hotel lobby.’

I could just tell the Legit people it’s in there and let them do their stuff, he thought. But what if it’s not there? I wouldn’t have any more credibility left.