Barrington Bayley - The Grand Wheel

‘How about you and me having a look around?’ he said. ‘Maybe nobody would question us if we’re together.’ Then, seeing the fear on her face, he said: ‘Show me the way there, anyway.’

She stood up, her shoulders bowed. ‘All right. Let’s go.’

Scarne felt a quiet but pleasurable sense of triumph. Cadence had gone through an emotional crisis and had come through as he had predicted.

He had to hand it to her. She was prepared to commit treason for the sake of conscience. There weren’t many people like that about, these days.

Or perhaps his revelations about Dom’s stake had scared her as much as they scared him. Apart from that, he had lied to her, admitting he intended to pass information to the Legitimacy while strenuously denying he was an agent. All he wanted, he had said, was knowledge of where the impending game was to be held. The government would then be able to prevent it from taking place, even if Dom, himself, Cadence and everyone else involved were destroyed in the process.

If only it were that simple, he thought wryly.

They met no one they knew on their walk through the hotel’s long carpeted corridors. The place seemed quiet, most people having retired early so as to be fresh in the morning.

Soon they had left behind the inhabited sections and entered a posterior region of storerooms and larders, gouged out of the bare rock. Hesitating only once or twice at intersections, Cadence led Scarne to an ordinary metal door at the end of a short tunnel.

She stopped before going on, gazing at him coolly. ‘I don’t really know why I’m doing this,’ she said in a calmer tone than before. ‘I just want you to know one thing.’

‘What?’ he asked.

‘I hope you’re telling me the truth. I belong to the Wheel. If Dom’s mad we all have to be protected from him. If not—’

She didn’t finish, but fished in her pocket for a set of keys she carried, pressing several in turn against the door’s lock plate. The door didn’t budge.

She looked back at him. ‘It’s locked. We can’t get in after all.’

‘Here, let me try.’ He produced a cigarette lighter and pressed it against the plate, flicking the switch a few times. The tube glowed as it should – but at the same time the lock hummed as the circuits in the base of the lighter sorted through its combinations.

He tried the handle. The door swung open.

Cadence was staring in fascination. ‘Where did you get that?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘This?’ Scarne smiled, showing her the lighter. ‘Never seen one of these before? You can get them, for a price. There aren’t many electronic locks this won’t open.’

Behind the door the rock corridor continued, ending in a second door which bore no lock. Cautiously Scarne opened it.

They crept into a rectangular vault, littered with metal-bonded crates, with arched openings on all sides. The place was dimly lit by glow-globes, but it was not dark enough to warrant the use of the lamp Scarne had brought with him.

‘Which way, do you think?’ he asked softly.

She pointed. ‘When I came with Jerry we went that way, to collect a games machine.’ She looked around her. ‘I saw one of the cadre people go through that arch, over there.’

She held back as he stepped forward. ‘But why are you asking about that? I thought you wanted to know the location of the game.’

‘It’s in the form of a special code,’ he told her. ‘The cadre has possession of it.’

He knew his explanations were inadequate and that she was beginning to realize it. He also knew he was out on a limb, jumping off the board without seeing if there was any water in the pool. But it didn’t matter. Either he would be cured or he would be dead.

The arched opening gave on to another, similar vault, and so on. It was a veritable maze of replicated units. Scarne pressed forward, past looming crates and enigmatic chests, sometimes past uncrated machinery. He had intended to bluff his way through if challenged, but in fact there seemed to be no one about.

Occasionally there were closed doors, and deeper into the maze notices and directional arrows began to appear. Scarne pulled himself up short before one door which bore no legend, but instead an outline of an aquatic-looking, manta-like shape. The door was locked, but his electronic skeleton key soon dealt with that; he eased himself inside, followed by Cadence.

The chamber was smaller than the cellar of Dom’s manse on Luna, but its contents were the same. Pendragon reposed in his murky tank, surrounded by his life-support equipment. At the sound of their entrance he stirred slightly, undulating a few feet to the stick-mike, which he grasped in a flapper-like limb.

‘Who is it?’

‘A friend,’ Scarne said, moving to stand squarely before the tank. ‘We’ve met before.’

‘I don’t have any friends here,’ Pendragon responded. ‘Still, you’ve already told me something about yourself. You crawl.’

Cadence stayed close behind Scarne, hanging on to his shoulder and staring wide-eyed at the alien. ‘Sorry if I was too familiar,’ Scarne said. ‘Tell me, Pendragon, what do you know about luck?’

‘Ah, luck!’ hissed Pendragon. ‘That is what I do not have.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Scarne said reasonably. ‘How do people use it where you come from?’

Pendragon flapped his extremities, a gesture conveying impatience. ‘You’re beginning to sound like Marguerite Dom. He pesters me sick on the subject.’ He paused, adding thoughtfully: ‘There, now, is a being who has luck. Plenty of it.’

‘He says he knows how to propitiate Lady.’

‘Lady?’

‘The goddess of luck.’

Pendragon paused again. ‘I don’t believe in any gods or goddesses. You’d better get out of here. Something tells me you’re trespassers.’

The creature released the stick-mike and retreated to the back of the tank. Cadence, who had heard of the alien but never seen him before, nudged Scarne urgently. ‘Go on, ask it!’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘It will know!’

Scarne decided he was wasting his time. He turned his back on the tank, took Cadence by the hand and led her away.

In the distance, the hum of a machine started up. They came to a series of signposts, all of them cryptic: MARK II STORE; EARMARKED CYTUS COMPONENTS; IDENTIFICATION DATA. Scarne lingered at the last, and might have followed it if he had not noticed the last of the signs, which bore a script written in randomatic symbols only. It pointed in the direction from which the machine hum emanated.

He turned to Cadence. ‘Look, you can go back if you like, and put yourself in the clear. I can take it from now on.’

‘No,’ she said, pale-faced. ‘We’ll stick together.’

‘Okay.’ Forcing himself not to break into a run, Scarne led the way.

The hum grew louder, and then seemed to subside somewhat. Without warning Scarne found, he believed, what he was looking for. They were suddenly on the threshold of a vault slightly different from those they had been passing through. In the centre of the vault several men were deep in conversation around a table, a computation unit in front of each. He recognized one of them as the tall negro who was a member of the mathematical cadre; the faces of the others were indistinct. The table was littered with papers.

The whole of the long wall behind them comprised a bank of machinery: a huge instrument panel, and a battery of smaller pieces of apparatus. It was one of these that was giving off the hum.

As soon as he spotted the scene Scarne drew Cadence into the cover of a pillar. He was not sure if one of the attendants standing at the instrument panel had seen him.

He peeped out. The negro rose and walked to the bank of instruments, saying something to the attendant. The latter began adjusting settings.