Barrington Bayley - The Grand Wheel

There was little doubt in Scarne’s mind that this was where the work on the luck equations was being done. Now was the time to withdraw, he told himself. He obviously couldn’t gain any definite data himself, for the moment. But he could tell the Legitimacy where to stage their raid, or whatever. The question was, could he calm Cadence’s doubts about him?

He was about to creep away when a bland computer voice spoke out of the air, seemingly right into his ear.

‘You are in a restricted area. Do you have proper authorization?’

‘Yes,’ Scarne muttered.

‘State it.’

Scarne fumbled in his mind for something to say. ‘You answer the description of no authorized person,’ the computer voice resumed. ‘Please do not move.’

Someone stepped into Scarne’s line of view. It was the black mathematician. The two of them stared at one another for some moments.

Scarne turned to Cadence. ‘Stay here. I’m going to talk to that man.’

He went forward. But before he had taken as much as a step unconsciousness came down on him like a curtain.

Mocking laughter. ‘Here he comes again. What a clown.’

Scarne returned to awareness for the third time. Dom’s method of interrogation was swift, relatively painless (though anything but pleasant), but the mind did tend to close down every few minutes or so.

He was strapped to a low table. The helmet-like cap on his skull, attached by wires to a nearby apparatus, reminded him of the skull-cap of an identity machine. Whenever Dom asked a question it delivered a brain charge, making it impossible for Scarne either to lie or to withhold. The sensation was as if his brain was being sucked out through a straw.

As well as Dom and two white-gowned assistants, Cadence was in the room. But as far as he knew she had not been on the interrogation-table. She stood pressed against the wall, ashen-faced.

‘See how easily gulled you are, my dear?’ Dom told her. He turned back to Scarne. ‘I confess to disappointment,’ he said petulantly. ‘I was coming to look on you as a valuable partner. Now it transpires you are a spy and a cheat! How could you do this to me, Cheyne?’

Scarne had already confessed that he was a Legitimacy recruit, set on the trail of the Wheel’s reported ability to control luck. The first part of his confession was nothing new; his conversation in the ledge restaurant earlier in the day had been recorded, as was nearly everything that went on in public in Chasm.

He heaved in his bonds and groaned, partly because of the helplessness of his position, partly because of his humiliation in front of Cadence. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he said in a weak voice. ‘They planted an addiction on me. I’m their creature.’

Dom leaned closer. ‘You said something this afternoon. Your aerosols…’

Scarne nodded, then let his sweat-dampened head fall back on the table. ‘My supply. The drug I have to take. Disguised as deodorant.’

Dom tutted. ‘Nasty. I had those aerosols opened. But whatever was in them instantly denatured.’

‘Yes,’ said Scarne, closing his eyes. Will they let me kill myself? he wondered. They must let me kill myself. Because otherwise –

‘It’s a special trick,’ he said. ‘The aerosols are a special environment that keeps the compound stable. Expel the drug or break them open, and it straight away decomposes – unless it can get into the one other environment where it can survive: my bloodstream, no one else’s.’

They weren’t using the brain charge on him now, evidently thinking it unnecessary. ‘They’ve got me every way,’ he finished. ‘The compound is specific, synthesized exclusively for myself.’

Dom drew back, his hands raised in astonishment, his expression solicitous. ‘Is that all that bothers you, Cheyne? But why didn’t you tell me?’

‘How could I tell you? I was stuck in the middle!’

‘But I could have had you cured!’

Scarne was surprised at Dom’s ignorance. ‘This poison is foolproof,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘It can’t be analysed.’

‘ Faugh. That’s what they tell you – typical of them. I have some excellent biochemists here. They’ve dealt with this kind of thing before. I assure you they’ll rustle up an antidote in less than twenty-four hours.’

A surge of unbelievable hope rose in Scarne. He blinked, and almost didn’t notice the sternness with which Dom then spoke, turning to Cadence.

‘All right, you can get her out of here now.’

She was hustled from the room, a picture of demoralization. ‘Don’t take it out on her,’ Scarne said weakly. ‘I led her into it – she wasn’t willing.’

He stopped speaking as Dom turned back to face him, looming over his supine form. Dom’s eyes were hard.

‘What will happen to me now?’ Scarne asked.

‘Happen?’ Dom’s eyes widened. ‘Why, you have been bad, Cheyne. You will have to be punished.’ He raised a hand. A second door opened and before Scarne could say anything further he was borne helplessly away down a long rock corridor.

Scarne was an object, a rag doll, a mass of raw feeling forced to spend long hours in delirium and fear. The physicians who examined him beneath the glare of powerful lights never deigned to speak to him. They drew blood samples in heated phials. At intervals they came to him to subject him to medications which made him feverish, sick and deathly cold by turns.

He knew that they were experimenting on him to find the right compound, and despite his position this knowledge gave him hope. Gradually, a feeling of calm began to pervade his body. Days later, though still feeling weak and ill, he walked again into the presence of Marguerite Dom.

In a small but exquisitely appointed room, filled with valuable objets d’art , the Wheel master lounged smoking in an armchair. It might have been some tiny living-room where an impecunious cognoscente of minor treasures had arranged his lifetime’s collection – though in fact it had probably been set up in a few hours.

Scarne entered, receiving from Dom a glance at once feral and tender.

‘Sit down, Cheyne. How are you feeling, hmmm ?’

Moving into the glowing lamplight, Scarne hesitated before taking the only other chair available, intimidated by the other’s powerful presence in this cunning miniature of a room. The two of them fitted into the meticulously ordered space with an unnatural intimacy.

‘The prognosis is favourable, I’m glad to say,’ Dom congratulated, speaking softly. ‘How does it feel to be cured?’

‘I ought to be half-insane by now, without my shot,’ Scarne said. ‘It seems unbelievable, but your boys have apparently pulled it off.’

Dom nodded, murmuring. ‘And do you feel you can rely on me now?’

Bowing his head, Scarne muttered a reply. ‘So it seems.’

‘You should always tell me your problems, whatever they may be,’ Dom went on. ‘Now you are free of your slavery, free of the Legitimacy, and we can take stock of your position anew. The question is, can I rely on you? I am not a vengeful man, but just the same you have committed a serious transgression.’

Scarne did not answer. Dom drew on his cigarillo. ‘I’m aware you were never an enthusiastic Legitimacy agent – indeed you failed to apprise your contact of the true nature of our project, though for your information, that knowledge would never have gone beyond Chasm. Nevertheless, I appreciate your reticence in that regard.’

‘I have no allegiances,’ Scarne said. ‘Not to the Legitimacy, to the Wheel, to anything.’

Dom chuckled. ‘But to Earth ?’ he responded. ‘To civilization – to mankind?’

Scarne stared at him.