Barrington Bayley - The Grand Wheel

‘Most commendable.’

Scarne stared at the tableau. He gestured to Shane. ‘What’s he talking about?’

‘We shall find out presently.’ Dom addressed Haskand. ‘I want to see this alien machine in operation. Judging by the set-up they’re obviously getting some kind of change out of it. Arrange it, will you?’

‘Shouldn’t we wait until I’ve studied their data notes?’

‘What for? Let’s see the show. If it is a fermat, maybe it will pay up.’

Haskand turned to Wishom. ‘Are you prepared to cooperate? I would appreciate it.’

Wishom looked dubious. He raised his eyebrows to Hakandra. After a moment’s deliberation the latter nodded.

‘I don’t know quite what your interest in this matter is, Chairman,’ he said, ‘but you plainly have the advantage over us, and I have no wish to be caught in any unpleasantness. Let me get Shane to his tent first.’

Dom had a sudden thought. ‘No. I want the lad to stay here until the experiment is over.’

He moved to the door, noting with satisfaction the look of guarded fury on Hakandra’s face.

‘Let me know if you need anything,’ he said finally to Haskand, and stepped past the two armed guards, beckoning Scarne to follow him.

They walked through the archaeologists’ camp. Just beyond its bounds were fresh mounds of earth and heaps of odd-looking artifacts. From the look of them, though, the digging and sifting machines had not been used for some time. A thick layer of dust had blown over them. Everything, Scarne guessed, had come to a stop because of the study of the randomness machine.

Dom spoke, his tone gloating. ‘They’re up to something,’ he said. ‘They are trying to hide whatever it is has to do with the boy. I have an instinct about him – see if I’m not right.’

A Wheel man climbed down from a parked half-track and spoke quietly to Dom, pointing to a small yellow tent that lay not far off. Dom instantly made for it.

‘That’s where their chief technician lives,’ he told Scarne. ‘All the data is there. Now we’ll really find out what they’ve been doing with that gadget.’

Inside the tent, one of Dom’s people was huddled over a reading machine to which was attached a transliteration modem. All around him were scattered tapes, papers and coils.

He looked up as Dom entered. ‘The Legits certainly lay some store by this device they’ve found, sir,’ he said. ‘They’ve been working all out on it.’

‘Well, what is it?’

‘They think it’s able to affect probability in some way, to increase or decrease it. But they don’t have it under control, that’s certain.’

Dom became very thoughtful. ‘What makes them think it can do that?’

‘There’s a new nova about thirty light years from here. They think the machine triggered it.’

Dom sat down as if in sudden surprise. ‘Well!’

‘It seems they were hoping to learn how to control the nova process here in the Cave. As you can imagine, sitting on top of a potential nova is something that drives the Legits crazy.’

Dom uttered a short, sharp laugh.

The scientist indicated the spread mass of tapes. ‘They don’t really have a clue how or why it works, though, and objectively a chance result like a nova would be difficult to confirm. These records only deal with uninterpreted responses the machine makes to specified inputs. It’s what they use to register those responses that’s interesting, and probably more important.’

He paused. ‘Well, go on,’ Dom murmured.

‘The Legits have been developing something they’ve managed to keep secret from us—’

He stopped as a high-pitched howl came from the direction of the research tent.

They looked at one another. ‘What was that?’ Scarne said.

‘It sounded like that youth,’ Dom answered.

Scarne bolted and ran towards the sounds of torment. Behind him, he heard Dom’s feet, pounding at a slower pace. The howling had died down by the time he reached the tent. He burst in to be greeted by a weird scene. The alien drum was blazing, throwing off an eerie light. The youth Shane was sprawled in his chair, his face ashen, mumbling into a microphone which Hakandra held to his lips.

Wishom, also, was bending over the boy, directing questions at him in a clipped, fussy voice.

‘It was like the last time,’ Shane said in faint, resigned tones. ‘As if tragedy was about to break now, in the next minute, and couldn’t be avoided – awful tragedy. Only nothing ever happens.’ He struggled upright. ‘That’s what it is,’ he said contemptuously. ‘A tragedy machine. Only you haven’t got it to work right yet.’

‘What,’ Dom interrupted, ‘is going on?’

Haskand sidled close to him. ‘The machine has some peculiar effect on the youngster. He was in quite a state. It shook me up, I can tell you.’

‘I knew there was something!’ Dom exclaimed softly.

He stepped to Shane, looking at him with concern. ‘Poor boy,’ he murmured.

He straightened to confront Hakandra. ‘And you have a considerable amount of explaining to do.’

Hakandra snapped shut his recorder. ‘To the Grand Wheel? Hardly. It is you who will be called to account when this charade is over.’

‘You mean when forces arrive to investigate what has happened here, I presume? I doubt that they will, until after we have left. We should be able to arrange for your usual reports to go out.’

The scientist who had been studying Wishom’s data entered the tent. He stared hard at Shane, then turned to Dom.

‘This is what I was about to tell you, sir. The boy is some sort of psychic sensitive. He can sense probabilities with his mind. When the machine goes into operation, it creates some sort of field which registers with him. He’s their instrumentation.’

‘He can sense probabilities ?’ Dom echoed.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You mean he’s a randomatician?’

‘I think it’s a little more than that.’

‘Why were you brought into the Cave?’ Dom asked Shane. ‘To study the machine?’

Hakandra hushed the boy, but he spoke up nevertheless. ‘I know when a star is about to blow,’ he said. ‘Usually, anyway. I give warning. At least,’ his mouth twisted wryly, ‘that’s what I used to do.’

‘But the nova process occurs at random here. Even randomaticians can’t predict it for a specific star.’

Shane shrugged.

‘Are there others like you?’ Dom asked after a pause.

‘A few.’

I want him , Dom thought. The Wheel had long suspected there was some such faculty in human beings. Gamblers and card players sometimes felt it – the certainty that the next card would be a particular card. But it was a certainty that occurred so seldom that it was easily put down to delusion. If the Legitimacy really had developed it, then they had a powerful weapon to use against the Wheel.

Equally, it could form a valuable adjunct to Wheel capabilities – something as useful, perhaps, as the luck equations.

‘Why were you screaming?’

Shane twisted up his face. ‘It hurts. It hurts so much. My talent is like a delicate flower. The machine bruises it, crushes it. It hurts.’

‘A talent for poetry, too,’ Dom murmured.

He faced Hakandra again. ‘It is plain you have been mistreating this unfortunate youth. I am taking him into my care, for his own good.’

‘No!’ Hakandra clasped his arms around Shane, his face suddenly desperate. ‘He belongs to me – to the Legitimacy!’

‘You do not know how to behave to a tender boy. You will do him permanent damage.’ Dom beckoned the two guards who stood by the door. They tore Shane from Hakandra’s grasp.

‘This is blatant kidnapping,’ the Legitimacy official stormed. ‘You won’t get away with it, Chairman. This is something that simply won’t be tolerated!’