Barrington Bayley - The Grand Wheel

Studying his too-large face, Scarne was struck by a fascinating fact. It was not a human face, the distribution and shape of the features being wrong, yet it reminded him forcibly of the face of Marguerite Dom. It was creased much as Dom’s was, and possessed the same over-ripe magnetism, the same air of decadence and ancient toughness. There, too, were the intensive eyes Scarne had first noticed on Dom – and, by an odd coincidence, they were the same shade of brown.

Dom was faced with a kindred soul.

‘Please be seated,’ the Galactic Wheelman said, indicating the human-sized chairs arranged around the table. His voice was resonant, rich with all kinds of strange overtones.

They complied, Dom taking the centre chair. Once seated, Scarne could see that the crescent of the table continued into a full circle, a fact which had not been evident when they entered the chamber. Or was it only an illusion? They seemed to be separated from the other half of the table by a semitransparent curtain. Behind it were vague seated shapes – their opposite numbers in the galactic team. It was impossible to say whether the curtain was a real physical barrier, or only a screen for some kind of projection.

When they were settled, the seated giant spoke again. ‘It is our custom, in a new session with a new client, to preface the game with a short contest in the form of a general knowledge quiz. Agreed?’

Dom looked uncertainly at Scarne before answering. ‘What is the purpose of this custom?’

‘To sound each other out.’

Dom hesitated. ‘Agreed, provided no bets are made on the outcome.’

‘The winner deals first in the subsequent game, or throws first, depending on the nature of the game, which is yet to be decided. A study of randomatics reveals that an advantage lies with the dealing team.’

‘Very well, we’ll agree to that.’

‘Then we will begin.’

There was a stir behind the curtain. A gruff but well enunciated voice spoke. ‘Three billion light years due galactic west lies a galaxy containing a star designated as catalogue number 6847398472 by the astronomers of a neighbouring galaxy. On the northern continent of the fourth planet of that star, three mountains lie in a straight line, each one hundred thousand feet in height. What is the name given to the most northern of these mountains by the natives of that continent?’

A long pause followed the question.

‘We cannot answer that,’ Dom snapped, then. ‘It constitutes information impossible to know.’

We know,’ the voice rejoindered. ‘The name of the mountain is Kzzozz .’

‘It is now your turn to put a question,’ the giant in the centre of the table said.

Dom thought, and smiled. ‘On the island of Britain, planet Earth, is an inland territory known on old maps as Shropshire county, where there lies a small hill surmounted by a stone monument, close to the ancient town of Telford. What is the name of that hill in the local language?’

‘The name of the hill,’ answered a second, sharper voice from behind the curtain, ‘is Lilleshall Hill , formerly Lulla’s Hill, after a Saxon chief.’

The gruffer voice resumed. ‘What was the event that initiated the war between a water planet and a sulphur planet in the Andromeda galaxy one million years ago?’

‘But there is no way we can know these details!’ Dom protested. ‘We are being subjected to trickery!’

‘There is no trickery,’ interjected the alien in the centre. ‘You satisfied yourself on that score before coming here.’

‘Then our opponents have mental faculties we don’t. It was agreed that neither side would pre-empt the other in that way.’

Very briefly, the giant paused. ‘Only in a technical sense are we in default. One of our players is a psychic who is able to elicit distant, though useless, facts. Since in the game we are to play this ability offers no substantial advantage, his presence is admissible.’

‘It remains unfair as far as this contest goes,’ Dom persisted firmly. ‘We withdraw from the quiz.’

The giant shrugged. ‘Very well. Since we have answered one question, and you have failed to answer any, we have first deal. We will pass on to the main business.’ Scarne could not avoid the impression that he was amused. Perhaps they had been playing a joke on Dom.

The alien shifted his bulk, drawing himself more erect. ‘Games are of many varieties, containing greater or lesser skill, greater or lesser an element of chance. There are board games, and there are games consisting of arrays of independent abstract symbols. These games create their own dimensions, so to speak. What are your preferences?’

‘The latter,’ Dom said.

While the alien spoke Scarne had been receiving rapid mental impressions; his mind was bombarded with vivid images of boards, counters, decks of cards, and so on. Some kind of telepathic machine was at work. The Galactic Wheel man was not relying on words alone to make sure his meaning got across.

‘One of the simplest of these,’ the alien continued, ‘though one of the hardest to play, employs only two symbols and offers equal probability on either of them appearing after a randomizing process, the players calling bets on each result. This can be done, for instance, by flipping a coin. The process is repeated many thousands of times while the players pit their randomatic skills against each other in predicting the throws.’

‘We’ve played it,’ Dom said confidently, ‘but we don’t intend to play it here.’ He pulled out a deck, ripped off the wrapping and spread it on the table before the alien. ‘We play cards. My game is Kabala.’

The alien’s face bent to view the painted cards. ‘Yes, we have studied it,’ he remarked. ‘We have a comparable game, and I suggest it is a game of this type that we now play.’

He pointed to a console that stood on one side of the domed chamber, against the wall. ‘It was agreed during negotiations that the game could not be one in which one but not the other of the parties was versed, which effectively rules out both your Kabala and our game, which we call Constructions. Instead, the designing machine will put together a special game for the occasion, of the same type as both Kabala and Constructions, and will teach it to us by means of mental induction. The experience we have gained in the past with our respective games will thus find a natural application here.’

He clapped his hands, and looked expectantly at the console. For about a minute nothing happened, then a cool, bright light issued from it and seemed to dart, first to Scarne’s eyes, and then into his brain.

He was dazzled by the light: it was like having a spotlight trained on one. He fancied he could feel it, like something icy, alive and intelligent .

And there formed in his mind complete knowledge of the new game. It was a game using a hundred-and-fifty-card deck, as difficult and abstruse as Kabala, if not more so, and bearing many resemblances to it.

Scarne felt as if he had been playing it all his life. He wondered how Dom had satisfied himself that the galactics would not cheat. It was obvious they had an impressive armoury of tricks.

‘You are ready to play?’ the seated alien asked.

The solmen all nodded.

‘A playing team may consist of up to four players, which may reduce as the game proceeds,’ their host continued. ‘We will therefore begin with four a side. You may, between rounds, stand any member down and use substitutes. There is a room nearby where the others can rest, or else they may kibitz.’

‘Understood,’ Dom said. ‘I’ve already got my four picked out.’

The alien moved his hand and suddenly there appeared on the table before Dom an avalanche of little oblong objects in various colours. They appeared to be made of some rubbery material. ‘We have agreed beforehand on the stock represented by these tokens,’ the alien said. ‘The pile before you consists of one million units in various denominations.’