World of Chance

Benteley took the glass. "Thanks."

"And cheer up."

"What's this all about?" Benteley indicated the packed cavern of murmuring people. They were all well dressed; every top-level class was represented. "I expect to see them start dancing."

"There was di

A sudden rustle swept over the nearby people. They were all watching nervously, avidly, as Reese Verrick approached. With him was a slender man with arms loose at his sides, his face blank and expressionless. A ripple of sound swirled after him, the exclamations of tribute.

"That's him," Eleanor grated between her white teeth, eyes flashing. She grabbed fiercely at Benteley's arm. "That's Pellig. Look at him."

Pellig said nothing. His hair was straw-yellow, moist and limp. His features were uncertain, almost nondescript. A colourless, silent person almost lost from sight as the rolling giant beside him propelled him among the watching couples. After a moment the two of them were swallowed up by satin slacks and floor-length gowns, and the buzz of conversation was resumed.

Eleanor shivered.

"He gives me the creeps." She smiled up quickly at Benteley, still holding tight to his arm. "What do you think of him?"

"I didn't get any impression." In the distance Verrick was surrounded by a group of people, and Herb Moore's voice rose above the blur of sound: he was expounding again. A

"Where are you going?" Eleanor asked.

"Home." The word slipped out involuntarily.

"Where do you mean?" Eleanor smiled wryly. "I can't analyse you any more. I gave all that up." She lifted her crimson hair to show the two dead circles above her ears, lead-grey spots that marred the smooth whiteness of her skin.

"I can't understand you," Benteley said, "discarding an ability you were born with."

"You sound like Wakeman. If I had stayed with the Corps I would have had to use my ability against Reese. So what else could I do but leave?" There was agony in her eyes. "You know, it's really gone. It's like being blinded. I screamed and cried a long time afterwards. I broke down completely."

"How are you now?"

She gestured shakily. "I'll live. Anyhow, I can't get it back. So forget it. Drink your drink and relax." She clinked glasses with him. "It's called methane gale. I suppose Callisto has a methane atmosphere."

"Have you ever been to one of the colony planets?" Benteley asked. He sipped at the amber liquid; it was strong stuff. "Have you ever seen one of the work-camps, or one of the squatters' colonies after a police patrol has finished with it?"

"I've never been off Earth. I was born in San Francisco nineteen years ago. All telepaths come from there, re­member. During the Final War the big research installa­tions at Livermore were hit by a soviet missile. Those who survived were badly injured. We're all descendants of one family, Earl and Verna Phillips. The whole Corps is related. I was trained all the time I was growing up."

Music had started up at one end of the chamber. A music robot of random combinations of sound, har­monic colours and shades that flitted agilely. Some couples started dancing listlessly. A group of men had gathered together and were arguing.

Near the double doors a few people were seeking their wraps and wandering away, dull-faced, vacant-eyed, mouths slack with fatigue and boredom.

Verrick's deep tones boomed out over everybody else's; he was dominating an argument. People nearby stopped talking and began filtering over to listen. A tight knot of men formed, grim-faced and serious, as Verrick and Moore waxed louder and hotter.

"Our problems are of our own making," Verrick asserted. "They're not real, like problems of supply and labour surplus. This M-game was invented by a couple of mathe­maticians during the early phase of the Final War."

"You mean discovered," Moore said. "They saw that social situations are analogues of strategy games, like poker. A system that works in a poker game will work in a social situation, like business or war."

"What's the difference between a game of chance and a strategy game?" Laura Davis asked, from where she and Al stood.

A

Moore turned back to Verrick. "You want to deny that society operates like a strategy game? Minimax was a brilliant hypothesis. It gave us a rational, scientific method of cracking any strategy and transforming the strategy game into a chance game, where the regular statistical methods of the exact sciences function."

"All the same," Verrick rumbled, "this chance business deposes a man for no reason and elevates an ass, a crack­pot, picked at random, without regard to ability or class."

"Our whole system is built on Minimax. Everybody is compelled to play a Minimax game or be squashed; we're forced to give up deception and adopt a rational pro­cedure."

"There's nothing rational in chance," Verrick answered angrily.

"The chance factor is a function of an overall rational pattern. In the face of random changes, no administrator can be a schemer. Everybody is forced to adopt a ran­domized reasoning: analysis of the possibilities of certain events tempered by the assumption that any machinations will be found out in advance."

"So we're a bunch of superstitious fools?" Verrick complained. "Everybody trying to read signs and har­bingers. Two-headed calves and flocks of white crows! Dependent on chance, we're losing control because we can't plan."

"How can you plan with telepaths around? They find out every move."

Verrick pointed to his great barrel chest. "There are no charms hanging round by neck. I play a game of skill, not chance. What about Pellig—that's strategy, isn't it?"

"Strategy involves deception and with Pellig nobody is going to be deceived."

"Absurd!" Verrick growled. "You've been knocking yourself out keeping the Corps from knowing about Pellig."

"That was your idea." Moore flushed angrily. "I said then, and I say now: let them all know because there's nothing they can do. If I had my way I'd a

"You fool," Verrick rasped, "you certainly would!"

"Pellig is unbeatable." Moore was furious at being humiliated in front of everybody. "We've combined the essence of Minimax. Taking the bottle twitch as my start­ing point I've evolved a———"

"Shut up, Moore," Verrick muttered, moving a few steps away; people hurriedly stepped aside for him. "This chance stuff has got to go. You can't plan anything with it hanging over your head."

"That's why we have it!" Moore shouted after him.

"Then get rid of it."

"Minimax isn't something you turn on and off. It's like gravity; it's a law, a pragmatic law."

Benteley had moved over to listen. "You believe in natural law?" he asked.

"Who's this fellow?" Moore snarled, glaring furiously at Benteley. "What's his idea in butting in?"

Verrick swelled another foot taller. "This is Ted Benteley. Class eight-eight, same as you. We recently took him on."

Moore blanched. "Eight-eight! We don't need any more eight-eights!" His face became an ugly yellow. "Benteley? You're one of the Oiseau-Lyre throw-outs."

"That's right," Benteley said evenly. "And I came straight here."

"Why?"

"I'm interested in what you're doing."

"What I'm doing is none of your business!"

Verrick said hoarsely to Moore: "Shut up or get out. Benteley's working with you from now on, whether you like it or not."

"Nobody gets into the project but me!" Hatred, fear, and professional jealousy blazed on Moore's face. "If he can't hang on at a third-rate Hill like Oiseau-Lyre he isn't good enough to———"