World of Chance

The sound of Verrick's voice grated in Moore's aud phones. On the screen, his technician had started the body into uncertain activity. The schematic showed Pellig's location dot at the very core of the Directorate; the assassin had arrived but there was no quarry.

"It was a trap!" Verrick shouted in Moore's ear. "Now they're going to destroy him!"

On all sides of the demolished armoured chamber troops were in motion, Directorate resources responding to Shaeffer's hurried instructions.

Eleanor leaned close to Verrick's hunched shoulders. "They deliberately let him get in. Now—they're coming for him."

"Keep him moving!" Verrick shouted. "They'll burn him to ashes if he simply stands there!"

Pellig floundered in confusion. He raced along the passage and out of the chamber, then sped from door to door like a trapped animal. Once he halted to burn down a gun that had ventured too close and was taking aim. The gun dissolved and Pellig sprinted past its smoking ruin, but behind it the corridor was jammed with troops. He gave up and scurried back.

Herb Moore snapped a sentence to Verrick: "They took Cartwright out of Batavia."

"Look for him!"

"He's not there." Moore thought quickly. "Transfer to me your analysis of ship-movements from Batavia. We know he was there up to an hour ago. Hurry!"

The metalfoil rolled from its slot by Moore's hand. He snatched it up and sca

Moore slammed home a switch; buttons leaped excitedly. Moore's body sagged limply.

At his own screen Ted Benteley saw the Pellig body jump and stiffen. A new operator had entered it; above Benteley the red button had moved on.

The new operator wasted no time. He burned down a handful of troops and then a section of wall, fusing the steel and plastic together in a molten mass. Through the rent the synthetic body skimmed, a projectile plunging in an arcing trajectory. A moment later it emerged from the building and, still gaining velocity, hurtled straight upward at the dull disc of the moon.

Below Pellig Earth fell away. He was moving out into free space.

Benteley sat paralyzed at his screen. Suddenly every­thing made sense. As he watched the body race through darkening skies that lost their blue colour and gained pin­points of unwinking stars, he understood what had happened to him. It had been no dream. The body was a miniature ship, equipped in Moore's reactor labs. And he realized with a rush of admiration that the body needed no air, that it didn't respond to extreme temperature. It was capable of inter-planetary flight.

It was doing that now.

Peter Wakeman received the ipvic call from Shaeffer within a few seconds of the time when Pellig left Earth. "He's gone," Shaeffer muttered. "He took off like a meteor."

"Heading where?" Wakeman demanded.

"Towards Luna." Shaeffer's face suddenly collapsed.

"We gave up. We called in regular troops. The Corps couldn't do a thing."

"Then I can expect him any moment."

Wakeman broke the co

Some kind of multiple mind came and went. A fractured personality artificially segmented into unattached com­plexes, each with its own drives, characteristics and strategy. Shaeffer had been right to call in regular non-telepathic troops.

Wakeman lit a cigarette and aimlessly spun his good-luck charm until it tugged loose from his hand and banged into the tapes stacked on his work-desk. He almost had it. If he had more time, a few days to work the thing out... He got up suddenly and headed for a supply locker. "Here's the situation," he thought to the Corpsmen scattered around. "The assassin has survived our Batavia network. He's on his way to Luna."

He radiated what he had learned about Pellig and what he believed. The answering thoughts came back instantly.

"A robot?"

"A multiple-personality synthetic?"

"Then we can't go by mind-touch. We'll have to lock on physical-visual appearance."

"You can catch murder-thoughts," Wakeman dis­agreed, as he buckled on a protective suit. "But don't expect continuity. The thought-processes will cut off without warning. Be prepared for the impact; that's what destroyed the Corps at Batavia."

"Does each separate complex bring a new strategy?"

"Apparently. Find him and kill him. As soon as you catch the murder-thought burn him to ash."

Wakeman poured himself a drink. He locked his helmet in place, snapped on the air-temp feed lines, collected a gun and hurried to one of the exit sphincters.

The arid, barren expanse of waste was a shock. He stood fumbling with his humidity and gravity control, adjusting himself to the sight of an infinity of dead matter. The moon was a ravaged, blasted plain of gaping craters where the original meteors had smashed away the life of the satellite. Nothing stirred, no wind or flutter of life. Where­ever he looked there was only the pocked expanse of rubble. The face of the moon had dried up and split. The skin had been eroded; only the skull was left, and as Wakeman stepped gingerly forward he felt that he was tramping over the features of a death's head.

While Wakeman was hurrying across the deserted land­scape someone's thoughts were jubilantly hammered into his brain. "Peter, I've spotted him! He landed just now, a quarter of a mile from me!"

The Corpsman was excitedly voluble. "He landed like a meteor. I saw a flash—I went to investigate——"

So Keith Pellig was that close to his prey? Wakeman cut his gravity-pressure to minimum and rushed forward wildly. In leaps and bounds he dashed towards his fellow Corpsman; panting, gasping for breath, he moved nearer the assassin.

He stumbled and pitched on his face. As he struggled up the hiss of escaping air whined in his ears. With one hand he dragged out the emergency repair pack; with the other he fumbled for his gun. He had dropped it somewhere in the debris around him.

The air was going fast. He forgot the gun and con­centrated on patching his protective suit. The plastic hardened instantly, and the terrifying hiss ended. As he began searching for the weapon among the boulders and dust a Corpsman's thought was transmitted to him.

"He's moving! He's heading towards the right place!"

"Where are you?" He set off at a bounding trot in the direction of the Corpsman. A high ridge rose ahead of him; he sprinted up it and half-slid, half-rolled down the far-side. A vast bowl stretched out in front of him. The Corps- man's thoughts came to him strongly now. He was close by.

And for the first time he caught the thoughts of the assassin.

Wakeman stopped, rigid. "That's not Pellig!" he radiated back wildly. "That's Herb Moore!"

Moore's mind pulsed with frenzied activity. Unaware that he had been detected, he had let down all barriers. His eager, high-powered thoughts poured out in a flood.

Wakeman stood frozen, concentrating on the stream of mental energy lapping at him. It was all there, the whole story. Moore's super-charged mind contained every frag­ment of it.

A variety of human minds. Altering personalities hooked to an intricate switch-mechanism. Coming and going in chance formation, without pattern. Minimax, randomness, M-game theory...

It was a lie.

Wakeman recoiled. Beneath the surface of game-theory was another level, a submarginal syndrome of hate and desire and terrible fear. Jealousy of Benteley. Terror of death. Moore was a driven man, dominated by the torment of dissatisfaction, culminating in ruthless cu