“We’ll be all right here,” Hakandra continued eagerly. “They’ll never find us and we needn’t come out again until it’s safe.”
He sat Shane down and inspected him, wiping his dusty face with a damp cloth. “Are you all right? How did Dom treat you?”
“Better than you ever did,” Shane answered with a shrug.
A look of pain crossed Hakandra’s face. “You have been in the hands of evil people,” he said, his tone urgent. “Don’t you understand? The Legitimacy is fighting to ward off chaos, to make life safe and controllable for mankind. On all sides there are threats and dangers. The Grand Wheel is one of the worst of
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them.” His eyes burned into Shane’s. “We have to stand firm. You see that, don’t you? We have to do our duty!”
Shane looked away and sighed. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said. “I guess you’re right. For a while it looked as if life might be fun with the Wheel, that’s all.”
Hakandra sat down, suddenly very, very tired. He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Yes, Shane,” he said woodenly, “I expect it did.”
Chapter Fourteen
The lucid globe had clearly carried them a considerable number of light years. Scarne could see, standing out against the starry galactic background, a more brilliant point of light that was obviously a fairly recent nova, and which had not been visible from their point of departure.
He took his eyes from the sky and studied the ground as the sphere fell towards it. The view was so open that, although the sphere contained a stable inertial frame, all within it automatically put out their arms to steady themselves.
The globe touched ground and, to Scarne’s mild surprise, continued to sink into it until the patch of desert they stood upon made a seamless fit with the somewhat lighter soil outside. What had happened to the earth the globe had presumably displaced he could not imagine.
Muller was the first to risk leaving the space bubble. When no harm came to him, the others follow, There was no sign of vegetation on the landscape, but the air was fresh and invigorating, and the gravity, too, approximated to Earth-normal-more signs that
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the planetoid had been artificially modified. The horizon was considerably less than a mile away. Its clean, sharp line was interrupted in one direction by the outlines of buildings that jutted up from just beyond it.
Where the asteroid’s illumination came from was a mystery. Their bodies cast no shadows. It was as if the air itself was aglow; not brightly, but with a cool, sterile light that, had there been a moon, could have been taken for moonlight.
Dom gestured to the distant shapes. “That’s it, I imagine. Let’s walk.”
They kept silence while trudging across the cinder-like soil. Soon their destination revealed itself as a complete installation that could have been a town, a fairground, or any of a dozen other hypothetical sites. Scarne guessed it was some sort of commercial gaming area. The entire planetoid, in fact, could have been an alien version of the gameships the Grand Wheel deployed on the fringes of man-controlled space.
They walked between modestly-sized nondescript buildings which bad a steely sheen. Further off, Scame saw a large concourse, or midway, lined with booths.
The installation appeared to be deserted. The first indication of life was when a lighted sign began to flash on and off over the entrance to one of the larger buildings which had a domed roof.
“PLEASE ENTER HERE.”
“Our own language, too,” Dom remarked wryly. He led the way through the arched opening and into a sort of foyer. A second archway led to a spacious round chamber beneath the building’s dome. There, seated on a high chair with an expansive crescent-shaped table at the level of his feet, waited one of their hosts.
The creature was humanoid, but considerably larger than a man-when standing, he might easily have stretched eight foot tall. He wore what seemed to be a tailored suit of outlandish cut whose soft colors altered when he moved.
Studying his too-large face, Scame was struck by a
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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 overripe magnetism, the same air of decadence and ancient toughness. There, too, were the intensive eyes Scame 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 center chair. Once seated, Scame 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 semi-transparent 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 Scame 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
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galactic west lies a galaxy containing a star designated as catalogue number 684739472 by the astronomers of a neighboring 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 center 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 center. “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.”
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“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 Scame 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 Wheelman was not relying on words alone to make sure his meaning got across.