“Then what are the stakes we put up?” Scame wanted to know.
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“The Grand Wheel. All our tangible assets, and all our influence. The galactics regard it as a pitch which we operate. Should we lose, it will become theirs.” “They will run the Grand Wheel?” “Yes. Or do whatever it is they aim to do with it.” There was silence for a while, except for the rush of air past the speeding car. “You’re just as bad as I said,” Scarne said eventually. “You would have done it if you could.”
“Face facts. We are going to win. I have luck, Cheyne! The goddess’ rays are blazing down on me. Instead of heaping recriminations on me, you should be feeling relief that your fears were groundless.”
But Scarne felt himself too confused to feel such relief. He no longer knew whether he could trust anything Dom said.
The Chairman did not drive back to the camp but instead put the car down near to the glassy travel-globe, which was still waiting for them. Scame held back when Dom left the car and made for it. “Why are you taking me along?” In comradely fashion Dom put a hand on his shoulder. “You are my favorite, Cheyne, You’ve gone through the whole thing with me. I want your moral support.” Then he took his hand away and sighed. “But you may stay behind if that’s what you want.” “No,” Scame decided, “I’ll come.” Fearfully, he walked towards the majestically shimmering sphere.
“Has it occurred to you that this planetoid is a bit tatty?” Scarne asked Dom as the sphere descended towards the coldly glowing surface. “It seems to m� we’re not too important a customer.”
“They’re handling deals like this all the time,” Dom agreed. “They’re big. Very big.”
“Doesn’t that make you feel insignificant?”
“No. It’s our way in, that’s all. The first rung of the ladder. Once inside we’ll have immortality, power, knowledge-but you know something about gaining
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knowledge already, don’t you, eh, Cheyne?” He shot Scame an enquiring glance. “Maybe I’ll try a shot of that drug of yours myself.”
With the odd, disconcerting effect that caused them to brace themselves needlessly, the sphere embedded itself in the earth. This time they had not come down near the games village. The small landscape was empty except for what appeared to be a hut just short of the horizon. Dom and Scame trudged towards it over the cinder-like ground, reaching it in five minutes or so.
The hut had a crode makeshift appearance. It was constructed of planks of a fibrous material resembling wood and was windowless. After looking it over, Dom knocked on the door.
Immediately the door swung open. Within, the hut looked more comfortable but by no means luxurious. There was a table, and two chairs, one of them large and peculiar-looking, built for something other than human.
That something beckoned them in from the opposite side of the table. Only by a considerable stretching of definitions could it have been described as humanoid. It stood on two legs, but these were hinged partway up a sloping body, which balanced its weight by means of a thick tail as in some dinosaurs. The head, however, lacked any kind of snout. It was skull-like, covered with homy grey skin and looking upon them with staring, deep-set eyes.
They entered, Scame closing the door behind them. The air of the hut was close and stuffy, with a dog-like odor which Scarne found unpleasant. The alien took the larger chair, seating himself in it with a flick of his tail, which rested on a curved groove, and with a surprisingly long and slender arm motioned Dom to do likewise. There apparently being nowhere for Scame to sit, he remained standing to one side.
The alien’s head turned to regard him. “I am sorry,” he said in well-modulated, civilized-sounding tones which Scarne guessed came from an artificial voice-box, “you will wish to sit.”
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He made a motion with a long, multi-jointed hand. Some mechanism apparently responded to the signal, for a part of the wall came adrift and folded itself into a serviceable straight-backed chair which crept across the floor to Scarne.
“Thank you.” Scarne sat down.
The galactic player turned his attention to Dom. He placed a deck of cards on the table.
“Our proposal is this. This deck is of the same type that was used in the earlier games. No two cards have the same value, as you are aware. We will cut for a card, and play three times. Two winning cards out of three wins all.”
“Highest takes it?”
“Correct. I need hardly add that these cards are specially treated against any kind of legerdemain, which is superfluous in any case since they will be machine-shuffled. If there are to be subsequent games we can proceed by gentlemen’s agreement.”
“What about change-cards?”
“For this game, all cards are immutable,” the alien answered in a slightly surprised tone, as though the point was obvious.
Dom nodded slowly. Scarne found himself wondering, not for the first time, why Dom seemed to trust the galactics when they were in a position to perpetrate all kinds of trickery on him. But suddenly the answer came to him. For decades Dom had managed the Grand Wheel, and he knew the ethics and habits by which such organizations operated. The Galactic Wheel would not cheat him-or so he believed. It could, Scame told himself, be another case of occupational delusion.
Ever since the incident with the failed gun, Scarne had been feeling unwell. Now his head began to ache;
he felt as if he was stifling in the hot atmosphere of the hut.
Hot? It had not seemed hot when he entered a few minutes ago. He put his hand to his brow. He was feverish.
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The skull-headed galactic took the deck from the shuffling machine, laid it on the table and invited Dom to cut.
As Dom reached for the cards a choking pain seized Scame in the chest. He fell off his chair, clutching the region of his heart, and then passed out.
He must have been unconscious for only moments, because when he came round Dom and the alien were both helping him back onto his chair. He realized he had suffered a minor heart attack. He sat breathing in gasps, the pain subsiding.
The two players returned to their places. Dom had already drawn a trump card: The Wheel, one of the most powerful in the pack. Now the galactic cut: the Six of Planets.
Blearily gazing at Marguerite Dom in the first moments of his triumph, Scame was reminded of the Wheel Chairman as he had first met him. There was the same insouciance, the charm, the overpowering presence, the fastidiousness as to dress; but within it all, hidden from the casual eye, there was the reptilian coldness. Dom was a predator on a large scale, a suave intellectual giant empty of shame or any sense of guilt
Deftly the galactic inserted the deck in the shuffling machine again. Scame became aware of tingling pains in various parts of his body. He put his hand to his neck, the site of one of these pains. A large nodule had suddenly formed there. He was sprouting instant cancers. The air of the hut was suffocating him. He sensed that he was dying, rapidly and inexplicably. He forced himself to his feet. “Excuse me,” he mumbled. “I … need some fresh air.”
Dom glanced up to him. “I wouldn’t go outside if I were you. There’s a lot of interstellar debris in the Cave.”
“What… do you mean by that?” Dom shrugged. Scarne staggered to the door, pushed it open, and stepped outside. He walked a few steps away from the hut, feeling
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giddy and looked towards the horizon which was so close this might have been a toy planet. Then he looked up at the sky, and if he had not done so at that moment he might never have seen it.
In fact he was never quite sure afterwards, that he had. It was no more than a glimmer, a faint flash as the meteor whizzed through the planetoid’s shallow atmosphere.
The odds against it must have been billions to one. The meteor fell down from space and sheared off Scarne’s left arm.
He stood staring stupidly at the blood-spouting stump. Then, as he felt his knees buckling, he turned to the door and fell back into the hut. The alien rose calmly and came over to him, reaching out to him with his long arms and lifting him into his chair. He inspected the stump; Scarne felt him tie something on the flesh.
“The bleeding has stopped,” the galactic announced. In a thoughtful tone he added: “You are very unlucky.”
“Yes,” said a dazed Scame.
In his shock his thoughts were calm, piecing it all together. He could see clearly now exactly how-and why-Dom was using him.