He was inside: it had begun.
A small middle-aged man with steel-rimmed glasses and a tiny waxed mustache was standing by the door watching him intently. “You’re Benteley, are you?”
“That’s right,” Benteley answered. “I’m here to see Quizmaster Verrick.”
“Why?”
“I’m looking for a class 8-8 position.”
A girl pushed abruptly into the office. Ignoring Benteley, she said rapidly, “Well, it’s over.” She touched her temple. “See? Now are you satisfied?”
“Don’t blame me,” the small man said. “It’s the law.”
“The law!” The girl slid up onto the desk and shrugged her tangle of crimson hair back out of her eyes. She grabbed a package of cigarettes from the desk and lit up with shaky, nervous fingers. “Let’s get the hell out of here, Peter. There’s nothing of importance left.”
“You know I’m staying,” the small man said.
“You’re a fool.” The girl half turned as she noticed Benteley for the first time. Her green eyes flickered with surprise and interest. “Who are you?”
“Maybe you better come back some other time,” the small man said to Benteley. “This isn’t exactly the—”
“I didn’t come this far to get the runaround,” Benteley said hoarsely. “Where’s Verrick?”
The girl eyed him curiously. “You want to see Reese? What are you selling?”
“I’m a biochemist,” Benteley answered savagely. “I’m looking for a class 8-8 position.”
A faint touch of amusement twisted the girl’s red lips. “Is that so? Interesting . . .” She shrugged her bare shoulders. “Swear him on, Peter.”
The small man hesitated. Reluctantly, he stuck out his hand. “I’m Peter Wakeman,” he said to Benteley. “This girl is Eleanor Stevens. She’s Verrick’s private secretary.”
It wasn’t exactly what Benteley had expected. There was a momentary silence as the three of them appraised one another.
“The MacMillan sent him on in,” Wakeman said presently.
There’s an open call for 8-8 people. But I think Verrick has no need for more biochemists; he’s got enough already.”
“What do you know about it?” Eleanor Stevens demanded. “It’s none of your business; you’re not running personnel.”
“I’m using common sense.” Wakeman moved very deliberately between the girl and Benteley. “I’m sorry,” he said to Benteley. “You’re wasting your time here. Go to the Hill hiring offices—they’re always buying and selling biochemists.”
“I know,” Benteley said. “I’ve worked for the Hill system since I was sixteen.”
“Then what do you want here?” Eleanor asked.
“Oiseau-Lyre dropped me.”
“Go over to Soong.”
“I’m not working for any more Hills!” Benteley’s voice lifted harshly. “I’m through with the Hills.”
“Why?” Wakeman asked.
Benteley grunted angrily. “The Hills are corrupt. The whole system’s decaying. It’s up for sale to the highest bidder . . . and bidding’s going on.”
Wakeman pondered. “I don’t see what that matters to you. You have your work; that’s what you’re supposed to be thinking about.”
“For my time, skill, and loyalty I get money,” Benteley agreed. “I have a clean white lab and the use of equipment that costs more to build than I’ll earn in a lifetime. I get status-insurance and total protection. But I wonder what the end result of my work is. I wonder what it’s finally put to. I wonder where it goes.”
“Where does it go?” Eleanor asked.
“Down the rat hole! It doesn’t help anybody.”
“Whom should it help?”
Benteley struggled to answer. “I don’t know. Somebody, somewhere. Don’t you want your work to do some good? I stood the smell hanging around Oiseau-Lyre as long as possible. The Hills are supposed to be separate and independent economic units; actually they’re shipments and expense padding and doctored tax returns. It goes deeper than that. You know the Hill slogan: SERVICE IS GOOD AND BETTER SERVICE IS BEST. That’s a laugh! You think the Hills care about serving anybody? Instead of existing for the public good, they’re parasites on the public.”
“I never imagined the Hills were philanthropic organizations,” Wakeman said dryly.
Benteley moved restlessly away from the two of them; they were watching him as if he were a public entertainer. Why did he get upset about the Hills? Playing classified serf to a Hill paid off; nobody had complained yet. _But he was complaining._ Maybe it was lack of realism on his part, an anachronistic survival the child-guidance clinic hadn’t been able to shake out of him. Whatever it was, he had taken as much as he could stand.
“How do you know the Directorate is any better?” Wakeman asked. “You have a lot of illusions about it, I think.”
“Let him swear on,” Eleanor said indifferently. “If that’s what he wants, give it to him.”
Wakeman shook his head. “I won’t swear him on.”
“I will, then,” the girl answered.
“You’ll pardon me,” Wakeman said. From the desk drawer he got a fifth of Scotch and poured himself a drink. “Anybody care to join me?”
“No, thanks,” Eleanor said.
Benteley turned his back irritably. “What the hell is all this? Is this the way the Directorate is run?”
Wakeman smiled. “You see? Your illusions are being shattered. Stay where you are, Benteley. You don’t know when you’re well off.”
Eleanor slid from the desk and hurried out of the room. She returned in a moment with the customary symbol-representation of the Quizmaster. “Come over here, Benteley. I’ll accept your oath.” She placed a small plastic flesh-colored bust of Reese Verrick in the center of the desk and turned briskly to Benteley. “Come on.” As Benteley moved slowly toward the desk, she reached up and touched the cloth bag hanging from a string around his neck, the charm Lori had put there. “What kind of charm is that?” she asked him. She led him over beside her. “Tell me about it.”
Benteley showed her the bit of magnetized steel and white powder. “Virgin’s milk,” he explained curtly.
“That’s all you carry?” Eleanor indicated the array of charms dangling between her bare breasts. “I don’t understand how people get by with only one charm.” Her green eyes danced. “Maybe you don’t get by. Maybe that’s why you have bad luck.”
“I have a high positive scale,” Benteley began irritably. “And I have two other charms. Somebody gave me this.”
“Oh?” She leaned close and examined it intently. “It looks like the kind of charm a woman would buy. Expensive, but a little too flashy.”
“Is it true,” Benteley asked her, “that Verrick doesn’t carry any charms?”
“That’s right,” Wakeman spoke up. “He doesn’t need them. When the bottle twitched him to One he was already class 6-3. Talk about luck—that man has it. He’s risen all the way to the top, exactly as you see on the children’s edutapes. Luck leaks out of his pores.”
“I’ve seen people touch him hoping to get some of it,” Eleanor said, with shy pride. “I don’t blame them. I’ve touched him myself, many times.”
“What good has it done you?” Wakeman asked quietly; he indicated the girl’s discolored temples.
“I wasn’t born at the same time and place as Reese,” Eleanor answered shortly.
“I don’t hold with astro-cosmology,” Wakeman said calmly. “I think luck can be won or lost. It comes in streaks.” Speaking slowly and intently to Benteley, he continued, “Verrick may have it now, but that doesn’t mean hell always have it. They—” He gestured vaguely upward toward the floor above, “They like to see some kind of balance.” He added hastily, “I’m not a Christian or anything like that, you understand. I know it’s all random chance.” He breathed
a complicated smell of peppermint and onions into Benteley’s face. “But everybody gets his chance, someday. And the high and mighty always fall.”
Eleanor shot Wakeman a warning look. “Be careful.”
Without taking his eyes from Benteley, Wakeman said slowly, “Remember what I’m telling you. You’re out of fealty; take advantage of it. Don’t swear yourself on to Verrick. You’ll be stuck to him, as one of his permanent serfs. And you won’t like it.”
Benteley was chilled. “You mean I’m supposed to take an oath directly to Verrick? Not a positional oath to the Quizmaster?”
“That’s right,” Eleanor said.
“Why?”
“Things are a little uncertain right now. I can’t give you any more information. Later on, there’ll be an assignment for you in terms of your class requirements; that’s guaranteed.”
Benteley gripped his briefcase and moved aimlessly away. His strategy, his plan, had fallen apart. Nothing that he had run up against here corresponded to his expectations. “Then I’m in?” he demanded, half-angrily. “I’m acceptable?”
“Sure,” Wakeman said listlessly. “Verrick wants all the 8-8’s he can get. You can’t miss.”
Benteley retreated helplessly from the two of them. Something was wrong. “Wait,” he said, confused and uncertain. “I have to think this out. Give me time to decide.”
“Go right ahead,” Eleanor said indifferently.
“Thanks.” Benteley withdrew, to restudy the situation.
Eleanor wandered around the room, hands in her pockets. “Any more news on that fellow?” she asked Wakeman. “I’m waiting.”
“Only the initial closed-circuit warning to me,” Wakeman said. “His name is Leon Cartwright. He’s a member of some kind of cult, a crackpot splinter organization. I’m curious to see what he’s like.”