The official glanced briefly at the papers and then compared the identification tabs with the markings seared deep in the flesh of Cartwright’s forearm. “We’ll have to examine fingerprints and brain pattern later. Actually, this is superfluous; I know you’re Leon Cartwright.” He pushed back the papers. “I’m Major Shaeffer, from the Directorate teep Corps. There are other teeps nearby. There was a power shift this morning, a little after nine.”
“I see,” Cartwright said, rolling his sleeve down and putting on his coat again.
Major Shaeffer touched the smooth edge of Cartwright’s status permit. “You’re not classified, are you?”
“No.”
“I suppose your p-card was collected by your protector-Hill. That’s the usual system, isn’t it?”
“That’s the usual system,” Cartwright said. “But I’m not under fief to any Hill. As you’ll see on my paper, I was discharged earlier this year.”
Shaeffer shrugged. “Then, of course, you put your power card up for sale on the blackmarket.” He closed his notebook with a snap. “Most twitches of the bottle bring up unclassifieds, since they outnumber classifieds by such a margin. But one way or another, classifieds manage to get hold of the power cards.”
Cartwright laid his power card on the table. “There’s mine.”
Shaeffer was astounded. “Incredible.” He rapidly scanned Cartwright’s mind, a suspicious, puzzled expression on his face. “You knew already. You knew this was coming.”
“Yes.”
“Impossible. It just occurred—we came instantly. The news hasn’t even reached Verrick; you’re the first person outside the Corps to know.” He moved close to Cartwright. “There’s something wrong here. How did you know it was coming?”
“That two-headed calf,” Cartwright said vaguely.
The teep official was lost in thought, still exploring Cartwright’s mind. Abruptly he broke away. “It doesn’t matter. I suppose you have some inside pipeline. I could find out; it’s in your mind, someplace deep down, carefully larded over.” He stuck out his hand. “Congratulations. If it’s all right with you, we’ll take up positions around here. In a few minutes Verrick will be informed. We want to be ready,” He pushed Cartwright’s p-card into his hand. “Hang onto this. It’s your sole claim to your new position.”
“I guess,” Cartwright said, beginning to breathe again, “I can count on you.” He pocketed the power card carefully.
“I guess you can.” Shaeffer licked his lip reflectively. “It seems strange. . . . You’re now our superior and Verrick is nothing. It may be some time before we can make the psychological .change-over. Some of the younger Corps members who don’t remember any other Quizmaster . . .” He shrugged. “I suggest you place yourself in Corps hands for awhile. We can’t stay here, and a lot of people at Batavia have personal fealties to Verrick, not to the position. We’ll have to screen everybody and systematically weed them out. Verrick has been using them to gain control over the Hills.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Verrick is shrewd.” Shaeffer measured Cartwright critically. “During his Quizmastership he was challenged repeatedly. There was always somebody filtering in. We were kept busy, but I suppose that’s what we’re for.”
“I’m glad you came,” Cartwright admitted. “When I heard the noise I thought it was—Verrick.”
“It would have been, if we had notified him.” There was grim amusement in Shaeffer’s eyes. “If it hadn’t been for the older teeps, we probably would have notified him first and taken our time getting here. Peter Wakeman made a big thing of it. Responsibility and duty, that sort of thing.”
Cartwright made a mental note. He could have to look up Peter Wakeman.
“As we approached,” Shaeffer continued slowly, “our first group picked up the thoughts of a large group of people, apparently leaving here. Your name was in their minds, and this location.”
Cartwright became instantly wary. “Oh?”
“They were moving away from us, so we couldn’t catch much. Something about a ship. Something to do with a long flight”
“You sound like a Government fortuneteller.”
“There was an intense field around them of excitement and fear.”
“I can’t tell you anything,” Cartwright repeated, with emphasis. “I don’t know anything about it.” Ironically, he added: “Some creditors, perhaps.”
In the courtyard outside the Society building Rita O’Neill paced around in a small, aimless circle, feeling suddenly lost. The great moment had come and passed; now it was part of history.
Against the Society building rose the small, barren crypt in which the remains of John Preston lay. She could see his dark, ill-formed body suspended within the yellowed fly-specked plasti-cube, hands folded over his bird-like chest, eyes shut, glasses eternally superfluous. Small hands, crippled with arthritis, a hunched-over near-sighted creature. The crypt was dusty; trash and debris were littered around it. Stale rubbish the wind had blown there and left. Nobody came to see Preston’s remains. The crypt was a forgotten, lonely monument, housing a dismal shape of clay, impotent, discarded.
But half a mile away the fleet of archaic cars was unloading its passengers at the field. The battered GM ore freighter was jammed tight on the launcher; the people were clumsily climbing the narrow metal ramp into the unfamiliar hull.
The fanatics were on their way. They were setting out for deep space to locate and claim the mythical tenth planet of the Sol System, the legendary Flame Disc, John Preston’s fabulous world, beyond the known universe.
THREE
BEFORE Cartwright reached the Directorate buildings at Batavia the word was out. He sat fixedly watching the tv screen, as the high-speed intercon rocket hurtled across the South Pacific sky. Below them were spread out blue ocean and endless black dots, conglomerations of metal and plastic house-boats on which Asiatic families lived, fragile platforms stretched from Hawaii to Ceylon.
The tv screen was wild with excitement. Faces blinked on and off; scenes shifted with bewildering rapidity. The history of Verrick’s ten years was shown: shots of the massive, thick-browed ex-Quizmaster and resumes of what he had accomplished. There were vague reports on Cartwright.
He had to laugh, in a nervous aside that made the teeps start. Nothing was known about him, only that he was somehow connected with the Preston Society. The newsmachines had dug up as much as possible on the Society: it wasn’t much. There were fragments of the story of John Preston himself, the tiny frail man creeping from the Information Libraries to the observatories, writing his books, collecting endless facts, arguing futilely with the pundits, losing his precarious classification, and finally sinking down and dying in obscurity. The meager crypt was erected. The first meeting of the Society was held. The printing of Preston’s half-crazed, half-prophetic books was begun. . . .
Cartwright hoped that was all they knew. He kept his mental fingers crossed and his eyes on the tv screen.
He was now the supreme power of the nine-planet system. He was the Quizmaster, surrounded by a telepathic Corps, with a vast army and warfleet and police force at his disposal. He was unopposed administrator of the random bottle structure, the vast apparatus of classification, Quizzes, lotteries, and training schools.
On the other hand, there were the five Hills, the industrial framework that supported the social and political system.
“How far did Verrick get?” he asked Major Shaeffer.
Shaeffer glanced into his mind to see what he wanted. “Oh, he did fairly well. By August he would have eliminated the random twitch and the whole M-Game structure.”
“Where is Verrick now?”
“He left Batavia for the Farben Hill, where he’s strongest. He’ll operate from there; we caught some of his plans.”
“I can see your Corps is going to be valuable.”
“Up to a point. Our job is to protect you: that’s all we do. We’re not spies or secret agents. We merely guard your life.”
“What’s been the ratio in the past?”
“The Corps came into existence a hundred and sixty years ago. Since then we’ve protected fifty-nine Quizmasters. Of that number we’ve been able to save eleven from the Challenge.”
“How long did they last?”
“Some a few minutes, some several years. Verrick lasted about the longest, although there was old McRae, back in ’78, who ran his whole thirteen years. For him the Corps intercepted over three hundred Challengers; but we couldn’t have done it without McRae’s help. He was a wily bastard. Sometimes I think he was a teep.”
“A telepathic Corps,” Cartwright mused, “which protects me. And public assassins to murder me.”
“Only one assassin at a time. Of course, you could be murdered by an amateur unsanctioned by the Convention. Somebody with a personal grudge. But that’s rare. He wouldn’t get anything out of it except the loss of his p-card. He’d be politically neutralized; he’d be barred from becoming Quizmaster. And the bottle would have to be stepped ahead one twitch. A thoroughly unsatisfactory event.”
“Give me my length ratio.”
“Average, two weeks.”
Two weeks, and Verrick was shrewd. The Challenge Conventions wouldn’t be sporadic affairs put together by isolated individuals, hungry for power. Verrick would have everything organized. Efficient, concerted machinery would be turning out one assassin after another, creeping and crawling toward Batavia without end, until at last the goal was reached and Leon Cartwright was destroyed.