The Grand Wheel

‘This is blatant kidnapping,’ the Legitimacy official stormed. ‘You won’t get away with it, Chairman. This is something that simply won’t be tolerated!’

The glare from the randomness machine had died down. Dom cast one last glance at Hakandra before he left.

‘Investigate the machine as best you can. Give me a daily report.’

Hakandra stood with clenched fists as Dom led Shane away.

THIRTEEN

‘Now, Shane,’ Dom said gently. ‘Let’s see if you can tell me what these cards are.’

Slowly he laid cards face down on the table one after the other, glancing at Shane expectantly each time.

With a jerky movement Shane grabbed up the glass of fruit juice Dom had given him, gulped it, then pushed it away again. ‘I don’t know,’ he said indignantly. He brightened. ‘Tell you what. Pass them out and I’ll tell you when you come to the Ace of Wands.’

‘All right.’ Silently Dom began to transfer the deck a card at a time from his left hand to a growing pile on the table. After a minute Shane raised his hand.

‘There it is.’

Dom turned over the designated card. It was, indeed, the Ace of Wands.

‘Ah,’ he breathed.

He gazed fondly at Shane, smiling. ‘Young man, you could make yourself rich.’

Shane grunted. ‘Fat chance. I’ve been a ward of the Legitimacy since I was born.’

‘But I have taken you away from all that,’ Dom said, his voice seductive. ‘Those Legitimacy people have just used you for their own purposes, Shane. I can teach you how to make your gift work for yourself.’

They were back in the: Disk of Hyke. Dom had spent the afternoon alone with Shane; now Scarne had joined them for an evening meal. He sat to one side, watching while the Wheel master spun out his spiel to the youth.

Shane did not, on the face of it, seem either co-operative or impressionable. Scarne did not know quite how to read him. In one way he seemed totally submissive; in another, neurotic and fractious. There was definitely something very odd about him.

His Legitimacy upbringing probably had a lot to do with it. His was a naturally rebellious disposition that had had to learn to be malleable. What was obvious was that Dom was excited by his new find, even more so than with the alien machine.

Shane stretched and yawned. ‘I’m tired.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Dom replied soothingly. He rang a bell. A valet appeared and, opening a door to a small bedroom next to the lounge, ushered Shane into it and helped him prepare for bed.

Dom himself slept in a more luxurious bedroom off the opposite side of the lounge. After Shane had retired he sat shuffling the Tarot pack for some moments, deep in thought. At length he spoke to Scarne.

‘At least we have an indication now why the galactics chose to play us in the Cave of Caspar.’

‘Oh? Why?’ Scarne asked.

‘Shane explained it to me. He claims the Cave is deficient in luck. Everything is bad luck here. For that reason, races, biotas and civilizations consistently collapse here – and stars keep exploding.’

‘Is that possible?’

Dom nodded. ‘Luck is a cosmic quality. There is no reason why it should not be more concentrated in some regions than in others. I have asked my technicians to make some tests, and I have no doubt that they will find that luck has a very low index here – Lady has deserted the place, is how Shane puts it. Presumably our opponents prefer that as a background to play against.’

‘Or perhaps they wish to forestall any mathematical manipulation of luck.’

‘It wouldn’t make any difference – I’ve already checked on that. Our equations are as workable here as anywhere else.’

Scarne dwelt on that. He couldn’t avoid a feeling that Dom was making a mistake – that the galactics couldn’t be as ignorant of luck as the Wheel master supposed. ‘What makes you so sure the luck equations are a unique discovery?’ he challenged. ‘What about this machine the Legitimacy has found – isn’t that, perhaps, a luck machine?’

‘No.’ Dom left off shuffling and threw the pack into a disposal slot which flared briefly as it incinerated the cards. ‘Luck refers only to conscious or living entities. Where material objects are concerned, whether a star or an atom, then it’s simple probability. Stars are exploding because that makes it an unlucky place for life forms that are trying to evolve here, do you see? The Cave is littered with failed biospheres. But the machine deals only with probabilities.’ He turned his head to look at Scarne with a mocking smile. ‘You still find it a difficult concept to swallow, don’t you – the relationship between chance and luck? Don’t worry. It baffled some of Sol’s finest minds for centuries.’

‘Then how did you find the answer?’

‘The first clue,’ Dom said slowly, ‘came from a man called Velikosk. You’ve probably never heard of him. It was a long time ago. But this whole conversation is redundant, really, because we don’t plan to use the luck equations yet – not unless we have to. Tell me, what do you think of Shane?’

‘A strange boy.’