The Grand Wheel

‘When we move out into the galactic circuit, I’m taking him with me. I sense he has remarkable possibilities … a truly unique individual …’ A dreamy, depraved look came into Dom’s eyes.

‘The Legitimacy aren’t going to like your taking him. He’s a hot property where they’re concerned. They’ll want him back.’

‘They’ll be lucky to get anything back out of the debacle that’s about to hit the Cave. They’re going to lose everything here, is my prediction’

‘While you will gain everything?’

‘Let us not prejudice the issue.’

A thought struck Scarne. Here was a man on the eve of an event that could bring in its train incalculable consequences for humanity. But Dom didn’t even see it in that light. Where he was concerned, the event was simply the most important for him personally: a supreme game, for which he had unconsciously been preparing all his life. Scarne realized he could even have been wrong about Dom’s loyalty to the Grand Wheel. Perhaps he would be prepared to sell or wager the Wheel in the same way.

Such egotism was inspiring in its magnitude. Scarne felt insignificant alongside it.

He could foresee that he might cease to be Dom’s favourite soon. The Wheel master had found, in Shane, a much more attractive and more talented pupil.

*

Next morning, Scarne was woken early by the strident ringing of his alarm bell. He found it was a full hour before his normal time of rising, and then, looking at his paging indicator, saw that he was being summoned. Dressing, he hurried to his area in the training section. There he encountered Jerry Soma.

‘Get ready to disembark,’ Soma told him brusquely.

‘We are leaving?’

‘The galactics sent us a message during the night. They’ve ordered the Disk of Hyke to leave. Anybody we need for the game is to get on the ground and wait. That includes you, doesn’t it?’

‘How do the galactics contact us?’ Scarne asked curiously.

‘By narrowbeam.’

‘But how do they know where to locate us?’

‘A lot of us would like to know that.’

Scarne went to the disembarkation lifts. A lot of activity was going on. Glancing down the side of the big transport, he could see that a camp was being set up on the ground some distance away. He watched for a while as sprays were directed on to the tent frameworks, hardening to form nearly solid structures.

The lifts were also busy taking down crated items of equipment. It looked like preparations were in hand for a long stay, and more than the gaming team was to be present. There were squads of armed men also, probably to keep the Legitimacy camp sewn up.

At length Scarne found himself being nudged on to one of the lifting platforms and he descended to the ground. At the camp he found that a small tent had been set up for him, close to the pavilion structure that housed Marguerite Dom. Shane, however, slept in one of the partitions within the pavilion itself.

Two hours later he watched the Disk of Hyke whisper up from the desert, creating a brief dust shower, and go soaring off to disappear into the sky.

After that, anti-climax.

The first day was tense with expectation. Both Dom and Shane stayed in the pavilion and did not appear. Eventually, however, as nothing further came from the Galactic Wheel, the atmosphere relaxed. Dom set up a table outside the pavilion and took his meals there, inviting members of the team to join him. Sometimes he ventured into the Legitimacy camp, discussing the alien machine with Haskand and Wishom (who, despite his membership of the Legitimacy Armed Forces, seemed glad to discuss the problem with a scientist from a somewhat different cultural background).

With a pang of jealousy Scarne watched as Dom paid every attention to Shane, cosseting him, ordering special menus for him, showering him with calculated affection. Shane accepted his favoured status with a kind of smug pride. He was probably used to being treated as something special, Scarne thought, but with the Legitimacy it had meant extra strictness, extra rigour. Dom was offering him the lush life.

Then, at the sunset of the fourth day, everything happened at once.

Scarne was sitting in his tent when he was called into the pavilion. All ten members of the games team were present. Shane, however, was nowhere to be seen.

‘The final message has just come through,’ Dom told them quietly. ‘A galactic vessel is on its way to pick us up.’

A shiver ran through the assembled team. ‘How long …’

‘Almost immediately.’ Dom paused, for a moment looked uncertain. ‘This isn’t quite the way I wanted it. I would have preferred for us to arrive at the gaming place under our own steam, instead of having them pick us up. But that, after all, is how we often handle it when we stage a game.’

His words caused a slight stir. ‘Yeah, when there’s a security problem,’ someone pointed out. ‘Does this suggest that the game is illegal, in galactic terms?’

Dom’s eyes were withdrawn. ‘We have no information on that. The feasibility of the game, and the ability to pay up, is what is relevant.’