The Grand Wheel

‘Okay.’ Dom relaxed, his shoulders slumping. He was, Scarne realized, tired. ‘I want to break off first and return to my camp, to freshen up, to – to freshen my luck. If that’s all right by you.’

‘Ah, luck,’ the alien said, as if amused. ‘It is astonishing how many gamblers pay homage to the god of luck.’

‘In our mythology, she’s a lady,’ Dom told him. ‘A goddess, not a god.’

‘That is because your species has maternal fixations. We see the gods as more disinterested. Will you return alone?’

‘I’d like to bring one other with me. For company.’

‘You are our guest,’ the alien said courteously. He turned his head, surveying the scene as if checking for final details. ‘Then I will bid you goodbye for the present. Before leaving, why not visit our Avenue of Chance? There are many small games there that might entertain you.’ He held out his arm, elegantly indicating the exit.

The Grand Wheel team made a subdued group as they left the domed building and emerged on to the dusty street. Walking with Dom, Scarne paused. To one side, the interstellar travel globe could be seen just over the close horizon. The concourse which he had noticed earlier, and which presumably was the avenue referred to by the galactic, lay a few yards away.

Dom gazed towards it. ‘What do you think, Scarne?’

‘It might be interesting,’ Scarne said, his voice still none too steady.

‘No harm in taking a look,’ Dom agreed.

As they walked towards the entrance to the avenue, Scarne found that his mind was still preoccupied with the Wheel card. He wondered if the glimpses he had received reflected real facts. Or whether they were only the work of the imagination, invoked by the rare combination of an addictive drug, his randomatic training, and the too-evocative symbols of the cards. He had been handling a Tarot pack, he recalled, minutes before he played the mugger on Io.

Probably he would never know the truth of it.

‘Games theory,’ he said aloud.

Dom shot him a mystified look. ‘What, Cheyne?’

‘It’s a problem biochemists have never solved. How life manages to emerge from inanimate matter. The odds are all against it, in chemical terms, yet it happens. The biochemists – they should study games theory.’

‘Is that what you learned while you were out cold on us?’

‘Yes.’

‘If you had held that last card and not played it, Cheyne, we might have come out well ahead on that round, despite the fact that you were already losing control. Still, it wasn’t really your fault.’

‘No.’

The Avenue of Chance was, at first sight, a tawdry affair. Built of a material resembling canvas, the booths had a make-shift appearance. The party ventured diffidently into the midway, then stopped as a peculiar animal, or creature, pushed through the front flap of the first booth and stepped out to accost them.

When squatting on its hind legs, the creature was about four foot high and looked somewhat like a cross between a monkey and a hairless dog, with a long tapering snout and narrow eyes that glittered.

‘Good day, gentlemen,’ it began in a soft, gruff voice. ‘Try your luck at my game of chance. The prize is of incalculable value.’

Scarne tried to peer past the folds that hid the interior of the booth, but he failed to see anything in the dimness within. Dom gestured around him. ‘Was all this set up just for us?’ he asked.

‘By no means, sir. We tour three galaxies with our little show, visiting all manner of out-of-the-way places. Step within, any of you, and dare the odds!’

‘What is the prize?’ Scarne asked curiously.

The animal licked its chops with a pink, pointed tongue. ‘In this galaxy it is a principle of life that all creatures have but brief life-spans. It is an escape from this law that I offer. Take a spin on my machine, and you may win immortality!’

‘And if we lose?’

‘Then your life-force becomes ours, to use as we wish.’

Müller spoke up. ‘What are the odds?’

‘A thousand to one against,’ the creature said smoothly. ‘Generous figures, in the circumstances. You have but a few decades to lose. But you may win years measured in millions!’

‘Come on,’ Dom ordered abruptly. ‘Let’s get back to the sphere.’

‘Wait a minute!’ Müller looked distraught; he was thinking hard. ‘I’ll take those odds,’ he said. He rounded on Dom, cutting off his angry remonstrances. ‘We’ve as good as lost, Chairman! This is the only way we’ll get anything. I reckon there isn’t much left to lose.’

A fateful look came over him as he lumbered towards the booth. The alien rose, held aside the fold of cloth to allow him to enter, then followed. Before the cloth fell, Scarne glimpsed a low table with some sort of apparatus on it.

Less than a minute later, the creature reappeared and once more sat on its hind legs. ‘Who else will dare to enter the presence of the gods and snatch life everlasting?’

It was, Scarne realized, the standard barker patter to be used on small planet yokels.

‘Where’s Müller?’ Dom demanded, blinking.

‘Your friend did not win and so lost his small stake. Come now, don’t hesitate! The great prize is still available!’