The Game-Players Of Titan

XIII

JOSEPH SCHILLING said to the homeostatic informational circuit of the vidphone, "I want the attorney-at-law Laird Sharp. He's somewhere on the West Coast; I don't know any more than that."

It was past noon, now. Pete Garden had not returned

home and Joe Schilling knew that he was not going to. There was no point in contacting the other members of Pretty Blue Fox; Pete wasn't with any of them. Whoever had taken him lay outside the group.

If this identity problem has actually already been solved, he thought, if Pat and Al McClain did it, then why? And killing the detective Hawthorne, a mistake, whatever their reasons. No one could convince him of the rightness of such an action as that.

Going into the bedroom of the apartment he asked Carol, "How are you feeling?"

She sat by the window, wearing a gaily-colored cotton print dress, listlessly watching the street below. "I'm okay, Joe."

The detective E. B. Black had temporarily gone out of the apartment, so Joe Schilling shut the bedroom door and said to Carol, "I know something about the McClains that the police aren't to know."

Raising her eyes, Carol regarded him. "Tell me."

Joe Schilling said, "She's mixed up in some kind of extra-legal activity, has been apparently for some time. That would fit in with the murder of Hawthorne. I'll make a guess; I think it's connected with her being a Psi. And her husband, too. But other than that, and it isn't much, I can't account for them murdering, especially a police detective. Now look what they've got on their hands: a nation-wide search by all police agencies. They must be desperate." Or fanatic, he thought to himself. "There's no one the police hate more than a cop-killer," he murmured. "It was a stupid thing to do." Fanatic and stupid, he thought. A bad mixture.

The vidphone rang and said, "Your party, Mr. Schilling. The attorney Laird Sharp."

Schilling at once snapped the screen on. "Laird," he said. "Good."

"What's happened?" Sharp said.

"Your client's gone, Pete Garden." He explained, tersely, what had happened. "And I have an intuitive distrust of the police," Schilling said. "For some reason it seems to me they're not trying. Maybe it's because of the vug, E. B. Black."

The instinctive aversion of the Terran was there, operating within himself, he realized.

Sharp said, "Um, let's make a run up to Pocatello. What did you say the psychiatrist's name is?"

"Philipson," Joe Schilling said. "After all, I'm getting everything third-hand, but I have a hunch. I'll fly to San Rafael and meet you there; stay put for another ten minutes. I'm in San Francisco."

"Right," Schilling said, and broke the connection.

"Where are you going?" Carol asked him as he started for the door of the apartment. "You told Pete's attorney you'd meet him here."

"I'm going to get a gun," Schilling said. He shut the door after him and hurried down the hall. I only need one, he realized. Because if I know Laird Sharp he's carrying his own at all times.

As he and Sharp flew northeast in Sharp's car, Schilling said, "On the vid last night Pete said some strange things. First, that this situation was going to kill Pete, as it had killed Luckman. That he should be especially careful of Carol's safety. And—" He glanced at Sharp. "Pete said that Doctor Philipson is a vug."

"So?" Sharp said. "There are vugs all over the planet."

"But I know something about Philipson," Joe Schilling said, "I've read his articles and read about his therapeutic techniques. There's never been any mention of him being a Titanian. Something's wrong. I don't think Pete saw Doctor Philipson; I think he saw someone or something else. A man of Philipson's stature wouldn't be available in the middle of the night, like a common G.P. And where did Pete get the one hundred and fifty dollars he remembers paying Philip-son? I know Pete; he never carries money on him. No Bindman does; they think in terms of real estate deeds, not cash. Money is for us non-Bs."

"Did he actually say he had paid this doctor? Possibly he simply ran up a bill for that amount."

"Pete said that he had paid him, and paid him last

night. And he said he'd gotten his money's worth." Joe Schilling brooded about it for a moment. "In Pete's condition, drunk and drug-stimulated and in a manic phase because of Carol's pregnancy, he wouldn't have known what he really saw, if it actually was Philipson or not that sat facing him. And it's always possible that he hallucinated the entire episode. That he never went to Pocatello at all." He got out his pipe and his pouch of tobacco. "The whole episode doesn't ring right. Pete may be one sick cookie; that may be the root of the whole problem."

"What do you use in your pipe these days?" Sharp asked. "Still nothing but white burley, rough-cut?"

"Not any more. This is a mixture called Barking Dog. It never bites."

Sharp grinned briefly.

At the outskirts of Pocatello Doctor Philipson's psychiatric clinic lay below, a square of dazzling white surrounded by lawns and trees, and, in the rear, a rose garden. Sharp landed his car on the gravel driveway and continued by surface up into the parking lot at the side of the large central building. The place, quiet and well-tended, seemed deserted. The only car in the parking lot appeared to be Doctor Philip-son's own.

Peaceful, Schilling thought. But obviously it's enormously expensive to come here. The rose garden attracted him and he meandered toward it, sniffing the air and smelling the deep, heavy scent of roses and organic fertilizers. A sprinkler, homeostatic and efficient, rotated as it watered a lawn, causing him to step from the path and onto the thick, springy grass itself. Just being here would cure me, he thought. Getting the smells, feeling the textures of the pastoral community. Ahead he saw tied to a post a nodding gray donkey.

"Look," he said to Laird Sharp, who had followed behind him. "Two of the finest roses ever developed, Peace and Star of Holland. In the twentieth century they were rated something like nine points in rose-growing circles." He explained, "Nine was extremely good. And then of course they developed the more modern patented rose, Space Voyager." He pointed to it, the huge orange and white buds. "And Our

Land." That was a red, so dark as to be virtually black, with spatters of lighter dots across the petals.

While they were inspecting Our Land, the door of the clinic building flew open and a bald, friendly-looking elderly man stepped out, smiling at them in greeting. "Can I help you?" he asked, eyes twinkling.

Sharp said, "We're looking for Doctor Philipson."

"That's I," the elderly man said. "I'm afraid the rose garden needs spraying; I see grefi on several bushes." He brushed at a leaf with the side of his hand. "Grefi, a mite that slipped in here from Mars."

Joe Schilling said, "Where can we go that we could talk to you?"

"Right here," Doctor Philipson said.

"Did a Mr. Peter Garden visit you late last night?" Schilling asked.

"He certainly did." Doctor Philipson smiled wryly. "And vidphoned me even later."

"Pete Garden has been kidnapped," Schilling said. "His abductors killed a policeman on the way, so they must be serious."

The smile on Doctor Philipson's face vanished. "That so." He glanced at Schilling and then at Laird Sharp. "I was worried about something on this order. First Jerome Luck-man's death, now followed by this. Come in." He held the door to the clinic building open, then abruptly changed his mind. "Perhaps it would be better if we sat in the car. So no one overhears." He led the way back to the parking lot. "There are several matters I'd like to discuss with you."

Presently the three of them were seated tensely in Doctor Philipson's car.

"What's your relationship to Peter Garden?" the doctor asked.

Schilling briefly, told him.

"Probably," Philipson said, "you'll never see Garden alive again. I'm deeply sorry to say that, but it's almost certainly the truth. I tried to warn him."

"I know that," Schilling said. "He told me."

"I knew too little about Pete Garden," the doctor said. "I'd never seen him before in my Me; I couldn't get an ac-

curate background history from him because last night he was drunk and sick and scared. He phoned me at my home; I had gone to bed. I met him in downtown Pocatello at a bar. I forget the name of it, now. It was a bar at which he had stopped. He had an attractive young girl with him but she didn't come in. Garden was actively hallucinating and needed major psychiatric help. I could scarcely supply that to him in the middle of the night at a bar, needless to say."

"His fear," Joe Schilling said, "was of the vugs. Pete believed they were—closing in on us."

"Yes, I realize that. He expressed those fears last night to me. A number of times in a variety of ways. It was touching. At one point he very laboriously scratched himself a message on a match folder and hid it—with great ceremony—in his shoe. 'The vugs are after us,' it said, or words to that effect." The doctor eyed Schilling and Laird Sharp. "What do you know, at this moment, about the internal problems on Titan?"

Taken by surprise, Joe Schilling said, "Not a damn thing."

Doctor Philipson said, "Titan civilization is sharply divided into two factions. The reason I know this is simple; I have, in the clinic here, several Titanians who hold high posts here on Earth. They're undergoing psychiatric treatment with me. It's somewhat unorthodox, but I discover I can work with them well enough."

Alertly, Sharp said, "Is that why you wanted to talk here in the car?"

"Yes," Philipson said. "Here, we're out of range of their telepathic ability. All four of them are moderates, politically-speaking. That's the dominant force in Titan politics and has been for decades. But there is also a war party, a faction of extremists. Their power has been growing, but no one, including the Titanians themselves, seems to know precisely how strong they've become. In any case, their policy toward Terra is hostile. I have a theory. I can't prove this, but I've hinted at it in several papers I've done." He paused. "I think —just think, mind you—that the Titanians, on the instigation of their war party elements, are tinkering with our birth

rate. On some technological level—don't ask me quite how— they're responsible for holding our birth rate down."

There was silence. A long, strained one.

"As far as Luckman goes," Doctor Philipson said, "I'd guess that he was killed either directly or indirectly by Titanians, but not for the reason you think. True, he had just come out to California after sewing up the East Coast thoroughly. True, he probably would have assumed economic domination of California as he did with New York. But that was not why the Titanians killed him. It was because they had been trying to get to him probably for months, possibly even years; when Luckman left the sanctuary of his organization and came out to Carmel where he had no pre-cogs, no human Psi-people to protect him—"

"Why'd they kill him?" Sharp asked quietly.

"Because of his luck," the Doctor replied. "His fertility. His ability to have children. That's what menaces the Titanians. Not his success at The Games; they don't give a god damn about that."

"I see," Sharp said.

"And any other human who has luck stands to be wiped out, if the war party has its way. Now listen. Some humans know this or suspect this. There's an organization, based on the prolific McClains of California; perhaps you've heard of them, Patricia and Alien McClain. They have three children. Therefore their lives are acutely in danger. Pete Garden has demonstrated the ability to be fertile and that puts him and his pregnant wife also in automatic jeopardy, and I so warned him. And I warned him that he was facing a situation about which he could do little. I firmly believe that. And—" Doctor's Philipson's voice was steady. "I think the organization formed around the McClains is futile if not dangerous. It has probably already been penetrated by the Titanian authority, here, which is quite effective at that sort of business. Their telepathic faculty works to their advantage; it's almost impossible to keep anything—such as the existence of a secret, militant, patriotic organization—secret from them for long."

Schilling said, "Are you in touch with the moderates? Through your vug patients, here?"

Hesitating, Doctor Philipson said, "To some extent. In the most general way I've discussed the situation with them; it's come up during therapy."

Schilling said to Laird Sharp, "I think we've found out what we came for. We know where Pete is, who kidnapped him and killed Hawthorne. The McClain organization, whatever it's called. Wherever it is."

With an expression of keen wariness, Laird Sharp said, "Doctor, your explanation is extremely interesting. There's another interesting matter, however, that has not as yet been raised."

"Oh?" Doctor Philipson said.

Sharp said, "Pete Garden thought you were a vug."

"I realize that," Doctor Philipson said. "To some extent I can explain that. On an unconscious intuitive level, Garden perceived the dangerous situation. His perceptions, however, were disordered, a mixture of involuntary telepathy and projection, his own anxiety plus—"

"Are you a vug?" Laird Sharp asked.

"Of course not," Doctor Philipson said brusquely.

To the Rushmore Effect of the car in which they were seated, Laird Sharp said, "Is Doctor Philipson a vug?"

"Doctor Philipson is a vug," the auto-auto mech replied. "That is correct."

And it was Doctor Philipson's own car.

"Doctor," Joe Schilling said, "do you have any reaction to that?" He held his gun, an ancient but efficient .32 revolver, pointed at Doctor Philipson. "I'd like your comment, please."

"Obviously it's a false statement by the circuit," Doctor Philipson said. "But I admit there is more I haven't told you. The organization of Psi-persons around the McClains, I'm part of that."

"You're a Psi?" Schilling said.

"Correct," Doctor Philipson said, nodding. "And the girl with Pete Garden last night is also a member, Mary Anne McClain. She and I conferred briefly as to policy regarding Garden. It was she who arranged for me to see Garden; at such a late hour at night I normally—"

"What is your Psionic talent?" Sharp said, breaking in. Now he also held a gun pointed at the doctor; it was a small .22 pistol.

Doctor Philipson glanced at him and then at Joseph Schilling. He said, "An unusual one. It will surprise you when I tell you. Basically it's related to Mary Anne's, a form of psycho-kinesis. But it is rather specialized, compared with hers. I form one end of a two-way underground system between Terra and Titan. Titanians come here, and on occasion, certain Terrans are transmitted to Titan. This procedure is an improvement on the standard spacecraft method because there is no time lapse." He smiled at Joe Schilling and Laird Sharp. "May I show you?" He leaned forward.

"My god," Sharp said. "Kill him."

"Do you see?" Doctor Philipson's voice came to them but they could not make him out; an extinguishing curtain had blotted the fixed images of the objects around them, had blotted them into waste. Junk, like a billion golf balls, cascaded brightly, replacing the familiar reality of substantial forms. It was, Joe Schilling thought, like a fundamental breakdown of the act of perception itself. In spite of himself, his determination, he felt fear.

"I'll shoot him," Laird Sharp's voice came, and then the racket of a gun fired several times in quick succession. "Did I get him? Joe, did I—" Sharp's voice faded. Now there was only silence.

Joe Schilling said, "I'm scared, Sharp. What is this?" He did not understand and he reached out, groping in the stream of atom-like sub-particles that surged everywhere. Is this the understructure of the universe itself? he wondered. The world outside of space and time, beyond the modes of cognition?

He saw now a great plain, on which vugs, unmoving, rested at fixed spaces. Or was it that they moved incredibly slowly? There was an anguish to their situation; the vugs strained, but the category of time did not move and the vugs remained where they were. Is it forever? Joe Schilling wondered. There were many of the vugs; he could not see the termination of the horizontal surface, could not even imagine it.

This is Titan, a voice said inside his head.

Weightless, Joe Schilling drifted down, wanting desperately to stabilize himself but not knowing how. Dammit, he thought, this is all wrong; I shouldn't be here doing this. "Help," he said aloud. "Get me out of this. Are you there some place, Laird Sharp? What's happening to us?"

No one answered.

More rapidly now he fell. Nothing stopped him in the usual sense and yet all at once he was there; he experienced it.

Around him formed the hollowness of a chamber, a vast enclosure of some nebulous sort, and across from him, facing him across a table, were vugs. He counted twenty of them and then gave up; the vugs were everywhere in front of him, silent and motionless but somehow doing something. They were ceaselessly busy and at first he could not imagine what they were doing. And then, all at once, he understood.

Play, the vugs thought-propagated.

The board was so enormous that it petrified him. Its sides, its two ends, faded, disappeared into the understructure of the reality in which he sat. And yet, directly before him, he made out cards, clear-cut and separable. The vugs waited; he was supposed to draw a card.

It was his turn.

Thank god, Joe Schilling said to himself, that I'm able to play, that I know how. It would not matter to them if I didn't; this Game has been going on too long for that to matter. How long? Not knowing. Perhaps the vugs themselves did not know. Or remember.

The card he drew read twelve.

And now, he thought, the sequence which is the heart of The Game. The moment in which I bluff or do not bluff, in which I advance my piece either twelve or null-twelve. But they can read my thoughts, he realized. How can I play The Game with them, then? It's not fair!

And yet he had to play anyhow.

That's the situation we're in, he said to himself. And we can't extricate ourselves, any of us. And even great Game-

players, such as Jerome Luckman, can die at it. Die trying to succeed.

We have been waiting a long time for you, a vug thought-propagated to him. Please don't keep us waiting any longer.

He did not know what to do. And what was the stake? What deed had he put up? He looked around but he saw nothing, no pot or hopper.

A bluffing game in which telepaths participate for stakes which do not exist, Joe Schilling realized. What a travesty. How can I get out of this? Is there a way out? He did not even know that much.

This, the Platonic ultimate template of The Game, a reproduction of which had been impressed on Terra for Terrans to play; he understood. And yet it did not help him to understand because he still could not get out of it. He picked up his piece and began to advance it, square by square. Twelve squares ahead. He read the inscription. Gold rush on your land! You win $50,000,000 in royalties from two producing mines!

No need to bluff, Joe Schilling said to himself. What a square; the best he had ever heard of. No such square existed on the boards of Earth.

He placed his piece on that square and sat back.

Would anyone challenge him? Accuse him of bluffing?

He waited. There was no motion, no indication of life from the near-infinite row of vugs. Well? he thought. I'm ready. Go ahead.

It is a bluff, a voice declared.

He could not make out which vug had challenged him; they seemed to have expressed themselves in unison. Had their telepathic ability become faulty at this critical moment? he wondered. Or had the talent been deliberately suspended for the purposes of playing The Game? "You're wrong," he said, and turned over his card. "Here it is." He glanced down.

It was no longer a twelve.

It was an eleven.

You are a bad bluffer, Mr. Schilling, the corporate group of vugs thought. Is this how you generally play?

"I'm under tension," Joe Schilling said. "I misread the

card." He was furious and badly frightened. "There's some kind of cheating going on," he said. "Anyhow, what's the stakes in this?"

The vugs answered, In this Game, Detroit.

"I don't see the deed," Joe Schilling said, looking up and down the table.

Look again, the vugs said.

In the center of the table he saw what appeared to be a glass ball, the size of a paperweight. Something complex and shiny and alive flickered within the globe and he bent to scrutinize it. A city, in miniature. Buildings and streets, houses, factories...

it was Detroit.

We want that next, the vugs told him.

Reaching out, Joe Schilling moved his piece back one square. "I really landed on that," he said.

The Game exploded.

"I cheated," Joe Schilling said. "Now it's impossible to play. Do you grant that? I've wrecked The Game."

Something hit him over the head and he fell, dropped instantly, into the engulfing grayness of unconsciousness.