World of Chance

Chapter XI

Peter wakeman had made a mistake.

He sat for a long time letting this realization seep over him. With shaking fingers he got a bottle from his luggage and poured himself a drink. There was a scum of dried-up protine in the glass. He threw the whole thing into a dis­posal slot and sat sipping from the bottle. Then he got to his feet and entered the lift to the top floor of the Luna resort.

Corpsmen were relaxing in a tank of sparkling blue water. Above them a dome of transparent plastic kept the fresh spring-scented air in, and the bleak void of the land­scape out. Laughter, the splash of lithe bodies, the flutter of colour, the texture of bare flesh, blurred past him as he crossed the deck.

Rita O'Neill was sun-bathing a little way beyond the main group of people. Her sleek body gleamed moistly in the hot light. When she saw Wakeman she sat up quickly, her black hair cascading down to her tanned shoulders and back.

"Is everything all right?" she asked.

Wakeman threw himself down in a deck chair. "I was talking to Shaeffer," he said, "back at Batavia."

Rita took a brush and began stroking out her cloud of hair. "What did he have to say?" she asked, as casually as she could. Her eyes were serious.

Wakeman allowed the warmth to lull him to silence. Not far off, the crowd of frolicking bathers splashed and laughed and played games. A shimmering water-ball lifted itself up and hung like a sphere before it plunged down into the grip of a Corpsman. Against her towel, Rita's body was a dazzling shape of brown and black, supple lines of flesh moulded firmly into the charm of youth.

"They can't stop him," Wakeman said at last. "He'll be here not long from now. My calculations were wrong."

Rita's eyes widened. She stopped brushing, then started again, slowly and methodically. "Does he know Leon is here?"

"Not yet. But it's only a question of time."

"And we can't defend him here?"

"We can try. Perhaps I can find out what went wrong. I may get more information about Keith Pellig."

"Will you take Leon somewhere else?"

"This is as good a place as any. At least there aren't many minds to blur scanning." Wakeman got stiffly to his feet; he felt old and his bones ached. "I'm going down­stairs and go over the tapes we scanned on Herb Moore—those we got the day he came to talk to Cartwright."

Rita slipped on a robe, tied a sash around her slim waist and dug her feet into boots. "How long before he gets here?"

"We should start getting ready. Things are moving fast."

"I hope you can do something." Rita's voice was calm, emotionless. "Leon's resting. I made him lie down."

Wakeman lingered. "I did what I thought was right, but I must have forgotten something. We're fighting something much more cunning than we realized."

"You should have let Leon run things," Rita said. "You took the initiative out of his hands. Like Verrick and the rest of them, you never believed he could manage. You treated him like a child, and he gave up and believed it himself."

"I'll stop Pellig," Wakeman said quietly, "before he gets to your uncle. It's not Verrick who's running things—he could never work anything like this. It must be Moore."

"It's too bad," Rita said, "that Moore isn't on our side."

"I'll stop him," Wakeman repeated. "Somehow."

Rita disappeared down a ramp leading to Cartwright's private quarters. She didn't look back.

Keith Pellig climbed the stairs of the Directorate building with confidence. He walked swiftly, keeping up with the fast-moving crowd of classified bureaucrats pushing into the lifts, passages and offices. In the main lobby he halted to get his bearings.

In a thunderous din alarm bells sounded throughout the building. The milling of officials and visitors abruptly ceased. Faces lost their friendly lines and in an instant the easy-going crowd was transformed into a suspicious, anxious mass. From concealed speakers harsh mechanical voices proclaimed:

"Everyone must leave the building!" The voices shrilled up deafeningly. "The assassin is in the building."

Pellig lost himself in the swirling waves of men and women. He edged, darted, pushed his way into the interior of the mass, towards the labyrinth of passages that led from the central lobby.

A scream—someone had recognized him. A blackened, burned-out patch as guns were fired in panic. Pellig escaped and continued circling warily, keeping in constant motion.

"The assassin is in the main lobby!" the mechanical voices blared. "Concentrate on the main lobby."

"There he is!" a man shouted. Others took up the roar "That's him, there!"

On the roof of the building the first wing of military transports was settling down. Soldiers poured out and began descending in lifts. Heavy weapons and equipment appeared, dragged to lifts or grappled over the side to the ground.

At his screen, Reese Verrick pulled away briefly and said to Eleanor Stevens: "They're moving in non-telepaths. Does that mean——"

"It means that the Corps has been knocked out," Eleanor answered.

"Then they'll track Pellig visually. That'll cut down the value of our telepathic machinery."

"The assassin is in the lobby!" the mechanical voices roared above the din. Soldiers threw plastic cable spun from projectors in an intricate web across corridors. The excited officials were herded towards the main exit. Out­side, more soldiers were setting up a cordon of men and guns.

But Pellig wasn't coming out. He started back once—and at that moment the red button jumped, and Pellig changed his mind.

The next operator was eager and ready. He had every­thing worked out the moment he entered the synthetic body. Down a side corridor he sprinted, easily clearing an abandoned gun wedged in the passage.

"The assassin has left the lobby!" the mechanical voices bawled.

Troops poured after Pellig as he raced down corridors, cleared of officials and workers, but Pellig thumb-burned his way through a wall and into the main reception lounge, now empty and silent. The synthetic body skimmed from office to office, a weaving darting thing that burned a path ahead. The last office fell behind and Pellig stood before the sealed tank that was the Quizmaster's inner fortress. He recoiled as his thumb-gun showered harmlessly against the thick rexeroid surface.

"The assassin is in the inner office!" mechanical voices dinned. "Surround and destroy him!"

Pellig raced in an uncertain circle—and again the red button shone.

The new operator staggered, crashed against a desk, pulled the synthetic body quickly to its feet, and then began to burn his way to the side of the rexeroid tank.

In his office, Verrick rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "Now it won't be long! Is that Moore operating?"

"No," Eleanor said, examining the indicator board. "One of his staff."

The synthetic body emitted a supersonic blast. A section of the rexeroid tank slid away, and the concealed passage lay open. The body hurried up the passage without hesitation. Under its feet gas capsules popped uselessly. The body did not breathe.

Verrick laughed like an excited child. "They can't stop him! He's in!" He leaped up and down and pounded his fists on his knees. "Now he'll kill him. Now!"

The rexeroid tank, the massive inner fortress with its armoury of guns and ipvic equipment, was empty.

Verrick squealed a high-pitched, frenzied curse. "He's not there! He's gone! They got him away!"

At his own screen Herb Moore convulsively jerked con­trols and lights, indicators, meters and dials, flashed wildly. Meanwhile, the Pellig body stood rooted in the deserted chamber. There was the heavy desk Cartwright should have been sitting at but he wasn't there.

"Keep him looking!" Verrick shouted. "Cartwright must be somewhere!"

The sound of Verrick's voice grated in Moore's aud phones. On the screen, his technician had started the body into uncertain activity. The schematic showed Pellig's location dot at the very core of the Directorate; the assassin had arrived but there was no quarry.

"It was a trap!" Verrick shouted in Moore's ear. "Now they're going to destroy him!"

On all sides of the demolished armoured chamber troops were in motion, Directorate resources responding to Shaeffer's hurried instructions.

Eleanor leaned close to Verrick's hunched shoulders. "They deliberately let him get in. Now—they're coming for him."

"Keep him moving!" Verrick shouted. "They'll burn him to ashes if he simply stands there!"

Pellig floundered in confusion. He raced along the passage and out of the chamber, then sped from door to door like a trapped animal. Once he halted to burn down a gun that had ventured too close and was taking aim. The gun dissolved and Pellig sprinted past its smoking ruin, but behind it the corridor was jammed with troops. He gave up and scurried back.

Herb Moore snapped a sentence to Verrick: "They took Cartwright out of Batavia."

"Look for him!"

"He's not there." Moore thought quickly. "Transfer to me your analysis of ship-movements from Batavia. We know he was there up to an hour ago. Hurry!"

The metalfoil rolled from its slot by Moore's hand. He snatched it up and scanned the entries. "He's on Luna," Moore decided. "They took him off in, their C-plus ship."

Moore slammed home a switch; buttons leaped excitedly. Moore's body sagged limply.

At his own screen Ted Benteley saw the Pellig body jump and stiffen. A new operator had entered it; above Benteley the red button had moved on.

The new operator wasted no time. He burned down a handful of troops and then a section of wall, fusing the steel and plastic together in a molten mass. Through the rent the synthetic body skimmed, a projectile plunging in an arcing trajectory. A moment later it emerged from the building and, still gaining velocity, hurtled straight upward at the dull disc of the moon.

Below Pellig Earth fell away. He was moving out into free space.

Benteley sat paralyzed at his screen. Suddenly every­thing made sense. As he watched the body race through darkening skies that lost their blue colour and gained pin­points of unwinking stars, he understood what had happened to him. It had been no dream. The body was a miniature ship, equipped in Moore's reactor labs. And he realized with a rush of admiration that the body needed no air, that it didn't respond to extreme temperature. It was capable of inter-planetary flight.

It was doing that now.

Peter Wakeman received the ipvic call from Shaeffer within a few seconds of the time when Pellig left Earth. "He's gone," Shaeffer muttered. "He took off like a meteor."

"Heading where?" Wakeman demanded.

"Towards Luna." Shaeffer's face suddenly collapsed.

"We gave up. We called in regular troops. The Corps couldn't do a thing."

"Then I can expect him any moment."

Wakeman broke the connection and returned to his tapes and reports. His desk was a chaos of cigarette butts, coffee cups, and an unfinished drink. Now there was no doubt: Keith Pellig was not a human being. He was clearly a robot combined with high-velocity reactor equipment, designed in Moore's experimental labs. But that didn't explain the shifting personality that had demoralized the Corpsmen. Unless——"

Some kind of multiple mind came and went. A fractured personality artificially segmented into unattached com­plexes, each with its own drives, characteristics and strategy. Shaeffer had been right to call in regular non-telepathic troops.

Wakeman lit a cigarette and aimlessly spun his good-luck charm until it tugged loose from his hand and banged into the tapes stacked on his work-desk. He almost had it. If he had more time, a few days to work the thing out... He got up suddenly and headed for a supply locker. "Here's the situation," he thought to the Corpsmen scattered around. "The assassin has survived our Batavia network. He's on his way to Luna."

He radiated what he had learned about Pellig and what he believed. The answering thoughts came back instantly.

"A robot?"

"A multiple-personality synthetic?"

"Then we can't go by mind-touch. We'll have to lock on physical-visual appearance."

"You can catch murder-thoughts," Wakeman dis­agreed, as he buckled on a protective suit. "But don't expect continuity. The thought-processes will cut off without warning. Be prepared for the impact; that's what destroyed the Corps at Batavia."

"Does each separate complex bring a new strategy?"

"Apparently. Find him and kill him. As soon as you catch the murder-thought burn him to ash."

Wakeman poured himself a drink. He locked his helmet in place, snapped on the air-temp feed lines, collected a gun and hurried to one of the exit sphincters.

The arid, barren expanse of waste was a shock. He stood fumbling with his humidity and gravity control, adjusting himself to the sight of an infinity of dead matter. The moon was a ravaged, blasted plain of gaping craters where the original meteors had smashed away the life of the satellite. Nothing stirred, no wind or flutter of life. Where­ever he looked there was only the pocked expanse of rubble. The face of the moon had dried up and split. The skin had been eroded; only the skull was left, and as Wakeman stepped gingerly forward he felt that he was tramping over the features of a death's head.

While Wakeman was hurrying across the deserted land­scape someone's thoughts were jubilantly hammered into his brain. "Peter, I've spotted him! He landed just now, a quarter of a mile from me!"

The Corpsman was excitedly voluble. "He landed like a meteor. I saw a flash—I went to investigate——"

So Keith Pellig was that close to his prey? Wakeman cut his gravity-pressure to minimum and rushed forward wildly. In leaps and bounds he dashed towards his fellow Corpsman; panting, gasping for breath, he moved nearer the assassin.

He stumbled and pitched on his face. As he struggled up the hiss of escaping air whined in his ears. With one hand he dragged out the emergency repair pack; with the other he fumbled for his gun. He had dropped it somewhere in the debris around him.

The air was going fast. He forgot the gun and con­centrated on patching his protective suit. The plastic hardened instantly, and the terrifying hiss ended. As he began searching for the weapon among the boulders and dust a Corpsman's thought was transmitted to him.

"He's moving! He's heading towards the right place!"

"Where are you?" He set off at a bounding trot in the direction of the Corpsman. A high ridge rose ahead of him; he sprinted up it and half-slid, half-rolled down the far-side. A vast bowl stretched out in front of him. The Corps- man's thoughts came to him strongly now. He was close by.

And for the first time he caught the thoughts of the assassin.

Wakeman stopped, rigid. "That's not Pellig!" he radiated back wildly. "That's Herb Moore!"

Moore's mind pulsed with frenzied activity. Unaware that he had been detected, he had let down all barriers. His eager, high-powered thoughts poured out in a flood.

Wakeman stood frozen, concentrating on the stream of mental energy lapping at him. It was all there, the whole story. Moore's super-charged mind contained every frag­ment of it.

A variety of human minds. Altering personalities hooked to an intricate switch-mechanism. Coming and going in chance formation, without pattern. Minimax, randomness, M-game theory...

It was a lie.

Wakeman recoiled. Beneath the surface of game-theory was another level, a submarginal syndrome of hate and desire and terrible fear. Jealousy of Benteley. Terror of death. Moore was a driven man, dominated by the torment of dissatisfaction, culminating in ruthless cunning.

The twitch of the Pellig machinery wasn't random.

Moore had complete control. He could switch operators into and out of the body at any time; he could set up any combination he pleased; he was free to hook and unhook himself at will.

Moore spotted the Corpsman trailing him. The Pellig body shot quickly upward, poised, then rained a thin stream of death down on the scurrying telepath. The man shrieked once, then his physical being dissolved in a heap of ash. Like a cloud of volatile gas his mind hung together, then showly began to scatter. Its weak thoughts faded. The man's consciousness, his being, dissolved; the mind ceased to be a unit; the man was dead.

Wakeman cursed his lost gun. He cursed himself and Cartwright and everybody in the system. He threw himself behind a bleak boulder and lay crouched as Pellig drifted slowly down and landed lightly on the dead surface. Pellig glanced about him, seemed satisfied and began a cautious prowl.

"Get him!" Wakeman radiated desperately. "He's almost ours!"

There was no response; no Corpsmen were close enough to pick up and relay his thoughts. With the death of the nearest Corpsman the network had shattered. Pellig was walking through an undefended gap.

Wakeman leaped to his feet. He lugged an immense boulder waist-high and staggered to the top of the inclined rise. Below him Keith Pellig walked, bland, almost smiling. Wakeman managed to raise the rock above his head. He swayed, lifted it higher—and hurled it, bouncing and crashing, at the synthetic.

Pellig saw the rock coming. He scrambled away in a spring that carried him yards from the path of the boulder. From his mind came a blast of fear and surprise, of panic. He raised his thumb-gun towards Wakeman.

And then Herb Moore had gone from the body.

The Pellig body altered subtly. Wakeman's blood froze at the uncanny sight; a man was changing before his eyes. The features shifted, melted momentarily, then reformed. But it wasn't the same face—because it wasn't the same man. Moore had gone and a new operator had taken over. From the pale blue eyes a different personality peered.

"Wakeman!" the thoughts came. "Peter Wakeman!"

Wakeman straightened up. The new operator had recognized him. Wakeman probed quickly and deeply. For a moment he couldn't place the personality; it was familiar but obscured by the immediacy of the situation. But he knew it, all right.

It was Ted Benteley.