World of Chance

Chapter XII

Out in dead space, beyond the known system, the creaking ore carrier lumbered along. In the control bubble Groves sat listening intently, his dark face rapt.

"The Disc is still far away," the voice murmured in his mind. "Don't lose contact with my own ship."

"You're John Preston," Groves said softly.

"I am very old," the voice replied. "I have been here a long time."

"A century and a half," Groves said.

"I have waited. I knew you would come. My ship will hover nearby; you will probably pick up its mass from time to time. If everything goes correctly I'll be able to guide you to a landing point on the Disc."

"Will you be there?" Groves asked. "Will you meet us?"

There was no answer.

He got unsteadily to his feet and called Konklin. A moment later both Konklin and Mary Uzich hurried into the control bubble. Jereti loped a few paces behind. "You heard him?" Groves said thickly.

"It was Preston," Mary whispered.

"He must be as old as hell," Konklin said. "A little old man, waiting out here in space for us to come. Waiting all these years..."

"I think we'll get there," Groves said. "Even if they managed to kill Cartwright we'll still reach the Disc."

"What did Cartwright say?" Jereti asked Groves. "Did it perk him up to hear about Preston?"

Groves hesitated. "Cartwright was preoccupied."

"But surely he———"

"He's about to be murdered!" Groves savagely flicked the controls. "He hasn't time to think about anything else."

Nobody said anything for a while. Finally Konklin asked: "Has there been any news?"

"I can't get Batavia. Military black-out has completely screened out the ipvic lines. I picked up emergency troop movements from the inner planets towards Earth, and Directorate wings heading home."

"What's that mean?" Jereti asked.

"Pellig has reached Batavia. And something has gone wrong. Cartwright must have his back to the wall. The Corps must have failed."

Wakeman shouted frantically. "Benteley! Listen! Moore has it rigged; you're being tricked. It's not random."

It was hopeless. Without atmosphere his voice died in his helmet. Benteley's thoughts radiated to him clear and distinct but there was no way in which Wakeman could communicate back. He was boxed-in, baffled. The figure of Keith Pellig and the mind of Ted Benteley were only a few yards from him—but he could make no contact.

Benteley's thoughts were mixed. It's Peter Wakeman, he was thinking. Realization of danger; an image of Cartwright; the job of killing; aversion and doubt; distrust of Verrick; dislike of Herb Moore. Benteley was undecided. For an instant the thumb-gun wavered.

Wakeman scrambled down the ridge and on to the plain. Frantically he scrawled on in the ancient dust:

MOORE TRICKED YOU. NOT RANDOM

Benteley realized that a one-sided conversation was going on with himself as transmitter and the telepath as receiver. "Go on, Wakeman," Benteley radiated harshly. "What do you mean?"

Wakeman wrote desperately.

MOORE WILL KILL BOTH YOU AND CARTWRIGHT

Benteley's mind radiated amazement, suspicion. His thumb-gun came quickly up... bomb

Wakeman, panting for breath, sought a new surface on which to write. But he had written enough. Benteley was filling in the details himself—his fight with Moore, his relations with Eleanor Stevens. Moore's jealousy. The thumb-gun was lowered.

"They're seeing this," Benteley thought. "All the opera­tors at their screens. And Moore—he's seeing it, too."

Wakeman leaped up and ran forward. Gesturing excitedly, trying to shout across the airless void, he got within two feet before Benteley halted him by an ominous wave of the thumb-gun.

"Stay away from me," was the thought Benteley radiated. "I'm still not sure of you. You're working for Cartwright."

Again Wakeman scratched frantically:

PELLIG SET TO DETONATE WHEN CLOSE TO CARTWRIGHT. MOORE WILL SWITCH YOU INTO PELLIG BODY AT THAT MOMENT.

"Does Verrick know?" Benteley demanded. yes

"Eleanor Stevens?" yes

Benteley's mind flashed anguish. "How do I know this is true? Prove it!"

EXAMINE YOUR PELLIG BODY. LOCATE POWER LEADS. TRACE CIRCUIT TO BOMB.

Benteley's fingers flew as he ripped at the synthetic chest and found the main wiring that interlaced the body beneath the layer of artificial skin. He tore loose a whole section of material and probed deep, as Wakeman crouched a few feet away, heart frozen in his chest.

Benteley was wavering. The last clinging mist of loyalty to Verrick was giving way to hatred and disgust. "All right, Wakeman, I'm taking the body back. All the way to Chemie." He leaped into activity. Realization that Moore was watching made his fingers a blur of motion as he inspected the reactor and jet controls, and then, without a sound, flashed the synthetic robot and ship up into the black sky, towards Earth.

The body had moved almost a quarter of a mile before Herb Moore sent the selector mechanism twitching.

Shatteringly, without warning, Ted Benteley found him­self sitting in his chair at A.G. Chemie.

On the miniature screen before him Benteley could see the Pellig body hurtling downwards, racing over the scampering figure of Peter Wakeman and directing its thumb-gun. Wakeman saw what was coming. He stopped running and stood, oddly calm and dignified, as the syn­thetic body dropped low, spun, and then incinerated him. Moore was in control again.

In an instant Benteley was at the door of the cubicle, reaching for the heavy steel handle.

The door was sealed.

Back at the humming banks of machinery, he tore at relays, and there was a flashing pop as the main power cables shorted, sending up acrid fumes and bringing meters to zero. The door swung open, its lock now inoperative. Benteley raced down the hall towards Moore's central lab. On the way he crashed into a lounging Hill guard. Benteley knocked him down, grabbed his gun, turned the corner and plunged into the lab.

There he ended Herb Moore's existence as a living human being.

The effect on the Pellig body was instantaneous. It gave a convulsive leap, whirled and darted grotesquely, a crazed thing swooping aimlessly. All at once, as if Moore were putting some prearranged plan into operation, random motion ceased. The body moved in a purposeful circle and in a flash shot off for deep space.

On the screen, the Luna surface receded. It dwindled and became a ball, then a dot, then it was gone.

The lab doors burst open. Verrick and Eleanor Stevens entered quickly. "What did you do?" Verrick demanded hoarsely. "He's gone crazy. He's heading away from..."

He saw the lifeless body of Herb Moore.

"So that's it," he said softly.

Benteley got out of the lab—fast. Verrick didn't try to stop him; he stood staring at Moore's corpse, numbed with shock.

Down the ramp Benteley raced and plunged into the dark street. As a group of Chemie personnel streamed hesitantly out after him he entered the taxi yard and hailed one of the parked urbtrans ships.

"To Bremen!" Benteley gasped. He snapped his seat-straps into place and braced his neck against the take-off impact.

The small high-speed ship shot swiftly into the sky, and A.G. Chemie fell behind.

"Get me to the interplanetary flight base," Benteley ordered.

He wondered how much of his conversation with Wake-man had been picked up by the balance of the Corps. Whether he liked it or not, Luna was the only place that offered a chance of safety. All nine planets were now Hill-operated death traps: Verrick would never rest until he had paid him back. But there was no telling what reception he would get from the Directorate. He might be shot on sight as one of Verrick's agents, he might be regarded as Cartwright's saviour.

Where was the synthetic body going?

The flight field was manned by Hill personnel. Benteley could see intercon liners and transports resting here and there, and great hordes of people. Among the people Hill guards moved about keeping order. Suddenly Benteley changed his mind.

"Don't land here. Isn't there a military field near?"

"The Directorate maintains a small military repair field at Narvik. You want to go there? It's forbidden for non-military ships to set down in that area. I'll have to drop you over the side."

"That sounds like exactly what I want."

Leon Cartwright was fully awake when the Corpsman came running to his quarters. "How far away is he?" Cartwright asked. Even with the injection of sodium pentathol he had slept only a few hours. "Pretty close, I suppose."

"Peter Wakeman is dead," the Corpsman said.

Cartwright got quickly to his feet. "Who killed him?"

"The assassin."

"Then he's here." Cartwright yanked out his hand weapon. "What kind of defence can we put up? How did he find me? What happened to the network at Batavia?"

Rita O'Neill entered the room, white-faced and panting. "The Corps broke down completely. Pellig forced his way to the inner fortress and found you had gone."

Cartwright glanced at her, then back at the Corpsman. "What happened to your people?"

"Our strategy failed," the Corpsman said simply. "Verrick had some kind of deception. I think Wakeman had it analysed before he died."

"Wakeman's dead?" Rita asked in astonishment.

"Pellig got him," Cartwright explained. "That cuts us off from the Corps. We're completely on our own." He turned to the Corpsman. "Have you definitely located the assassin?"

"Our emergency network has collapsed. When Wake­man was killed we lost connection with Pellig."

"If Pellig has got this far," Cartwright said thought­fully, "we haven't much chance of stopping him."

"Wakeman was handling it," Rita blazed savagely. "You can do much better. His brain was nothing compared with yours." As Cartwright produced a gun she continued: "You're going to defend yourself with that thing? That's all you're going to do?"

At that moment a Corpsman interrupted: "Mr. Cart­wright, a ship from Earth has landed. Major Shaeffer was abroad with the remaining Corpsmen. He's coming up the ramp now."

Cartwright fumbled in his coat pocket for cigarettes. "Strange," he said to Rita, "that Wakeman is dead, despite his careful planning."

"I'm not sorry for him. I wish you'd do something instead of just standing there."

"There's not a lot left to do. If one man is determined to kill another there's not much that can be done to stop him."

"I think I liked you better when you were afraid.' Rita said bitterly. "At least I understood that."

"I'll make a concession," Cartwright said. "I'll sit facing the door." He settled gingerly on the edge of a table, his gun in his palm. "What does Pellig look like?" he asked the Corpsman.

"Young. Thin. Blond. No special characteristics."

"What kind of weapon is he using?"

"A thumb-gun. That's a heat beam principle."

"I want to recognize Pellig when I see him," Cartwright explained to Rita. "He may be the next person through that door."

The next person through the door was Major Shaeffer.

"I brought this man with me," Shaeffer said to Cart­wright, as he entered the room. "As you'll want to talk to him."

A dark, neatly-dressed man in his early thirties had entered slightly behind Shaeffer.

"This is Ted Benteley," Shaeffer said. "A serf of Reese Verrick's."

Benteley was sharp and tense, more on edge than they had first realized. "Shaeffer is incorrect," he said. "I'm not under oath to Verrick any longer. I've left him."

"You broke your oath?" Cartwright asked.

"He broke his oath to me. I left in a considerable hurry and came here direct from A.G. Chemie; there were com­plications."

"He killed Herb Moore," Shaeffer amplified.

"Not exactly," Benteley corrected. "I killed his body, his physical self."

He began to explain the situation. When he was half through Cartwright interrupted with a question: "Where's—well, I suppose we should still call it Pellig. When we last heard of him he was only a few miles from here."

"The Pellig body is on its way towards deep space," Benteley said. "Moore isn't interested in you any more; now he's got his own problems. When he realized he was stuck in the synthetic body he left Luna and headed straight out."

"Where to?" Cartwright asked.

"I don't know."

"It doesn't matter," Rita said impatiently. "He's not after you; that's what's important. Perhaps he became insane. Perhaps he's lost control of the body."

"I doubt it. Moore will keep struggling to the end; he's desperate and totally ruthless." Benteley described how Moore had destroyed Peter Wakeman.

"We're aware of that," Cartwright said. "What kind of velocity is the synthetic body capable of?"

"C-plus," Benteley answered. He was puzzled by the question. "Aren't you satisfied Moore is moving away from here?"

Cartwright licked his dry lips. "I know where he's going."

There was a murmur and then Shaeffer said: "Of course!" He rapidly scanned Cartwright's mind. "He has to find some way to stay alive. Benteley gave me a lot of involuntary material on the trip here; I can fit in most of the missing parts. Moore will undoubtedly be able to find Preston with the information he has."

Benteley was astounded. "Preston alive!"

"That explains the prior informational request," Cart­wright mused. "Verrick must have tapped the closed-circuit ipvic beam from the ship." His cigarette came to an end; he dropped it, ground it out wrathfully, lit another. "I should have paid more attention when Wakeman brought it up."

"What could you have done?" Shaeffer inquired.

"Our ship is close to Preston's. Moore wouldn't be interested in it, though. He's after the method by which John Preston has kept himself alive; he'll be trying to get hold of the apparatus to adapt it for his own use." Cart­wright shook his head irritably. "Is there any way we can set up a screen to follow his movements?"

"I suppose so," Benteley said. "Ipvic arranged a con- stant visual beam from the body back to Chemie. We could cut into it; it's still being relayed."

"I'd like to keep a visual check on the Pellig body." Cartwright slid his gun into a suitcase on the floor. "We're better off now, of course. Thanks, Benteley." He nodded vaguely to Benteley. "Pellig won't be coming here. We don't have to worry about that, any more."

Rita was eyeing Benteley intently. "You didn't break your oath? You don't consider yourself a felon?"

Benteley returned her hard stare. "Verrick broke his oath to me. He released me by betraying me."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Well," Cartwright said, "let's have something to eat, and you can explain the rest to us." He moved towards the door, the ghost of a smile on his tired face. "We have time, now. My assassin is a thing of the past."

As they ate, Benteley put his feelings into words. "I killed Moore because I had no choice. In a few seconds he would have turned Pellig over to a technician and returned to his own body at Chemie. Pellig would have gone on and detonated against you; some of Moore's staff are as loyal as that."

"How close would the body have had to be?" Cartwright asked.

"It got to within three miles of you. Two miles closer and Verrick would now be dominating the known system."

"No actual contact was necessary?"

"I had time for only a quick look at the wiring, but a standard proximity mechanism tuned to your brain pattern was wired into the circuit. And then there's the power of the bomb itself. The law specifies no weapon a man can't carry in one hand. The bomb was a regulation H-grenade from the last war."

"The bomb is." Cartwright reminded him.

"Everything depended on Pellig?" Rita asked.

"There was a second synthetic body. It's about half complete. Nobody at Chemie expected total disorganisation of the Corps; they got more than they hoped for. But Moore is out of the picture. The second body will never go into operation; only Moore can bring it to its final stages. He kept everybody else down to lower levels—and Verrick knows that."

"What happens when Moore reaches Preston?" Rita asked. "Then Moore will be back in the picture again."

"I didn't know about Preston," Benteley admitted. "I destroyed Moore's body so that he couldn't leave the synthetic. If Preston is going to help him he'll have to work fast. The synthetic won't last long in deep space."

"Why didn't you want him to kill me?" Cartwright inquired.

"I didn't care if he killed you. I wasn't thinking about you."

"That's not quite true," Shaeffer said. "The thought was there. When you made your psychological break you automatically switched against Verrick's strategy. You acted as an impeding agent semi-voluntarily."

Benteley wasn't listening. "I was tricked from the beginning," he said. "All of them were mixed up in it; Verrick, Moore, Eleanor Stevens. Wakeman tried to warn me. I came to the Directorate to get away from rottenness. I found myself doing its work; Verrick gave orders, I followed them."

"You have to have faith in yourself," Rita O'Neill said.

"I stood the rottenness as long as I could, then I rebelled. I think Verrick broke his oath to me... I think I was released. But maybe I'm wrong, and a felon."

"If you are," Shaeffer pointed out, "you can be shot on sight."

"A point came when the whole thing sickened me so much that I couldn't work with it any more, even if it means being hunted down and shot."

"That may happen," Cartwright said. "You say Verrick knew about the bomb?"

"That's right."

Cartwright reflected. "A protector isn't supposed to send a serf to his death. You didn't know Verrick had been deposed when you took your oath?"

"No. But they knew."

Cartwright rubbed his grizzed jaw with the back of his hand. "Well, possibly you have a case. You're an interesting person, Benteley. What are you going to do now? Are you going to take a fealty oath again?"

"I don't think so," Benteley said. "A man shouldn't become another man's serf."

Rita O'Neill spoke up. "You should join my uncle's staff. You should swear allegiance to him."

They were all looking at him. Benteley said nothing for a while. "The Corps takes an occupational oath, doesn't it?" he asked presently.

"That's right," Shaeffer said. "That's the oath Peter Wakeman thought so much of."

"If you're interested," Cartwright said, his shrewd old eyes on Benteley, "I'll swear you in—as Quizmaster. With merely an occupational oath."

Benteley got slowly to his feet and stood waiting as Cartwright rose. With Rita O'Neill and Shaeffer watching silently he recited the positional oath to Quizmaster Cart­wright, then abruptly took his seat.

"Now you're part of us officially," Rita O'Neill said, her eyes dark and intense. "You saved my uncle's life. You saved all our lives; the body would have blown this place to bits. You should have killed Verrick while you were at it. He was there, too."

Benteley strode out of the room and into the corridor. A few Directorate officials stood here and there talking softly. Benteley wandered aimlessly past them, his mind in a turmoil. Soon Rita O'Neill appeared at the doorway and stood watching him, her arms tightly folded. "I'm sorry," she said presently. She came up beside him, breathing rapidly, red lips half-parted. "I shouldn't have said that. You've done enough." She put her fingers on his arm.

Benteley pulled away. "I broke my oath to Verrick; let's face it. But that's all I will do. I killed Moore—he was as soulless as he is bodiless. But I'm not going to touch Reese Verrick."

Rita's eyes blazed. "Don't you know what he would do to you if he caught you?"

"You don't know when to stop. I swore service to your uncle; isn't that enough?" He faced her defiantly.

She hesitated uncertainly.

"You respect my uncle." She broke off, embarrassed. "Don't you respect me?"

Benteley grinned crookedly. "Of course. In fact..."

At the end of the hall Major Shaeffer appeared. He shouted at Benteley: "Benteley, run!"

Benteley stood paralysed. Then he jerked away from Rita O'Neill and raced down the corridor to the descent ramp. Corpsmen and Directorate officials scurried every­where. He reached the ground level and ran desperately.

A clumsy figure in a half-removed protective suit blocked his way. Eleanor Stevens, red hair flaming, face pale, hurried to him. "Get out of here!" she panted. In the heavy, unfamiliar suit she stumbled and nearly fell. "Ted," she wailed, "don't try to fight him—just run! If he gets you———"

Benteley nodded. "He'll kill me."

Reese Verrick had arrived.