The Game-Players Of Titan Part 17

It was his turn.

Thank G.o.d, 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? No 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. 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 partic.i.p.ate for stakes which do not exist, Joe Schilling realized. What a travesty. How can I get out of this? Is Is there a way out? He did not even know that much. 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 Gold rush on your land! You win $50,000,000 $50,000,000 in royalties from two producing mines! 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. 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 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? 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. 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 gla.s.s ball, the size of a paperweight. Something complex and shiny and alive alive flickered within the globe and he bent to scrutinize it. A city, in miniature. Buildings and streets, houses, factories ... 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.

14.

The next he knew Joseph Schilling stood on a desert, feeling the rea.s.suring tug of Terra's gravity once more. The sun, blinding him, spilled down in gold-hot familiar torrents and he squinted, trying to see, holding up his hand to ward off its rays."

Don't stop," a voice said.

He opened his eyes and saw, walking beside him across the uneven sand, Doctor Philipson; the elderly, sprightly little doctor was smiling.

"Keep moving," Doctor Philipson said in a pleasant, conventional tone of voice, "or we'll die out here. And you wouldn't like that."

"Explain it to me," Joe Schilling said. But he kept on walking. Doctor Philipson remained beside him, walking with easy, long strides.

"You certainly broke up The Game," Doctor Philipson chuckled. "It never occurred to them that you'd cheat."

"They cheated first. They changed the value of the card!"

"To them, that's legitimate, a basic move in The Game. It's a favorite play by the t.i.tanian Game-players to exert their extra-sensory faculties on the card; it's supposed to be a contest between the sides; the one who's drawn the card struggles to keep its value constant, you see? By yielding to the altered value you lost, but by moving your piece in conformity to it you thwarted them."

"What happened to the stake?"

"Detroit?" Doctor Philipson laughed. "It remains a stake, unclaimed. You see, the t.i.tanian Game-players believe in following the rules. You may not believe that but it's true. Their rules, yes; but rules nonetheless. Now I don't know what they'll do; they've been waiting to play against you in particular for a long time, but I'm sure they won't try again after what just happened. It must have been psychically unnerving for them; it'll be a great while before they recover."

"What faction do they represent? The extremists?"

"Oh no; the t.i.tanian Game-players are exceptionally moderate in their political thinking."

"What about you?" Schilling said.

Doctor Philipson said, "I admit to being an extremist. That's why I'm here on Terra." In the blinding mid-day sunlight his heat-needle sparkled as it rose and fell with his long strides. "We're almost there, Mr. Schilling. One more hill and you'll see it. It's built low to the ground, attracts little attention."

"Are all the vugs here on Earth extremists?"

"No," Doctor Philipson said.

"What about E.B. Black, the detective?"

Doctor Philipson said nothing.

"Not of your party," Schilling decided.

There was no answer; Philipson was not going to say.

"I should have trusted it when I had the chance," Schilling said.

"Perhaps so," Doctor Philipson said, nodding.

Ahead, Schilling saw a Spanish-style building with tile roof and pale adobe walls, contained by an ornamental railing of black iron. The Dig Inn Motel, the neon sign-turned off and inert-read.

"Is Laird Sharp here?" Schilling asked.

"Sharp is on t.i.tan," Doctor Philipson said. "Perhaps I will bring him back, but certainly not at this time." Doctor Philipson, briefly, scowled. "An agile-brained creature, that Sharp. I must admit I don't care for him." With a white linen handkerchief he mopped his red and perspiring forehead, slowing down a little now, as they came up onto the flagstone path of the motel. "And as for your cheating, I didn't much care for that either." He seemed tense and irritable, now. Schilling wondered why.

The door of the motel office was open, and Doctor Philipson went toward it, peering into the darkness within. "Rothman?" he said, in a hesitant, questioning voice.

A figure appeared, a woman. It was Patricia McClain.

"Sorry I'm late," Doctor Philipson began. "But this man here and a companion showed up at the-"

Patricia McClain said, "She's out of control. Allen couldn't help. Get away." She ran past Doctor Philipson and Joe Schilling, across the parking lot toward a car parked there. Then all at once she was gone. Doctor Philipson grunted, cursed, stepped back from the motel door as swiftly as if he had been seared.

High in the mid-day sky Joe Schilling saw a dot, rising and then disappearing toward invisibility. On and on it rushed, away from Earth, away from the ground until finally he could no longer see it. His head ached from the glare and the effort of seeing, and he turned to Doctor Philipson. "My G.o.d, was that-" he started to say.

"Look," Doctor Philipson said. He pointed, with his heat-needle, at the motel office, and Joe Schilling looked inside; he could not see at first and then by degrees his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom.

On the floor lay twisted bodies of men and women, tangled together like multi-armed monsters, as if they had been shaken and then dropped there, discarded, the remains jammed together, forced into an impossible fusion. Mary Anne McClain sat on the floor in the corner, curled up, her face buried in her hands. Pete Garden and a well-dressed middle-aged man whom Schilling did not know stood together, silently, their faces blank.

"Rothman," Doctor Philipson choked, staring at one of the shattered bodies. He turned toward Pete Garden. "When?" he said.

"She just now did it," Pete Garden murmured.

"You're lucky," the well-dressed middle-aged man said to Doctor Philipson. "If you had been here she would have killed you, too. You're fortunate; you missed your appointment."

Doctor Philipson, shaking, lifted his heat-needle and pointed it unsteadily at Mary Anne McClain.

"Don't," Pete Garden said. "They tried that. At the end."

"Mutreaux," Doctor Philipson said, "why didn't she-"

"He's a Terran," Pete Garden said. "The only one of you who was. So she didn't touch him."

"The best thing," the well-dressed man, Mutreaux, said, "is for none of us to do anything. Move as little as possible; that's the safest." He kept his eyes fixed on the huddled shape of Mary Anne McClain. "She didn't even miss her father," Mutreaux said. "But Patricia got away; I don't know what happened to her."

"The girl got her, too," Doctor Philipson said. "We watched; we didn't understand, then." He tossed the heat-needle away; it rolled across the floor and came to rest against the far wall. His face was gray. "Does she understand what she's done?"

Pete Garden said, "She knows. She understands the dangerousness of her talent and she doesn't want to use it again." To Joe Schilling he said, "They couldn't seem to manage her; they had partial control but it kept slipping away. I watched the struggle. It's been going on here in this room for the last few hours. Even when their last member came." He pointed to a squashed, crumpled body, a man with gla.s.ses and light hair. "Don, they called him. They thought he'd turn the tide, but Mutreaux threw his talent in with hers. It all happened in a second; one minute they were sitting on their chairs, the next she just simply began flinging them around like rag dolls." He added, "It wasn't pleasant. But," he shrugged, "anyhow, that's what happened."

Doctor Philipson said, "A dreadful loss." He glanced at Mary Anne with hatred. "Poltergeist," he said. "Unmanageable. We knew but because of Patricia and Allen we accepted her as she was. Well, we'll have to begin all over again, from the start. Of course I have nothing personally to fear from her; I can return to my primary nexus, t.i.tan, whenever I wish. Presumably, her talent doesn't extend that far, and if it does there's not much we can do. I'll take the chance, I have to."

"I think she can freeze you here, if she wants to," Mutreaux said. "Mary Anne," he said sharply. In the corner the girl raised her head; her cheeks, Joe Schilling saw, were tear-stained. "Do you have any objection if this last one returns to t.i.tan?"

"I don't know," she said listlessly.

Joe Schilling said, "They've got Sharp there."

"I see," Mutreaux said. "Well, that makes a difference." To Mary Anne he said, "Don't let Philipson go."

"All right," she murmured, nodding.

Doctor Philipson shrugged. "A good point. Well, it's agreeable to me. Sharp can return here, I'll go to t.i.tan." His tone was calm, but, Schilling saw, the man's eyes were opaque with shock and tension.

"Arrange for it now," Mutreaux said.

"Of course," Doctor Philipson said. "I don't want to be around this girl; that must be obvious even to you. And I can hardly say I envy you and your people, depending on a crude, erratic power of this sort; it's apt to rebound or be turned deliberately against you at any moment." He added, "Sharp is now back from t.i.tan. At my clinic in Idaho."

"Can that be verified?" Mutreaux said to Joe Schilling.

"Place a call to your car, there," Doctor Philipson said. "He should be in it or close by it, by now."

Going outdoors, Joe Schilling found a parked car. "Whose are you?" he asked it, opening its door.

"Mr. and Mrs. McClain's," the Rushmore Effect stated.

"I want to use your vidphone." Seated within the sun-scorched interior of the car, Joe Schilling placed a call to his own car at Doctor Philipson's clinic in the outskirts of Pocatello, Idaho.

"What the h.e.l.l do you want now?" the voice of Max, his car, answered after a wait.

"Is Laird Sharp there?" Joe Schilling asked.

"Who cares."

"Listen," Schilling began, but all at once Laird Sharp's features formed on the small vidscreen. "You're okay?" Schilling asked him.

Sharp curtly nodded. "Did you see the t.i.tanian Game-players, Joe? How many were there? I couldn't seem to count them."

"I not only saw them, I conned them," Joe Schilling said. "So they right away b.u.mped me back here. Take Max-you know, my car-and fly back to San Francisco; I'll meet you there." To the old, sullen car he said, "Max, you cooperate with Laird Sharp, G.o.ddam it."

"All right!" Max said irritably. "I'm cooperating!"

Joe Schilling returned to the motel room.

"I previewed your narration about the attorney," Mutreaux said, "We let Philipson go."

Schilling looked around. It was so. There was no sign of Doctor E.R. Philipson.

"It's not over," Pete Garden said. "Philipson is back on t.i.tan. Hawthorne is dead."