Something about them chilled him. There were four of them, three men and a woman. Getting a flashlight from the glove compartment of his own car, which had come to a halt at the curb behind Max, he shone the light on the soundless, waiting group.
After a long pause Joe Schilling muttered, "I see."
"That"s right," Dave Mutreaux said. "That"s exactly how it will be played. I hope for all our sakes you can go on."
"h.e.l.l," Pete said shortly, "we can."
The four noiseless figures waiting for them were t.i.tanian simulacra.
Of themselves. A vug Peter Garden, a vug Joe Schilling, a vug Dave Mutreaux, and, slightly behind the others, a vug Mary Anne McClain. The last was not as effective, not as substantial, as the others. Mary Anne was a problem for the t.i.tanians. Even in this regard.
To the four simulacra, Pete said, "And if we lose?"
His counterpart, the vug Peter Garden, said in precisely the same tone, "If and when you lose, Mr. Garden, your presence is no longer required in The Game and I replace you. It"s as simple as that."
"Cannibalism," Joe Schilling said gratingly.
"No," the vug Joe Schilling contradicted. "Cannibalism occurs when a member of a species feeds on other members of that species. We are not of the same species as you." The vug Joe Schilling smiled, and it was the smile familiar from years back to Pete Garden; it was a superb imitation.
The group upstairs in the apartment, Pete thought, the others of Pretty Blue Fox, have simulacra appeared for them, too?
"Correct," the vug Peter Garden answered. "So shall we proceed on up? The Game should begin at once; there is no reason for further delay." It started toward the stairs, knowing the way.
That was the terrible part, the part which sickened Pete Garden: the alacrity of the vug as it ascended the stairs. Its cert.i.tude, as if it had made this climb a thousand times before.
It was already at home, here on Terra, in the midst of their customary lives. Shuddering, he watched the other three simulacra follow equally rapidly. And then he and his companions started into reluctant motion.
Above them the door opened; the vug Peter Garden entered the con-apt of the Game-playing group Pretty Blue Fox.
"h.e.l.lo!" it greeted those within the room.
Stuart Marks-or was it the simulacrum of Stuart Marks?-regarded it with horror and then stammered, "I guess everybody"s here, now." He-or it-stepped out onto the porch and peered down. "Hi."
"Greetings," Pete Garden said, laconically.
They faced one another across the table, the t.i.tanian simulacra on one side, Pretty Blue Fox plus Dave Mutreaux and Mary Anne McClain on the other.
"Cigar?" Joe Schilling said to Pete.
"No thanks," Pete murmured.
Across from them the vug simulacrum of Joe Schilling turned to Pete Garden beside it and said, "Cigar?"
"No thanks," the vug Pete Garden answered.
Pete Garden said to Bill Calumine, "Did the shipment arrive from the San Francisco pharmaceutical house? We"ve got to have it before we can begin. I hope no one intends to dispute that."
The vug Pete Garden said, "A noteworthy idea you have fastened onto, in this erratic crippling of your pre-cog"s sensory apparatus. You are absolutely correct; it will go a great distance toward evening our relative strengths." It grinned at the group Pretty Blue Fox, up and down the Game table. "We have no objection to waiting until your medication arrives; anything else would be unfair."
Answering it, Pete Garden said, "I believe you"ve got to wait; we obviously won"t begin to play until then. So don"t make it appear that you"re doing us a big favor." His voice shook, slightly.
Leaning over, Bill Calumine said, "Sorry. It"s already there, in the kitchen."
Rising from his chair, Pete Garden went with Dave Mutreaux into the kitchen of the condominium apartment. In the center of the kitchen table, with trays of half-melted ice, lemons, bottles of mixer, gla.s.ses and bitters, he saw a package wrapped in brown paper, sealed with tape.
"Just think," Mutreaux said meditatively, as Pete unwrapped the package, "if this doesn"t work, what happened to Patricia and the others in the organization, there in Nevada, will happen to me." He seemed relatively calm, however. "I don"t sense the ominous disregard of all order and legality in these moderates," he said, "that I do in the Wa Pei Nan, with Doctor Philipson and those like him. Or rather, like it." it." He scrutinized Pete as Pete took a phenothiazine spansule from the bottle. "If you know the time-phasing of the granules within," he said, "the vugs will be able to-" He scrutinized Pete as Pete took a phenothiazine spansule from the bottle. "If you know the time-phasing of the granules within," he said, "the vugs will be able to-"
"I don"t," Pete said shortly, as he filled a gla.s.s with water at the tap. "The ethical house making up these spansules was told that the range could vary between instantaneous full action to any sequence of partial action to no action whatsoever. In addition, it was told to make up several spansules, one varying from another." He added, "And I"ve picked a spansule at random. Physically it"s identical in appearance to the others." He held out the spansule and the gla.s.s of water to Mutreaux.
Somberly, Mutreaux swallowed the spansule.
"I will tell you one thing," Mutreaux said, "for your own information. Several years ago, as an experiment, I tried a phenothiazine derivative. It had a colossal effect on my precognitive ability." He smiled fleetingly at Pete. "As I told you before we went over to Pat McClain"s, this idea of yours is an adequate solution to our problems, as nearly as I can foresee. Congratulations."
"Do you say that," Pete asked, "as someone genuinely with us, or merely as someone forced to play on this side of the table?"
"I don"t know," Mutreaux said. "I"m in transition, Pete. Time will tell." Turning, he walked back into the living room without another word. Back to the great Game-board and the two opposing parties.
The vug Bill Calumine rose to its feet and announced, "I suggest our side roll first and then your side." It took the spinner and spun with expert vigor.
The pointer stopped at nine.
"All right," Bill Calumine said, also rising and facing his simulacrum; he, too, rolled. For him the pointer slowed as it came close to twelve, then started to pa.s.s on toward one.
To Mary Anne, Pete said, "Are you resisting any efforts on their part at psycho-kinesis?"
"Yes," she said, concentrating on the barely-moving pointer. The pointer stopped on one.
"It"s fair," Mary Anne said, in a scarcely audible voice.
"You t.i.tanians initiate play, then," Pete conceded. He managed to suppress his discouragement; he kept it out of his voice.
"Good," his simulacrum said. It regarded him, grinning mockingly. "Then we will transport the field of interaction from Terra to t.i.tan." It added, "We trust that you Terrans will not object."
"What?" Joe Schilling said. "Wait!" But the transforming activity had begun; it was already too late.
The room trembled and became hazed over. And the simulacra seated opposite them had, Pete thought, begun to attain a disrupted, oblique quality. As if, he thought, their physical shapes no longer functioned adequately, as if, like archaic, malformed exoskeletons, they were now in the process of being discarded.
His simulacrum, seated directly across from him, all at once lurched hideously. Its head lolled and its eyes became glazed, empty of light, filmed over with a destructive membrane. The simulacrum shivered, and then, up its side, a long rent appeared.
The same process was occurring in the other simulacra.
The Pete Garden simulacrum quivered, vibrated, and then, from the head-to-foot rent, something tentative popped quaveringly.
Out of the rent squeezed the protoplasmic organism within. The vug, in authentic shape, no longer requiring the artificial hull, was emerging. Forcing its way out into the gray-yellow light of the weakened sun.
Out of each discarded human husk a vug emerged, and the husks teetered and one by one, as if blown by an impalpable wind, writhed and then danced away, weightless, already without color. Bits and flakes of the discarded husks blew in the air; particles drifted across the Game-board, and Pete Garden, horrified, hurriedly brushed them away.
The t.i.tanian Game-players had appeared in their actual shapes, at last. The business of The Game had begun in earnest. The fraud of the simulated Terran appearance had been abolished; it was no longer needed because The Game was no longer being played on Earth.
They were now on t.i.tan.
In as calm a voice as possible, Pete Garden said, "All our plays will be made by David Mutreaux. Although we will, in turn, draw the cards and perform the other ch.o.r.es of The Game."
The vugs, opposite them, seemed to thought-propagate a derisive, meaningless laughter. Why? Pete wondered. It was as if, once the simulacra shapes had been discarded, communication between the two races had at once suffered an impairment.
"Joe," he said to Joe Schilling, "if it"s all right with Bill Calumine, I"d like you to move our pieces."
"Okay," Joe Schilling said, nodding.
Tendrils of gray smoke, cold and damp, sifted onto the Game table and the vug shapes opposite them dimmed into an irregular obscurity. Even physically, the t.i.tanians had retreated, as if desiring as little contact with the Terrans as possible. And it was not out of animosity; it seemed to be a spontaneous withdrawal.
Maybe, Pete thought, we were doomed to this encounter from the very start. It was the absolutely-determined outcome of the initial meeting of our two cultures. He felt hollow and grim. More determined than ever to win The Game before them.
"Draw a card," the vugs declared, and their propagations seemed to merge, as if there was in actuality only one vug against whom the group played. One ma.s.sive, inert organism opposing them, ancient and slow in its actions, but infinitely determined.
And wise.
Pete Garden hated it. And feared it.
Mary Anne said aloud, "They are beginning to exert influence on the deck of cards!"
"All right," Pete said. "Keep your attention as fully formed as you can." He himself felt overwhelmingly tired. Have we lost already? he wondered. It felt like it. It felt as if they had been playing for an endless time now. And yet they had barely begun.
Reaching out, Bill Calumine drew a card.
"Don"t look at it," Pete warned.
"I understand," Bill Calumine said irritably. He slid the card, unexamined, to Dave Mutreaux.
Mutreaux, in the flickering half-light, sat with the card face down before him, his face wrinkled with concentration.
"Seven squares," he said, then.
Joe Schilling, on signal from Calumine, moved their piece ahead, seven squares. The square on which it came to rest read: Rise in fuel costs. Pay bill to utility company of Rise in fuel costs. Pay bill to utility company of $50. $50.
Raising his head, Joe Schilling faced the t.i.tanian authority squatting opposite them on the far side of the board.
There was no call. The t.i.tanians had decided to allow the move to pa.s.s; they did not believe it to consist of a bluff.
All at once Dave Mutreaux turned to Pete Garden and said, "We"ve lost. That is, we"re going to lose; I preview it absolutely, it"s there in every alternative future."
Pete Garden stared at him.
"But your ability," Joe Schilling pointed out. "Have you forgotten? It"s now highly impaired. A new experience for you; you"re disoriented. Isn"t that it?"
Mutreaux said haltingly, "But it does not feel impaired."
The vug authority facing them said, "Do you wish to withdraw from The Game?"
"Not at this point," Pete answered, and Bill Calumine, white and stricken, reflexively nodded in agreement.
What is this? Pete asked himself. What"s going on? Has Dave Mutreaux, despite the threat from Mary Anne, betrayed us? Has Dave Mutreaux, despite the threat from Mary Anne, betrayed us?
Mutreax said, "I spoke aloud because they-" He indicated the vug opponent. "They can read my mind anyhow."
That was true; Pete nodded, his mind laboring furiously. What can we salvage here? he asked himself. He tried to control his plunging panic, his intuition of defeat.
Joe Schilling, lighting a cigar, leaned back and said, "I think we"d better go on." He did not appear worried. And yet of course he was. But Joe Schilling, Pete realized, was a great Game-player; he would not show his emotions or capitulate in any way. Joe would go on to the end, and the rest of them would, too. Because they had to. It was as simple as that.
"If we win," Pete said to the vug opponent, "we obtain control of t.i.tan. You have as much to lose. You have as much at stake as we do."
The vug drew itself up, shivered, replied, "Play."
"It"s your turn to draw a card," Joe Schilling reminded it.
"True." Admonished, the vug now drew a card. It paused, and then on the board its piece advanced one, two, three ... nine squares in all.
The square read: Planetoid rich in archeological treasures, discovered by your scouts. Win Planetoid rich in archeological treasures, discovered by your scouts. Win $70,000. $70,000.
Was it a bluff? Pete Garden turned toward Joe Schilling, and now Bill Calumine leaned over to confer. The others of the group, too, bent closer, murmuring.
Joe Schilling said, "I"d call it."
Up and down the table the members of Pretty Blue Fox hesitantly voted. The vote ran in favor of calling the move as a bluff. But it was close.
"Bluff," Joe Schilling stated, aloud.
The vug"s card at once flipped over. It was a nine.
"It"s fair," Mary Anne said in a leaden voice. "I"m sorry, but it is; no Psi-force that I could detect was exerted on it."
The vug said, "Prepare your payment, please." And again it laughed, or seemed to laugh; Pete could not be certain which.
In any case it was a violent and quick defeat for Pretty Blue Fox. The vuggish side had won $70,000 from the bank for having landed on the square and an additional $70,000 from the group"s funds due to the inaccurate call of bluff. $140,000 in all. Dazed, Pete sat back, trying to keep himself composed, at least externally. For the sake of the others in the group he had to.
"Again," the vug said, "I ask your party to concede."
"No, no," Joe Schilling said, as Jack Blau shakily counted out the group"s funds and pa.s.sed them over.
"This is a calamity," Bill Calumine stated quietly.
"Haven"t you survived such losses in The Game before?" Joe Schilling asked him, scowling.
"Have you?" Calumine retorted.
"Yes," Schilling said.
"But not in the end," Calumine said. "In the end, Schilling, you didn"t survive; in the end you were defeated. Exactly as you"re losing for us, now, here at this table."