"Barley, Barrington J - Grand Wheel, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barley Barrington J)

land and sea: the pattern of Earth's controlled weather areas.
As they descended the chessboard effect was reinforced by the fact that pieces stood on some of the squares. The pieces were vertical tower cities, complete with coronas and lumpy proturberances, creating the impression of chess kings and queens, knights and castles.
The shuttle planed down to the big dispersal center. Here there was no automatic immigration count, as there would have been on, say, Mars, a Legitimacy-dominated world. They walked straight off the shuttle and onto the force network platforms. Soon Scarne's escorts had procured a vehicle and they were hurtling through the air towards their destination, propelled by the invisible inertial guidelines.
The landscape was mostly forest and empty plain, dotted here and there with vacation lodges. The population was all in the teeming, colorful cities.
It said much for the dichotomic nature of human civilization that Earth, the capital planet, was a Wheel world-one where the Grand Wheel's influence was strong, unchecked by the Legitimacy's repressive efforts. On Earth the game was the thing; it was the site of the original corruption, the birthplace of the Wheel. Here people spent their lives testing fortune, moving from one ingenious game of chance to another.
A vast pile loomed up and became a blur as the inertial vehicle slammed towards it at ten thousand-miles per hour, slowing to a mere sixty in the few seconds before entering the tower city. Briefly they sped through lighted tunnels, changing direction every now and then.
When the inertial beam brought the vehicle to a stop they were in what seemed to be a largish office, or study. An untidy desk was littered with papers, tapes and box files. One or two paintings, mediocre to moderately good, hung on the walls. Chairs, a couch, a service cabinet.
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Hervold folded down the front of the small vehicle. They clambered out, looking around them.
"Where's Soma?" Caiman asked, disgruntled.
"He ain't here." Hervold crossed to the desk, glanced at a notepad there. "Well, we delivered, anyway."
He spoke to Scarne. "He'll be along shortly. Make yourself comfortable."
He nodded to Caiman. The two of them climbed back into the inertial cab. It withdrew into the tunnel;
a facing panel came down, leaving the wall smooth and unbroken. In a few hours they would probably be back on lo.
Suddenly alone, Scame put down his hold-all. He went to the desk. Nothing there gave him any clue.
A door opened behind him. Scame turned to see a pale-eyed woman, aged about thirty-five, standing in sudden surprise in the doorway.
She recovered herself quickly. "Who are you?" she asked. "The man from lo?" She searched her mind. "Professor Scame."
"Yes. Cheyne Scame." He offered his hand. She shook it limply. She was still attractive, Scame thought; but with the faded, slightly worn look of a woman who has lived perhaps a little too fast. Her face had something appealing, almost touching about it.
"Welcome to the Make-Out Club," she said. "I'm Cadence Mellors. We'd better get to know one another, I guess. How long have you been synched?"
"Synched?"
A frown crossed her face. "How long have you been entitled to wear one of these?" She held up her wrist to show him the dangling gridded wheel, similar to Hervold's.
He caught her meaning. There was probably a lot of jargon inside the Wheel organization. "Only since today, as a matter of fact."
"Oh." The new realization clouded her features, as if it disappointed her.
"Who's this man Soma?" Scame asked.
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"Jerry Soma? He'll be your boss. This is his office. He runs the Make-Out." She crossed to the service unit and came back with two glasses, handing one to Scame. "Have some refreshment."
She clinked her glass against his before they drank. "Good health," she said. While Scarne merely sipped the malt whisky, she knocked hers straight back. "I'd never get through the afternoon without a pick-me-up," she explained cheerfully.
The door opened again, admitting a tall, lean man who walked with a slight slouch, head down. He ignored Cheyne and Cadence as he strode to the desk, where he sat down and quickly tapped something out on an integrator.
"Jerry, this is Professor Scame," Cadence said breathlessly.
Soma didn't look up until he had finished what he was doing. His eyes went from Scame to Cadence and back again, calculatingly, as though suspicious of then:
being together.
"Scame. You got here, then." His hand went to a piece of desk equipment, depressing a key. He read out loud from the showplate. "Lessee . . . born in Minnesota, Earth. A ground town."
"Not everybody likes to live in a tower," Scame interrupted him.
Soma didn't seem to hear. "Your parents were cyb-clerks. Looks like they tried to give their son a start in life. You attended the university of Oceania, majored with honors in randomatics. Then you got drawn back to source, like a lot of randomaticians are: you became a full-time gambler. Your legit-type parents didn't like that, did they? Still, it's a professional hazard . . . the science of probability originally grew out of games of chance, didn't it?"
"I don't see what my parents have got to do with anything," Scame said stiffly. He hadn't seen them for over a decade.
"Ask any psychiatrist. Parents are the first cards you're dealt. It's in the Tarot, isn't it? The Emperor,
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he Empress . . . Anyway, you haven't made very good use of your talent. Drifting around solsystem ... no concerted plan of action. Caught between two stools: science and gambling. Several times you've been in trouble for bad debts."
"I've always come out clean," Scarne said. He felt uncomfortable, being described in precis in front of the girl.
"But that's all you've done." Soma made a sudden, angry gesture. "Hell, if you'd used your abilities you could have had everything. Money, whatever you wanted. Entry into the Wheel. The Wheel really leaves it wide open for people like you-don't you know that? But only if you can find your own way. All these years you've stayed right there below the fifty-fifty line. You never got into even one weighted game."
Scame didn't know what he was talking about. "I'm surprised you want to use me now, if I'm such a loser."
Soma smiled sourly, contemptuously. "You're a failure. But you're not a loser. Losers we can't use."
"Don't be too hard on him. Jerry," Cadence said tentatively. "You'll make him lose confidence."
"He'd better not be that delicate. All right, Scame, you're working for us now. For the time being you're assigned to the Make-Out while we check your performance. This is a special club, not the usual kind. We have special games, games you probably never heard of, new games, special clientele-private list only, some of them high-ranking Legit officials who've got the bug, even. You'll be learning to play against them." He paused. "One question I'm told to ask: can you play Kabala?"
Scame hesitated. "I think I probably could. I've studied the game, but I've never had an opportunity to play it."
"The report on you says the same." Soma made a note on his pad.
"Will I be playing Kabala?"
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"Not here. Who knows, maybe Dom will want to try you out."