The Game-Players Of Titan Read online

  Putting out his cigarette, Pete went into the kitchen, hoping to find food for breakfast. He had not inhabited this apartment for several years, but nonetheless he opened the vacuum-sealed refrigerator and found in it bacon and milk and eggs, bread and jam, all in good shape, everything he needed for breakfast. Antonio Nardi had been Bindman in Residence here before Pete; undoubtedly he had left these, not knowing that he was going to lose his title in The Game, would never be coming back.

  But there was something more important than breakfast, something Pete had to do first.

  Clicking on the vidphone he said, "I'd like Walter Remington in Contra Costa County."

  "Yes, Mr. Garden," the vidphone said. And the screen, after a pause, lit up.

  "Hi." Walt Remington's dour, elongated features appeared and he gazed dully at Pete. Walt had not shaved yet this morning; stubble coated his jowls, and his eyes, small and red-rimmed, were puffy from lack of sleep. "Why so early?" he mumbled. He was still in his pajamas.

  Pete said, "Do you remember what happened last night?"

  "Oh yeah. Sure." Walt nodded, smoothing his disordered hair in place.

  "I lost Berkeley to you. I don't know why I put it up. It's been my bind, my residence, you know."

  "I know," Walt said.

  Taking a deep breath, Pete said, "I'll trade you three cities in Marin County for it. Ross, San Rafael and San Anselmo. I want it back; I want to live there."

  Walt pointed out, "You can live in Berkeley. As a non-B resident, of course; not as Bindman."

  "I can't live like that," Pete said. "I want to own it, not just be a squatter. Come on, Walt; you don't intend to live in Berkeley. I know you. It's too cold and foggy for you. You like the hot valley climate, like Sacramento. Where you are now, in Walnut Creek."

  "That's true," Walt said. "But—I can't trade Berkeley back to you, Pete." The admission was dragged out of him, then. "I don't have it. When I got home last night a broker was waiting for me; don't ask me how he knew I'd acquired it from you, but he did. A big wheeler and dealer from the East, Matt Pendleton Associates." Walt looked glum.

  "And you sold Berkeley to them?" Pete could hardly believe it. It meant that someone who was not part of their group had managed to buy into California. "Why'd you do it?" he demanded.

  "They traded me Salt Lake City for it," Walt said, with morose pride. "How could I turn that down? Now I can join Colonel Kitchener's group; they play in Provo, Utah. Sorry, Pete." He looked guilty. "I was still a little stewed, I guess. Anyhow it sounded too good to turn down at the time."

  Pete said, "Who'd Pendleton Associates acquire it for?"

  "They didn't say."

  "And you didn't ask?"

  "No," Walt admitted morosely. "I didn't. I guess I should have."

  Pete said, "I want Berkeley back. I'm going to track the deed down and get it back, even if I have to trade off all of Marin County. And in the meantime, I'll be looking forward to beating you at Game-time; look for me to take away everything you've got—no matter who your partner is."

  Savagely, he clicked off the vidphone. The screen became dark.

  How could Walt do it? he asked himself. Turn the title right over to someone outside the group—someone from the East.

  I've got to know who Pendleton Associates would be representing in a deal like that, he said to himself.

  He had a feeling, acute and ominous, that he knew.

  III

  IT WAS A very good morning for Mr. Jerome Luckman of New York City. Because—and it flashed into his mind the moment he awoke—today was the first time in his life that he owned Berkeley, California. Operating through Matt Pendleton Associates he had at last been able to obtain a choice piece of California real estate, and this meant that now he could sit in on the Game-playing of Pretty Blue Fox which met at Carmel each night. And Carmel was almost as nice a town as Berkeley.

  "Sid," he called. "Come into my office." Luckman sat back in his chair, puffed on his after-breakfast delicado Mexican cigarette.

  His secretary, non-Bindman Sid Mosk, opened the office door and put his head in. "Yes, Mr. Luckman."

  "Bring me that pre-cog," Luckman said. "I've finally got a use for him." A use, he thought, which justifies the risk of disbarment from The Game. "What's his name? Dave Mutreaux or something." Luckman had a hazy memory of interviewing the pre-cog, but a man of his position saw so many people every day. And after all, New York City was well-populated; almost fifteen thousand souls. And many were children, hence new. "Make sure he comes up a back way," Luckman said. "I don't want anybody to see him." He had his reputation to maintain. And this was a touchy situation.

  It was illegal, of course, to bring a person with Psionic

  talents to The Game, because Psi, in terms of Game-playing, represented a form of cheating pure and simple. For years, EEGs, electroencephalograms, had been given customarily by many groups, but this practice had died out. At least, Luck-man hoped so. Certainly, it was done no longer in the East, because all the Psi-people were known, and the East set the style for the whole country, did it not?

  One of Luckman's cats, a gray and white short-haired tom, hopped onto his desk; he absently scratched the cat's chin, thinking to himself, If I can't work that pre-cog into the Pretty Blue Fox group, I think I'll go myself. True, he hadn't played The Game in a year or more... but he had been the best player around. How else could he have become the Bindman for Greater New York City? And there had been strong competition in those days. Competition which Luckman had rendered non-B single-handedly.

  There's no one that can beat me at Bluff, Luckman said to himself. And everybody knows that. Still, with a pre-cog... it was a sure thing. And he liked the idea of a sure thing because although he was an expert Bluff player he did not like to gamble. He had not played because he enjoyed it; he had played to win.

  He had, for instance, run the great Game-player Joe Schilling right out of existence. Now Joe operated a little old phonograph record shop in New Mexico; his Game-playing days were over.

  "Remember how I beat Joe Schilling?" he said to Sid. "That last play, it's still in my mind, every detail. Joe rolled a five with the dice and drew a card from the fifth deck. He looked at it a long time, much too long. I knew then that he was going to bluff. Finally he moved his piece eight squares ahead; that put him on a top-win square; you know, that one about inheriting one hundred and fifty thousand dollars from a dead uncle. That piece of his sat on that square and I looked at it—" He had, perhaps, a little Psionic talent of his own, because it had seemed to him that actually he could read Joe Schilling's mind. You drew a six, he had felt with absolute conviction. Your move eight squares ahead is a bluff.

  Aloud, he said that, called Schilling's bluff. At that time,

  Joe had been New York City Bindman and could beat anyone at The Game; it was rare for any player to call one of Joe's moves.

  Raising his great shaggy, bearded head, Joe Schilling had eyed him. There was silence. All the players waited.

  "You really want to see the card I drew?" Joe Schilling asked.

  "Yes." He waited, unable to breathe; his lungs ached. If he were wrong, if the card really were an eight, then Joe Schilling had won again and his grip on New York City was even more secure.

  Joe Schilling said quietly, "It was a six." He flipped over the card. Luckman had been right; it had been a bluff.

  And the title deed to Greater New York City was his.

  The cat on Luckman's desk yawned, now, hoping for breakfast; Luckman pushed it away and it hopped to the floor. "Parasite," Luckman said to it, but he felt fond of the cat; he believed devoutly that cats were lucky. He had had two toms with him in the condominium apartment that night when he had beaten Joe Schilling; perhaps they had done it, rather than a latent Psionic talent.

  "I have Dave Mutreaux on the vid," his secretary said. "He's standing by. Do you want to speak to him personally?"

  "If he's a genuine pre-cog," Luckman said, "he already knows wha
t I want, so there's no need for me or anyone else to speak to the zwepp." The paradoxes of pre-cognition always amused and irked him. "Cut the circuit, Sid, and if he never shows up here it proves he's no good."

  Sid, obediently, cut the circuit; the screen died. "But let me point out," Sid said, "you never spoke to him, so there never was anything for him to preview. Isn't that right?"

  "He can preview the actual interview with me," Luckman answered. "Here in my office. When I give him his instructions."

  "I guess that's right," Sid admitted.

  "Berkeley," Luckman said musingly. "I haven't been there in eighty or ninety years." Like many Bindmen he did not like to enter an area which he did not own; it was a superstitution, perhaps, but he considered it decidedly bad luck. "I wonder if it's still foggy there. Well, I'll soon see."

  From his desk drawer he brought forth the title deed which the broker had delivered to him. "Let's see who was Bindman last," he said, reading the deed. "Walter Remington; he's the one who won it last night and then right away sold it. And before him, a fellow named Peter Garden. I wouldn't be surprised if this Peter Garden is angry as hell, right now, or will be when he finds out. He probably figures on winning it back." And he'll never win it back now, Luckman said to himself. Not from me.

  "Are you going to fly out there to the Coast?" Sid asked.

  "Right," Luckman said. "As soon as I get packed. I'm going to set up a vacation residence in Berkeley assuming I like it—assuming it isn't decayed. One thing I can't stand is a decayed town; I don't mind them empty, that you expect. But decay." He shuddered. If there was one thing that was surely bad luck it was a town which had fallen into ruin, as many of the towns in the South had. In his early days he had been Bindman for several towns in North Carolina. He would never forget the fshnuger experience.

  Sid asked, "Can I be honorary Bindman while you're gone?"

  "Sure," Luckman said expansively. "I'll write you out a parchment scroll in gold and seal it with red wax and ribbon."

  "Really?" Sid said, eyeing him uncertainly.

  Luckman laughed. "You'd like that, a lot of ceremony. Like Pooh-bah in the Mikado. Lord High Honorary Bindman of New York City, and tax assessments fixed on the side. Right?"

  Flushing, Sid murmured, "I notice you worked hard for darn near sixty-five years to get to be Bindman for this area."

  "That's because of my social plans to improve the milieu," Luckman said. "When I took over the title deed there were only a few hundred people here. Now look at the population. It's due to me—not directly, but because I encouraged non-B people to play The Game, strictly for the pairing and re-pairing of mates, isn't that a fact?"

  "Sure, Mr. Luckman," Sid said. "That's a fact."

  "And because of that, a lot of fertile couples were un-

  covered that otherwise never would have paired off, right?"

  "Yes," Sid said, nodding. "The way you've got this musical chairs you're practically single-handedly bringing back the human race."

  "And don't forget it," Luckman said. Bending, he picked up another of his cats, this one a black Manx female. "I'll take you along," he told the cat as he petted her. "I'll take maybe six or seven cats along with me," he decided. "For luck." And also, although he did not say it, for company. Nobody on the West Coast liked him; he would not have his people, his non-Bs, to say hello to him every time he ventured forth. Thinking that, he felt sad. But, he thought, after I've lived there a while I'll have it built up like New York; it won't be an emptiness haunted by the past.

  Ghosts, he thought, of our life the way it was, when our population was splitting the seams of this planet, spilling over onto Luna and even Mars. Populations on the verge of migration, and then those stupid jackasses, those Red Chinese, had to use that East German invention of that ex-Nazi, that—he could not even think the words that described Bernhardt Hinkel. Too bad Hinkel isn't still alive, Luckman said to himself. I'd like to have a few minutes alone with him. With no one else watching.

  The only good thing you could say about the Hinkel Radiation was that it had finally reached East Germany.

  There was one person who would know whom Matt Pendleton Associates would be fronting for, Pete Garden decided as he left the apartment in San Rafael and hurried to his parked car. It's worth a trip to New Mexico, to Colonel Kitchener's town, Albuquerque. Anyhow I have to go there to pick up a record.

  Two days ago he had received a letter from Joe Schilling, the world's foremost rare phonograph record dealer; a Tito Schipa disc which Pete had asked for had finally been tracked down and was waiting for him.

  "Good morning, Mr. Garden," his car said as he unlocked the door with his key.

  "Hi," Pete said, preoccupied.

  Now, from the driveway of the apartment house across

  the street, the two children that he had heard earlier emerged to stare at him.

  "Are you the Bindman?" the girl asked. They had made out his insignia, the brilliantly-colored armband. "We never saw you before, Mr. Bindman," the girl said, awed. She was, Pete guessed, about eight years old.

  He explained, "That's because I haven't been here to Marin County in years." Walking toward the two of them, he said, "What are your names?"

  "I'm Kelly," the boy said. He appeared to be younger than the girl, Pete thought. Perhaps six at the most. Both of them were sweet-looking kids. He was glad to 'have them in his area. "And my sister's name is Jessica. And we have an older sister named Mary Anne who isn't here; she's in San Francisco, in school."

  Three children in one family! Impressed, Pete said, "What's your last name?"

  "McClain," the girl said. With pride, she said, "My mother and father are the only people in all California with three children."

  He could believe that. "I'd like to meet them," he said.

  The girl Jessica pointed. "We live there in that house. It's funny you don't know my father, since you're the Bindman. It was my father who organized the street-sweeper and maintenance machines; he talked to the vugs about it and they agreed to send them in."

  "You're not afraid of the vugs, are you?" Pete said.

  "No." Both children shook their heads.

  "We did fight a war with them," he reminded the two children.

  "But that was a long time ago," the girl said.

  "True," Pete said. "Well, I approve of your attitude." He wished that he shared it.

  From the house down the street a slender woman appeared, walking toward them. "Mom!" the girl Jessica called excitedly. "Look, here's the Bindman."

  The woman, dark-haired, attractive, wearing slacks and a brightly checkered cotton shirt, lithe and youthful-looking, approached. "Welcome to Marin County," she said to Pete.

  "We don't see much of you, Mr. Garden." She held out her hand, and they shook.

  "I congratulate you," Pete said.

  "For having three children?" Mrs. McClain smiled. "As they say, it's luck. Not skill. How about a cup of coffee before you leave Marin County? After all, you may never be back again."

  "I'll be back," Pete said.

  "Indeed." The woman did not seem convinced; her handsome smile was tinged with irony. "You know, you're almost a legend to us non-Bs in this area, Mr. Garden. Gosh, we'll be able to liven conversations for weeks to come, telling about our meeting you."

  For the life of him Pete could not tell if Mrs. McClain was being sardonic; despite her words, her tone was neutral. She baffled him and he felt confused. "I really will be back," he said. "I've lost Berkeley, where I—"

  "Oh," Mrs. McClain said, nodding. Her effective, commanding smile increased. "I see. Bad luck at The Game. That's why you're visiting us."

  "I'm on my way to New Mexico," Pete said, and got into his car. "Possibly I'll see you later on." He closed the car door. "Take off," he instructed the auto-auto.

  As the car rose the two children waved. Mrs. McClain did not. Why such animosity? Pete wondered. Or had he only imagined it? Perhaps she resented the existence of the two separate
groups, Band non-B; perhaps she felt it was unfair that so few people had a chance at the Game-board.

  I wouldn't blame her, Pete realized. But she doesn't understand that any moment any one of us can suddenly become non-B. We have only to recall Joe Schilling... once the greatest Bindman in the Western World and now non-B, probably for the rest of his life. The division is not as fixed as all that.

  After all, he himself had been non-B once. He had obtained title to real estate the only way legally possible: he had posted his name and then waited for a Bindman somewhere to die. He had followed the rules set up by the vugs, had guessed a particular day, month and year. And sure enough, his guess had been lucky; on May 4, 2143, a Bind-

  man named William Rust Lawrence had died, killed in an auto accident in Arizona. And Pete had become his heir, inherited his holdings and entered his Game-playing group.

  The vugs, gamblers to the core, liked such chancy systems for inheritance. And they abhorred cause and effect systems.

  He wondered what Mrs. McClain's first name was. Certainly she was pretty, he thought. He had liked her despite her peculiar bitter attitude, like the way she looked, carried herself. He wished he knew more about the McClain family; perhaps they had once" been Bindmen and had been wiped out. That would explain it.

  I could ask around, he thought. After all, if they have three children they're certainly quite well known. Joe Schilling hears everything. I can ask him.

  IV

  "SURE," Joseph Schilling said, leading the way through the dusty utter disorder of his record shop to the living quarters behind. "I know Patricia McClain. How'd you happen to run into her?" He turned questioningly.

  Pete said, "The McClains are living in my bind." He managed to thread a passage among the piles of records, packing cartons, letters, catalogues and posters from the past. "How do you ever find anything in this place?" he asked Joe Schilling.

  "I have a system," Schilling said vaguely. "I'll tell you why Pat McClain's so bitter. She used to be a B, but she was barred from The Game." "Why?"