Jeff reached out and took the dice from the girl's hand. "Put them
away, Blackie," he said softly, "You don't have to prove anything. I
know--"
"Game," she repeated harshly, shaking her head.
"Look. Think a minute. Back there, do you know what happened in that
room?"
Her eyes caught his and were wide with fear. "Game," she whispered, her
hands trembling. "You've got to play me!"
He shrugged, his eyes tired as he watched her face. He took the dice
and rolled them out on the table. A three, a four and a five fell; he
saw her eyes flash across the table, taking in the sequence. Then her
hand reached out, grasped the dice, gave them a throw. The hostility
in her mind struck out at him, reinforcing the terrible dread that he
already felt. He fought the hostility, staring at the dice, his hands
gripping the edge of the table. And the dice danced and settled down: a
three, a four and a five....
The girl's eyes widened, staring first at him, then back at the dice.
Slowly she reached out, took the cube with the five showing, sent it
bouncing across the table. It spun and bounced--and settled down once
again with the five exposed.
Jeff felt the blast of bitter fear strike out from the girl's eyes.
The room seemed to scream with the tension he felt. She took the dice
with trembling hands, threw them out hard and clenched her fists as
they fell. The three and four settled out immediately. Jeff watched
the third cube, spinning on one corner, spinning ... spinning.... He
felt his muscles grow tense, his mind screaming, tightening down as
he stared at the little cube. It was as though an iron fist held his
brain in its palm and was slowly, slowly squeezing. And the little cube
continued, ridiculously, to spin and spin, until it quite suddenly
flipped over onto its side and lay still with the five exposed.
Blackie gave a choked scream, her face pasty white. "Then it was you."
She choked, staring at him as if he were a ghost. "You were doing it
deliberately in there, throwing off the odds, twisting things around,
turning the dice against me."
Jeff shook his head violently. "No, no, not me--us--both of us. We were
fighting each other, without knowing it--"
Her hand went up to her mouth, choking off the words as she stared at
him. Jeff stared at the dice, his whole body trembling, huge drops of
sweat running down his forehead. And as he watched, the dice hopped
about on the table, like jumping beans, turning over and over, jerkily,
spinning on their edges in a horrible, incredible little dance. Jeff
shook his head, his eyes wide with horror as he watched the dice.
"You knew it all along," the girl choked. "You came in there just to
torment me, to show me up--"
"No, no." Jeff turned wide eyes on her. "I didn't know it, until I
picked up the dice in that room. Something drove me to do it. I didn't
know what I was doing until all of a sudden the dice were doing what I
wanted them to do--" He broke off, panting. "I never knew it, I never
dreamed it." His eyes sought the girl's, pleading. "I didn't understand
it; I couldn't help it. I just knew that something wrong was going on.
And then I knew that somebody was fighting me. There was a tension in
it. I felt it. I knew somebody was tampering with the dice. Then when I
got near you, I knew it was you."
The girl's face was working, tears welling up in her eyes. "I had to--I
had to win with them."
"Then you knew you were doing it!" Jeff stared at her. "And when
both of us started tampering, opposing each other, the probabilities
governing the games went wild, completely wild."
The girl was sobbing, her face in her hands. "I could always control
it. It always worked. It was the only thing I could do that came out
right. Everything else has always gone wrong." She sobbed like a baby,
her shoulders shaking as she choked out great, racking sobs.
Jeff leaned forward, almost cruelly, his eyes burning at her. "When did
you find out you could ... make dice fall the way you wanted them to?"
The girl shook her head helplessly. "I didn't know it. I didn't have
any idea, until I came here. It was the only thing I could win at.
Everything else I lost at. All my life I've been losing."
"What have you been losing?"
"Everything, everything--everything I touch turns black, goes sour,
somehow."
"But what, _what_?" Jeff leaned toward the girl, his voice hoarse. "Why
did you come here? How did you get here?"
The girl's sobs broke out again, her shoulders shaking in anguish. "I
don't know, I don't know. Oh, I could take it, up to a limit, but then
I couldn't stand it any more. Everything I tried went wrong; everyone
that was near me went wrong too. Even the rackets wouldn't work with me
around."
"What rackets?"
Her voice was weak and cracking. "Any of the rackets. I've been in
a dozen, two dozen, ever since the war. Dad was killed in the first
bombing of the Fourth War, when I was just a kid--twelve, thirteen,
I can't remember now. He died trying to get us out of the city and
through to the Defense area north of the Trenton section. Radiation
burns got him, maybe pneumonia, I don't know. But it got Dad first and
Mom later."
She straightened up and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "We never did
get out of the devastated area. We were killing dogs and cats for food
for a while. Then when things did get straightened out, we ran into
the inflation, the burned-out crops, the whole rat-race. The dirty
breaks were coming in hard then. First we were guerrillas, then we were
bushwhackers. Then we came into the city again and started shaking down
the rich ones that came back from the mountains where they hid."
"But you came in here," Jeff grated. "Why here, if you were doing so
well in rackets?"
"I wasn't. Can't you understand? The luck--it was running wrong, worse
and worse all the time. And then I got hooked on dope. Narcotics
control was all shot to pieces during the war; heroin was all over the
place. But they knew I had this hard-luck jinx. They caught me on it,
until I was hooked bad."
She shrugged, her face a study in pathetic hopelessness. "They hauled
me in here. Schiml sold me his bill of goods. What could I lose? I was
so tired, I didn't care. I didn't care if they jolted my brains loose,
or what they did to me. All I wanted was to eat and get off the dope
and get enough cash so I could try for something decent, where hard
luck couldn't touch me. And I didn't really care if I never got out."
"But with the dice you made out."
"Oh, yes, with the dice--" The girl's eyes flickered for a moment. "I
found out I could make them sit up and talk for me. I played it cozy,
didn't let anybody catch on. But they always worked for me, until
tonight--"
Jeff nodded, his face white. "Until tonight, when you found out you
were fighting for control. Because tonight I found out they'd talk for
me too. And you couldn't beat me with them."
Her voice was weak. "I--I couldn't budge them. They fell the way you
called them."
"It isn't possible, you know," Jeff said softly. "Every time they've
tried to prove it was, they've found some loophole in the study of
it, something wrong somewhere. Nobody's ever proved a thing about
psychokinesis."
The girl grinned mirthlessly. "They've been trying to prove it here
since the year one. Every now and again they get hot on it. They've
just tested somebody that's got them excited and they'll be starting
the whole works over again."