"TRH-247."
"Mine's a laughie. NIK-700. You can call me Nik," he said. "Everybody
does. We don't run a very tight ship here," he added with humor.
"That's an old saying. I heard it from a computer in one of those
back-time courses in school."
Hendley was unfamiliar with the phrase, but he guessed its meaning. As
he rose with his new friend he thought: The Organization is a tight
ship. As tight as computer ingenuity can make it. Freedom is escape
from that, too.
* * * * *
"You have casinos in the outside world, I suppose?" Nik asked.
"No," Hendley said. "The Organization outlawed them many years ago.
Too many people would gamble away a life's work credit. Compulsives,
they used to be called. The Organization acted to protect them from
themselves."
"Gambling is a favorite pastime here," Nik said. "And the casino here
in the Rec Hall is generally considered to be the best. It never
closes, day or night. That's why it's below ground level--so you don't
see the sun."
The main floor of the casino was a half-dozen steps below the entrance
where Hendley and his companion stood. They looked out over a scene of
feverish activity, distinguished as much by the low volume of sound
as by the air of tension. The casino was divided into a series of
diminishing circles. The first and widest circle was the most crowded,
containing row upon row of small gambling machines--computers with
illuminated screens across whose faces paraded a pattern of designs
and figures. Every one of these machines was in use--the majority
of the players being women, Hendley noticed. The gambler could halt
the dancing pattern on the screen by pushing a button. Winning
relationships of designs and figures paid off with a distinct buzzing
and a cascade of round white chips into a cup at the base of the
screen. Throughout this crowded circle the players fed their white
chips into the machines with the automatic, somnambulent attitude of
robots, never pausing, never looking up, seldom reacting to win or loss.
"We have our compulsives, too," Nik said. "Some of them never leave
the casino. They fall asleep in the lounges, wake up, go back to the
machines. Until they run out of chips."
It seemed incredible to Hendley that Freemen would voluntarily choose
to shut themselves off from the sun and the open sky, once having
gained them, but the hypnotized faces of the gamblers were convincing.
Shaking his head, he looked beyond the first bank of machines toward
the inner circles. At various kinds of green-topped tables hordes of
Freemen gambled with cards, dice, electronic wheels, light-sticks. The
circles shrank to an open aisle, wider than the others, near the center
of the huge room. Here a single large table occupied the exact center.
A robot sat immobile at the table. No one was playing. Hendley saw that
robot dealers monitored all of the tables, their impassive metallic
faces immediately recognizable by their light-reflecting quality.
Nik seemed to divine the direction of Hendley's interest. "We used
to have human croupiers and dealers," he said. "But they couldn't be
trusted. They'd hold out chips--fix games for their friends--things
like that. Robots work much better. They can't cheat. And they can't be
bribed or threatened."
Hendley was frowning. "What I don't understand," he said, "is what you
gamble for. What do you get out of it? You have everything you want
or need provided for you. How can all those people go on gambling,
and feel like that about it"--he nodded toward the first circle of
feverishly intent players--"when it's all so meaningless? What do they
have to win or lose?"
Nik hesitated. "Maybe it's hard to understand, but ... do you see those
white chips?"
"Yes."
"The casino issues only a limited number of them--each casino has
its own chips. There are never quite enough to go around. And
they're the only things you can use to gamble. Objectively they mean
nothing--they have no value. But they've come to have a special value
here. A compulsive gambler will do almost anything to get more chips,
especially if he's a heavy loser. Without chips he can't gamble. That's
why there are some things you can buy with chips that you can't get any
other way."
"What could you possibly buy that isn't already free?"
"Oh, quite a few things." The young Freeman smiled tolerantly. "There's
the weed, for instance."
"The weed?"
"A form of opiate. Habit-forming. Quite deadly in the long run, but
some people get hooked on it and have to have it. No one knows how it's
smuggled into the camp. Some say it's grown here, but no one has ever
found out where. It can be bought--if you have white chips."
"But why?" Hendley exclaimed. "I've heard of addicts outside--but here
there are no pressures, no worries, no frustrations. Why would anyone
be driven to using drugs? It's incredible!"
"Well, there are other things you can get with chips that aren't so
incredible." Nik was obviously amused by Hendley's naive astonishment.
"For instance, do you see that blonde girl down there, the one standing
beside the fat gambler at the wheel in the third section?"
Hendley peered toward the inner circle indicated. He had no trouble
identifying the statuesque blonde Nik was referring to. Like a number
of the women in the casino she wore her white coverall zipped open to
the waist--a custom not permissible in the outside Organization. Her
smooth white skin, surprisingly untanned as if she took care to avoid
the sun, and the remarkable ripeness of her exposed figure, enabled
her to stand out easily in the crowd. The face that went with her
more arresting features was like a robot doll's--flawlessly beautiful,
sweetly vacuous. Hendley could not help staring at her. His face began
to feel warm.
"Beautiful, isn't she?" Nik said, laughing.
"Very!"
"She belongs to that gambler next to her. They're Contracted. He's a
big gambler; what you call a compulsive." Nik's smile was worldly,
amused at mankind's overfamiliar decadence. "You may already know that
there's a lot of interchanging of partners in the camp, but not with
her. She's available, but only at a price. She's one of the things you
can buy with white chips."
For a long moment Hendley continued to stare at the tall, lush blonde,
so obviously bored, and at the squat, heavy-set gambler, so evidently
ignoring her, consumed by his gambling passion to the point where other
desires had ceased to exist. Hendley thought of the years the man must
have worked before he had at last paid off his tax debt and won his way
to freedom. And this finally was all it meant to him. Hendley let his
gaze roam over the casino, aware of its peculiar hush, sensing in the
intense absorption of the gamblers a spreading, contagious sickness.
Oppressed, he turned away.
"Let's go outside," he said. "I'd like to see the stars."
* * * * *
"We'll go back for the main show," Nik said. "It's worth seeing."
"What kind of show is it?"
"I'll let you find that out for yourself," the young man grinned. "But
I saw the way you stared at the blonde. You'll like the show."
Hendley felt a trace of annoyance, but he let the remark pass. The
girl had been stunning, and he had stared. All of a sudden he was
remembering ABC-331, seeing her face lifted up toward his, and he was
strangely uncomfortable with the memory.
They rode the slow sidewalk strip downhill from the Rec Hall to the
concentration of entertainments in the camp's pleasure center. Hendley
wondered what other special revelations his companion had in store for
him. High above, the night sky soared in a breathtaking leap of black
space, stabbed by stars. His gaze followed the great black arch over
his shoulder until it vanished behind the Rec Hall on the hill.
"That big table at the center of the casino," he said suddenly. "What
is it? No one was playing."
Nik was strangely silent. When he finally answered Hendley had the
impression he was being evasive. "The stakes are too high at the big
table," he said, "But someone will play there before the night is over.
Someone usually does. The smaller the circle the higher the bet,"
he added quickly, not giving Hendley a chance to press him further.
"That's why the outer circle gets the most play." He paused, then added
reflectively, "I tried the big table once. Sooner or later you get the
urge to give it one whirl. I won."
"What are these high stakes?" Hendley asked, curious.
But Nik failed to hear--or chose to ignore the question. "I know where
there's a private party tonight," he said. "We'll have time to get
there and back for the show. I think you'll enjoy it. Some interesting
types. Very arty and all that."
From the bottom of the hill the moving walk sliced through a section of
the central park. The way was brightly lighted, but beyond the ribbon
of light the park was dark. At one point Nik stepped off the walk,
motioning Hendley to follow suit. They faced a narrow path leading
through the shadowed park. Nik stopped. He seemed to be listening for
something. Puzzled, Hendley started to speak. A quick gesture silenced
him. From somewhere along the twisting path there came a scuffling
sound.