There was an uneasy silence.
"Could he destroy our ship?" Rita asked.
"Easily," Benteley said, "and a good part of the Disc at the same time."
"Maybe John Preston will do something to him," Rita suggested hopefully, but there was no conviction in her voice.
"Much depends on the next Quizmaster," Benteley pointed out. "Some kind of a work-crew should go out to round up Moore. The body will be deteriorating; we might be able to destroy him."
"Not after he reaches Preston," Cartwright said gloomily.
"I think we should consult the next Quizmaster," Benteley persisted. "Moore will be a menace to the system. You think the next Quizmaster would agree?"
"I think so," Cartwright said, "since you're the next Quizmaster. That is, assuming you've still got the power-card I gave you."
Benteley had the card; he got it out and examined it. "You expect me to believe this?"
"No, not for another twenty-four hours."
Benteley turned the card over and again studied it. The power-card looked like any other; the same shape, colour and texture. "You've been carrying this about?"
"I've been carrying a whole packet of them," Cartwright answered.
"Give me time to adjust my thoughts." Benteley managed to get the power-card in his pocket. "Is this all really on the level? Or have you worked out a system of prediction?"
"No," Cartwright answered. "I can't predict selection results any better than the next person."
"But you had this card! You know what's coming up!"
"What I did," Cartwright admitted, "was tamper with the selection machinery. During my lifetime I've had access to Geneva a thousand times. I set up the numbers of the power-cards I had been able to acquire, in such a way that they constitute the next nine selections."
"Was that ethical?" Benteley demurred.
"I played the game for years," Cartwright said. "Then I began to realize that the rules were all against me. Who wants to play that kind of game?"
Benteley agreed: "No, there's no point in playing a rigged game. But what's the answer?"
"I joined the Preston Society."
"Why?"
"Because Preston saw through the rules, too. He wanted what I wanted, a game in which everybody stood a chance. Not that I expect everybody to carry off the same size pot at the end of the game. But I think everybody ought to have a chance of winning something."
"What are you going to do now?" Benteley asked. "You can't hold power again."
"I'm going to spend the rest of my days sunning myself, sleeping, contemplating."
Rita spoke. "Twenty-four hours, Ted, then you're Quizmaster. You're where my uncle was, a few days ago. You'll be waiting for them to come and notify you."
"Shaeffer knows," Cartwright said. "He and I worked it out before I gave you the card."
"Then the Corps will respect the arrangement?"
"The Corps will respect you" Cartwright answered quietly. "It's going to be a big job. Things are happening; stars are opening up like roses; the Disc is out there... a half way point. The whole system will be changing."
"You think you can handle it?" Rita asked Benteley.
Benteley replied thoughtfully: "I wanted to get where I could make changes; here I am." Suddenly he laughed. "I'm probably the first person who was ever under oath to himself. I'm both protector and serf at the same time. I have the power of life and death over myself."
"It sounds like a good kind of oath, to me," Cartwright said. "You take the full responsibility for protection and for carrying out the work. You have nobody to answer to but your own conscience."
Major Shaeffer hurried into the room. "The ipvic monitor's in with a final report on Moore."
Cartwright responded: "Final?"
"The ipvic people followed the synthetic body to the point when it entered Preston's ship; you knew that. The body began investigating the machinery that maintains Preston. At that point the image cut off."
"Why?"
"According to the repair technicians, the synthetic body detonated itself. Moore, the ship, John Preston and his machinery, were blown to ash. A direct visual image has already been picked up by innerplan astronomers."
"Did some kind of electrical influence set of the bomb?" Benteley asked.
"The ipvic image showed Moore deliberately opening the synthetic's chest and shorting the bomb-leads." Shaeffer shrugged. "I think we'd better send out a crew to investigate."
Cartwright got out his notebook. With a look of bewilderment on his seamed, aged face he ticked off the last item and restored the book in his pocket. "Well, that takes care of that." He examined his heavy pocket watch. "The ship should be landing soon. If nothing has gone wrong, Groves will be setting down on Flame Disc at any moment."
The Disc was big. Brake-jets screamed shrilly against the rising tug of gravity. Bits of metal paint flaked down around Groves; an indicator smashed; somewhere within the hull a feed-line snapped.
"We're about to collapse," Konklin grated.
Groves switched off the overhead light. The control bubble was plunged into darkness.
"What the hell... ?" Konklin began. And then he saw it.
From the viewscreen a soft light radiated, a pale, cold fire that glittered in a moist sheen over the figures of Groves and Konklin and the control. No stars, no black emptiness of space, were visible: the immense face of the planet had silently expanded until it filled everything. Flame Disc lay directly below. The long flight was over.
"It's eerie," Konklin muttered.
"That's what Preston saw."
"What is it?"
"Probably radioactive minerals."
"Where is Preston? I thought his ship was going to guide us all the way."
Groves hesitated, then answered reluctantly. "My meters picked up a thermonuclear explosion about three hours ago. Distance from us, perhaps ten thousand miles. Since the explosion Preston's ship hasn't registered on my gravity indicators. Of course, with the Disc so close a tiny mass like that might not——"
Jereti came hurrying into the control bubble. He saw the screen and halted. "So that's it!"
"That's our new home," Konklin said.
"What makes that funny light? It's like a seance in here."
Konklin left the bubble. The green glow seemed to follow him as he descended a ramp and came out on the main level. At the door of his cabin he halted and stood for a moment listening.
Down in the cargo hold pots and pans, bedding, food, clothing, were being gathered up. A murmur of excited, subdued voices came up over the din of the brake-jets. Gardner was starting to issue pressure suits and helmets.
Konklin pushed open the cabin door and entered.
Mary looked up. "Are we there?"
"Not quite. All ready to step out onto our new world?"
Mary indicated their heap of possessions. "I'm packing."
Konklin laughed. "You and everybody else. Put that stuff back; we're going to live here until we get the subsurface domes set up."
Abashed, Mary began carrying things back to drawers and lockers. "Aren't we going to set up some sort of colony?"
Konklin slapped the bulkhead above his shoulder. "This is it."
Mary lingered with an armload of clothes. "Bill, it'll be hard at first but later it won't be so bad. We'll be living mostly underground, the way they do on Uranus and Neptune. That's pretty nice, isn't it?"