The Luck Machine

by E.C. Tubb

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

"We talk of good luck and bad luck. We even wear, some of us, good luck charms and we tend to select certain lucky numbers if we enter a raffle. No, Norman, you can't tell me that we don't acknowledge the existence of something we call luck." The world, indeed the Universe, is surrounded by intangible energies of which man has, at present, only the vaguest notions. Electricity is such a force. Magnetism, gravitation . . . all once-unsuspected natural forces, now known for the realities they are. And so why not luck? And once the possibility of luck being an actual force is recognised the next step is obvious - a machine to harness its forces. But if one man can attract the good luck, someone, somewhere is due for bad luck. When the machine falls into the wrong hands, the inventors begin to wish they'd stuck to rabbits' feet and black cats . . .

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 224

Sample

From the curve of the B2169, a mile from the village of Stark and a few furlongs past the pond at Willards Copse, the time-darkened brick and stucco of St Elmers private school for boys rose in sombre splendour behind the tall screen of elms marching behind the crumbling brick of the surrounding wall. A gate pierced the wall, flanked with scabrous pillars surmounted with roughly circular orbs of stone which could have been residual ammunition for some antediluvian cannon and beneath them, chipped and worn into indistinguishable configurations, carved heraldic designs made a pathetic boast of time-forgotten importance.

A battered, twenty-seater coach stood in the narrow road before the gate, the roof piled high with baggage, the interior stuffed with boys and, against one of the pillars, his face twisted into a strained, unnatural smile, stood a man. His name was Nigel Lloyd, he was a master at St Elmers and his thoughts belied his expression.

‘Goodbye, sir!’ shrilled a strident voice from the coach.

‘Goodbye, Cary.’

‘Have a nice holiday, sir!’

‘Thank you, Cary.’

‘Don’t overdo it, sir!’

‘I won’t, Cary,’ called Nigel. Then, under his breath, his expression still twisted into a smile, ‘You sadistical little bastard!’

‘Goodbye, sir!’

‘Goodbye, Moulton.’

‘Goodbye, sir!’

‘Goodbye, Evans.’

‘Goodbye, sir!’

‘Goodbye, Holt. The little swine are getting me at it! Why the hell doesn’t Innes get this wreck moving?’

The driver must have been telepathic. To Nigel’s relief the irregular pulse of the engine rose to a grinding snarl and, with a gush of evil-smelling exhaust, the coach drove away from the gate, the roar of the engine drowning out the final chorus of goodbyes. Dutifully Nigel waved farewell and then, as the vehicle rounded the bend, let the smile slip from his face and his features resume their normal expression.

It wasn’t a contented one. There was cynicism in it and irony and some self-contempt but there was humour in it too, the wry amusement of a man who has admitted his own limitations and recognized himself as a failure. It went well with the shock of dark, overlong and always untidy hair, the shrewd grey eyes and the paint and chemical-stained corduroy jacket and trousers he wore and which were explained away to the parents of prospective pupils—when such explanations were a forced necessity—as the hallmark of an artistic and scientific genius too engrossed in his studies to spare concern for his outward appearance.

Lighting a cigarette he leaned against one of the pillars of the gate, half-wishing that he had ridden into the village where he could have dropped off for a drink, but he doubted that any amount of ale would have compensated for the prolonged presence of the boys and, even if it had, there would still have been the walk back. Later, perhaps, in the cool of the evening, he might make the effort. He might even have cause to celebrate.

It was a faint hope, too faint to be worth any real consideration, but it was nice to dream and he closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the summer sun and listening to the restless twitter of birds, the cigarette falling unnoticed from his fingers as his imagination soared on pinions, less tangible, but far less limited than those of the winged creatures above. He came to ground again, opening his eyes as heavy feet crunched the gravel at his side, knowing by the odour which stung his nostrils who it must be.

‘Hullo, Norm.’

‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘I was thinking. I’ve come to the conclusion that I hate all boys.’

‘You don’t really mean that.’ Norman Dale, thick and stocky in his shapeless tweeds, the jacket with the worn leather patches which were as much a uniform for the masters as the school cap and blazer were for the boys, took the oversized pipe from his mouth and gestured with it down the road. ‘All gone?’

‘Yes, thank God!’

‘They gave you a rough time, eh?’

It was a magnificent understatement. Hell, thought Nigel grimly, must surely be patterned on the last few hours of term and Hell, when you were the master in charge of travel arrangements, came uncomfortably close.

Everyone had been against him. Pupils who had lost tickets, travel money, personal baggage and, apparently the ability to memorize the simplest instructions. Parents who had decided to collect their offspring and who had blithely arrived far too early and had waited in fuming impatience and others who had turned up carelessly late. Doting aunts and reminiscent uncles. Posturing elder sisters and condescending elder brothers whose arrogance was matched only by their ignorance. And boys! Boys who had seemed to have undergone a peculiar metamorphosis at the approach of freedom turning into young animals who would have tried the patience of a saint.

But it was all over now. The last consignment had been shipped out to home or perdition and a blissful peace had descended on the school.

‘You let them get on top of you,’ said Norman, drawing at his pipe. ‘The trick is to remain utterly detached and to regard them as something not quite human. Experimental animals, perhaps, or a culture on an agar plate. Once you allow yourself to get flustered they sense it and from then on life can get a little difficult.’

Norman, thought Nigel, was full of understatements. Idly he wondered if any master had been driven to suicide by a mob of uncontrollable boys and then decided none. They would probably have reached a point of uncoordinated frenzy before discovering the simple way out and have been quietly led away. His face darkened at recent memory.

‘Cary,’ he said.

‘Cary?’ Norman frowned at his pipe. ‘Oh, young Julian. What about him?’

‘He’s a little swine. He knows damn well that we’re not going anywhere this holiday but he had to rub it in. I’ll watch for our Julian next term.’

‘I seem to remember that you watched for him last term,’ said Norman drily. ‘He was only getting his own back.’

‘For having reported him to the Head for bullying?’

‘For what you called bullying,’ corrected Norman. ‘As far as he was concerned he was only exercising the right of the strong to inflict his will on the weak. Did young Lorn as complain?’

‘He was too scared to.’

‘Perhaps, or then again he was probably abiding by the code of schoolboy behaviour. I’ve told you before, Nigel, you can’t afford to get too involved with the boys. Your mistake is that you regard them as human beings.’

‘Well, aren’t they?’

‘Not in the sociological-cultural sense we use the word. No child is. They are primitives guided solely by the instinct of self-preservation. They only become what we choose to call human when they have been conditioned to acceptance of our own framework of social behaviour. Most of the child psychologists would be out of work tomorrow if we recognized that children and adults are two entirely different species.’

Nigel looked dubious.

‘Isn’t that going a bit too far?’

‘I don’t think so, certainly not psychologically speaking. We expect a child to act, think and feel like an adult. How would you like to be forced to act, think and feel like a child?’

He drew at his pipe again, blew down the stem and sucked until his rotund cheeks developed twin hollows. Taking it from his mouth he stared into the bowl, scowled and jabbed at the contents with a blunt finger. Nigel watched with mounting interest.

‘Still not right?’

‘No. The coltsfoot and rosemary blend well enough but burn far too hot. I’ve tried adding heather, rose petals and some dried and powdered laurel to the basic mixture but the proportions can’t be right. The damn stuff won’t stay alight.’

Deliberately he knocked the dottle from the bowl and stuffed the pipe into a pocket. From another he produced a small plastic bag, checked the number scrawled on it then upended it, allowing the contents to scatter on the ground. Replacing the bag he produced a notebook, opened it and, with a pencil, made a final notation.

‘Mixture thirty-two,’ read Nigel over his shoulder. ‘N.B.G. Now what?’

‘Mixture thirty-three. Do you think I should add more laurel?’

‘If you want to get into a state of what the ancients called ecstasy I’d smoke nothing else. That’s what the old hags who ran the oracles used to do. They chewed dried laurel, inhaled fumes from the same and then started to prophesy. Of course, if you really want to go up the wall you could add some leaves of Indian hemp, or dried poppy heads, the seeds of Morning Glory, mescal buttons or, if you’d prefer, I could recommend a few varieties of hallucinogenic fungi. They should really work.’

‘I’m serious, Nigel.’

‘So am I. You might be a whizz at psychology and a wonder at classical history and comparative religion but you’re no scientist. The trouble with you amateurs is that, when you get started on a hobby, you simply don’t recognize the dangers. Rhubarb leaves for example.’

‘Well?’

‘You had the brilliant idea of curing them and making a non-dutiable smoking mixture. The only thing was that you didn’t know they were loaded with oxalic acid. If I hadn’t been around you’d have poisoned yourself.’ Nigel shook his head. ‘Why don’t you just give it up and smoke tobacco like the rest of us humans?’

‘And rot my lungs with carcinogens? No thank you.’

Nigel didn’t press the point as they walked from the gate towards the school. He liked the older man and, if he found enjoyment in his hobby, he didn’t want to spoil it by pointing out that carcinogens weren’t confined to the hot smoke from burning tobacco. But he hoped that Norman would soon hit on a mixture that was inoffensive to the nostrils.

Neither man hurried. Before them the crushed gravel of the quad stretched from the wall to the main building; once an old English manor house but now converted into a repository for boys. St Elmers wasn’t unique, there were dozens of such private schools, small places for the most part, the majority of them taking full advantage of the fact that anyone, with or without qualifications, could open a school. St Elmers wasn’t the worst of its kind but it was far from being the best and it was symbolic of Nigel’s own station in life. Far, very far from the top but unpleasantly close to the bottom. It was an uncomfortable thought.

There’s Winnard,’ said Norman abruptly. ‘Now there’s someone who has real cause to be grateful for the end of term.’

A man had come round the edge of the building from the direction of the kitchen. He was a squat, ape-like man with heavily tattooed arms, the faded designs revealed beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his collarless shirt. Thick, dark hair coated his arms and showed on his chest. Despite the heat he wore a stained waistcoat and a brass-studded belt circled his bulging waist. He rolled a little as he walked and, as he approached the two masters, he lifted his right hand to his forehead in a gesture common among naval men in the time of the wooden ships.

‘ ’Day, genelmen,’ he muttered.

He wasn’t drunk, not quite, but he was a long way from being sober. Norman shook his head as he stared after him.

‘He’s taking a chance. If the Head catches him like that he’ll be in trouble.’

‘He’s been celebrating,’ said Nigel, and he could guess why. Winnard was the butt of the school and, without the thin protective authority of a master, he was fair game to every boy with a twisted sense of humour. Life, for the school porter, must be an unremitting hell and it was little wonder that he flew to the bottle for relief. Nigel wondered where he kept it, with Mrs Beecham, his widowed sister and the resident cook, he supposed, but he couldn’t ask and he would never be told. The thin line of class effectively prevented any social mixing between masters and servants.

‘He’s still taking a chance,’ said Norman. It seemed to worry him. ‘If he gets kicked out of here he’ll never find another job.’

‘He doesn’t have to worry. There’s always relief.’

Privately Nigel considered that the man would be better off on National Assistance than as gardener, porter, caretaker and general kick-around at the school but he didn’t share Norman’s fears that the Head would mete out instant dismissal if he discovered Winnard in his present state. The Head was no fool and would probably look the other way. He would have a hard time finding people to work as hard for so little as the porter and his sister and he knew it.

Thinking of money reminded Nigel of what he had to do.

‘Leave it,’ advised Norman when Nigel excused himself. ‘I don’t know what you want to see the Head about but leave it until after lunch.’

‘I don’t want to miss him.’

‘You won’t. He isn’t leaving until late afternoon and, anyway, Storm is in with him now.’

‘Storm! Why?’

‘He’s breaking the good news.’ A slow grin wreathed Norman’s features. ‘He’s telling the old man that he won’t be back next term.’

‘He got the job then! The lucky devil!’

Storm was the junior English master and the Head had caught him fresh from University. He was a shy, introverted man with a slight stammer and had been too eager to commence repaying his parents for their financial sacrifices in subsidizing his higher education to look a gift horse in the mouth. Norman, Nigel knew, had been advising him to leave St Elmers at all costs and, apparently, the young man had taken his advice. Nigel hoped he would see it through.

‘He will,’ said Norman confidently when Nigel voiced his doubts. ‘The job is signed, sealed and delivered. Not much more money than he is getting now but a damn sight better conditions and it won’t hurt his reputation. It was a mistake for him ever to come here in the first place. St Elmers is no credit to a young man starting his career.’

Or any other man no matter at what stage in his professional life, thought Nigel sourly.

‘Where is he going?’

‘Dumbarton technical college.’ Norman fussed with his pipe. ‘I know a man there.’

He didn’t volunteer and Nigel didn’t probe for further information. In many ways Dale was a bit of a mystery; his academic qualifications e. . .