The Darkside Of The Sun

fifty-fifty bet. Yes? I’m sorry. Perhaps I should explain.’
    ‘Suppose p-math had not been discovered. Now, on Earth there was a creature called a horse. Long ago it was realized that if a number of these animals were raced over a set distance one must surely prove faster than the others, and from this there was …’
    ‘… back to the subject in hand. One anomaly in p-math concerned the Jokers, those semi-mythical beings who had left artefacts strewn around half the galaxy. Solid artefacts, indeed, most of them gigantic. According to probability math, the builders of these latter-day tourist attractions had never, ever existed …’
    His Furness Dr CrAarg+458°, in an informal lecture to students at Dis university, A.S. 5,201
    Dom woke early, and spent a long time staring at the familiar ceiling paintings of his dome. They had been done by his great-grandfather, in gaudy blues and greens, and depicted a trio of overmuscled fishermen battling an enraged dagon. That was a slander on the dagons, Dom knew: they lacked a nervous system and it was doubtful if they ever thought. They just reacted.
    The little swamp ig was sitting in the hand-basin. It had managed to turn on one of the taps with its disconcertingly human forepaws, and was enjoying the trickle of water. When it saw he was awake it made a noise like a fingernail being dragged across glass. The smuggler had said it was a sign of happiness.
    ‘Intelligent little thing, aren’t you?’ said Dom, switching off the warm air field and swinging himself off the bed.
    He saw the clothes laid out neatly on the stand, and bit his lip. The swamp ig, a neatly healed scar on his chest and a few painful memories of his interview with Korodore were all that remained of yesterday.
    Planetary Chairman. He’d own 3 per cent of the pilac industry, but on Sadhimist terms, and if you were a Sadhimist and rich you worked heavily to obscure the fact. He’d preside over innumerable committee meetings, and once a year would give the traditional annual report at the traditional Annual General Meeting. And that would be written for him. Hrsh-Hgn had made it clear, many times. A Chairman was as necessary to a Board planet as the zero was in mathematics, but being a zero had big disadvantages …
    Mathematics. There was something about mathematics he should remember. Well, it’d come. He washed and struggled into the thick grey suit, and selected a short wig of golden fibres.
    There was a polite knock at the door.
    ‘All right,’ said Dom.
    The door burst open and Keja ran into the room and hugged him. She was laughing and crying at the same time. For an embarrassing moment he was suffocated by the silks of her dress, and then his sister stood back and looked at him.
    ‘Well, Mr Chairman,’ she said. Then she kissed him. He disentangled himself as tactfully as he could.
    ‘I’m not actually Chairman yet,’ he began.
    ‘Oh fie! What’s a few hours? You don’t seem very pleased to see me, Dom,’ she added, reproachfully.
    ‘Honestly I am, Ke. Things have just been a bit hectic lately.’
    ‘I heard. Smugglers and so forth. Exciting?’
    Dom thought about it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘More, well, strange in a way.’
    Keja swept the dome with her eyes. It was cluttered with Dom’s things: an old Brendikin analyser, a bench littered with shells, a hologram of the Jokers Tower, and memory cubes on every flat surface.
    ‘How the old place has changed,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. She pirouetted in front of the tall mirror. ‘Do I look like a married woman, Dom?’
    ‘I don’t know. What’s Ptarmigan like?’ He remembered the contractual ceremony two months before, and a vague impression of a very large fierce old man.
    ‘He’s kind,’ said Keja. ‘And rich, of course. Not so rich as us, but he sort of flaunts it more. His children haven’t really taken to me yet. You should come on an official visit, Dom – Laoth’s so hot and dry . That reminds me, I’ve brought you a present.’
    She tiptoed to the door and returned with a servant robot, which carried a small box.
    ‘He’s a Class Five. One of our best,’ she said proudly.
    ‘A robot?’ said Dom, who had been looking expectantly at the box.
    ‘Strictly speaking, he’s a humanoid. Completely alive, merely mechanical. Do you like him?’
    ‘Very much!’ Dom walked up to the tall metallic figure and prodded the broad chest. The robot glanced down at him.
    ‘I wonder what makes us build