World of Chance

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There had been harbingers.

Early in May of 2203 newsmachines were excited by a flight of white crows over Sweden. A series of un­explained fires demolished half the Oiseau-Lyre Hill, an industrial pivot of the system. Small stones fell near work-camp installations on Mars. At Batavia, the Directorate of the nine-planet Federation, a two-headed calf was born, a sign that something of incredible magni­tude was brewing.

Everybody speculated on what the forces of Nature in­tended. Everybody guessed, consulted, and argued about the bottle—the socialized instrument of chance. Directorate fortune-tellers were booked up weeks in advance.

But one man's harbinger is another man's event. The first reaction from Oiseau-Lyre to its limited catastrophe was to create total catastrophe for half its employees. Fealty oaths were dissolved, and a variety of research technicians were tossed out. Adrift, they became a further symptom of the approaching moment-of-importance for the system. Most of these technicians floundered and were lost among the masses. But not all.

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