The theory of Minimax—the M-game—was a kind of stoic withdrawal, a non-participation in the aimless swirl in which people struggled. The M-game player never really committed himself; he risked nothing, gained nothing... and wasn't overwhelmed. He sought to hoard his pot and strove to outlast the other players. The M-game player sat waiting for the game to end; that was the best that could be hoped for.
Minimax, the method of surviving the great game of life, was invented by two twentieth-century mathematicians: von Neumann and Morgenstern. It had been used in the Second World War, in the Korean War, and in the Final War. Military strategists and then financiers had played with the theory. In the middle of the century von Neumann was appointed to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, recognition of the burgeoning significance of his theory. And in two centuries and a half it became the basis of government.
That was why Leon Cartwright, electronics repairman and human being with a conscience, had become a Prestonite. Cartwright pulled his ancient car to the kerb. Ahead of him the Society building gleamed white in the May sun, a narrow three-storey structure of wood, its single sign jutting up above the laundry next door.
PRESTON SOCIETY
Main offices at rear
This was the back entrance, the loading platform. Cartwright opened the back of the car and began dragging out cartons of mailing literature.
He trundled a heavy wood carton down the narrow walk and into the gloomy storage room of the building. A single atronic bulb was fastened to the ceiling; it glowed feebly in the dank silence. Supplies were stacked on all sides, towering columns of crates and wire-bound boxes. He found an empty spot and set down his load.