"Surely, he couldn't have any objection to my visiting _him_ tonight,
could he? And if you're there, well...."
"We're staying at the Ringo Hotel," she said after a moment's
hesitation, and favored me with a shy smile.
Well, I was able to borrow some money, and with it I bought a few
flowers for Dori and a quantity of the rawest, cheapest whiskey I could
find. I had recognized the symptoms of the sot in the old man's pouchy
face and shaking hands.
The Ringo Hotel was a run-down place in the eastern sector of town. The
old man was not especially glad to see me when I appeared early that
evening, but his attitude changed quickly when I unwrapped the liquor.
Within an hour he was dead drunk and snoring on the bed.
Dori drank nothing, and I drank just enough to loosen my tongue
and my inhibitions. It was not the sort of romantic atmosphere I
would have preferred, with the two of us facing each other in hard,
straight-backed chairs, the bare light bulb glaring down on us and the
old souse snorting away in his drunken dreams; but I was determined not
to let this opportunity escape me.
I talked my way carefully, without making any precipitous advances or
suggestions, and I soon learned one inescapable fact. Dori had no love
left for her father and would leave him in a moment; but her long-dead
mother had instilled in her a rigid morality that left no door open
for an informal association, no matter how attractive I made it. There
was one course open to me.
"Dori," I said, "I have never married because all my life I have been
waiting for the woman to appear whom I knew would be right for me. When
I saw you, I thought you were that woman and now I know. Will you marry
me?"
Now, would you think any woman would consider such a proposal seriously
from a man she had met eight hours before, especially a sedate,
conventional woman like Dori? It was an indication of her hatred of the
life she led that she did not even glance at the old man on the bed.
Her answer was in the light that flooded her thin face. In that moment,
she was beautiful.
* * * * *
I had made fast work of my courtship of Dori, and I made fast work of
the task of getting rid of her father. After our marriage, I gave him
enough money to get blind drunk, and then we left town in a hurry. As
much as she had grown to detest the old bum, Dori did not particularly
approve of this trick, but she had surrendered to a love for me so
complete she was willing to do anything I asked without question. I
understand he died in jail soon afterward.
Our match was not an unhappy one. I have no great capacity for
affection, but I was not cruel to Dori. To win her in a hurry, I had
had to convince her I was desperately in love with her, and it was to
my interest to continue the illusion.
For my plans encompassed no continuation of the piddling little magic
show she had put on with her father. I was a gambler, and with Dori at
my side a great field of opportunity lay before me.
I don't know if you are familiar with the game of dice, Mr. Peache? No?
It's a very ancient and honorable game.
The player with the dice rolls them. If a seven or an eleven comes up,
it's a natural and he wins the bet and keeps the dice for another roll.
If a two, three or twelve turns up, it's craps and he loses his bet but
keeps the dice for another roll. If any other number comes up, that's
his point, and he keeps rolling the dice until either that number
repeats or a seven comes up. If he wins his point, he wins the bet and
keeps the dice, but a seven loses him both his bet and the dice.
Dori's method of controlling the dice was to control one of them. When
they are rolled, dice rarely stop at the same instant. She would let
the first one stop, then keep giving the other the necessary mental
push until it reached the number that gave the combination she wanted.
Since the numbers on each die run from one to six, seven was the only
number she could be sure of forcing; but if a point were set, she could
prevent the dice from hitting seven until the opportunity occurred to
make the point.
She was reluctant at first to use her ability in a way she felt was
dishonest, but, as I said, she had given herself up to adoration of
me, and it took only a little affectionate persuasion to soothe her
conscience into abeyance. She did what I asked, and in a remarkably
short time we entered on a life of ease and luxury that was strange to
both of us.
No more for me the small-time gambler who folded on a bluff when only a
few dollars were at stake. I knew where the big fish swam, and I went
after them.
Naturally, dice was my game. Since childhood I had been an expert
at cards, but cards do not lend themselves readily to psychokinetic
manipulation, without the additional talent of clairvoyance, and Dori
had none of that. But how she could make those dice tumble!
By the time the people who had both money and the gambling instinct
realized I was one of those infallible phenomena to be avoided, we were
rich beyond even my dreams. Suicides and paupers were left in our wake.
It seems that for every advantage a man gains in life, he is faced
with a corresponding disadvantage. He must pay the piper. Here I have
wealth, and West o' Mars, without Dori.... Well, I anticipate myself.
You may not know it, Mr. Peache, but even now I might find it dangerous
to be back on Earth again. It certainly was advisable for me to leave
Earth at that time. Some of the men I had broken had not been left
without the means to avenge themselves on me.
So Dori and I came to Mars.
* * * * *
Those were the days before there were luxurious space liners. Laugh if
you will, Mr. Peache, but they are luxurious; I haven't traveled in
them, but I've gone through them at Marsport. When Dori and I came to
Mars, passengers were strictly expensive cargo who slept and ate on the
centerdeck with the crew and were told brusquely to stay out of the way
if they went north of the centerdeck. For a modest woman like Dori--the
only woman aboard on this trip--it was an ordeal; always at least one
crew member was sleeping or relaxing on the centerdeck, and I had to
shield her with a blanket when she dressed or undressed. An inadequate
towel was her only screen when she took a shower or went to the toilet.
I had feared trouble because my wife would be the only woman aboard,
among a dozen men, on a trip that would last for months. Those fears
were groundless. I understand that now women make up an adequate
percentage of the crews, but at that time they solved the problem by
doctoring the food while aspace.
But tensions mount under such conditions, perhaps more so when their
main outlet is suppressed. The terrible thing about the trip, for me,
was the deadly monotony. The crewmen had their jobs which, surprisingly
to me, kept them busy throughout their duty shifts. Dori, being a
woman, was more placid than I. But for me the monotony was torture: you
must remember that, besides the lack of privacy, our food was doctored,
too, and we could not have lived as man and wife had we had privacy.
Of course, I played cards with the crew, for there was always at least
one who was off duty and not sleeping. But I had determined I would do
nothing to make Mars as untenable for me as Earth had become, and I
resisted the temptation to really gamble with any of them. And gambling
for pennies is not card playing to me.
The man who came to my rescue at last was the astrogator, a Hawaiian
named Kei. With Polynesian perspicacity, he had smuggled a personal
supply of liquor aboard, against regulations. The other crew members
knew he took a nip regularly on off-duty hours, but they never could
locate his cache.
"Pretty dull, huh, groundie?" remarked Kei as we played gin rummy with
cards that insisted on floating off into the wilds of the gravityless
centerdeck. "Maybe I can pep things up. Ever been drunk in free fall?"
"No," I said. "I'm afraid I don't have your foresight."
He grinned smugly.
"You got to try it once, anyhow," he said. "Maybe once will be all
you'll want, though, after the hangover hits you. It makes DTs look
like a Grade B movie. Let's go down to the storage deck."