“Not absolutely, of course,” Cloud admitted. “There’s one chance in
approximately fourteen million that both my partner and I are wrong.”
“Very good odds. But since you lose in either case, why bet?”
“Because if it’s a trey, she solved your system first. If it’s a five, I
beat her to it.”
“I see, but that isn’t necessary.” The manager took the remaining cards
out of the rack, and, holding them carefully and firmly, wrapped the
M-note tightly around them. Then, picking up the two small stacks of
played cards, he handed the whole collection to Cloud, at the same time
signalling the dealer to go ahead with his game. “We’ll be smothered in
a crowd very shortly, and I would like very much to play with you
myself. Will you, sir and madame, be gracious enough to continue play in
private?”
“Gladly, sir,” Joan assented, at Cloud’s questioning glance. “If it
would not put you out too much.”
“I am delighted,” and, beckoning to a hovering waiter, he went on: “We
will have refreshments, of course. In uniform, you might possibly prefer
soft drinks? We have some very good Tellurian ginger ale.”
“That’d be fine,” Cloud said, even while he was thinking at the Lensman
in contact with his mind: “Safe enough, don’t you think? He couldn’t be
thinking of any rough stuff yet.”
“Perfectly safe,” Nordquist agreed. “He’s just curious. Besides, he’s in
no shape to handle even the _Vortex Blaster_ alone, to say nothing of
the task force he knows would be here two hours after anything happened
to either of you.”
The four strolled in friendly fashion to the suggested private room. As
soon as they were settled:
“You said the top card would be either a five or a trey,” the manager
said. “Shall we look?”
It was the trey of spades. “Congratulations, Joanie, a mighty swell job.
You really clobbered me on that one.” He shook her hand vigorously, then
handed the bill to the manager. “Here’s your M-note, sir.”
“I couldn’t think of it, sir. No tipping, you know. . . .”
“I know. Not a tip, but your winnings. I called the play, remember.
Hence, I insist.”
“Very well, if you insist. But don’t you want to look at the next one?”
“No. It’s the ace of hearts—can’t be anything else.”
“To satisfy my own curiosity, then.” The manager flipped the top card
delicately. It was the ace of hearts. “No compulsion, of course, but
would you mind telling me how you can _possibly_ do what you have just
done?”
“I’ll be glad to,” and this was the simple truth. Cloud had to explain,
before the zwilniks began to suspect that they were being taken by an
organized force of Lensmen and snoopers. “We aren’t even semi-habitual
gamblers. The lieutenant-commander is Doctor Joan Janowick, the Patrol’s
ace designer of big, high-speed electronic computers, and I am Neal
Cloud, a mathematical analyst.”
“You are ‘Storm’ Cloud, the Vortex Blaster,” the manager corrected him.
“A super-computer yourself. I begin to see, I think . . . but go ahead,
please.”
“You undoubtedly know that random numbers, which underlie all games of
chance, must be just that—purely random, with nothing whatever of
system or of orderliness in their distribution. Also that a stacked
deck, by definition, is most decidedly _not_ random. We were kicking
that idea around, one day, and decided to study stacked decks, to see
how systematic such distributions actually were. Well—here’s the new
part—we learned that any dealer who stacks a deck of cards does so in
some definite pattern; and that pattern, whether conscious or
unconscious, is always characteristic of that one individual. The more
skilled the dealer, the more complex, precise, complete, and definite
the pattern. Any pattern, however complex, can be solved; and, once
solved, the cards might just as well be lying face up and all in sight.
“On the other hand, while it is virtually impossible for any dealer to
shuffle a deck into a really random condition, it can approach
randomness so nearly that the patterns are short and hence very
difficult to solve. Also, there are no likenesses or similarities to
help. Worst of all, there is the house leverage—the sevens of hearts,
diamonds, and clubs, you know—of approximately five point seven seven
percent. So it is mathematically certain that she and I would lose, not
win, against any dealer who was not stacking his decks.”
“I . . . am . . . surprised. I’m _amazed_,” the manager said. He was,
too; and so was the host. “Heretofore it has always been the guest who
loses by manipulation, not the house.” It is noteworthy that neither the
manager nor host had at any time denied, even by implication, that their
games of “chance” were loaded. “Thanks, immensely, for telling me. . . .
By the way, you haven’t done this very often before have you?” the
manager smiled ruefully.
“No.” Cloud smiled back. “This is the first time. Why?”
“I thought I would have heard of it if you had. This of course changes
my mind about wanting to deal to you myself. In fact, I’ll go
farther—any dealer you play with here will be doing his level best to
give you a completely random distribution.”
“Fair enough. But we proved our point, which was what we were primarily
interested in, anyway. What’ll we do with the rest of the day, Joan—go
back to the ship?”
“Uh-uh. This is the most comfortable place I’ve found since we left
Tellus, and if I don’t see the ship again for a week it’ll be at least a
week too soon. Why don’t you send a boy out with enough money to get us
a chess kit? We can engage this room for the rest of the day and work on
our game.”
“No need for that—we have all such things here,” the host said quickly.
“I’ll send for them at once.”
“No no—no money, please,” the manager said. “I am still in your debt,
and as long as you will stay you are my guests. . . .” he paused, then
went on in a strangely altered tone: “But chess . . . and Janowick . . .
Joan Janowick, not at all a common name . . . surely not Past Grand
Master Janowick? She—retired—would be a much older woman.”
“The same—I retired for lack of time, but I still play as much as I
can. I’m flattered that you have heard of me.” Joan smiled as though she
were making a new and charming acquaintance. “And you? I’m sorry we
didn’t introduce ourselves earlier.”
“Permit me to introduce Host Althagar, assistant manager. I am called
Thlasoval.”
“Oh, I know of you, Master Thlasoval. I followed your game with Rengodon
of Centralia. Your knight-and-bishop end game was a really beautiful
thing.”
“Thank you. _I_ am _really_ flattered that you have heard of _me_. But
Commander Cloud. . . ?”
“No, you haven’t heard of him. Perhaps you never will, but believe me,
if he had time for tournament play he’d be high on the Grand Masters
list. So far on this cruise he’s won one game, I’ve won one, and we’re
on the eighty fourth move of the third.”
The paraphernalia arrived and the Tellurians set the game up rapidly and
unerringly, each knowing exactly where each piece and pawn belonged.
“You have each lost two pawns, one knight, and one bishop—in eighty
three moves?” Thlasoval marveled.
“Right,” Cloud said. “We’re playing for blood. Across this board
friendship ceases; and, when dealing with such a pure unadulterated
tiger as she is, so does chivalry.”
“If I’m a tiger, I’d hate to say what _he_ is.” Joan glanced up with a
grin. “Just study the board, Master Thlasoval, and see for yourself who
is doing what to whom. I’m just barely holding him: he’s had me on the
defensive for the last forty moves. Attacking him is just like trying to
beat in the side of a battleship with your bare fist. Do you see his
strategy? Perhaps not, on such short notice.”
Joan was very willing to talk chess at length, because the fact that
Fairchild’s Chickladorian manager was a chess Master was an essential
part of the Patrol’s plan.
“No . . . I can’t say that I do.”
“You notice he’s concentrating everything he can bring to bear on my
left flank. Fifteen moves from now he’d’ve been focused on my King’s
Knight’s Third. Three moves after that he was going to exchange his
knight for my queen and then mate in four. But, finding out what he was
up to, I’ve just derailed his train of operations and he has to revise
his whole campaign.”
“No wonder I didn’t see . . . I’m simply not in your class. But would
you mind if I stay and look on?”
“We’ll be glad to have you, but it won’t be fast. We’re playing strict
tournament rules and taking the full four minutes for each move.”
“That’s quite all right. I really _enjoy_ watching Grand Masters at
work.”
Master though he was, Thlasoval had no idea at all of what a terrific
game he watched. For Joan Janowick and Neal Cloud were not playing it;
they merely moved the pieces. The game had been played long since. Based
upon the greatest games of the greatest masters of old, it had been
worked out, move by move, by chess masters working with high-speed
computers.
Thus, while Joan and Storm were really concentrating, it was not upon
chess.
_Chapter 14_
▂▂▂▂▂▂VESTA THE GAMBLER
JOAN WAS HANDLING the card games, Cloud the wheels. The suggestion that
it would be smart to run honest games had been implanted in the
zwilniks’ minds, not because of the cards, but because of the wheels;
for a loaded, braked, and magnetized wheel is a very tough device to
beat.
Joan, then, would read a deck of cards, and a Lensman or a Rigellian
would watch her do it. Then the observing telepath would, all
imperceptibly, insert hunches into the mind of a player. And what
gambler has ever questioned his hunches, especially when they pay off
time after time after time? Thus more and more players began to win with
greater or lesser regularity and the gambling fever—the most contagious
and infectious disorder known to man—spread throughout the vast room
like a conflagration in a box-factory.
And Storm Cloud was handling the wheels.
“Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, before the ball enters Zone
Green,” the croupiers intoned. “The screens go up, no bets can be placed
while the ball is in the Green.”
If the wheels had not been rigged, Cloud could have computed with ease
the exact number upon which each ball would come to rest. In such case
the Patrol forces would not, of course, have given Vesta the Vegian
complete or accurate information. With her temperament and her
bank-roll, she would have put the place out of business in an hour; and
such a single-handed killing was not at all what the Patrol desired.
But the wheels, of course, were rigged. Cloud was being informed,
however, of every pertinent fact. He knew the exact point at which the
ball crossed the green borderline. He knew its exact velocity. He knew
precisely the strengths of the magnetic fields and the permeabilities,
reluctances, and so on, of all the materials involved. He knew just
about how much braking force could be applied without tipping off the
players and transforming them instantly into a blood-thirsty mob. And
finally, he was backed by Lensmen who could at need interfere with the
physical processes of the croupiers without any knowledge on the part of
the victims.
Hence Cloud did well enough—and when a house is paying thirty-five to
one on odds that have been cut down to eight or ten to one, it is very,
_very_ bad for the house.
Vesta started playing conservatively enough. She went from wheel to
wheel, tail high in air and purring happily to herself, slapping down
ten-credit notes until she won.
“_This_ is the wheel I like!” she exclaimed, and went to twenties. Still
unperturbed, still gay, she watched nine of them move away under the
croupier’s rake. Then she won again.
Then fifties. Then hundreds. She wasn’t gay now, nor purring. She wasn’t
exactly tense, yet, but she was warming up. As the tenth C-note
disappeared, a Chickladorian beside her said:
“Why don’t you play the colors, miss? Or combinations? You don’t lose so
much that way.”
“No, and you don’t win so much, either. When I’m gambling I _gamble_,
brother . . . and wait just a minute . . .” the croupier paid her three
M’s and an L. . . . “See what I mean?”
The crowd was going not-so-slowly mad. Assistant Manager Althagar did
what he could. He ordered all rigging and gimmicks off, and the house
still lost. On again, off again; and losses still skyrocketed. Then,
hurrying over to the door of a private room, he knocked lightly, opened
the door, and beckoned to Thlasoval.
“All hell’s out for noon!” he whispered intensely as the manager reached
the doorway. “The crowd’s winning like crazy—everybody’s winning! D’you
s’pose it’s them damn Patrolmen there crossing us up—and how in _hell_
could it be?”
“Have you tried cutting out the gimmicks?”
“Yes. No difference.”
“It can’t be them, then. It couldn’t be anyway, for two reasons. The
kind of brains it takes to work that kind of problems in your head can’t
happen once in a hundred million times, and you say everybody’s doing
it. They _can’t_ be, dammit! Two, they’re Grand Masters playing chess.
You play chess yourself.”
“You know I do. I’m not a Master, but I’m pretty good.”
“Good enough to tell by looking at ’em that they don’t give a damn about
what’s going on out there. Come on in.”
“We’ll disturb ’em and they’ll be sore as hell.”
“You _couldn’t_ disturb these two, short of yelling in their ear or
joggling the board.” The two walked toward the table. “See what I mean?”
The two players, forearms on table, were sitting rigidly still, staring
as though entranced at the board, neither moving so much as an eye. As
the two Chickladorians watched, Cloud’s left forearm, pivoting on the
elbow, swung out and he moved his knight.
“Oh, no . . . no!” Shocked out of silence, Thlasoval muttered the words
under his breath. “Your queen, man—your queen!”
But this opportunity, so evident to the observer, did not seem at all
attractive to the woman, who sat motionless for minute after minute.
“But come on, boss, and look this mess over,” the assistant urged.
“You’re on plus time now.”
“I suppose so.” They turned away from the enigma. “But _why_ didn’t she
take his queen? I couldn’t see a thing to keep her from doing it. I
would have.”
“So would I. However, almost all the pieces on that board are
vulnerable, some way or other. Probably whichever one starts the
shin-kicking will come out at the little end of the horn.”
“Could be, but it won’t be kicking shins. It’ll be slaughter—and _how_
I’d like to be there when the slaughter starts! And I _still_ don’t see
why she didn’t grab that queen. . . .”
“Well, you can ask her, maybe, when they leave. But right now you’d
better forget chess and take a good, long gander at what that Vegian
hell-cat is doing. She’s wilder than a Radelgian cateagle and hotter
than a DeLameter. She’s gone just completely nuts.”
Tense, strained, taut as a violin-string in every visible muscle, Vesta
stood at a wheel; gripping the ledge of the table so fiercely that
enamel was flaking off the metal and plastic under her stiff, sharp
nails. Jaws hard set and eyes almost invisible slits, she growled deep
in her throat at every bet she put down. And those bets were all
alike—ten thousand credits each—and she was still playing the numbers
straight. They watched her lose eighty thousand credits; then watched
her collect three hundred and fifty thousand.
Thlasoval made the rounds, then; did everything he could to impede the
outward flow of cash, finding that there wasn’t much of anything he
could do. He beckoned his assistant.
“This is bad, Althagar, believe me,” he said. “And I simply can’t figure
any part of it . . . unless. . . .” His voice died away.
“You said it. I can’t, either. Unless it’s them two chess-players in
there, and I’ll buy it that it ain’t, I haven’t even got a guess . . .
unless there could be some Lensmen mixed up in it somewhere. They could
do just about anything.”
“_Lensmen?_ Rocket-juice! There aren’t any—we spy-ray everybody that
comes in.”
“Outside, maybe, peeking in. Or some other snoopers, maybe, somewhere?”
“I can’t see it. We’ve had Lensmen in here dozens of times, for one
reason or another, business and social both, and they’ve always shot
straight pool. Besides, all they’re getting is money, and what in all
eleven hells of Telemanchia would the Patrol want of our _money_? If
they wanted us for anything they’d come and get us, but they wouldn’t
give a cockeyed tinker’s damn for our _money_. They’ve already got all
the money there is!”
“That’s so, too. Money . . . hm, money in gobs and slathers. . . . Oh,
you think . . . the Mob? D’ya s’pose it’s got so big for its britches it
thinks it can take _us_ on?”
“I wouldn’t think they could be _that_ silly. It’s a lot more
reasonable, though, than that the Patrol would be horsing around this
way.”
“But how? Great Kalastho, _how_?”
“How do I know? Snoopers, as you said—or perceivers, or any other
ringers they could ring in on us.”
“Nuts!” the assistant retorted. “Just who do you figure as ringers? The
Vegian isn’t a snooper, she’s just a gambling fool. No Chickladorian was
ever a snooper, or a perceiver either, and these people are just about
all regular customers. And _everybody’s_ winning. So just where does
that put you?”
“Up the creek—I know. But dammit, there’s _got_ to be snoopery or some
other funny stuff _somewhere_ in this!”
“Uh-uh. Did you ever hear of a perceiver who could read a deck or spot a
gimmick from half a block away?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. But what stops me is what
can we _do_ about it? If the Mob _is_ forted up in that hotel across the
street or somewhere beside or behind us . . . there isn’t a damn thing
we can do. They’d have more gunnies than we could send in, even if we
knew exactly where they were, and we can’t send a young army barging
around without anything but a flimsy suspicion to go on—the lawmen
would throw us in the clink in nothing flat. . . . Besides, this Mob
idea isn’t exactly solid, either. How’d they get their cut from all
these people? Especially the Vegian?”
“The Vegian, probably not; the rest, probably so. They could have passed
the word around that this is the big day. Anybody’d split fifty-fifty on
a cold sure thing.”
“Uh-uh. I won’t buy that, either. I’d’ve known about it—somebody would
have leaked. No matter how you figure it, it doesn’t add up.”
“Well, then?”
“Only one thing we can do. Close down. While you’re doing that I’ll go
shoot in a Class A Double Prime Urgent to top brass.”
Hence Vesta’s croupier soon announced to his clientele that all betting
was off, at least until the following day. All guests would please leave
the building as soon as possible.
For a couple of minutes Vesta simply could not take in the import of the
announcement. She was stunned. Then:
“Whee . . . yow . . . ow . . . erow!” she yowled, at the top of her not
inconsiderable voice. “I’ve won . . . I’ve _won_ . . . I’VE WON!” She
quieted down a little, still shell-shocked, then looked around and ran
toward the nearest familiar face, which was that of the assistant
manager. “Oh, senor Althagar, do you actually want me to quit while I’m
_ahead_? Why, I never _heard_ of such a thing—it certainly never
happened to _me_ before! And I’m going to stop gambling _entirely_—I’ll
_never_ get such a thrill as this again if I live a million years!”
“You’re _so_ right, Miss Vesta—you never will.” Althagar smiled—as
though he had just eaten three lemons without sugar, to be sure, but it
was still a smile. “It’s not that we _want_ you to quit, but simply that
we can’t pay any more losses. Right now I am most powerfully psychic, so
take my advice, my dear, and stop.”
“I’m going to—honestly, I am.” Vesta straightened out the thick sheaf
of bills she held in her right hand, noticing that they were all
ten-thousands. She dug around in her bulging pouch; had to dig half-way
to the bottom before she could find anything smaller. With a startled
gasp she crammed the handful of bills in on top of the others and
managed, just barely, to close and lock the pouch. “Oh, I’ve got to
_fly_—I must find my boss and tell him all about this!”
“Would you like an armed escort to your hotel?”
“That won’t be necessary, thanks. I’m going to take a copter direct to
the ship.”
And she did.
It was not until the crowd was almost all gone that either Thlasoval or
Althagar even thought of the two chess-players. Then one signalled the
other and they went together to the private room, into it, and up to the
chess-table. To the casual eye, neither player had moved. The board,
too, showed comparatively little change; at least, the carnage
anticipated by Thlasoval had not materialized.
Althagar coughed discreetly; then again, a little louder. “Sir and
madam, please. . . .” he began.
“I told you they’d be dead to the world,” Thlasoval said; and, bending
over, lifted one side of the board. Oh, very gently, and not nearly
enough to dislodge any one of the pieces, but the tiny action produced
disproportionately large results. Both players started as though a bomb
had exploded beside them, and Joan uttered a half-stifled scream. With
visible efforts, they brought themselves down from the heights to the
there and the then. Cloud stretched prodigiously; and Joan, emulating
him, had to bring one hand down to cover a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Excuse me, Grand Master Janowick and Commander Cloud, but the Club is
being closed for repairs and we must ask you to leave the building.”
“Closed?” Joan parroted, stupidly, and:
“For repairs?” Cloud added, with equal brilliance.
“Closed. For repairs.” Thlasoval repeated, firmly. Then, seeing that his
guests were coming back to life quite nicely, he offered Joan his arm
and started for the door.
“Oh, yes, Grand Master Janowick,” he said en route. “May I ask why you
refused the Commander’s queen?”
“He would have gained such an advantage in position as to mate in twelve
moves.”
“I see . . . thanks.” He didn’t, at all, but he had to say something. “I
wonder . . . would it be possible for me to find out how this game comes
out?”
“Why, I suppose so.” Joan thought for a moment. “Certainly. If you’ll
give me your card I’ll send you a tape of it after we finish.”[3]
The two Patrolmen boarded a copter. Joan looked subdued, almost forlorn.
Cloud took her hand and squeezed it gently.
“Don’t take it so hard, Joan,” he thought. He found it remarkably easy
to send to her now; in fact, telepathy was easier and simpler and more
natural than talking. “We had it to do.”
“I suppose so; but it was a dirty, slimy, stinking, _filthy_ trick,
Storm. I’m ashamed . . . I feel soiled.”
“I know how you feel. I’m not so happy about the thing, either. But when
you think of thionite, and what _that_ stuff means. . . ?”
“That’s true, of course . . . and they stole the money in the first
place. . . . Not that two wrongs, or even three or four, make a right
. . . but it does _help_.”
She cheered up a little, but she was not yet her usual self when they
boarded the _Vortex Blaster II_.
Vesta met them just inside the lock. “Oh, chief, I won—I won!” she
shrieked, tail waving frantically in air. “Where’d you go after the club
closed? I looked all _over_ for you—do you know how much I won, Captain
Nealcloud?”
“Haven’t any idea. How much?”
“One million seven hundred sixty two thousand eight hundred and ten
credits! Yow-wow-yow!”
“Whew!” Cloud whistled in amazement. “And you’re figuring on giving it
all back to ’em tomorrow?”
“I . . . I haven’t quite decided.” Vesta sobered instantly. “What do
_you_ think, chief?”
“Not being a gambler, I don’t have hunches very often, but I’ve got one
now. In fact, I know one thing for certain damn sure. There isn’t one
chance in seven thousand million of anything like this ever happening to
you again. You’ll lose your shirt—that is, if you had a shirt to lose,”
he added hastily.
“You know, I think you’re right? I thought so myself, and you’re the
second smart man to tell me the same thing.”
“Who was the first one?”
“That man at the club, Althagar, his name was. So, with three hunches on
the same play, I’d be a fool not to play it that way. Besides, I’ll
_never_ get another wallop like that . . . my uncle’s been wanting me to
be linguist in his bank, and with a million and three-quarters of my own
I could buy half his bank and be a linguist and a cashier both. Then I
couldn’t _ever_ gamble again.”
“Huh? Why not?”