The Vortex Blaster

by Edward E Smith

  “That’ll be a slick trick if we can do it.”

  “Here’s how. Somebody on this planet knows how to call Fairchild in emergencies, so we’ll create an emergency and he’ll do it.”

  “My mind is open, but I’m a bit skeptical. What kind of an emergency have you got in mind?”

  “Some of the details you’ll have to ad lib as you go along, but it’ll be, basically, bold-faced robbery without a blaster and with them jittery as glaidos because they can’t figure it. I was going to try to do it myself, but I can’t work without my Lens and I can’t come near the hot spots without their spy-rays catching the Lens and blowing the whole show. Doctor Janowick told Phil Strong that she could, without using her sense of perception and after only a short practise run, beat any crooked card game any gambler could dream up—something about random and non-random numbers. Can she?”

  “Um-m…never thought of it…random numbers… Oh, I see. Yes, she can. Especially the most-played one, that over-and-under-seven thing. And with a little telepathy thrown in, I can do the same with any crooked game they’ve got except a magnetically-controlled wheel; and I could do a fair job on that.”

  “Better and better. You and Miss Janowick, then; and be sure and bring Vesta the Vegian along.”

  “Vesta? Um… Maybe, at that. Adolescent Vegians not only can be, but are, interested in everything that goes on, everywhere. They’re born gamblers, and she’s already got a reputation for throwing money around regardless—and she’s rich enough to afford it. And in a winning streak she’ll stir up so much excitement that nobody will pay any attention to anybody else. However, things being what they are, I’ll have to be mighty careful about letting her go on a gambling spree.”

  “Not too much so. Just hint that you won’t fire her if she takes a fling or two at the tables and she’ll be so happy about it and love you so much that she won’t even think of wondering why.”

  And so it proved. After a long discussion of details with the Lensman, Cloud went to sleep. The following afternoon he went back to the ship and sought out Vesta, whom he found slinking dejectedly about with her tail almost dragging on the floor. Scarcely had he begun his suggestion, however, when:

  “Really, chief?” Vesta’s tail snapped aloft, her pointed ears quivered with eagerness. She hugged him ecstatically, burying her face in the curve of his neck and inhaling deeply. “You zmell zo wonderful, chief—but a wonderful man like you would have to smell zo, wouldn’t he? I thought you’d smack me bow-legged if I even hinted at wanting to lay a ten-cento chip on the line. But I know I can beat the games they’ve got on this planet…and besides, I’ve been gone half a year and haven’t spent a hundred credits and I’ve learned nine languages including your cursed English…”

  She took out her book of Travelers Cheques and stared at it thoughtfully. “Maybe, though, just to be on the safe side, I’d better tear one of these out and hide it in my room. It’d be awful to have to call my mother for jet fare home from the ’port. She and dad both’d yowl to high heaven—they’d claw me ragged.”

  “Huh? But listen!” Cloud was puzzled. “If you shoot such a terrific wad as that, what possible difference would it make whether you had plane fare for a few hundred miles left or not?”

  “Oh, lots,” she assured him. “They don’t expect me to have much of any of my allowance left when I get home, and I never intended to, anyway. But anybody with half a brain is expected to be able to get home from a party—any kind of a party—without crying for help, and without walking, either; so I’ll go hide one of these slips.”

  “If that’s all that’s bothering you, no matter,” Cloud said quickly. “You’ve got another pay day coming before we get to Vegia, you know.”

  “Oh, I never thought of that—I’ve never been on a payroll before, you know, and can’t get used to being paid for doing nothing. But can we go now, Captain Nealcloud, please? I can’t wait!”

  “If Joan’s ready we can. We’ll go see.”

  But Joan was not ready. “Did you actually think she would be?” Helen asked. “Don’t you know that the less a woman puts on the longer it takes her to do it?”

  “Nope—I s’posed Doctor Joan Janowick would be above such frippery.”

  “You’d be surprised. But say, how’d you talk her into this vacation? Your manly charm, no doubt.”

  “Could be, but I doubt it. All she wanted was half an excuse and the promise I wouldn’t get sore if we have to kill a couple of days in space before starting shooting on Vegia… Hot Dog!—just look who’s here!”

  Joan came in, pausing in embarrassment at the burst of applause and whistles that greeted her. She was richly, deeply tanned; taut, trim, and dainty—she had trained down to a hundred and fifteen pounds—her bra was a triumph of the couturier’s art. She, too, was armed; her DeLameter harness sported the two-and-a-half silver bars of a lieutenant commander.

  “Ouch—I’m bedazzled!” Cloud covered his eyes ostentatiously, then, gradually and equally ostentatiously recovering his sight: “Very nice, Joanie—you’re a veree slick chick. With a dusting of powdered sugar and a dab of cream you’d make a right tasty snack. Just one thing—a bit overdressed, don’t you think?”

  “Overdressed!” she exclaimed. “Listen, you—I’ve never worn a bathing suit half as skimpy as this in my whole life, and if you think I’m going to wear any less than this you’re completely out of your mind!”

  “Oh, it isn’t me!” Cloud protested. “Patrol Regs are strict that way—when in Rome you’ve got to be a Roman candle, you know.”

  “I know, but I’m Roman Candle enough right now—in fact, I feel like a flaming skyrocket. Why, this thing I’ve got on is scarcely more than a G-string!”

  “QX—we’ll let it pass—this time…”

  “Hey, you know something?” Joe interrupted him before Joan did. “Vegia is a couple of degrees warmer than this, and they don’t overdo the matter of clothes there, either. I am going to start basking under the radiants. If I get myself cooked to a nice, golden brown, Helen—like a slice of medium-done toast—will you do Vegiaton with me?”

  “It’s a date, brother!”

  As Joe and Helen shook hands to seal the agreement, the two Patrol officers and Vesta strode out.

  They took a copter to the Club Elysian, the plushiest and one of the biggest places on the planet. The resplendently decorated—in an undressed way, of course—doorman glanced at the DeLameters, but, knowing the side-arm to be the one indispensable item of the Patrol uniform wherever found, he greeted them cordially in impeccable Galactic Spanish and passed them along.

  “The second floor, I presume, sir and mesdames?” The host, a very good rule-of-thumb psychologist, classified these visitors instantly and suggested the region where both class and stakes were high. Also, and as promptly, he decided to escort them personally. Two Patrol officers and a Vegian—especially the Vegian—rated special attention.

  The second floor was really a place. The pile of the rug was over half an inch deep. The lighting was neither too garish nor too dim. The tastefully-placed paintings and tapestries adorning the walls were neither too large nor too small, each for its place; and each was a masterpiece.

  “May we use Patrol currency, or would you rather we took chips?” Cloud asked.

  “Either one, sir; just as you wish.”

  “We Tellurians are all set, then, but Miss Vesta here would like to cash a few Travelers’ Cheques.”

  “Certainty, Miss Vesta. I’ll be delighted to take care of it for you. How do you wish the money, please?”

  “I’ll want a little small stuff to get the feel of the house…say a thousand in tens and twenties. The rest of it in fifties and hundreds, please—mostly hundreds.”

  Vesta peeled off and thumb-printed ten two-thousand credit cheques and the host, bowing gracefully, hurried away.

  “One thing, Vesta,” Cloud cautioned. “Don’t throw it away too fast. Save some for next time.”

  “Oh,
I always do, chief. This’ll last me the week, easily. I run wild only when I’m in a winning streak.”

  The host came up with her money; and as Vesta made a bee-line for the nearest wheel:

  “What do you like, Joan?” Cloud asked. “A wheel?”

  “I don’t think so; not at first, anyway. I’ve had better luck with the under-and-overs. They’re over there, aren’t they, sir?”

  “Yes, madame. But is there anything I can do first? Refreshments of any kind—an appetizer, perhaps?”

  “Not at the moment, thanks.”

  “If you wish anything, at any time, just send a boy. I’ll look you up from time to time, to be sure you lack nothing. Thank you very much, sir and madame.”

  The host bowed himself away and the two officers strolled over to the bank of “under-and-over” tables, which were all filled. They stood at ease for a few minutes; chatting idly, enjoying their cigarettes, gazing with interest and appreciation around the huge, but wonderfully beautiful room. There was no indication whatever that either of the two Patrolmen was the least bit interested in the fall of the cards, or that two of the keenest mathematical minds in space knew exactly, before the man ahead of them got tired of losing fifty-credit chips, the denomination and the location of every card remaining in the rack.

  Joan could, of course, have read either the cards, or the dealer’s mind, or both; but she was not doing either—yet. This was a game—on the side, so to speak—between her and Storm. Nor was it at all unequal, for Cloud’s uncanny ability to solve complex mathematical problems was of very little assistance here, This was a matter of more-or-less simple sequences; of series; of arrangements; and her years of cybernetic training more than made up for his advantage in speed.

  “Your pleasure, madame or sir? Or are you together?”

  “We’re together, thanks. We’ll take the next, for an M.” Cloud placed a one-thousand-credit note in the velvet-lined box.

  Two thin stacks of cards lay on the table at the dealer’s right; one pile face up, the other, face down. He took the top card from the rack, turned it over, and added it to the face-up stack. “The ten of clubs,” he droned, sliding a one-thousand-credit bill across the table to Cloud. “What is your pleasure, sir and madame?”

  “Let it ride. Two M’s in the box,” Cloud said, tossing the new bill on top of its mate. “Throw one.”

  “Discard one.” The dealer removed the next card and, holding it so that neither he nor the players could see its face, added it to the face-down pile. “What is your pleasure, sir and madame?”

  “Throw one.”

  “Discard one.”

  “We’ll take this one,” and there were four thousand credits in the box.

  Throw one, take one, and there were eight thousand.

  The eight became sixteen; then thirty-two; and the dealer lost his urbanity completely. He looked, just plain ugly.

  “Maybe that’s enough for now,” Joan suggested. “After all, we don’t want to take all the man’s money.”

  “Tightwad’s trick, huh? Quit while yer ahead?” the dealer sneered. “Why’n’cha let ’er ride just once more?”

  “If you insist, we will,” Cloud said, “but I’m warning you it’ll cost you thirty two more M’s.”

  “That’s what you think, Buster—I think different. Call your play!”

  “We’ll take it!” Cloud snapped. “But listen, you clever-fingered jerk—I know just as well as you do that the top card is the king of clubs, and the one below it is the trey of diamonds. So, if you want to stay healthy, move slowly and be damned sure to lift just one card, not two, and take it off the top and not the bottom!”

  Glaring in baffled fury, the dealer turned up the king of clubs and paid his loss.

  At the next table the results were pretty much the same, and at the third. At the forth table, however, instead of pyramiding, they played only single M-bills. They lost—won—lost—lost—won—lost—won—lost. In twenty plays they were only two thousand credits ahead.

  “I think I’ve got it, Joan,” Cloud said then. “Coming up—eight, six, jack, five, deuce?”

  “Uh-uh. I don’t think so. Eight, six, jack, three, one, I think.

  The trey of spades and the ace of hearts. A two-and-one shift with each full cycle.”

  “Um…m. Could be…but do you think the guy’s that smart?”

  “I’m pretty sure of it, Storm. He’s the best dealer they have. He’s been dealing a long time. He knows cards.”

  “Well, if you’re done passing out compliments, bow about calling a play?” the dealer suggested.

  “QX. We’ll take the eight for one M…and it is the eight, you notice…let it ride…throw the six—without looking, of course…we’ll take the jack for two M’s…”

  The host, accompanied by no less a personage than the manager himself, had come up. They stood quietly and listened as Cloud took three bills out of the box, leaving one, and went on:

  “The next card is either a five or a trey. That M there is to find out which it is.”

  “Are you sure of that?” the manager asked.

  “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.”

&
nbsp; “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 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.”