by David Drake
At the same time as the bedrock disintegrated, a varicolored short circuit blew out the side of the laser. The cable had proved more durable than the weapon it fed. Kotzwinkle fell shrieking into the pit with his tunic afire. His roll down the gritty slope smothered the flames.
Mincio lowered her protective arm; Nessler had done the same. Everybody was shouting, mostly in delight and wonder. The fireworks had been the most entertainment the Melungeons, officers and spacers alike, had seen in a long time.
The pylon wavered, then started to tilt. The rock to one side of the crystal was broken into fragments but the granite shelf on the other side remained whole; the base was partly supported, partly free.
The shaft tilted minusculely farther. Then the entire pylon disintegrated into shards no bigger than a fingernail with a trembling roar like that of ice breaking in a spring freshet.
The countergrav rings flew loose, freed when the shaft they bound dribbled out of their grip. Glittering ruin filled the pit with the remnants of an object that had survived longer than men had used fire. Kotzwinkle had started to climb up the sandy slope. The crystal flowed over him. The Melungeon's screams continued for a little longer than even his outstretched arm was visible.
Mincio swallowed. Her eyes were open, but tears blinded her. From her side Nessler said in a low voice, "I'm glad we didn't bring Ms. deKyper. It'll be bad enough that she has to hear about it."
The last fragments tinkled down. In the silence to which even his own personnel had been struck, Orloff said, "Well, shall we play poker, Sir Hakon? Let's see if things go right for at least one of us this day!"
"Yes," said Nessler. "I think we should play cards."
* * *
"I've always loved poker, but I'm afraid I'm not very good at it," Nessler said as he sat in the indicated chair to Orloff's left. Two other Melungeon officers took their places at the table; the remainder watched with greedy expressions, some of them toying with the prostitutes as they did so. Enlisted personnel drifted to their burrows or sat stolidly around the glittering wreck.
Mincio stood at the flap of the Manticoran tent. She heard Nessler's voice through the intercom in her left ear canal and, a half-beat later, via the air in normal fashion.
"Hah, don't worry," Orloff said, taking the deck of special cards from his servant. He put the pipe in his mouth. "We teach you to play good today, not so?"
"If you can hear me," Mincio said softly, "lace your fingers against the back of your neck and stretch."
Nessler laced his fingers and stretched. "Well, so long as we play for table stakes," he said, "I don't guess I can get into any serious problems. Can we stipulate table stakes?"
"Well…" Orloff said.
"I don't mean small stakes, necessarily," Nessler added. He brought a sheaf of credit vouchers from his purse and laid them on the table. Each was a chip loaded by the Royal Bank of Manticore, with an attached hardcopy of the terms and amount of the draft.
Orloff picked one of the printouts at random and looked at the amount it represented. "Ha!" he bellowed. "I should say not! Table stakes indeed! Let us play, my friends. Sir Hakon thinks he can buy all Melungeon, or so it seems!"
"I'm going to check the imagery, Nessler," Mincio called. Everyone ignored her; Orloff was shuffling the cards.
She went into the tent; Beresford walked over to stand in front of the flap, his eyes on the card game in the adjacent tent.
Rovald had a receiver set up inside. It already displayed the deck's arrangement in the form of an air-projected hologram. The glowing layout shifted instantly every time Orloff mixed the cards.
"All he's got is a code signal through his teeth on the pipestem," Rovald explained proudly as Mincio seated herself before the display. "It tells him what the top card in the deck is. You see the whole thing."
"Yes," Mincio said. "Now, don't move till I tell you, and don't talk."
The technician jerked as though slapped. Mincio, though wholly immersed in the job at hand, knew she'd sounded very like her late father. Well, she could apologize later.
Play started with Orloff dealing. Nessler plunged deeply on two pair, losing the hand to another of the Melungeons with three queens.
Mincio said nothing during that hand or any of the scores of hands following. She'd instructed Nessler to bet heavily and to bluff frequently — precisely the sort of mistakes that came naturally to someone rich and unskilled. Mincio needed to get the measure of the opposition, and Nessler had to lose a hefty amount before he could move in for the kill anyway. There was no need to force the pace.
"Another drink!" Nessler's voice snarled through the intercom. "Goddammit, isn't it enough that my cards are all shit? Do I have to die of thirst as well?"
He was a good actor; she could almost believe the anger and frustration in her pupil's tone were real. Maybe they were: even though he knew that losing was necessary to the plan, it couldn't be a great deal of fun for somebody like Sir Hakon Nessler. He prided himself on being extremely good at the narrow range of categories in which he chose to compete.
The shifting display was all Mincio's life for the moment. The Melungeons played five-card draw, nothing wild; an expert's game, and Edith Mincio was the greatest expert on Hope.
"Goddammit, I've got to sign over another of these drafts," Nessler's voice snarled. "You'll have my shirt before I leave here, Orloff. And where's that damned bottle? Can't a man get a drink in this place?"
A youth with more money than sense. A bad player growing even wilder as he gulped down brandy…
It took three hours before the deck broke the way Mincio needed it. Orloff was dealing. Even before the second round of cards pattered onto the table, Mincio turned to Rovald. "Switch the signals from these two cards," she ordered.
The technician touched the keyboard. The minuscule cue reprogrammed the chosen pair of cards.
The deal finished. Nessler's hand contained the ten, nine, seven, and six of spades, and the king of clubs. So far as Lord Orloff knew, the top card remaining in the deck was the jack of diamonds.
"Nessler, this is it," Mincio said crisply. The bone-conduction pickup was part of the bead in her ear canal. "Bet as high as you can. There won't be another chance. Discard the king and take one card on the draw."
"By God, I'm tired of this penny-ante crap!" Nessler's voice rasped in her ear. "What's the pot? Well, let me sign this over and we'll have a real pot!"
"God and holy angels!" one of the Melungeons said, loud enough to be heard through the tent's insulating walls.
Mincio got up from her chair and wobbled outside. Her legs were so stiff they threatened to cramp. She was dizzy, thirsty, and sick with fatigue. She had nothing more to do, so she might as well watch. Beresford stepped aside to give her room, but he kept his eyes on the game.
The two officers who'd been makeweights for the game folded their hands immediately. By luck or design the big pots had all gone to their captain. Table stakes meant they had to show the money they were betting, and they simply didn't have it.
"So, we put another of your little chits in to match you," Orloff said genially. "You must have very good cards, my friend. Still, God loves a brave man, not so?"
"From the cards I've been getting, He doesn't love me today," Nessler grumbled. He drank off the rest of a beaker of Musketoon and slapped the king of clubs facedown in the center of the table. "One card!"
Orloff slid the top card to his opponent, then set the deck down. "The dealer stands pat," he said. "Perhaps I have very good cards too, or perhaps…"
He laughed loudly to imply he was really bluffing. He wiped spittle from his mustache with the back of his hand. Orloff was nervous despite what must be his certainty that everything was in his pocket. The amount the fool from Manticore had already lost would make Orloff one of the wealthiest men on Melungeon.
"So, are they this good?" Nessler said. He thrust three more drafts onto the table, equalling the full amount of Orloff's winnings and original stake. "
Brandy! Somebody give me a glass of damned brandy, won't you?"
A Melungeon officer instantly handed over the full beaker which he'd been holding for the purpose.
"I will see you, yes," Orloff said. His voice was no longer confident. He stared for a moment at the remainder of the deck, but he pushed out the matching bet.
Melungeon officers whispered among themselves; Beresford was as taut as an E-string. Mincio was relaxed as she watched events roll to their inevitable conclusion.
Nessler slammed down the beaker, empty again. "Then by God I'll raise!" he said. "I'll double the damned pot!"
He pulled another draft from his purse. The printout had red wax seals and the face amount was five times that of any document already on the table. "Do you see me now, Orloff?"
Orloff's bare scalp glistened with sweat. "I see you," he said. "But I call. We would not have it seem that you bought the pot."
"I accept your call," Nessler said. He laid his cards faceup on the table.
Orloff displayed his hand with a great sigh of relief. "A full house, jacks over fives," he said. "Which beats your busted flush, I'm afraid, Sir Hakon!"
"It's not a busted flush," Nessler said. "It's complete to the ten of spades. A straight flush to the ten, which beats a full house. My pot, I believe."
"Holy Savior!" a Melungeon officer said, crossing herself. "He's right!"
Orloff's face went from red to a white as pale as if he'd been heart-shot. "But I thought…" he gasped. He raised the top card on the deck. It was the jack of diamonds which he'd thought was in Nessler's hand.
Nessler stood up and stretched lithely. He didn't look drunk, or young, or foolish, any more. Mincio walked toward the card players, her face calm.
"I don't intend to break the game up now that I'm ahead," Nessler said mildly. "I'll give you a chance to win your money back, of course. But first we'll settle this pot. Table stakes, you'll remember."
Orloff remained in his chair. The other two players rose and stepped quickly away, as though they'd been thrust back by bayonets.
"I'll give you my note," Orloff whispered. He was staring at the cards on the table rather than attempting to meet the Manticoran's eyes.
"No, Sir," Nessler said in a voice like a whiplash. "You will settle your debt immediately like the gentleman I assumed you were. If you choose instead to affront my honor—"
He left the threat hanging. Half of Orloff's officers stared toward the scarred sand where Nessler had proved he could put a whole magazine through his opponent's right eye if he so chose.
"Actually, My Lord," Mincio said, "this may be all to the good. Why don't you rent Orloff's ship for a month or two in settlement of the debt?"
Orloff looked up, blinking as he tried to puzzle out the meaning of words which seemed perfectly clear in themselves.
"A good thought, Mincio," Nessler said in easy agreement. They hadn't worked out the details of this exchange, but they knew one another well. "That'll serve everybody's purpose."
"But…" Orloff said. "The Colonel Arabi? I cannot — the Colonel Arabi is a Duchy ship, I can't rent her to you, Sir Hakon."
"As I understand it, Lord Orloff," Mincio said musingly, "your government put the ship at your disposal to facilitate your collection of Alphane artifacts. Is that so?"
Orloff swallowed. "That is so, yes," he said. His officers were all at a distance, staring at their captain as if he were a suicide beneath a high window.
"I'd say that renting the ship to Lord Nessler here was well within the mandate, then," Mincio said. "After all, old man, you can't collect many artifacts after your brains are splashed over a hectare or so of sand."
Orloff lurched to his feet. Mincio thought he was going to say something. Instead the Melungeon turned and vomited. He sank to his knees, keeping his torso upright only by gripping the card table with one hand.
"Yes, all right," he said in a slurred voice. "The Colonel Arabi for a month. And we are quit."
Nessler looked behind him to be sure that Rovald was recording the agreement. "Very good," he said. He picked up his winnings before Orloff managed to tip the table into the pool of vomit beside him. "I suppose the cutter should be part of the deal, but I won't insist on that."
He grinned brightly around the awestruck Melungeons. "I think I'll use the pinnace from L'Imperieuse instead."
* * *
A few artificial lights were already on in Kuepersburg as Nessler flew them home at a sedate pace. Days were short on Hope, but this one had vanished almost without Mincio's awareness.
She turned to the servants in the air car's back seat. "Rovald," she said, "this was your win. A child could beat professionals at cards with your help."
"Thank you, Ma'am," Rovald said. The technician had been unusually stiff and withdrawn ever since Mincio silenced her so abruptly at the start of the game. At last she relaxed — to her usual stiff, withdrawn personality.
"You were both splendid," Nessler said. He sighed. "Now all I have to do is figure out how to get a light cruiser from Hope to Air with thirty-seven spacers and a very rusty astrogator."
Mincio twisted around suddenly in her seat. Stabbing pains reminded her of how tense she'd been as she watched the progress of the card game. "Surely you don't need to go to Air?" she said. "I thought you were going to use the cruiser to frighten away the Peeps if they came here?"
"If we give the Peeps the initiative as well as all the other advantages…" Nessler said. He raised the air car to clear the walls of Singh's courtyard. "Then they'll certainly destroy us. Based on what we've heard of the Dole Fleet, I'm hoping that if we attack and then retreat, they'll make an effort to avoid us thereafter."
The air car wasn't stable enough to hover. Nessler brought them down in a rush, doing his best to control the bow's tendency to swing clockwise.
They hit and bounced. As the turbines spun down he added, "The problem is getting there with a tenth the normal crew, of course."
"You can have all the Melungeons working for you if you like, Sir," Beresford said. "Barring the officers, of course, which I don't think is much loss. I'll pass the word that they'll get a square meal every day. They'll trample each other to come along."
Lalita and several household servants came into the courtyard to help if required. Nessler had started to climb out of the vehicle; he paused with his right leg over the side.
"Are you serious?" he said. "I'll certainly do better than a meal a day if you are!"
"Sure you will, Sir," Beresford said with a satisfied smirk. "But I won't tell 'em that, because they wouldn't believe me. You just let me handle this, Sir."
He hopped out of the air car and strolled to the front gate, his hands clasped at the back of his plump waistline. He was whistling.
Nessler watched the little man leave the compound. "I'll be damned," he muttered to Mincio as he finally got out of the vehicle. "There's actually a chance this might work!"
* * *
The two ranks of Manticoran spacers in the Singh courtyard looked more professional than they had the last time Mincio had seen them. It wasn't just that they were well-fed and rested; those who'd lost their clothing with the L'Imperieuse had now turned local fabric into garments closely resembling the issue uniforms their fellows wore.
"This is a private venture," Nessler said in a carrying tone. "In a moment I will ask those of you who volunteer to board the Colonel Arabi with me to take a step forward."
He spoke with the exaggerated precision that Mincio knew meant her pupil was nervous. It was easy even for her to forget that Sir Hakon Nessler, the self-assured youth with all the advantages, had never really felt he belonged anywhere except in his dreams of the distant past.
"I can't order anyone to come," Nessler continued, "because so far as I know my reserve commission is still inactive. Also, I'd like to say that we were going to Air to sort out the Peeps who murdered your fellows, but I can't honestly claim I see any great likelihood of success. The ship at our disposal is
in wretched shape and has been virtually disarmed besides."
Nessler cleared his throat. The spacers were silent and motionless, their faces yellowed by the courtyard lighting. Naval discipline, Mincio knew, but it still gave her a creepy feeling. It was like watching Nessler declaim to a tray of perch at a fishmonger's.
"Still," Nessler said, "a gentleman of Manticore does what he can. I'll make arrangements for those of you who choose to stay and—"
"Attention!" Harpe said from the right front of the double rank. "On the word of command, all personnel will take one step forward!"
"Wait a minute!" cried Nessler, taken completely aback. "Harpe, this has to be a free choice."
"And so it is, Sir," the Bosun said. "Mine, as senior officer of this contingent until we put ourselves under your command."
She turned to the spacers. "Now step, you lousy bastards!"
Laughing and cheering, the thirty-six spacers obeyed. Harpe stepped forward herself, threw Nessler a sharp salute, and said, "All present and accounted for, Captain."
"Begging your pardon, Sir," said a brawny spacer. "But what did you think we were? A bunch of fucking Peeps who were going to argue about orders?"
"No, Dismore," Nessler said as if he were answering the question. "I don't think that at all."
* * *
"All right, ten minute break!" Beresford called from the adjacent compartment. "You're doing good, teams. Damned if I don't think I'll be buying beer for both lots of you come end of shift!"
Nessler slid out from beneath a console which he'd been discussing with a Melungeon and a Manticoran yeoman who'd crawled under from the opposite side. Mincio had to hop clear. She was standing nearby in a subconscious attempt to seem to have something useful to do. In fact she didn't know the purpose of the console, let alone what problem it was having.
"Mincio, do you know where Rovald is?" Nessler said as he noticed her. His face and clothing were greasy; there was a nasty scratch on the back of his left hand. "The damned intercom system doesn't work, of course."
"I don't—" Mincio began.