Shaking his head, Luthguster signed. The two hovering citizens smirked at each other. "They'll never understand this," Luthguster said sadly, "back at the council."
"Your luck's bound to change,". The chief tout assured him. "Next inning, we'll play for reciprocal tariff agreements. My move, I believe."
"Damn, Pam," Hester said, her personality not improved by eviction. "Where did you ever get a slide rule? Why don't you use a pocket computer, like everybody else?"
"It was my mother's mother's," Pam said, blinking as she looked up from the tool in question. And my mother's. And my mo---"
"How many generations back?"
"Sixteen."
Hester closed her eyes. "I withdraw the question."
"Rather than quibble among yourselves, like the clotheads you are," said Ensign Benson, who had no idea why his previous commanders had been discontented with his performance of duty, "why don't you turn your little brains to how we get rid of this mess?"
"l don't think you should talk to the gentler sex that way," said Billy, with many inaccuracies.
"Maybe Pam can find the answer in her slide rule," Hester said, glaring at Pam, who was sunk in contemplation of her heirloom.
Ensign Benson, about to speak harshly, paused to frown at Pam. "Hmmm," he said. "Pamela, dear?"
"Yes, Kybee?"
"You come along with me," Ensign Benson said.
A. bunch of the citizens were whooping it up in the plaza. "Did you ever," one of them said. "see fish like those Earthmen?"
"It's like walking into a kindergarten," said another, "with loaded dice."
"Scanney's studying how to run that spaceship," said a third. "He's going straight to Earth. He figures he'll own the whole place in two weeks."
"Here come a couple of them." said a fourth as Ensign Benson and Pam came strolling into the plaza.
Grins and nods and a few waves were exchanged between Ensign Benson and the sniggering locals, until he reached the group that had been discussing Scanney, where he said, in an offhand manner. "Nice little games you've got going here."
"Want some action, Earthman?" Clouds, ants and in-out knockup were mentioned.
"Not this smalltime stuff," Ensign Benson said with manifest disparagement. "Aren't there any big-time games around this burg?"
"By big time," a tittering citizen asked, ..what do you mean?
"What have you got?"
"The Dive," several citizens volunteered.
"Sounds right. Lead me to it."
Within The Dive -- a great, cavernous place, in which the gaming tables were brightly, whitely lit, but the far walls and the high ceiling remained in windowless gloom -- a kind of low intense buzzing was the only sound, as though a million bees were getting caught up on their back orders of honey. Citizens and croupiers and dealers hunched over the tables with no small talk, no conversation except the words necessary to keep the games going. "Ah, yes," Ensign Benson said as the simpering citizens led him and Pam into the joint. "This will do just fine."
A hostess approached, slinky in off-the-shoulder red. "Interested in a little action?"
Just to watch, for now," Ensign Benson told her. "What's the highest-money game here?"
Koppel," she said, pointing, "at that table right there."
"Thanks."
"My pleasure," she said.
At the edge of the clearing, Hester busily, grumpily, steadfastly, clumsily worked at making a lean-to out of leafy branches. The captain sat on his suitcase among his birds. Billy paced back and forth, gazing mournfully from time to time at the distant Hopeful.
It was Billy who broke the silence: "Pam says the odds of anyone's stumbling onto this place and rescuing us are eleven billion, four hundred sixty million to one."
"Don't talk about odds," the captain said.
Hester said, "I could use a little help around here."
Billy looked at her project. "What on Earth is that?"
"The same thing it is on Casino," she said. "A lean-to."
"It leans mostly that way," Billy commented.
"It'll keep the rain off."
Billy looked skyward. "It isn't gonna rain."
"Wanna bet?"
The captain groaned and covered his face with his hands as Councilman Luthguster came blustering in, saying, "What's going on around here?"
"Oh, Councilman," the captain said, leaping to his feet and knocking over several birds. "I can explain."
"You can?" Luthguster turned on the captain an eye as baleful as that on any of his birds. "You can explain why Ensign Benson is gambling?"
The koppel table was now the center of interest as half a dozen players faced Ensign Benson, the new shark in town. Having watched koppel for 20 minutes -- it was a pokerlike game but with more cards in more suits and more complicated rules -- having received a tiny frightened nod from Pam, Ensign Benson had converted his watch and camera and other salable possessions into lukes and had taken a seat at the game. Pam stood behind him, nervously fidgeting with her slide rule and from time to time nervously clutching at his shoulder, while Ensign Benson went through his first table of unbelieving opponents like a piranha through a cow.
The stakes were higher and the crowd of spectators was growing fast when the other Earth people came hurrying into The Dive. "Ensign Bensonl" cried the captain.
"Hello, Captain," Ensign Benson said, with a casual half wave, half salute. "And raise a hundred lukes," he said, pushing forward a small stack of'chips.
"You'll ruin usl" the captain cried. "We can't afford your gambling debtsl" To the Casinomen at large, he announced, "Don't gamble with this man; he has no moneyl"
"Wanna bet?" asked a bystander.
Calmly, raking in the lukes, Ensign Benson said, "I'm winning, Captain."
"Ensign Benson," the captain ordered, unheeding, "consider yourself under arrest. Return to the ship at once and confine your. . ." At that point, he ran down, blinking, remembering that he didn't have a ship anymore. None of them had quarters to which they could confine themselves.
Then Billy leaned over to whisper in the captain's ear, "Sir, he seems to be winning."
"Never seen a man learn a game so fast," said a bystander.
The captain said, "What?"
"Why don't we make it interesting gents?" Ensign Benson said, riffling the outsize deck. "Ever hear of something called pot limit?"
On the Hopeful's command deck, Scanney lolled at his ease on his favorite chair, chatting with a pair of his favorite cronies. "So we can't dope out the hyperdrive," he said. "When the time's right, they'll teach it to us themselves."
"Boy, Scanney," said a crony. "how ya gonna do that?"
"They'll be around pretty soon, ready to dicker, but I don't talk till tomorrow. A night in the open air; that'll help."
"You're some operator, Scanney."
"Yes, I am. Three to two it rains tonight."
"I wouldn't bet against you, Scanney."
At that point, another Scanney crony ran in to say, "One of the Earthmen's playing koppel at The Dive!"
"What?" Scanney sat upright and put his feet on the floor. "They better not use up their credit before they deal with me."
"But the Earthman's winning!"
"Impossible", said Scanney. But he got to his feet, saying, "Come on, boys, let's take a look at this wonder."
Ensign Benson looked around the table at nothing but empty chairs. In front of himself, and piled on a special side table brought out for the purpose, was an amazing number of lukes. 'Boys?" Ensign Benson said, "You quitting on me?"
"I don't buck that streak anymore."
"I may be crazy, but I ain't stupid."
The spectators gawked, eight deep, Pam stood behind Ensign Benson, nervously clutching her slide rule in one hand and his shoulder in the other. The captain, Billy, Hester and Councilman Luthguster stood just to the side, open-mouthed. Ensign Benson looked around. "Who'll take a seat?"
"Ten lukes," a bystander said, "says you d
on't find anybody to play against you."
"You're on," Ensign Benson said as Scanney and his cronies came pushing through the crowd.
"What's this?" Scanney demanded. "Game over?"
"Not if you'll sit in."
Scanney looked at the assembled crowd, at the lukes piled up around Ensign Benson, at the ensign's calmly welcoming smile. "Er," he said.
"Unless you don't feel up to a little game."
"Up to it?" His public reputation, the presence of his cronies, his own bravado all combined to force him into that chair. "Deal, my friend, and kiss your worldly goods goodbye."
Ensign Benson smiled at the bystander. "That's ten lukes you owe me."
"Will you take a check?"
"I'll take anything you've got," Ensign Benson said.
When Billy stepped out of The Dive for a breath of air, he saw Niobe, this planet's sun, just peeping over the horizon. Night had come and gone, and now it was day again. Inside, the epic battle between Scanney and Ensign Benson went on, seesawing this way and that, Ensign Benson always ahead but somehow never able to deliver that final coup de grace. From time to time, the participants and observers had paused to consume something that claimed to be coffee and something else that looked like a prune Danish --or possibly a stinging jellyfish -- but the pauses were few and the concentration intense.
And suspense was turning at last into dread. Billy didn't want to go back in there, but a sense of solidarity with the crew forced him finally indoors once more, where he circled the outer fringes of the crowd, decided solidarity didn't mean he necessarily had to stand with them all the time and found himself a new angle of vision, near Scanney, instead.
A tense moment had been reached; yet another tense moment. Ensign Benson was pushing stack after stack of lukes into the middle of the table; when he was finished, a hoarse Scanney said, "I'm not sure I can cover that."
"You want to concede?" Ensign Benson was also hoarse.
Billy watched Scanney study his cards. Then he watched Scanney's hand reach down to a narrow slot under the tabletop and tap something there as though for reassurance. Tap a --- Tap a ---- A card!
"I'll stay," Scanney said, his hand coming up without that card. Billy stared at the man's right ear.
"Then cover the bet," Ensign Benson said.
"Will you take my I.O.U.?"
"I'll do better. You put up the ship."
"The ship?" Scanney was scornful. "Against that bet?"
This was the moment Ensign Benson had been waiting for. He seemed to draw strength from Pam's hand on his shoulder. "Against," he said, voice calm, eyes unblinking, "against everything I've got."
Again Scanney's finger tips touched that hidden card. "It's a bet," Scanney said. "Deal the last round."
Ensign Benson dealt the cards.
"Captain" Billy yelled across the table, pointing at the black darkness above. "Shoot that bird!"
With a quick draw Bat Masterson himself would have admired, the captain unlimbered his stun gun and fired three blasts into the cavernous darkness of the ceiling. Spectators scrambled for cover, Scanney and Ensign Benson hunched protectively over their cards and chips and Billy slid forward and back like a master swordsman, although sans epee.
Ensign Benson was the first to recover. "What are you bird brains doing?"
"Well," said the captain, embarrassed, bolstering his weapon as ancient dust puffs floated down into the light. "Well, uh, Billy, uh. . . ."
"Sorry," Billy said, palming the 14 of snakes. "I thought I saw a bird."
"Indoors?"
"It happens," Billy said. "I remember once my aunt Tabitha left the porch door open and --"
"Oh, never mind," Ensign Benson said. "Scanney, I'm calling you."
Billy looked at Scanney, whose finger tips were at that now-empty slot, and the expression on the man's face was one of consternation and bewilderment, gradually becoming horror.
"Scanney?" Ensign Benson tapped his own cards on the table. "Want me to declare first?"
Everyone waited. Wide-eyed, slackjawed, face drained of color, Scanney at last managed to nod.
"Fine." Ensign Benson fanned out his cards. "Read 'em and weep."
But Scanney didn't; instead, he turned to look, with a world of understanding in his eyes, at the radiant, innocent face of Lieutenant Billy Shelby.
They all strolled back to the ship together, Earth people and Casino people in little chatting groups; there was general agreement that the night's big head-to-head koppel game was the stuff of legend. The captain was delighted at the return of his ship but was even more relieved that Councilman Luthguster was taking the whole affair so well. "Personal contacts on the natives' terms are vital on a mission such as this," the councilman said. "I myself found it relaxed the chief tout if we played children's games."
A bit apart, Ensign Benson walked with Scanney, who had recovered from his losses and was becoming his old confident self. "Obviously," Ensign Benson was saying, "all those lukes I won can't do me much good on the ship."
"I'll be happy to invest them for you," Scanney said.
"Not invest. I cleaned you out, Scanney, so what's happening is staking you to a new start. It'll be a few years before I can get back, and when I do, half of what you have is mine."
"Hmm," said Scanney.
"0h, you'll be able to siphon off a lot. But you can't hide it all, so we'll both make out."
"It's a deal," Scanney said. As they shook on it, Hester came by, clutching her hammer and looking truculent. She said to Scanney, "I hope you didn't mess up my engines."
"I am a lucky man, madam," he answered, " and a lucky man is one who doesn't mess with engines he doesn't understand."
Hester frowned at Ensign Benson. "What's he mean, 'madam'?"
"It's a local term for engineer," Ensign Benson said.
Meanwhile, at the ship, Luthguster was making a farewell speech to the chief tout and the assembled Casino people: "And I think that when your chief tout promulgates the various treaties and agreements we reached in this most fruitful visit, you will all agree that Earth has been more than fair. More than fair."
Under the speech, Ensign Benson went to Billy to say, "I finally figured out that bird shoot. Thanks."
"Oh, you're welcome. But the great part," Billy said, "was how lucky you were, hand after hand."
"That wasn't luck. It was Pam."
"It was?"
"God meant that girl, Billy, to be one of the great pieces of all time, but something went wrong somewhere, and she took the path of mathematics instead. She and her slide rule add up to one genius. It took her twenty minutes to figure out the odds in koppel; from then on, she gave me signals on my shoulder, and I knew the precise odds at every step of play.
"Ultimately, I couldn't lose."
"Unless somebody cheated," Billy said.
"Which is where you came in. Thanks again."
Luthguster at last was scaling the heights of his peroration: "I have been delighted," he announced, "to be the individual who brought you this tremendous news and effected this magnificent reconciliation. And now we must bid you a fond farewell."
"Tell them where you got it," the chief tout said, "and how easy it was."
As the Earth people started up the ladder, Hester's hammer clanged inadvertently off the metal rail. "Careful with my ship," Ensign Benson said.
The Earth people entered Ensign Benson's ship. The ladder retracted and the door closed. Soon a great, powerful humming was heard. "Even money it blows up," said a citizen.
"I'll take that," Scanney said.
HEAVEN
________
On the command deck of Interstellar Ship Hopeful, Lieutenant Billy Shelby watched the image of Heaven grow larger on the view screen. "We're coming in," he said. "Pam? All secure?"
Astrogator Pam Stokes, beautiful arid brainy and blind to passion, paused in her contemplation of her antique slide rule to check the webbing that held her to the pod. "All set."
"What an exciting moment," Billy said. A handsome young idealist, he was the Hopeful's second-in-command and probably the person aboard who believed most fervently in the ship's mission. "I wish the captain were up here."
Captain Gregory Standforth himself wandered onto the command deck at that moment, holding a stuffed bird mounted on a black-plastic-onyx pedestal. "Isn't she a beauty?" he asked and held up this unlovely creature that in death, as in life, was blessed with a big belly, a pink tuft on top of its orange head and a lot of bright scarlet feathers on its behind. The captain had bagged it on their last planet fall, Niobe IV, a.k.a. Casino. "I just finished stuffing her," he explained. Taxidermy was all he cared for in this life, and only the long, glorious traditions of the Standforth family had forced him into the Galactic Patrol. Conversely, only those traditions had forced the patrol to accept him.
"Heaven ahead, sir," Billy said. "Secure yourself."
The captain studied his trousers for open zippers. "Secure myself?"
"Take a pod, Captain, sir," Billy explained. "Landing procedure."
"Ah." Settling himself into a pod, the captain slid his bird onto a handy flat surface, thereby inadvertently pushing a lever. A red light flashed on all the control consoles, and there came a sudden, brief whoosh. "Oh, dear," the captain said. "Did I do something?"
Billy studied his console. "Well, Captain," he said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you just ejected the laundry."
A long, long time ago, it had been a church; but now it was a roofless pagan temple, dominated by the tall, roughhewn wooden statue of a fat god figure with a blurred face. The altar was made of consumer materials, rusted and ancient and broken: TV sets, washing machines, a truck tire. A religious ceremony was under way, complete with nearly naked virgin ready for sacrifice, supine on the altar, resigned to her fate. The worshipers below were dressed in animal skins or rough cloth. Beside the altar stood Achum, the priest, holding a stone knife high, its point aimed at the virgin's breast. This particular virgin was Achum's own youngest daughter, Malya, but he would not hesitate in his priestly duty. He intoned:
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