Delay in Transit

by F. L. Wallace

  Cassal stretched his stride and managed to keep the man in sight. He skipped nimbly over the narrow walkways that curved through the great buildings. The section grew dingier as they proceeded. Not slums; not the showplace city frequented by travelers, either.

  Abruptly the man turned into a building. He was out of sight when Cassal reached the structure.

  He stood at the entrance and stared in disappointment. "Opportunities, Inc.," Dimanche quoted softly in his ear. "Science, thrills, chance. What does that mean?"

  "It means that we followed a gravity ghost!"

  "What's a gravity ghost?"

  "An unexplained phenomenon," said Cassal nastily. "It affects the instruments of spaceships, giving the illusion of a massive dark body that isn't there."

  "But you're not a pilot. I don't understand."

  "You're not a very good pilot yourself. We followed the man to a gambling joint."

  "Gambling," mused Dimanche. "Well, isn't it an opportunity of a sort? Someone inside is thinking of the money he's winning."

  "The owner, no doubt."

  Dimanche was silent, investigating. '"It is the owner," he confirmed finally. "Why not go in, anyway? It's raining. And they serve drinks." Left unstated was the admission that Dimanche was curious, as usual.

  Cassal went in and ordered a drink. It was a variable place, depending on the spectator -- bright, cheerful, and harmonious if he were winning, garish and depressingly vulgar if he were not. At the moment Cassal belonged to neither group. He reserved judgment.

  An assortment of gaming devices were in operation. One in particular seemed interesting. It involved the counting of electrons passing through an aperture, based on probability.

  "Not that," whispered Dimanche. "It's rigged."

  "But it's not necessary," Cassai murmured. "Pure chance alone is good enough."

  "They don't take chances, pure or adulterated. Look around. How many Godolphians do you see?"

  Cassal looked. Natives were not even there as servants. Strictly a clip joint, working travelers.

  Unconsciously, he nodded. "That does it. It's not the kind of opportunity I had in mind."

  "Don't be hasty," objected Dimanche. "Certain devices I can't control. There may be others in which my knowledge will help you. Stroll around and sample some games."

  Cassal equipped himself with a supply of coins and sauntered through the establishment, disbursing them so as to give himself the widest possible acquaintance with the layout.

  "That one," instructed Dimanche.

  It received a coin. In return, it rewarded him with a large shower of change. The money spilled to the floor with a satisfying clatter. An audience gathered rapidly, ostensibly to help him pick up the coins.

  "There was a circuit in it," explained Dimanche. "I gave it a shot of electrons and it paid out."

  "Let's try it again," suggested Cassal.

  "Let's not," Dimanche said regretfully. "Look at the man on your right."

  Cassal did so. He jammed the money back in his pocket and stood up. Hastily, he began thrusting the money back into the machine. A large and very unconcerned man watched him.

  "You get the idea," said Dimanche. "It paid off two months ago. It wasn't scheduled for another this year." Dimanche scrutinized the man in a multitude of ways while Cassal continued play. "He's satisfied," was the report at last. He doesn't detect any sign of crookedness."

  "Crookedness?"

  "On your part, that is. In the ethics of a gambling house, what's done to insure profit is merely prudence."

  They moved on to other games, though Cassal lost his briefly acquired enthusiasm. The possibility of winning seemed to grow more remote.

  "Hold it," said Dimanche. "Let's look into this."

  "Let me give you some advice," said Cassal. "This is one thing we can't win at. Every race in the Galaxy has a game like this. Pieces of plastic with values printed on them are distributed. The trick is to get certain arbitrarily selected sets of values in the plastics dealt to you. It seems simple, but against a skilled player a beginner can't win."

  "Every race in the Galaxy," mused Dimanche. "What do men call it?"

  "Cards," said Cassal, "though there are many varieties within that general classification." He launched into a detailed exposition of the subiect. If it were something. he was familiar with, all right, but a foreign deck and strange rules--

  Nevertheless, Dimanche was interested. They stayed and observed.

  The dealer was clumsy. His great hands enfolded the cards. Not a Godolphian nor quite human, he was an odd type, difficult to place. Physically burly, he wore a garment chiefly remarkable for its ill-fitting appearance. A hard round hat jammed closely over his skull completed the outfit. He was dressed in a manner that, somewhere in the Universe, was evidently considered the height of fashion.

  "It doesn't seem bad," commented Cassal. "There might be a chance."

  "Look around," said Dimanche. "Everyone thinks that. It's the classic struggle, person against person and everyone against the house. Naturally, the house doesn't lose."

  "Then why are we wasting our time?"

  "Because I've got an idea," said Dimanche. "Sit down and take a hand."

  "Make up your mind. You said the house doesn't lose."

  "The house hasn't played against us. Sit down. You get eight cards, with the option of two more. I'll tell you what to do."

  Cassal waited until a disconsolate player relinquished his seat and stalked moodily away. He played a few hands and bet small sums in accordance with Dimanche's instructions. He held his own and won insignificant amounts while learning.

  It was simple. Nine orders, or suits, of twenty-seven cards each. Each suit would build a different equation. The lowest hand was a quadratic. A cubic would beat it. All he had to do was remember his math, guess at what he didn't remember, and draw the right cards.

  "What's the highest possible hand?" asked Dimanche. There was a note of abstraction in his voice, as if he were paying more attention to something else.

  Cassal peeked at the cards that were face-down on the table. He shoved some money into the betting square in front of him and didn't answer.

  "You had it last time," said Dimanche. "A three dimensional encephalocurve. A time modulated brainwave. If you had bet right, you could have owned the house by now."

  "I did? Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Because you had it three successive times. ~Phe probabilities against that are astronomical. I've got to find out what's happening before you start betting recklessly."

  "It's not the dealer," declared Cassal. "Look at those hands."

  They were huge hands, more suitable, seemingly, for crushing the life from some alien beast than the delicate manipulation of cards. Cassal continued to play, betting brilliantly by the only standard that mattered: he won.

  One player dropped out and was replaced by a recruit from the surrounding crowd. Cassal ordered a drink. The waiter was placing it in his hand when Dimanche made a discovery.

  "I've got it!"

  A shout from Dimanche was roughly equivalent to a noiseless kick in the head. Cassal dropped the drink. The player next to him scowled but said nothing. The dealer blinked and went on dealing.

  "What have you got?" asked Cassal, wiping up the mess and trying to keep track of the cards.

  "How he fixes the deck," explained Dimanche in a lower and less painful tone. "Clever."

  Muttering, Cassal shoved a bet in front of him.

  "Look at that hat," said Dimanche.

  "Ridiculous, isn't it? But I see no reason to gloat became I have better taste."

  "That's not what I meant. It's pulled down low over his knobby ears and touches his jacket. His jacket rubs against his trousers, which in turn come in contact with the stool on which he sits."

  "True," agreed Cassal, increasing his wager. "But except for his physique, I don't see anything unusual."

  "It's a circuit, a visual projector broken down into components
. The hat is a command circuit which makes contact, via his clothing, with the broadcasting unit built into the chair. The existence of a visual proiector is completely concealed."

  Cassal bit his lip and squinted at his cards. "Interesting. What does it have to do with anything?"

  "The deck," exclaimed Dimanche excitedly. "The backs are regular, printed with an intricate design. The front is a special plastic, susceptible to the influence of the visual projector. He doesn't need manual dexterity. He can make any value appear on any card he wants. It will stay there until he changes it."

  Cassal picked up the cards. "I've got a Loreenaroo equation. Can he change that to anything else?"

  "He can, but he doesn't work that way. He decides before he deals who's going to get what. He concentrates on each card as he deals it. He can change a hand after a player gets it, but it wouldn't look good."

  "It wouldn't." Cassal wistfully watched the dealer rake in his wager. His winnings were gone, plus. The newcomer to the game won.

  He started to get up. "Sit down," whispered Dimanche. "We're just beginning. Now that we know what he does and how he does it, we're going to take him."

  The next hand started in the familiar pattern, two cards of fairly good possibilities, a bet, and then another card. Cassal watched the dealer closely. His clumsiness was only superficial. At no time were the faces of the cards visible. The real skill was unobservable, of course -- the swift bookkeeping that went on in his mind. A duplication in the hands of the players, for instance, would be ruinous.

  Cassal received the last card. "Bet high," said Dimanche. With trepidation, Cassal shoved the money into the betting area.

  The dealer glanced at his hand and started to sit down. Abruptly he stood up again. He scratched his cheek and stared puzzledly at the players around him. Gently he lowered himself onto the stool. The contact was even briefer. He stood up in indecision. An impatient murmur arose. He dealt himself a card, looked at it, and paid off all the way around. The players buzzed with curiosity.

  "What happened?" asked Cassal as the next hand started.

  "I induced a short in the circuit," said Dimanche. "He couldn't sit down to change the last card he got. He took a chance, as he had to, and dealt himself a card, anyway."

  "But he paid off without asking to see what we had."

  "It was the only thing he could do," explained Dimanche. "He had duplicate cards."

  The dealer was scowling. He didn't seem quite so much at ease. The cards were dealt and the betting proceeded almost as usual. True, the dealer was nervous. He couldn't sit down and stay down. He was sweating. Again he paid off. Cassal won heavily and he was not the only one.

  The crowd around them grew almost in a rush. There is an indefinable sense that tells one gambler when another is winning.

  This time the dealer stood up. His leg contacted the stool occasionally. He jerked it away each time he dealt to himself. At the last card he hesitated. It was amazing how much he could sweat. He lifted a corner of the cards. Without indicating what he had drawn, determinedly and deliberately he sat down. The chair broke. The dealer grinned weakly as a waiter brought him another stool.

  "They still think it may be a defective circuit," whispered Dimanche.

  The dealer sat down and sprang up from the new chair in one motion. He gazed bitterly at the players and paid them.

  "He had a blank hand," explained Dimanche. "He made contact with the broadcasting circuit long enough to erase, but not long enough to put anything in its place."

  The dealer adjusted his coat. "I have a nervous disability," he declared thickly. "If you'll pardon me for a few minutes while I take a treatment--"

  "Probably going to consult with the manager," observed Cassal.

  "He is the manager. He's talking with the owner."

  "Keep track of him."

  A blonde, pretty, perhaps even Earth-type human, smiled and wriggled closer to Cassal. He smiled back.

  "Don't fall for it," warned Dimanche. "She's an undercover agent for the house."

  Cassal looked her over carefully. "Not much under cover."

  "But if she should discover--"

  "Don't be stupid. She'll never guess you exist. There's a small lump behind my ear and a small round tube cleverly concealed elsewhere."

  "All right," sighed Dimanche resignedly. "I suppose people will always be a mystery to me."

  The dealer reappeared, followed by an unobtrusive man who carried a new stool. The dealer looked subtly different, though he was the same person. It took a close inspection to determine what the difference was. His clothing was new, unrumpled, unmarked by perspiration. During his brief absence, he had been furnished with new visual projector equipment, and it had been thoroughly checked out. The house intended to locate the source of the disturbance.

  Mentally, Cassal counted his assets. He was solvent again, but in other ways his position was not so good.

  "Maybe," he suggested, "we should leave. With no further interference from us, they might believe defective equipment is the cause of their losses."

  "Maybe," replied Dimanche, "you think the crowd around us is composed solely of patrons?"

  "I see," said Cassal soberly.

  He stretched his legs. The crowd pressed closer, uncommonly aggressive and ill-tempered for mere spectators. He decided against leaving.

  "Let's resume play." The dealer-manager smiled blandly at each player. He didn't suspect any one person -- yet.

  "He might be using an honest deck," said Cassal hopefully.

  "They don't have that kind," answered Dimanche. He added absently: "During his conference with the owner, he was given authority to handle the situation in any way he sees fit."

  Bad, but not too bad. At least Cassal was opposing someone who had authority to let him keep his winnings, *if he could be convinced*.

  The dealer deliberately sat down on the stool. Testing. He could endure the charge that trickled through him. The bland smile spread into a triumphant one.

  "While he was gone, he took a sedative," analyzed Dimanche. "He also had the strength of the broadcasting circuit reduced. He thinks that will do it."

  "Sedatives wear off," said Cassal. "By the time he knows it's me, see that it has worn off. Mess him up."

  The game went on. The situation was too much for the others. They played poorly and bet atrociously, on purpose. One by one they lost and dropped out. They wanted badly to win, but they wanted to live even more.

  The joint was jumping, and so was the dealer again. Sweat rolled down his face and there were tears in his eyes. So much liquid began to erode his fixed smile. He kept replenishing it from some inner source of determination.

  Cassal looked up. The crowd had drawn back, or had been forced back by hirelings who mingled with them. He was alone with the dealer at the table. Money was piled high around him. It was more than he needed, more than he wanted.

  "I suggest one last hand," said the dealer-manager, grimacing. It sounded a little stronger than a suggestion.