by Chris Bunch
Betting went around twice, and Kipchak took the small pot.
The dealer was shuffling when Yoshitaro slipped in. “Hey, Kipchak,” Njangu said. “I’ve got the money I owe you. Found a dice game yesterday.”
Petr blinked, looked hard at Njangu, was about to say something. Yoshitaro moved his head slightly up, down.
“Oh. Yeah. Hold my place.” Kipchak got up.
“I got it in my bag,” Njangu said, and the two went out.
Another hand was dealt, and the dealer won.
Petr and Njangu came back in. Kipchak’s face was dark, stormy, then calmed. He sat down, and Njangu leaned against a bulkhead, not far from the lookout, someone who couldn’t sleep and was boredly kibitzing.
The game went on for another hour. Garvin noted that one man licked his lips when he was bluffing, the woman pulled absently at a lock of her hair when she had a strong hand, other traits. But mostly he watched the dealer. The luck went back and forth, but the credits slowly and steadily flowed toward the heavy man with the ring.
Finally Garvin stretched his legs, and happened to tap Petr with his toe.
“ ‘Scuse me,” he said. Kipchak didn’t answer.
“Wisht we had some quill,” a man grumbled. “Losin’ like I’m doin’ is easier if you’re not too sober.”
The dealer swept up the cards, shuffled them hastily.
“Mind if I cut?” Jaansma said.
“No,” the dealer said shortly. “You’re right.” He set the deck down on the blanket.
“Deep and weep, thin and win,” somebody intoned.
Garvin picked up the deck in one hand, cut it smoothly. The dealer looked at him carefully, took the deck, and cards flicked out.
It was quiet in the refresher except for the soft whine of the conditioner fans, and the snap of the cards being dealt, the sound a bit louder than it might’ve been.
The dealer’s lips quirked when he picked up his hand. “This one’s got to be expensive,” he announced. He picked up bills. “One hundred even to see if I’m braggin'.”
“I’ll play,” Kipchak said, and put most of his small reserve in the pot.
“Me too,” Garvin agreed.
Two others stayed, two tossed in their hands.
“I’m taking two cards,” Jaansma said, and his hand passed over the widow as he discarded. His expression didn’t change when he picked up the new cards.
“Dealer takes one.”
“I’ll fly these,” Kipchak said, and stood pat.
The woman took two, the remaining man three.
“Another hundred,” the dealer said.
The woman dropped out, the remaining man increased the bet.
“I think I’m lucky,” Jaansma said. “Up two hundred.”
“And a hundred back at you,” Petr said.
“Like I said, expensive,” the dealer said. “ ‘Sides, it’s getting late. Don’t want to spoil my complexion with late hours.” He counted. “Up five … six hundred.”
“The kid’s going to be foolish,” Garvin said, and peeled bills into the stack. “And up two hundred on you.”
“I’m short,” Petr said.
“No problem,” Njangu said, coming away from the bulkhead and taking notes from his pocket. “Your credit’s good.”
“Thanks.”
The dealer laughed unpleasantly. “I think I’m gonna sleep real, real good.” He flipped his hand onto the table. All five were of a single color.
“Guess that does it,” and he reached for the money. “High to the Protector.”
“Not quite.” And Petr slowly tossed cards faceup on the blanket. “Ruler … Ruler … Ruler … Ruler … and the Alien for a fifth.”
The dealer’s eyes went wide. “You weren’t — ” and his hand went for his back pocket.
“Rube!” Garvin snapped, coming to his feet.
Light glinted as a tiny steel dart flickered across the blanket, buried itself in the dealer’s forearm. He yelped, and blood spurted.
The lookout came forward, a short length of pipe appearing in her hand. Njangu sidestepped into her, and snapped a backhand strike into her temple. She tumbled across a player, lay still.
Another man was getting up, and Garvin drove a punch into his solar plexus, then smashed the back of his hand into the man’s skull, and he went down.
The dealer stared at his blood-runneling arm, the knife still buried near his elbow. Petr pulled the dart free, and again the man screeched.
The other players were motionless, arms raised to their shoulders, fingers splayed.
Yoshitaro glanced into the troop bay. “Nobody heard anything,” he reported.
Peter wiped the tiny knife clean, made it vanish. “Don’t like cheaters,” he said. “Maybe I oughta slice your tendons for you. Play hell with your card game.”
The dealer moaned, shook his head pleadingly.
“You people see anything tonight, or did you go to bed early?” Kipchak asked.
Heads were vigorously shaken.
The lookout got to her knees, coughed, and threw up. She staggered toward a toilet. The man Garvin had hit lay motionless.
“You kill him?” Petr asked, not sounding worried.
“No,” Jaansma said. “He’ll wake up in an hour, and be sick like she is, but nothing lasting.”
“Good. We don’t need any courts-martial,” Petr said. “Now, isn’t it bedtime for you folks?”
The players hurried out.
Petr pulled the dealer to his feet. “You go on sick call, and swear you slipped and fell against a hatch dog. Got it? Anything different, and there’ll be two witnesses who’ll call you liar when we get to D-Cumbre.
“And then you’d better grow eyes in the back of your head, which I understand makes a feller nervous after a while.”
“Nothin’ happened,” the dealer babbled. “It’s like you said. I swear, I swear.”
“Good. Here. Take this towel and go find a medic.”
“Not quite yet,” Garvin said. “For there’s still a lesson to be learned before we offer our final benedictions.” He spoke in measured, liturgical tones. “My man here has not yet learned how we discovered his villainy, and perhaps he could benefit from that information.”
“Don’t tell the bastard,” Kipchak said. “Then he’ll do better next time, and rook another set of fools.”
“Not to worry,” Jaansma said lightly. “For knaves such as he, there’s never a lesson to be learned until the final one.
“I first noted this man because of the sound. Sound, you say, looking puzzled. Yes, sound,” he went on pedantically, “for when a man is dealing seconds, that is dealing the second card instead of the top card of the deck, there’s a certain sinful sibilance to be sensed.” He picked up the scattered cards, reassembled them.
“Listen, and you, too, shall be enlightened. Note how I hold this deck of cards, and observe well, as I hold this top card in place with the thumb of my left hand, and flick out the second card with my index finger and thumb of my right, there’s a certain noise to be apprehended. Yes?
“Now, my second clue was that obnoxious silver ring the wastrel wears.”
He grabbed the dealer’s left hand, and pulled the ring from his finger.
“Notice, it doesn’t even fit properly, which would suggest he acquired it from some equally devious sort before we lifted. I noted he was not only turning it about his finger, but incessantly polishing it. So when he held the deck in his right hand, waving it about, like so, he could push out the top card a bit, see by its reflection if it was of interest, and then retain it by dealing seconds until he wished to possess it.
“The lookout was in on the graft certainly, and the mark I dropped might’ve been. Or maybe not,” Jaansma said indifferently.
“Maybe we ought to break this guy’s thumbs,” Njangu said.
“We could do that,” Jaansma said, and the dealer moaned again. “He’s truly a malicious miscreant motivated into mopery by moroseness. But
it might be as devastating for me to show him something.
“Look, you. You think you’re a shark, eh? Or some other equally predatory creature. But you should learn there are always bigger sharks in any ocean.
“Observe. I take the deck, and shuffle it once. You saw, heard, nothing untoward?
“But watch. I will deal the top five cards.”
Each card snapped as it came off the deck.
“Protector … Protector … Protector … Protector … kicker. Not at all a bad hand. But I shuffle it once more. Now the top five cards are Companion … Companion … Companion … Companion and a ten. A better hand. You would be inclined to bet such a hand like that hard, wouldn’t you?
“You don’t have to answer. But here is the hand I happen to draw.” Five more cards snapped off the deck. “Nova … Nova … Nova … Nova … and how did that Alien show up once again? I thought it was in the last hand.
“You see? But of course you don’t.” Jaansma’s tone went back to normal. “He’s yours, Kipchak.”
“Go on, get!” Petr snapped, and the dealer half ran out of the compartment, clutching the blood-soaked towel.
“Gamblin’ll be the death of me,” Kipchak said. “Thanks. I owe you.”
“No problem,” Jaansma said.
“Why’d you get involved?”
“Because,” Garvin said, “of my deep abiding love for Truth, Justice, and the Confederation Way.”
Njangu snorted.
“All right,” Kipchak said. “Another question. There was a little blood got spilled tonight. Neither one of you seemed real bothered by it. That ain’t like most ‘cruits I’ve met.”
Both young men looked at Kipchak, and their expressions wore the same amount of utter innocence.
“Mary on a pong-stick,” Kipchak swore. “You two could be brothers.”
• • •
“My turn,” Yoshitaro said. “Where’d you learn to spot somebody cheating like that?”
“I read about it in a book somewhere.”
“The same place you learned to deal like you did?”
“That’s right.”
“What about the fancy talking? You sound like a god-shouter, or some kind of circus hustler.”
“That’s what I am,” Garvin said. “I’ve secretly enlisted in the Confederation to bring sinners into the welcoming hand of the Lord Pigsny.”
“Never heard of him.”
“That’s why I became a missionary. Our sect isn’t doing very well.”
“Do you ever give a straight answer to anything?” Yoshitaro asked in disgust. “Like who was this Rube you were shouting to when the fighting started?”
After a moment, a low, sincere snore answered him.
• • •
Petr stopped them the next “morning.”
“Wanted to thank you two clowns,” he said. “I would’ve chased every last credit down that rathole if you hadn’t gotten interested.”
“Forget about it,” Jaansma said. “I was having trouble sleeping.”
“Yeh,” Kipchak said. “Anyway, I owe you.”
He didn’t wait for a response, but pushed away through the crowd.
“So now we’ve got a debt of honor with Scarf ace,” Garvin said. “Whoopie.”
“Don’t slam it,” Njangu said. “We might need a throat slit someday.”
• • •
The Malvern came out of N-space, and its nav-computer checked its position. It was on course.
A few minutes later, it shimmered and vanished on its next-to-last jump before the Cumbre system.
• • •
“ ’Kay,” Petr said. “Our destination’s D-Cumbre. It’s a Confederation World, has a Planetary Government — a governor general plus some kind of council to advise him. Probably all the crooks with old money.”
“What’s our unit?”
“It’s supposed to be about ten thousand men. Called Strike Force Swift Lance.” Petr shrugged. “Officers like flash names.
“Our caud’s somebody named Williams. Couldn’t find anything out about him.
“The unit’s assigned mission is keeping the peace.”
“Against who?” Njangu asked.
“It seems to be a little complicated,” Kipchak said. “D-Cumbre’s geetus is in mining another world. C-Cumbre, as I recall. The pick-swingers mostly come from a whole group of immigrants called ’Raum.” He gargled the initial consonant. “Spelled with a single mark in front, so you can tell it ain’t pronounced like real people talk.
“The ’Raum came to C-Cumbre a few hundred years ago, my man told me. Believed they oughta own the universe. Instead, they’re doon th’ mine, like they say, which is where most fanatics belong, working for the smarter crooks who got there first.
“Guess some of ‘em don’t like the swing of things, so they’re running up and down in the hills playing bandit and snipin’ anybody who doesn’t agree with ‘em.
“That’ll be one of our targets, I s’pose.”
“How do we tell them apart from the people we’re defending?” Garvin asked.
“Hopefully because they’re shooting at our young asses,” Kipchak answered. “But they’re supposed to be shorter, stockier, darker and, according to those who call themselves their betters, with all the bad habits anybody who’s unlucky enough to be dealt the bottom card has.
“Anyway, the big squeaker is the mines are worked both by men and by Musth.”
“What’re they?” Njangu asked. “I never paid much attention to aliens. Never saw one to steal something from, I guess.”
“Big tall creatures,” Garvin said. “I saw a holo on them. They look like big, skinny cats walking on two legs. Got a long neck, as I recall, and moved real fast. They looked like they could be bad news in a fight.”
“That’s them,” Petr agreed. “They’re supposed to be as touchy as a whore the night before the troops get paid. I’ve never been around ‘em, but a mate of mine has, and he said they’re real quick to get nasty.
“Anyway, that’s about all I know.”
“Can I ask you something?” Njangu said.
“I said I owe you.”
“You’ve been in the service before?”
“Yeh. I join up, get pissed off, get out, can’t stand the way civilians piddle around, join up again … guess I oughta go one or the other,” Kipchak sighed. “Tried settlin’ down once or twice, but it didn’t stick.
“Maybe this time I’ll just stay in.”
“What … I don’t know what to call it exactly, what branch do you generally serve with?” Yoshitaro asked.
“There’s only one to think about, far as I’m concerned. Intelligence an’ Recon. Snoopin’ and poopin', we call it. Prob’ly be some of my mates from other times there. I&R’s a small world, because most soldiers think we’re brain-dead and suicidal.
“You operate by yourself or with a small team, so any ambush you end up in’s your own fault, instead of stumbling along with a turd of hurtles like a common footso’jer does, or zooming into a hot landing zone with every other squid in a Strike Force.
“Still not a bad way to get killed, though. If I had a brain, I’d prob’ly go for Supply or Cooking.
“Appears Ma Kipchak raised herself a rock-solid fool.”
• • •
“Say, Njangu?”
Yoshitaro looked up from the disk he was reading. It was Maev.
“Ye-up?”
“I’ve got a problem with my bunk chain,” she said. “Damned thing’s got a kink, and I keep hitting it with my head. Could you see if you could yank it out or something?”
“Sure.” Njangu slid out of his bunk and followed the small redhead.
Petr and Garvin sat cross-legged on Kipchak’s bunk, a small magnetic chessboard between them. Njangu grinned as he went by.
“Hmm,” Garvin said. “White Queen takes Black Rook, I suspect.”
“What’re you talkin’ about?” Kipchak demanded. “Your queen’s not even
close to my castle.”
“Never mind, never mind.”
• • •
Something woke Njangu. It took a minute for him to realize where he was. Maev was lying on the inside of the bunk, half-smiling in her dream. Her hand was between Yoshitaro’s thighs. Her hair was very dark in the ready lights.
Neither of them had bothered with the third-meal, and had eventually fallen asleep from pure exhaustion.
Njangu felt himself stir, ran a finger down her sleek side, and caressed her thighs. Without waking, she lifted her leg, half rolled onto her back.
The loudspeaker blared: “All hands … all hands … report to your Emergency Positions.”
Njangu was out of the bunk, grabbing for his clothes.
Maev blinked sleepily. “What’s going on?”
“Hell if I know. But we better get back with the others.”
She dressed hastily.
• • •
“All hands … all hands. Stand by to be boarded. Warning. Do not make any attempt to resist. I say again, do not make any attempt to resist.”
“You got any idea what’s going on?” Yoshitaro asked.
Garvin shook his head.
“We’re still in stardrive, aren’t we?”
“Yeh.”
“How could anybody … another ship … get this close to us?” Yoshitaro wondered. Jaansma shook his head again.
“They could if they had a tracker waiting for us in N-space,” Kipchak said grimly. “Or if they had our plot.”
“What does that mean?” Njangu asked.
“It means it ain’t gonna be good,” Kipchak said. “Especially with that bit about not resisting.”
The Malvern shuddered. “Somebody comin’ alongside,” Kipchak said. “Not a bad trick in N-space. Damned near impossible unless you’ve got somebody on the bridge cooperating.”
“What’s this about no resistance?” Jaansma said. “Pirates?”
“Shee-yit,” Petr said. “There ain’t no such thing as pirates.”
“Then why’d they tell us not to resist? We … the Confederation isn’t at war with anybody, is it?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Then what — ”
“Shut up. If I knew something, I’d tell you.” Kipchak snapped.
They waited for almost an hour. Normal lighting came on, and the ready lights dimmed.