The Matter at Hand [An Amazing Conroy Story]

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  “Isn't that a one shot trick?"

  “Only if they figure it out. Most telepaths are so arrogant about their talents that they just assume I must have similar gifts, and a better mental shield to hide them."

  “Very handy,” I said and held up my left hand, wiggling my pinkie to display the small gold ring set with tiny dials. “Remind me to use this if I'm ever in a game where cheating isn't allowed."

  “You have a surveillance jammer?"

  I shrugged. “It keeps private business meetings private."

  John laughed and rolled his single eye. “Have you really gone that corporate? What's become of the mesmerizing rogue I once shared a jail cell with?"

  “He's trying to keep his company in the black and expand it beyond human space,” I said. “So, you explained about knowing his cards, but how could you keep your opponent from seeing your intended state of play."

  He nodded and popped the eye back into its socket, squinted to get it to set right, and then looked up at me. “You know about all that left-brain right-brain stuff?” he asked.

  “Sure, I passed intro-psych,” I said. “Left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, has the language centers, all the empirical thinking. Right brain gets the left side of the body and does the more holistic thinking."

  “That's the crux of it as I understand it,” he said and began shuffling the cards again. “In most folks the two sides talk, signals passing back and forth through a bundle of brain fibers called the corpus callosum."

  I nodded. The name didn't mean anything to me.

  “I don't got one."

  “You don't have what?"

  “A corpus callosum. Mine got severed. Long story, happened during the war."

  “What war...” I started to say, but he cut me off.

  “So it's like I got two brains in one body and both of them look at the cards but they have different styles. Each side plans the strategy of play, how many cards to claim from the third hand, the state of matter to declare. But they do it differently. Only the left-brain has language, and that's the only side a telepath picks up. I use my left hand to select my mode token and to point to cards in the third hand, all right-brain strategy. Telepaths get caught flat-footed every time."

  I whistled in appreciation. Several of the waiters glanced our way, frowning.

  “That's an impressive trick,” I said. “But it's not going to help me."

  “Nope,” he agreed. “It's my trick. You got any of your own?"

  “Maybe,” I said. “But I've got to get better at the game before they'll have a prayer of working. Deal the cards again."

  * * * *

  Seljor Thu agreed to hold our game at the Golden Turtle Palace after I'd sent him the menu. Who knew that minotaurs liked Chinese food? According to his assistant, Seljor Thu was particularly interested in sampling the Bamboo With Steaming Virgin Goddess. Taurians have a very similar physiology to humans, once you get past the bullish configuration of their skulls. Beyond that, they're remarkably like humans, good and bad, psychology and appetites.

  At my request, Left-John Mocker had reserved the entire restaurant for our use. Regular patrons were given coupons for a free dinner on another night and turned away at the door. The lawyers from both sides arrived early. They came armed with multiple copies of two different versions of the final contract and happily helped themselves to one of the best dinners they'd ever had. When Seljor Thu arrived, he and I would share a light meal, get to know one another a bit, and then play our single hand of Matter. I had it all planned.

  The plan hit a snag when he strolled in twenty minutes later, accompanied by the last of his staff. Never say that Taurians don't have a sense of humor. Seljor Thu wore an authentic matador's jacket and pants, tailored to his tall and broad physique, all bright red silk and metallic embroidery. The rest of his immediate group, Taurians all, had dressed as picadors in somewhat more muted colors. His lawyers, already well into their meal, were dressed nearly identically to my own, which is to say, like lawyers, nondescript and interchangeable suits dripping with legal expertise. Seljor Thu paused by the door to speak with one of his people. Left-John looked over at him and seconds later his elbow was nudging me in the ribs. “You've been set up,” he said.

  I'd been standing to one side, mentally reviewing the hypnotic programming set in place that morning. Reggie was tucked under my left arm, squirming to get free every time another waiter passed by with a tray of food. I scowled at John. “What are you talking about?"

  “I recognize him. He's on the Matter circuit. A pro. When he plays in human space he goes by the name ‘Digger.’”

  I stared at him, counted to ten in my head, and managed to keep my tone of voice conversational despite a sudden desire to strangle my tutor. “I'm playing against the Taurian head of an archaeological consortium, and you don't think to mention that one of the professional Matter players is a Taurian named ‘Digger'?"

  John shrugged. “It's worse, he's a rated telepath."

  I swallowed hard. My plan was unraveling. “Do you know his range?"

  “Just under two meters, more than enough to pick the cards from your mind across the table. You want to bail? It's only money."

  I shook my head. “Money is the least of it. This is a power game, and always has been."

  He nodded. “The best card games are. So, what's the play?"

  “We go ahead as planned. I want you to try and stay out of his range. Keep your ears open and wait for my signal. If necessary, we go to Plan B."

  “You got a Plan B?"

  “Of course I've got a Plan B."

  “The last time you said that to me, we ended up sharing that jail cell. Is this plan going to end any better?"

  I swallowed half a dozen retorts and just shrugged. “One way or another, we'll find out real soon.” I took hold of Reggie with both hands and passed him to the gambler. Then I went to meet my adversary.

  As I crossed the room Seljor Thu broke away from his staff and turned to greet me.

  “Ah, so, this must be the Amazing Conroy,” he said, using my stage name from a hundred spaceport lounges. I acknowledged it with a slight bow.

  “And you must surely then be the famous Digger,” I replied.

  Seljor Thu chuckled. “Not so famous as some.” He glanced in the direction of Left-John. “I am not yet perfectly skilled at distinguishing between humans, but I was fairly certain that gentleman you were speaking with was the Mocker. Has he been coaching you? I had not thought you would be able to hire such a distinguished tutor."

  I shrugged. “Oh, Left-John's just a friend. We go way back, former room mates.” I gestured and a hostess appeared to lead us toward the private table in the back of the restaurant that had been my study hall for the past week.

  We sat at the same table where John and I had met when I'd first asked him to teach me the game. A dozen waiters began arriving, placing platter after platter of exotic cuisine before us. Seljor Thu and I spun the inner table back and forth, sampling each dish, comparing impressions, and sharing light dinner conversation. He was witty, I was charming, and if not for the game looming large at the end of the meal I would have surely enjoyed myself quite a bit.

  After a delicious repast the dishes were cleared away and we both helped ourselves to fortune cookies. The Taurian popped his into his mouth whole, chewed, and then extracted the paper fortune from between his lips.

  “On my world, there is a group of people, island dwellers, who have a similar custom. At the start of each season they gather all their young people together and randomly pass out small minty wafers, dark ones for the males, lighter ones for the females. One of each bears a small pictograph inside, the symbol for eternal happiness and union. The two youths are matched and mated then and there. They are said to be selected by the gods to form a perfect union."

  I smiled. “I don't know where the tradition began here, but nowadays it signifies nothing more than the end of a pleasant meal. The
fortunes are generally viewed as little more than a silly game."

  I opened my own cookie and stared at the slip.

  YOU CANNOT PLAN FOR ALL FUTURES.

  Shit. Even the cookies were against me.

  “A pity,” said my opponent. “This one seemed quite apt. Amazing defeat awaits those born in the Year of the Dog."

  I flushed. “Some defeats are more amazing than others."

  “Very true,” he said. “Shall we proceed then, and learn which kind awaits one of us?"

  I nodded. Left-John Mocker temporarily handed Reggie to a waiter. He stepped forward and offered a sealed deck of cards to the Taurian for his inspection.

  “With your approval, I have asked my friend here to deal for us."

  “As long as he only deals,” said Seljor Thu, barely sparing a glance at John. “The game is between us. You may not have the Mocker act as your proxy."

  “Of course not,” I said. “I think I'm capable of winning on my own."

  Seljor Thu laughed, a surprisingly kindly sound without a trace of animosity. “Neither of us believes that, but if it pleases you to say so I won't argue the point.” He broke the seal on the box, examined the cards, and returned the deck to John. “You may shuffle at your leisure, Mocker. I defer the cut to my opponent and host."

  John rearranged the cards with the dexterity and ease of long practice, his movements simple and efficient. He was not so much shuffling as stacking, gazing off abstractly into space as his hands did the work. How he managed it with the two halves of his brain mute to each other, I can't imagine, but he'd practiced it in front of me just the day before and the results had been impressive. We were still running on Plan A. Both Seljor Thu and I would be dealt good hands, identical hands, in fact. It was the only way I'd come up with to neutralize his greater experience. It wasn't much use against a telepath, but it wasn't my only trick.

  Left-John dealt out the cards, retrieved Reggie, and backed quickly into the corner. I left my cards face down upon the table.

  Seljor Thu smiled, a big, bovine grin of contentment that made me think of that bull in the children's books who was always sniffing flowers. “Are you conceding already?” he said. “Won't you even look at your hand?"

  “Do I need to?” I replied, managing a smile myself. “Don't you already know?"

  “I do,” he said. “The answer is there in your mind for any with the talent to read it. You expect your hand to be the same as mine. A different suit here and there, but it balances out I'm sure. Very clever of you, Conroy.” He paused and bowed his head toward John. “And my compliments to you, Mocker. I never saw you work the trick, not in your hands and I didn't think to seek for it in your mind. Most impressive.” He turned back to me. “So you've learned my cards without need of telepathy. But I know yours too, and once you actually look at your cards I'll know what mode you plan to call and choose my own accordingly. And I'm still the better player."

  “The proof is in the playing,” I said, “and our comparable hands are just the first stage of my plan. Are you ready for the second?” I reached for my cards, gathering them up but still didn't look at them.

  The Taurian looked amused, confident. “And what is stage two?"

  “Raspberry Gong De Tian,” I said softly, and triggered the post hypnotic suggestion I'd given myself that morning. I slipped into a very light trance, and a thin layer of my sensory reality took a sudden detour. “A flavor and a deity. More specifically, my favorite flavor and a Chinese god of luck. I doubt the two have ever been spoken aloud together by anyone else."

  I looked at my cards. Across the table from me Seljor Thu began to frown. “What have you done?” I could hear astonishment and perhaps a hint of admiration in his voice.

  “I've altered my perceptions. The suits and values that I see on the cards are randomly changing every few seconds. They may have little or no resemblance to what the cards really are."

  Seljor Thu rewarded me with a look of puzzlement. “What could you possibly have to gain by such manipulation?"

  I shrugged. “It occurred to me that the advantage a telepath has in this game is knowing what his opponent is going to do, what suits and values he has, what state of matter he'll declare. It's an interactive game, but since I don't know what I have, I can't make an accurate call, which means telepathy won't help you make an accurate prediction."

  Seljor Thu threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, well done, Conroy. I see how you come to be called Amazing."

  “I'm glad you approve,” I said.

  “I more than approve. This is exactly why I wanted to play against you. How better for me to take the measure of the Terran who wrested control of buffalo dogs from the Arconi? Now, what do you say to a further test of your mettle? What's the expression in your language, ‘care to make it more interesting?’”

  “What did you have in mind?"

  “Double or nothing,” he said. “If I win, the buffalo dogs are mine for free. And if you prevail, my consortium will pay you twice the fee and I will personally introduce you to no fewer than thirty corporate leaders of my close acquaintance and recommend to them they lease their buffalo dogs from you instead of the Arconi. Well?"

  I'd said it wasn't about the money, but one hundred trained buffalo dogs represented more than half my inventory, and a half-billion credit loss wasn't something that my company could readily absorb. And yet, this was still a game about power, not simply money. I tried to focus on the opportunities and complexities represented by thirty successful contracts outside human space. Either way, Betsy was going to kill me.

  “Done,” I said and waved a hand to John. “You don't mind if I pat Reggie's head for good luck, do you?"

  Left-John frowned and stayed where he was. “If I come any closer, he'll know what cards I put in the dummy hand and have the advantage again."

  I smiled and waved him over again. “That's why we had our little session this morning. Trust me, it's my ass on the line not yours."

  John stepped forward and I took Reggie from him. Seljor Thu's eyes twinkled but I couldn't tell if it was delight or disappointment. I gave my buffalo dog a thorough scritching just under his woolly chin and was rewarded with a contented bleating.

  “I'm not a telepath,” I said, “but I know what you're thinking. Even though to me, my hand keeps changing, you think you know what it is. You think it's the same as your hand. Knowing that, and knowing now the cards available in the third hand, you think I've blown any slight edge I might have had from random chance. You think you've won. But what if you're working from a false assumption? What if my friend here didn't stack the deck as you believe?"

  The Taurian grinned. “Why should I doubt my own perceptions? I see the truth clearly in his mind."

  I shook my head. “You see only what I put there. Watch closely and I'll take it away. Coyote rhubarb."

  John staggered slightly as the hypnotic trigger took effect, and the false awareness of what he'd dealt faded from his mind. Seljor Thu gasped in wonder. “He only knows half the cards."

  I nodded. “Only the ones shuffled by his right hand. Coincidentally, those are the ones he dealt to you. His earlier memory of what he dealt both to me and to the third hand might be false. You can't rely on what you see in his mind, and you can't trust what you see in mine. All you know for certain is what you're holding."

  Seljor Thu pounded the table with one beefy hand. “Hah! You are wasting your time heading your company. You should let the Mocker take you out on the gaming circuit. You'd make several times your fortune with all these tricks."

  I did my best to look inscrutable and simply bowed my head at the compliment. “You're welcome to concede,” I said. “I respect an opponent who knows when he's beaten. There's no need to take things further."

  He chuckled at that. “But you forget one thing, Conroy. Even left with just the knowledge of my own cards, I'm still the better player. And you are playing completely blind.” Ignoring the dummy hand, he placed his cards d
own on the inner table, then picked up the token that indicated his mode of play. He rolled it around in one hand a moment, and placed it alongside his cards, his hand lightly blocking my view of his choice.

  I handed Reggie back to John and watched as the gambler retreated to the corner again. Seljor Thu stared at me, a faint whuffle of air emerging from his bullish nostrils. I could feel the Taurian's eyes on me, and I imagined his gaze penetrating my skull and probing deeper.

  “I've left you an opening, Conroy. Will you use the dummy hand without me?"

  It was an obvious lure to further muddy the outcome, bringing into play the added complication of interactive rules that would have helped me if we were evenly matched in other respects. I doubted that was the case.

  “I wouldn't put myself at that kind of disadvantage. I'll play the cards I was dealt.” I whispered another trigger to myself ending the perceptual dance and the shifting cards in my hand settled into place.

  Across the table Seljor Thu slapped the table in one-handed applause. His cards were down and he was committed. I studied my own cards, trying to choose the best configuration for all four possible modes of matter. I tried to remember everything John had taught me, everything he'd told me.

  I sighed and laid my cards down on the inner table. I picked up my token, John's lessons racing through my mind. I set the token plasma side up, covering it with my hand, though I knew full well that Seljor Thu saw the choice in my mind.

  “You have played well,” he said. “A far better game than I expected of you. With a bit more practice you might have beaten me. I almost feel bad about taking the contract for free, but a wager is a wager.” He pulled his hand away from his token and reached to turn over his cards.

  A professional gambler admits when he's over-matched and knows how to accept defeat gracefully. I'd seen John do just that on those rare times he lost. But I've always been more of a kick-the-table-over type. Instead, just before Seljor Thu touched his cards, I twisted a tiny dial on the ring on my right hand.