Liaden Universe Constellation Volume 3

by Sharon Lee

  Villy watched on the monitors while he ate and sipped coffee, hoping that the pilot hadn’t fled after the rudeness at the sticks board—but he’d said he’d come to meet someone, and as far as Villy could tell, he hadn’t yet. Sounded like the pilot was looking for a job. The casino was often used as a meet spot these days, the local restaurants and rooming houses weren’t nearly up to the style some of the newcomers preferred. Ms. Audrey was even renting out parlors to some of the larger job searchers during the day, and had cut down on the perfumes in them since Liadens preferred rooms not quite so fancy smelling.

  The pilot though, he’d gone off in a hurry. Maybe he had been risking all his blunt and needed to count up before coming back to the fray . . .

  In fact, there he was, which relieved Villy greatly. He and Scout dea’Liss were at piket with two side players, and whatever crowd the Emerald had were mostly assembled to watch. Hardly found that stuff in the daytimes, but a good crowd was worth money later, when everyone broke to play or challenge . . .

  Villy grabbed a last sip of his coffee—one of the perks of the job was as much coffee as you wanted—and stood, catching camera fourteen’s angle.

  It was a good close-up of his pilot, a good one. Serious face, strong more than cute, good ears and chin—and Liaden, which Villy was coming to appreciate greatly, since among other things beard burns were a real issue for someone in his regular line of work.

  Well, his loss again. He wasn’t allowed to pass a business card or referral for Ms. Audrey’s when he was on duty here, not less he was directly asked. And the pilot hadn’t asked. Good gambler—concentrated, had firm fine hands and a steady eye.

  He flashed his thumbs over the reader and took a deep breath. Villy Butler, back on duty. Just an hour more and the rest of the day was his.

  There were distractions Quin hadn’t counted on, ranging from the smell of food—he turned down several trays on his way to the table, wanting only to get on with this challenge—to the motions and small sounds of the other patrons. The music and the other background sounds provided by the closeted nerligig helped. The establishment was using not Tey Dor’s hallowed and time-tested undersounds, meant for refined Liaden gentlemen, but a rough mix meant to give patrons some small relief from the bustle of the port.

  Nor was the Scout unaccomplished. Her game was considered, her demeanor flawless, and her gallants far more nervous than she. It was a good thing, he decided, that they watched from behind her—he’d hate to be concerned over double watching while playing someone with real skill. He was slightly amused by their choice of beverage and wondered if it was economy or curiosity which drove them to drinking the local beer. But there, if they were transplants of reduced means, they might yet need develop that taste—some of immigrants from Solcintra had come with their luggage, their names, and nothing more.

  As it was, the cards were keeping most of his attention; for the third hand in a row he was being forced to play defensively. He had experience there—at Runig’s Rock they’d played hand after hand of piket while waiting for news that Plan B was over. Grandfather and Grandmother were both resourceful players, and they told his mistakes over and again, not out of vanity but out of necessity. Who knew but that he’d have to take up his father’s occupation when this was over? Who knew then, but that he’d be the yos’Phelium?

  So far, none of the hands had gotten exorbitant, he had held off her rather obvious first hand attempt at a Clan Royale though it meant having to settle for barely above even Dozen’s Lot in the first, she discarding judiciously to avoid either a Scout’s Progress or a Triple Flash and thus taking that hand on a simple extra seven.

  This hand was looking much like the last. He barely registered the added sounds of shoes and boots until it too went to an extra seven—this in his favor.

  “Two hands to one,” she said as the cards went to her. “You play well for a pilot with a such a new jacket . . .”

  He failed to rise to the bait, though some of the crowd chuckled, and he saw there were indeed more than before, and wished they’d thought to call for a private parlor. There were Scouts and other pilots in the group, some back with handwiches, and before the deal two more tables got underway.

  He glanced quickly about—perhaps the port work was done?

  No sign, yet, of his father, and none either of Mr. McFarland or Natesa the Assassin. There was, he saw, Villy Butler, now in a flattering coat and wearing no name badge, on the edge of the crowd, a spectator. Yes, there were more folks about, so the shifts were changing, and there’d be more people still if he recalled schedules right.

  Quin looked to his resources, wondered if perhaps he’d been being too conservative. He ought to have come out far ahead so far, two hands up, he ought to have been more active. The blush of challenge was worn well away now, he could tell, and he felt the edge that he’d had in the first game and that serenity in the second had fled. A pilot’s relaxation drill then, and the hand came to him.

  He settled in, and the hand became a disaster in short order, the cards falling into something he’d be lucky to force into a Small Cluster or a Nebularity to keep her away from . . . the ship sounds from outside had faded and the sounds of boots and mumbling around. He heard a whispered voice, “That pilot said he can beat anyone in the casino at will . . .”

  The whisper was shushed about then, his glance showing Villy Butler in the area, still. Quin took up his cards, looked into them, and knew he’d be hard put to name a worse hand to hold at this juncture.

  The Scout’s expression was almost apologetic as she quickly laid down the cards of an Arch Flush, all blue. “Mine,” she said, “Pilot.”

  “Even,” he said, acknowledging the lost hand with a bow so bare it was a nod, “the cards bled blue.”

  So his shuffle, and a scrape of boot against a chair, of chair against table, and he looked up to see Mr. McFarland’s acknowledging blink and guided glance.

  There, Natesa, her face wearing an appraising look he’d not seen on her before. If she acknowledged him, it was only by not looking away.

  Out of sight, or perhaps not yet arrived, was the Boss.

  He felt himself blush, felt the tension rising in him. He’d waited for hours. He’d dealt with a rude Terran, and now, now that he had occupation, they came to stand on the edge of things and stare at him.

  McFarland. McFarland’s eyes were oh-so-lazy at times; but his face held more than a Liaden’s would, and hidden among the shadows of nose and chin was a slight smile.

  Well. That was something . . .

  The cards were called and as he got them to deal Quin looked up.

  His father was paused near the two gallants, face blander than a new ’crete walk, making small bows of acknowledgment to them. He wore the on-duty smile required of a mixed-patron establishment but was making his way across the room slowly, his shiny near-new pilot’s jacket even more old-style than the Liaden finery the gallants wore.

  The cards went out, in proper order, but they were nearly unattended by Quin, who found and then denied the relaxation exercise that presented itself. He’d felt out of breath and closed in, but as he lifted his cards and fanned them, it was as if the cards were closer and the color more intense than they’d ever been—as if the cards were there for him.

  He must fly the cards as if he were at a ship’s board. He would not acknowledge his father until play was through.

  Again the necessity to glance up—and his father was not apparent—off to his office, most likely; Mr. McFarland and Natesa both leaned, listening, each to their own of the elder Solcintran pair.

  The hand was built; it held several opportunities and he threw negligent chips to the pile, doubling his usual opening bet. He’d never played a serious game before his father’s eyes, so now he leaned on the assorted wisdoms of those who had trained his father, and saw only the cards and the table; barely even glancing at his opponent but to measure her glances between chips and cards, between one end of her hand and the
other.

  The Scout may have said something mild when he added more freight to the chips; his bow saw her match, and add more. They evened the pile several times, and her glance between cards and pile grew longer as she matched again.

  The hand held two possibles now, and it was his chance to challenge, if he dared.

  “Luken would play this, aiming to cash in at the long range, a slow game, but surer,” his grandmother seemed to say in his ears, “and I would play this, to complicate and force. The challenge tests the will rather than the cards.”

  The had not played this hand exactly, at Runig’s Rock, but a mirror of it. Quin did the math and the cards were smooth as Silk’s fur in his hands, and the scout’s small joke about his jacket came back to him. Yes, new and fresh, was it?

  He showed a card that drew two, he showed another and it drew. The colors were running in his favor, but there was risk.

  His turn now to challenge—“Will you double if I do?”

  He held the chips in hand, and the Scout pursed her mouth, wrinkled her nose the way a Terran might when sniffing coffee in the morning.

  “Pilot, I believe I will sue for the next hand.”

  There! She dropped her hand and waved her chips toward him. She said with a bow, “Your choice of a slow win or a fast, once your cards fall. Elegant enough, I need not see the demonstration.”

  The next hand then: No pause for a handwich, nothing but a sip of water for him. The Scout was drinking strong tea; and had taken a quick closed-eyed stretch. None of that for him; what he did was to locate the towering figure of Mr. McFarland, who stood now behind the two gallants, watching over Natesa, the lifemate of Pat Rin yos’Phelium. Natesa, whose judge’s eyes showed nothing to him at all when their glance crossed, other than she watched.

  His father, the Boss, was still not in evidence at the moment.

  Indeed. The casino’s owner, after all, should not be playing favorites, and had work to do, besides.

  Tension in his hands, tension also rose in Quin’s stomach. Not much chance of the Boss playing favorites, eh? The casino’s owner clearly had his priorities set, and a son not the most convenient among them.

  The crowd now consisted of pilots and Scouts and local workers, too, with a smattering of Liadens like the gentlemen who’d be trailing the Scout so eagerly before times. Up in the crowd Quin saw some of the other non-locals—including his late opponent, standing just a step or two away from and behind Villy.

  His problem, he was reminded, was the cards coming to him now; his problem was winning.

  The cards went face-down before him. Quin put his hands on them, closed his eyes briefly, and before looking at them at all pushed the previous game’s pot into play. All of it.

  The sounds changed: some observers had gasped, some nodded, some laughed, and the sound trailed into the casino’s sound systems and came back in a small wave, smoothed, bringing music of a deeper timbre and complexity from the hidden nerligig.

  The Scout, afforded extra time to scan her hand, did so without complacency before making a small humming noise and matching the value of the pot. The rumble of some ship off-port filtering through momentarily held them silent.

  “Pilot, yes.”

  Quin nodded and picked up his cards, their feel in his hands all sharp-edged silk, peering at them to the exclusion of all else, pulling the numbers while one side of his brain calculated and the other side ruminated. A deeper portion of his mind sat behind it all, calmly measuring what he must do, encompassing at once three deep lines in the cards and the idea that really, there ought to be a place not quite beneath the space port’s flight paths to play . . .

  The Scout’s first card hit the table with his as some other ship or plane lifted.

  The nerligig added bass notes to the flow, and then his chances were measured. He’d felt the usual line come forward, and then the line Luken would play, and his grandmother’s line . . . but there, his grandmother’s was too knife-edge, now, now that he’d seen the need to win. The usual line was too bland, and Luken’s, well . . . there, Luken’s line might add up to a stern chase. It would be interesting. Indeed, it would be interesting.

  He let his gaze rise, let it wander the watchers, where some people had shifted, McFarland and Natesa perhaps a step closer. Villy, so intent that his flawless fair skin shone near as much as his hair, stood now in the first rank, with his Terran shadow an arm’s length row behind, towering.

  The Boss was absent yet.

  The line was clear enough to both of them by now: Her chance was to shatter him with one of the three cards still to play, his was to lay down the whole of it by pulling two of hers. She considered. He did, and his hands moved without thinking, adding one more chip to the pile. Really, it didn’t matter much if she folded now or showed her hand; his need was to have the pot without doubt.

  His father was away from the play and away from monitors: as neutral as might be. Quin still had seen nothing more of the Boss. The Boss, cold enough to enter the turf of his enemies and show them down in their own office, drawing or not. But elsewhere for this test.

  Natesa’s glance had met his but once. She a Juntavas judge, a munitions expert, and . . . reputed merciless.

  If there’d been a message in those eyes, it had been “play on” . . . and indeed, so he would.

  “In for the Jump, Pilot,” the Scout said, matching his bet one more time.

  Then she said, “The hotpad’s yours, sir.”

  And, yes, it was.

  He placed the blue qe’andra down, without flinching. If she answered in red or green this time, the hand was hers. If blue, there was a game still.

  She showed the blue seven.

  There was a sigh from the watchers—clearly some favored the Scout, or had at least committed money in that direction.

  For his part, Quin kept his gaze at the table, and then he followed with the lowly pivot, in blue. The point of it, really.

  There was a murmur then, but she handily reached into her set and played the green pivot. It was, of course, one move too late . . .

  He sighed. He’d had some concern, of course, but the pivot she’d played, been forced to play, one move late—

  “The full Clan Royale, Scout, on my side.”

  Yes, she had a card, and the cards he laid down brought that last card to him, capping the delm as he knew it would, making the clan whole. He formally faced out his card to show her, to show the room, before slipping it into the spot.

  She bowed where she sat, and then rose, and bowed again, full of intricacies he’d not seen for a relumma or more. No, this was Surebleak. He’d not seen such a bow for months.

  Her bow offered equality with a touch of seeing an error, on her part, corrected . . . and she said then, “Your jacket fits you well, Pilot. May you continue to command your boards so well!”

  And she was gone, the noise starting as he sat, the satisfaction of the win tempered—there’d been a warning in that last from the Scout, and he must take it: he’d been on the edge of good taste with his boast, and she’d come within a card of proving him wrong. One card. On the other hand, he’d earned the win, proved the point . . . and now . . .

  Natesa the Assassin stood by, with a simple bow covering the territory of “I see you,” and not much more. And there was Cheever McFarland, who held out a Terran-style handshake to him, saying jovially, “Remind me not to play piket with you, if ever it comes to sit at a serious table . . .”

  There, too, was Villy, an odd grin on his face. Quin smiled, barely hearing Villy’s offer above the clamor: “You need something to eat, Pilot! You haven’t had anything all day! Will you join me?”

  How Villy might have kept track of that he didn’t know, but true, Quin was hungry, and he felt a little shaky. His winnings were far beyond his quartershare and . . . he needed something to eat, and he owed Villy that tip!

  Villy was moving slowly against the flow of the crowd, and there he was, suddenly, repeating himself as he came
within arm’s length.

  “You haven’t had any food all day! Will you join me?”

  “He will not, Villy, at least not now. This pilot has kept me waiting.”

  Quin turned, saw Villy’s face go white and kept turning, to find Boss Conrad himself at his shoulder.

  “I trust you’ve not accepted another game? I’m afraid I’ve issued word that you’re not to play cards here, other than private games, taken in parlor, until I say otherwise. It is unfortunate that you’ve become so angry!”

  The statement was delivered quietly, with no bow to cushion or explain it.

  Quin stepped back, appalled. He had entertained the idea of a challenge . . .

  “So you’ll not face me?”

  “Beat anyone here at will, can you? It may be the case today, but you can’t declare it! Do you know what that looks like, Pilot? It looks that . . .”

  Quin heard himself—

  “It sounds that you’re not up to the challenge, sir. Will you not play me, now if you like . . .”

  Now his father took a step back, and Quin felt the roiling in his stomach going toxic. Cheever McFarland moved half-between him and his father, and Villy’s voice was close.

  “No, don’t, that’s the Boss! Don’t make him . . .” Villy touched Quin’s arm, surprising both of them.

  “Villy,” the Boss said, at the same time Quin managed—“Please . . .”

  “I will play you if you will. Waiting for me? I’ve been waiting all day!”

  Natesa’s voice came low, and in Liaden.

  “Perhaps this discussion should take place elsewhere . . .”

  McFarland’s bulk gave way, and the Boss went on. There were people about, several still wishing to play the victor, others merely to talk, or to . . .

  “I cannot play you here and you cannot play here in public and keep the Emerald’s name clear!”

  “Is that it? Nothing like cards, is it? Well then, let us simply have a contest. Twelve paces, one Terran Ace each, the shot takes the pip or is a loser. You’ve done that game at Tey Dor’s!”