by Timothy Zahn
“Quite sure,” Stenberk said, eyeing Chumu thoughtfully. “The sensor profile precisely matches that of a genuine Tchine.” He looked at Jydor again. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, sir.” He started to turn away.
“Hold it!” Zerba snapped, jabbing a finger at Phramp. “What the—that’s a skifter. You’ve got a skifter!”
“What are you talking about?” Phramp demanded, frowning at his cards. “I don’t use skifters.”
“Like hell you don’t.” Zerba gestured emphatically at Stenberk. “You—Lieutenant. Come up here. I want a witness.”
“Master Jydor?” Stenberk asked.
“Of course,” Jydor said, gesturing to the lieutenant as he stared hard at Phramp. “Let’s have a look.”
He stepped over behind Phramp as Stenberk climbed the steps. Lando looked at Chumu again, to see that the manager’s earlier bewilderment had turned to frozen horror.
Stenberk stepped behind Phramp and plucked the cards from his hand. He touched each corner in turn—“He’s right,” he told Jydor, offering the other one of the cards. “It’s a skifter.”
“That’s impossible,” Phramp protested. “It must have been planted on me.”
“How?” Jydor asked. “You dealt that hand.”
“I—” Phramp sputtered, looking around the table in bewilderment. “I don’t know. But it must have been.”
“Get out of here,” Jydor said, his voice deadly soft. “I don’t ever want to see you in the High Card again.”
Silently, his face a mass of confusion and anger, Phramp stood up and headed down the steps, moving like a man in a bad dream.
“Do you want me to arrest him?” Stenberk asked.
“Don’t bother,” Jydor said, watching Phramp as he moved through the crowd toward the exit. “Someone paid ten million credits to get him into the game. I doubt the punishment he’ll receive from his patron for his failure will be easier than the legal penalty for cheating at sabacc.”
“You’re probably right,” Stenberk agreed. “Speaking of sabacc, I’d best let you get on with your tournament. Sorry to have interrupted.”
“Not a problem,” Jydor said, his eyes still on Phramp. Lando turned to look at Chumu again.
This time, Chumu was looking back at him. And there was murder in those eyes.
Time for Lando to make himself scarce. Standing up, he turned his back on Chumu and headed across the ballroom.
But not toward the main entrance, the direction Phramp had gone. For the next few minutes, that area might not be healthy for Lando to be in.
Fortunately, there was another option. The previous night at this time, he’d noticed that one of the large side chambers separated from the main ballroom by a high archway had been closed for cleaning. Cleaning schedules being the rigid things they often were, there was a good chance it would be closed now, as well.
It was. Slipping past the simple rope barrier that had been set up between the chamber and the ballroom, he picked up his pace, making for the emergency exit at the far end.
“Stop.”
Lando allowed himself two more steps before coming to a halt. Keeping his hands visible, he turned around.
Chumu was striding toward him, his face thunderous, a small hold-out blaster gripped in his hand.
“I’d think you’d have better things to do right now,” Lando suggested. “Finding a way to clean up your mess, for starters.”
“The mess is yours, not mine,” Chumu retorted, stopping three paces away and leveling the gun at Lando’s stomach. “Who are you? Who are you working for?”
“My name’s on the tournament application,” Lando said. “And I’m not working for anyone.”
“No, of course you’re not,” Chumu ground out sarcastically. “You just happened to stumble on my plans and decide to spit on them?”
“Actually, that’s pretty much exactly what happened,” Lando conceded. “Though I suppose in your place I wouldn’t believe it, either.” He nodded toward the blaster. “You’re not seriously thinking about going the revenge route, are you? I doubt the police will believe two blaster suicides in the same day.”
“Oh, and that was especially cute,” Chumu growled. “What did you do, slice into Rovi’s droid-block programming and change the message?”
“Basically,” Lando said. “It was a great plan, though. Really. Freezing Jydor out of his own operation while simultaneously taking down his two biggest competitors was sheer genius. Winner take all, just as Jydor announced at the beginning.” He considered. “Though now, I suppose, it’s more like winner lose all.”
Chumu snorted. “What makes you think I’ve lost?”
“Please,” Lando said disdainfully. “What are you going to do, find another of Jydor’s rivals you can kill and frame him for? Police do know how to look for patterns, you know.”
“What pattern?” Chumu countered. “There’s no pattern here. Thanks to you, Vanq’s death will go into the data list as a suicide.” He raised the blaster a little higher. “And you’re right about two suicides looking suspicious. I guess we’ll have to kill you in self-defense.”
“We meaning you and Rovi?” Lando asked. “Or do you just mean Rovi? Generally, you mastermind types don’t handle any of the actual killing yourselves.”
“Not normally, no,” Chumu agreed. “But in your case, I think I’ll make an exception.” With his free hand he pulled out another hold-out blaster and tossed it onto the floor at Lando’s feet. “Pick it up.”
“I don’t think so,” Lando said, making no move toward the weapon. “I’d hate there to be any misunderstandings when the police arrive.”
Chumu shook his head. “Nice try, but the police all went in the other direction.”
“They’ll be back,” Lando assured him. “Right now, they’re probably just enjoying the show.”
Chumu frowned. “What show?”
“That one.” Smiling, Lando raised his hand and pointed upward …
… at the cam droid that Tavia had retasked with the job of following Lando around.
“Winner lose all,” Lando said quietly. “And my friend is right. You really do need to pay better attention to your surroundings.”
Chumu was standing motionless, apparently with nothing left to say, when Stenberk and his men arrived.
“So how does it feel?” Tavia asked as the police escorted Chumu through the murmuring crowd and out through the ballroom exit. “Doing the right thing, I mean?”
A flip, slightly sarcastic answer popped into Lando’s mind. But Tavia deserved better than that. “It feels good,” he admitted. He looked back at the platform where the tournament was already in progress again. “It also feels expensive.”
“You wouldn’t have won,” Bink reminded him. “You know that, right?”
“Maybe,” Lando said. “Probably.” He exhaled a sigh. “You know the worst thing about being a gambler? It’s all the wondering about what might have been. How a different play—a different card—a different hand might have made all the difference in the universe.”
Bink gave a little snort. “I’ve got news for you, Lando. That’s not a gambler’s problem. That’s life, for everyone.”
“She’s right,” Tavia said soberly. “Once you make a decision, you can never go back and change it. Sometimes, farther down the line, you have a chance to alter its effects. But the original decision is there forever.”
“And we all have those wonderings and regrets,” Bink agreed. “There’s really only one way to soothe them.”
“Time?”
She smiled. “Money.” Taking his hand, she pressed something into it. “Here’s the ten thousand credits Chumu paid me to tell him the Tchine was a fake.”
Lando frowned. “For me? Shouldn’t we split it four ways?”
“We should,” Bink agreed. “But we aren’t going to.”
“After all, we dragged you into this,” Tavia reminded him. “It’s not like winning a forty-million-credit figurine, but it
should at least get you off the planet and someplace more promising.”
“But—”
“And don’t worry about us,” Bink admonished, closing Lando’s fingers firmly over the credit tab. “If I know Zerba, he’s off looking for another job as we speak.”
“Or going through other people’s pockets,” Tavia said disapprovingly.
“Either way, we’ll be fine,” Bink said. “So go. Shoo.”
Lando made a face. But there was a time to object, and a time to simply accept something with thanks.
And it wasn’t like he hadn’t earned it. “You two take care,” he said. Scooping up their right hands, he lifted them to his lips for a quick kiss each.
“We will,” Tavia said.
“Until the next job,” Bink added with a roguish smile.
“Which will probably be a long time coming,” Lando warned.
Bink shrugged. “Maybe. But you never know.”