Chapter 13
______GAMES WITHIN GAMES
THE METHODS of operation of the Vortex Blaster II had long since been worked out in detail. Approaching any planet Captain Ross, through channels, would ask permission of the various governments to fly in atmosphere, permission to use high explosive, permission to land and be serviced, and permission—after standard precautions—to grant planetary leave to his ship’s personnel. All this asking was not, of course, strictly necessary in his case, since every world having even one loose atomic vortex had been demanding long and insistently that Neal Cloud visit it next, but it was strictly according to protocol.
Astrogators had long since plotted the course through planetary atmosphere; not by the demands of the governments concerned and not by any ascending or descending order of violence of the vortices to be extinguished, but by the simple criterion of minimum flight-time ending at the pre-selected point of entry to the planet.
Thus neither Joan nor Cloud had anything much to do with planetary affairs until the chief pilot notified Joan that he was relinquishing control to her—which never happened until the vessel lay motionless with respect to the planet’s surface and with the tip of her nose three two zero zero point zero meters distant from the center of activity of the vortex.
Approaching Chickladoria, the routine was followed precisely up to the point where Joan’s mechanical brain took over. This time, however, the brain was not working, since Joan was in the throes of rebuilding “Lulu” into “Margie.” On Chickladoria, then, the chief pilot did the piloting and “Storm” Cloud did the blasting, and everything ran like clockwork. The ship landed at Malthester spaceport and everyone who could possibly be spared disembarked.
Ready to leave the ship, Cloud went to the computer room to make one last try. There, seated at desks, Joan and her four top experts were each completely surrounded by welters of reference books, pamphlets, wadded-up scratch-paper, tapes, and punched cards.
“Hi, Joan—Hi, fellows and gals—why don’t you break down and come on out and get some fresh air?”
“Sorry, Storm, but the answer is still ‘no’. We’ll need all this week, and probably more. . . .” Joan looked up at him and broke off. Her eyes widened and she whistled expressively. “Myohmy, ain’t he the handsomest thing, though? I wish I could go along, Storm, if only to see you lay ’em out in rows!”
For, since Chickladoria was a very warm planet—fully as hot as Tominga had been—Cloud was dressed even more lightly than he had been there; in sandals, breech-clout, and DeLameter harness, the shoulder-strap of the last-named bearing the three silver bars of a commander of the Galactic Patrol. He was not muscled like a gladiator, but his bearing was springily erect, his belly hard and flat, his shoulders were wide, his hips were narrow, and his skin was tanned to a smooth and even richness of brown.
“Wellwell! Not bad, Storm; not bad at all.” One of the men got up and looked him over carefully. “If I looked like that, Joan, I’d play hookey for a couple of days myself. But I wouldn’t dare to—in that kind of a get-up I’d look like something that had crawled out from under a rock and I’d get sunburned from here to there.”
“That’s your own fault, Joe,” a tall, lissom, brunette lieutenant chipped in. “You could have the radiants on while you do your daily dozens, you know. Me, I’m mighty glad that some of the men, and not only us women, like to look nice.”
“Wait a minute, Helen!” Cloud protested, blushing. “That’s not it, and you know it. These fellows don’t have to mix socially with people who run around naked, and I do.”
“And how you hate it.” The other man offered mock sympathy, with a wide and cheerful grin. “How you suffer—I don’t think. But that holster-harness. It looks regulation enough, but isn’t there somehing a little different about it?”
“Yes. Two things.” Cloud grinned back. “Left-handed, and the holster’s anchored so it can’t flop around. Don’t know as I ever told you, but ever since that alleged pirate burned my arm off I’ve been practising the gun-slick’s draw.”
“Did you get it?” Joan asked impishly. “How good are you?”
“Not bad—in fact, I’m getting plenty good,” Cloud admitted. “Come on up to the range sometime with a stop-watch and I’ll show you.”
“I’ll do that. Right now—shall we?”
“Uh-uh. Can’t. I’m due at the High Mayor’s Reception in twenty minutes, and besides, I want to breathe some air that hasn’t been rehabilitated, rejuvenated, recirculated, reprocessed, repurified, and rebreathed until it’s all worn out. Happy landings, gang—I’ll be thinking of you while I’m absorbing all that nice new oxygen and stuff.”
“Particularly the stuff—and especially the liquid stuff!” Joe called after him just before he shut the door on his way out to join Thlaskin and Maluleme.
Going through customs was of course the merest formality, and an aircab whisked them into the city proper. Cloud really did enjoy himself as he strode along the walkway from the cabpark toward the Mayor’s . . . well, if not exactly a palace, it was close enough so as to make no difference. And he did attract plenty of attention. Not because of his dress or his build—most of the men on the street wore less than he did and many of them were just as trim and as fit—but because of the nature and variety of his bodily colors, which were literally astounding to these people, not one in twenty of whom had ever before seen a Tellurian in person.
For Chickladorians are pink; pink all over. Teeth, hair, skin, and nails; all pink. Not the pink of red blood showing through translucency, but that of opaque pigment. Most of their eyes, even—queerly triangular eyes with three lids instead of two—are of that same brick-reddish pink; although a few of the women have eyes of a dark and dusky green.
This visitor’s skin, however, was of a color so monstrous it simply had to be seen to be believed. In fact, it wasn’t the same color in any two places—it VARIED! His teeth were white; a horrible, dead-bone color. His lips, hair, and eyes—funny, round, flat-opening things—were of still other sheerly unbelievable colors—there wasn’t a bit of natural, healthy pink about him anywhere!
Thus the crowds of Chickladorians studied him much more intensively than he studied them; and Maluleme, strutting along at his side, basked visibly in the limelight. And thus, except for the two Chickladorians at his side and except for the unobtrusive but efficient secret-service men who kept the crowding throng in hand, Cloud could very well have been mobbed.
The walk was very short, and at its end:
“How long we got to stay, boss?” Thlaskin asked, in spaceal. “As soon as we can get away we want to join our folks and grab a jet for home.”
“As far as I’m concerned you don’t need to stay at all, or even come. Why?”
“Just checking, is all. His Nibs sent us a special bid, so we got to at least show up. But he don’t know us from nothing, so after we tell him hello and dance a couple of rounds and slurp a couple of slugs we can scram and nobody’ll know it unless you spill.”
“No spill,” Cloud assured him. “You dance with Maluleme first. I’ll take the second—that’ll drive it in that she’s here. After that, flit as soon as you like. For the record, you’ll be here until the last gilot is picked clean.”
“Thanks, boss,” and the three, entering the extravagantly-decorated Grand Ballroom, were escorted ceremoniously up to the Presence and the Notables and their surrounding V. I. P.’s.
They were welcomed effusively, Cloud being informed through several different interpreters that he was the third-most-important human being who had ever lived. He made—through two interpreters, each checking the other’s accuracy—his usual deprecatory speech concerning the extinguishment of loose atomic vortices. He led the Grand March with the president’s wife, a lady whose name he did not quite catch and who, except for a pound or so of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other baubles, was just as bare as Maluleme was. So was the equally heavily bejeweled mayor’s wife, with whom he had the first dance. She was neither young or slender, nor was she sexy. Then, as agreed, he danced with Maluleme, who was—but definitely!—all three.
However, as he circled the floor in time with the really excellent music, he thought, not of the attractive package of femininity in his arms—who was one of his crew and Thlaskin’s wife—but of Joan. She’d been training down, he’d noticed, and wearing more makeup, since those other girls had come aboard. She was getting to be a regular seven-sector callout—he’d like to dance with Joan this way!
There were other dances; some with girls like Maluleme, some with women like Madam Mayor, most with in-betweens. There was food, which he enjoyed thoroughly. There were drinks; which, except for ceremonial beakers of fayalin with the president and the mayor, he did not touch. And, finally, there was the very comfortable bed in his special suite at the hotel. Instead of sleep, however, there came a thing he expected least of any—a sharp, carefully-narrowed Lensed thought.
“This is Tivor Nordquist of Tellus, Commander Cloud, on my Lens,” the thought flowed smoothly in. “I have waited until now so as not to startle you, not to make you show any sign of anything unusual going on. There must be no suspicion whatever that you even know there’s a Lensman on the planet.”
“I can take care of my part of that. One thing, though; I’ve got exactly one week to work with you. One week from today any possible excuse for me staying on Chickladoria goes p-f-f-t.”
“I know. One day should button it up, two at most. Here’s the print. I’m a narcotics man, really but. . . .”
“Oh—Fairchild, eh?”
“Yes. Ellington told me you’re quick on the uptake. Well, all leads to him via any drug channels fizzled out flat. So, since all these zwilnik mobs handle all kinds of corruption—racketeering, gambling, vice, and so on, as well as drugs—we decided to take the next-best line, which turned out to be gambling. After a lot of slow digging we found out that Fairchild’s gang controls at least four planets; Tominga, Vegia, Chickladoria, and Palmer III.”
“What? Why, those planets cover. . . .”
“Check. That’s what made the digging so tough, and that’s why they did it that way. And you’re scheduled for Vegia next, is why I’m meeting you here. But to get back to the story, we haven’t got dope enough to find Fairchild himself except by pure luck. So we decided to make Fairchild’s mob tell us where he is.”
“That’ll be a slick trick if we can do it.”
“Here’s how. Somebody on this planet knows how to call Fairchild in emergencies, so we’ll create an emergency and he’ll do it.”
“My mind is open, but I’m a bit skeptical. What kind of an emergency have you got in mind?”
“Some of the details you’ll have to ad lib as you go along, but it’ll be, basically, bold-faced robbery without a blaster and with them jittery as glaidos because they can’t figure it. I was going to try to do it myself, but I can’t work without my Lens and I can’t come near the hot spots without their spy-rays catching the Lens and blowing the whole show. Doctor Janowick told Phil Strong that she could, without using her sense of perception and after only a short practise run, beat any crooked card game any gambler could dream up—something about random and nonrandom numbers. Can she?”
“Um-m . . . never thought of it . . . random numbers . . . Oh, I see. Yes, she can. Especially the most-played one, that over-and-under-seven thing. And with a little telepathy thrown in, I can do the same with any crooked game they’ve got except a magnetically-controlled wheel; and I could do a fair job on that.”
“Better and better. You and Miss Janowick, then; and be sure and bring Vesta the Vegian along.”
“Vesta? Um . . . Maybe, at that. Adolescent Vegians not only can be, but are, interested in everything that goes on, everywhere. They’re born gamblers, and she’s already got a reputation for throwing money around regardless—and she’s rich enough to afford it. And in a winning streak she’ll stir up so much excitement that nobody will pay any attention to anybody else. However, things being what they are, I’ll have to be mighty careful about letting her go on a gambling spree.”
“Not too much so. Just hint that you won’t fire her if she takes a fling or two at the tables and she’ll be so happy about it and love you so much that she won’t even think of wondering why.”
And so it proved. After a long discussion of details with the Lensman, Cloud went to sleep. The following afternoon he went back to the ship and sought out Vesta, whom he found slinking dejectedly about with her tail almost dragging on the floor. Scarcely had he begun his suggestion, however, when:
“Really, chief?” Vesta’s tail snapped aloft, her pointed ears quivered with eagerness. She hugged him ecstatically, burying her face in the curve of his neck and inhaling deeply. “You zmell zo wonderful, chief—but a wonderful man like you would have to smell zo, wouldn’t he? I thought you’d smack me bow-legged if I even hinted at wanting to lay a ten-cento chip on the line. But I know I can beat the games they’ve got on this planet . . . and besides, I’ve been gone half a year and haven’t spent a hundred credits and I’ve learned nine languages including your cursed English. . . .”
She took out her book of Travelers’ Cheques and stared at it thoughtfully. “Maybe, though, just to be on the safe side, I’d better tear one of these out and hide it in my room. It’d be awful to have to call my mother for jet fare home from the ’port. She and dad both’d yowl to high heaven—they’d claw me ragged.”
“Huh? But listen!” Cloud was puzzled. “If you shoot such a terrific wad as that, what possible difference would it make whether you had plane fare for a few hundred miles left or not?”
“Oh, lots,” she assured him. “They don’t expect me to have much of any of my allowance left when I get home, and I never intended to, anyway. But anybody with half a brain is expected to be able to get home from a party—any kind of a party—without crying for help, and without walking, either; so I’ll go hide one of these slips.”
“If that’s all that’s bothering you, no matter,” Cloud said quickly. “You’ve got another pay day coming before we get to Vegia, you know.”
“Oh, I never thought of that—I’ve never been on a payroll before, you know, and can’t get used to being paid for doing nothing. But can we go now, Captain Nealcloud, please? I can’t wait!”
“If Joan’s ready we can. We’ll go see.”
But Joan was not ready. “Did you actually think she would be?” Helen asked. “Don’t you know that the less a woman puts on the longer it takes her to do it?”
“Nope—I s’posed Doctor Joan Janowick would be above such frippery.”
“You’d be surprised. But say, how’d you talk her into this vacation? Your manly charm, no doubt.”
“Could be, but I doubt it. All she wanted was half an excuse and the promise I wouldn’t get sore if we have to kill a couple of days in space before starting shooting on Vegia . . . Hot Dog!—just look who’s here!”
Joan came in, pausing in embarrassment, at the burst of applause and whistles that greeted her. She was richly, deeply tanned; taut, trim, and dainty—she had trained down to a hundred and fifteen pounds—her bra was a triumph of the couturier’s art. She, too, was armed; her DeLameter harness sported the two-and-a-half silver bars of a lieutenant commander.
“Ouch—I’m bedazzled!” Cloud covered his eyes ostentatiously, then, gradually and equally ostentatiously recovering his sight: “Very nice, Joanie—you’re a veree slick chick. With a dusting of powdered sugar and a dab of cream you’d make a right tasty snack. Just one thing—a bit overdressed, don’t you think?”
“Overdressed!” she exclaimed. “Listen, you—I’ve never worn a bathing suit half as skimpy as this in my whole life, and if you think I’m going to wear any less than this you’re completely out of your mind!”
“Oh, it isn’t me!” Cloud protested. “Patrol Regs are strict that way—when in Rome you’ve got to be a Roman candle, you know.”
“I know, but I’m Roman candle enough right now—in fact, I feel like a flaming skyrocket. Why, this thing I’ve got on is scarcely more than a G-string!”
“QX—we’ll let it pass—this time. . . .”
“Hey, you know something?” Joe interrupted him before Joan did. “Vegia is a couple of degrees warmer than this, and they don’t overdo the matter of clothes there, either. I am going to start basking under the radiants. If I get myself cooked to a nice, golden brown, Helen—like a slice of medium-done toast—will you do Vegiaton with me?”
“It’s a date, brother!”
As Joe and Helen shook hands to seal the agreement, the two Patrol officers and Vesta strode out.
They took a copter to the Club Elysian, the plushiest and one of the biggest places on the planet. The resplendently decorated—in an undressed way, of course—doorman glanced at the DeLameters, but, knowing the side-arm to be the one indispensable item of the Patrol uniform wherever found, he greeted them cordially in impeccable Galactic Spanish and passed them along.
“The second floor, I presume, sir and mesdames?” The host, a very good rule-of-thumb psychologist, classified these visitors instantly and suggested the region where both class and stakes were high. Also, and as promptly, he decided to escort them personally. Two Patrol officers and a Vegian—especially the Vegian—rated special attention.
The second floor was really a place. The pile of the rug was over half an inch deep. The lighting was neither too garish nor too dim. The tastefully-placed paintings and tapestries adorning the walls were neither too large nor too small, each for its place; and each was a masterpiece.
“May we use Patrol currency, or would you rather we took chips?” Cloud asked.
“Either one, sir; just as you wish.”
“We Tellurians are all set, then, but Miss Vesta here would like to cash a few Travelers’ Cheques.”
“Certainly, Miss Vesta. I’ll be delighted to take care of it for you. How do you wish the money, please?”
“I’ll want a little small stuff to get the feel of the house . . . say a thousand in tens and twenties. The rest of it in fifties and hundreds, please—mostly hundreds.”
Vesta peeled off and thumb-printed ten two-thousand credit cheques and the host, bowing gracefully, hurried away.
“One thing, Vesta,” Cloud cautioned. “Don’t throw it away too fast. Save some for next time.”
“Oh, I always do, chief. This’ll last me the week, easily. I run wild only when I’m in a winning streak.”
The host came up with her money; and as Vesta made a beeline for the nearest wheel:
“What do you like, Joan?” Cloud asked. “A wheel?”
“I don’t think so; not at first, anyway. I’ve had better luck with the under-and-overs. They’re over there, aren’t they, sir?”
“Yes, madame. But is there anything I can do first? Refreshments of any kind—an appetizer, perhaps?”
“Not at the moment, thanks.”
“If you wish anything, at any time, just send a boy. I’ll look you up from time to time, to be sure you lack nothing. Thank you very much, sir and madame.”
The host bowed himself away and the two officers strolled over to the bank of “under-and-over” tables, which were all filled. They stood at ease for a few minutes; chatting idly, enjoying their cigarettes, gazing with interest and appreciation around the huge, but wonderfully beautiful room. There was no indication whatever that either of the two Patrolmen was the least bit interested in the fall of the cards, or that two of the keenest mathematical minds in space knew exactly, before the man ahead of them got tired of losing fifty-credit chips, the denomination and the location of every card remaining in the rack.
Joan could, of course, have read either the cards, or the dealer’s mind, or both; but she was not doing either—yet. This was a game—on the side, so to speak—between her and Storm. Nor was it at all unequal, for Cloud’s uncanny ability to solve complex mathematical problems was of very little assistance here. This was a matter of more-or-less simple sequences; of series; of arrangements; and her years of cybernetic training more than made up for his advantage in speed.
“Your pleasure, madame or sir? Or are you together?”
“We’re together, thanks. We’ll take the next, for an M.” Cloud placed a one-thousand-credit note in the velvet-lined box.
Two thin stacks of cards lay on the table at the dealer’s right; one pile face up, the other, face down. He took the top card from the rack, turned it over, and added it to the face-up stack. “The ten of clubs,” he droned, sliding a one-thousand-credit bill across the table to Cloud. “What is your pleasure, sir and madame?”
“Let it ride. Two M’s in the box,” Cloud said, tossing the new bill on top of its mate. “Throw one.”
“Discard one.” The dealer removed the next card and, holding it so that neither he nor the players could see its face, added it to the face-down pile. “What is your pleasure, sir and madame?”
“Throw one.”
“Discard one.”
“We’ll take this one,” and there were four thousand credits in the box.
Throw one take one, and there were eight thousand.
The eight became sixteen; then thirty-two; and the dealer lost his urbanity completely. He looked just plain ugly.
“Maybe that’s enough for now,” Joan suggested. “After all, we don’t want to take all the man’s money.”
“Tightwad’s trick, huh? Quit while yer ahead?” the dealer sneered. “Why’n’cha let ’er ride just once more?”
“If you insist, we will,” Cloud said, “but I’m warning you it’ll cost you thirty two more M’s.”
“That’s what you think, Buster—I think different. Call your play!”
“We’ll take it!” Cloud snapped. “But listen, you clever-fingered jerk—I know just as well as you do that the top card is the king of clubs, and the one below it is the trey of diamonds. So, if you want to stay healthy, move slowly and be damned sure to lift just one card, not two, and take it off the top and not the bottom!”
Glaring in baffled fury, the dealer turned up the king of clubs and paid his loss.
At the next table the results were pretty much the same, and at the third. At the fourth table, however, instead of pyramiding, they played only single M-bills. They lost—won—lost—lost—won—lost—won—lost. In twenty plays they were only two thousand credits ahead.
“I think I’ve got it, Joan,” Cloud said then. “Coming up—eight, six, jack, five, deuce?”
“Uh-uh. I don’t think so. Eight, six, jack, three, one, I think. The trey of spades and the ace of hearts. A two-and-one shift with each full cycle.”
“Um . . . m. Could be . . . but do you think the guy’s that smart?”
“I’m pretty sure of it, Storm. He’s the best dealer they have. He’s been dealing a long time. He knows cards.”
“Well, if you’re done passing out compliments, how about calling a play?” the dealer suggested.
“QX. We’ll take the eight for one M . . . and it is the eight, you notice . . . let it ride . . . throw the six—without looking, of course . . . we’ll take the jack for two M’s. . . .”
The host, accompanied by no less a personage than the manager himself, had come up. They stood quietly and listened as Cloud took three bills out of the box, leaving one, and went on:
“The next card is either a five or a trey. That M there is to find out which it is.”
“Are you sure of that?” the manager asked.
“Not absolutely, of course,” Cloud admitted. “There’s one chance in approximately fourteen million that both my partner and I are wrong.”
“Very good odds. But since you lose in either case, why bet?”
“Because if it’s a trey, she solved your system first. If it’s a five, I beat her to it.”
“I see, but that isn’t necessary.” The manager took the remaining cards out of the rack, and, holding them carefully and firmly, wrapped the M-note tightly around them. Then, picking up the two small stacks of played cards, he handed the whole collection to Cloud, at the same time signalling the dealer to go ahead with his game. “We’ll be smothered in a crowd very shortly, and I would like very much to play with you myself. Will you, sir and madame, be gracious enough to continue play in private?”
“Gladly, sir,” Joan assented, at Cloud’s questioning glance. “If it would not put you out too much.”
“I am delighted,” and, beckoning to a hovering waiter, he went on: “We will have refreshments, of course. In uniform, you might possibly prefer soft drinks? We have some very good Tellurian ginger ale.”
“That’d be fine,” Cloud said, even while he was thinking at the Lensman in contact with his mind: “Safe enough, don’t you think? He couldn’t be thinking of any rough stuff yet.”
“Perfectly safe,” Nordquist agreed. “He’s just curious. Besides, he’s in no shape to handle even the Vortex Blaster alone, to say nothing of the task force he knows would be here two hours after anything happened to either of you.”
The four strolled in friendly fashion to the suggested private room. As soon as they were settled:
“You said the top card would be either a five or a trey,” the manager said. “Shall we look?”
It was the trey of spades. “Congratulations, Joanie, a mighty swell job. You really clobbered me on that one.” He shook her hand vigorously, then handed the bill to the manager. “Here’s your M-note, sir.”
“I couldn’t think of it, sir. No tipping, you know. . . .”
“I know. Not a tip, but your winnings. I called the play, remember. Hence, I insist.”
“Very well, if you insist. But don’t you want to look at the next one?”
“No. It’s the ace of hearts—can’t be anything else.”
“To satisfy my own curiosity, then.” The manager flipped the top card delicately. It was the ace of hearts. “No compulsion, of course, but would you mind telling me how you can possibly do what you have just done?”
“I’ll be glad to,” and this was the simple truth. Cloud had to explain, before the zwilniks began to suspect that they were being taken by an organized force of Lensmen and snoopers. “We aren’t even semi-habitual gamblers. The lieutenant-commander is Doctor Joan Janowick, the Patrol’s ace designer of big, high-speed electronic computers, and I am Neal Cloud, a mathematical analyst.”
“You are ‘Storm’ Cloud, the Vortex Blaster,” the manager corrected him. “A super-computer yourself. I begin to see, I think . . . but go ahead, please.”
“You undoubtedly know that random numbers, which underlie all games of chance, must be just that—purely random, with nothing whatever of system or of orderliness in their distribution. Also that a stacked deck, by definition, is most decidedly not random. We were kicking that idea around, one day, and decided to study stacked decks, to see how systematic such distributions actually were. Well—here’s the new part—we learned that any dealer who stacks a deck of cards does so in some definite pattern; and that pattern, whether conscious or unconscious, is always characteristic of that one individual. The more skilled the dealer, the more complex, precise, complete, and definite the pattern. Any pattern, however complex, can be solved; and, once solved, the cards might just as well be lying face up and all in sight.
“On the other hand, while it is virtually impossible for any dealer to shuffle a deck into a really random condition, it can approach randomness so nearly that the patterns are short and hence very difficult to solve. Also, there are no likenesses or similarities to help. Worst of all, there is the house leverage—the sevens of hearts, diamonds, and clubs, you know—of approximately five point seven seven percent. So it is mathematically certain that she and I would lose, not win, against any dealer who was not stacking his decks.”
“I . . . am . . . surprised. I’m amazed,” the manager said. He was, too; and so was the host. “Heretofore it has always been the guest who loses by manipulation, not the house.” It is noteworthy that neither the manager nor host had at any time denied, even by implication, that their games of “chance” were loaded. “Thanks, immensely, for telling me. . . . By the way, you haven’t done this very often before have you?” the manager smiled ruefully.
“No.” Cloud smiled back. “This is the first time. Why?”
“I thought I would have heard of it if you had. This of course changes my mind about wanting to deal to you myself. In fact, I’ll go farther—any dealer you play with here will be doing his level best to give you a completely random distribution.”
“Fair enough. But we proved our point, which was what we were primarily interested in, anyway. What’ll we do with the rest of the day, Joan—go back to the ship?”
“Uh-uh. This is the most comfortable place I’ve found since we left Tellus, and if I don’t see the ship again for a week it’ll be at least a week too soon. Why don’t you send a boy out with enough money to get us a chess kit? We can engage this room for the rest of the day and work on our game.”
“No need for that—we have all such things here,” the host said quickly. “I’ll send for them at once.”
“No no—no money, please,” the manager said. “I am still in your debt, and as long as you will stay you are my guests. . . .” he paused, then went on in a strangely altered tone: “But chess . . . and Janowick . . . Joan Janowick, not at all a common name . . . surely not Past Grand Master Janowick? She—retired—would be a much older woman.”
“The same—I retired for lack of time, but I still play as much as I can. I’m flattered that you have heard of me.” Joan smiled as though she were making a new and charming acquaintance. “And you? I’m sorry we didn’t introduce ourselves earlier.”
“Permit me to introduce Host Althagar, assistant manager. I am called Thlasoval.”
“Oh, I know of you, Master Thlasoval. I followed your game with Rengodon of Centralia. Your knight-and-bishop end game was a really beautiful thing.”
“Thank you. I am really flattered that you have heard of me. But Commander Cloud. . . ?”
“No, you haven’t heard of him. Perhaps you never will, but believe me, if he had time for tournament play he’d be high on the Grand Masters list. So far on this cruise he’s won one game, I’ve won one, and we’re on the eighty fourth move of the third.”
The paraphernalia arrived and the Tellurians set the game up rapidly and unerringly, each knowing exactly where each piece and pawn belonged.
“You have each lost two pawns, one knight, and one bishop—in eighty three moves?” Thlasoval marveled.
“Right,” Cloud said. “We’re playing for blood. Across this board friendship ceases; and, when dealing with such a pure unadulterated tiger as she is, so does chivalry.”
“If I’m a tiger, I’d hate to say what he is.” Joan glanced up with a grin. “Just study the board, Master Thlasoval, and see for yourself who is doing what to whom. I’m just barely holding him: he’s had me on the defensive for the last forty moves. Attacking him is just like trying to beat in the side of a battleship with your bare fist. Do you see his strategy? Perhaps not, on such short notice.”
Joan was very willing to talk chess at length, because the fact that Fairchild’s Chickladorian manager was a chess Master was an essential part of the Patrol’s plan.
“No . . . I can’t say that I do.”
“You notice he’s concentrating everything he can bring to bear on my left flank. Fifteen moves from now he’d’ve been focused on my King’s Knight’s Third. Three moves after that he was going to exchange his knight for my queen and then mate in four. But, finding out what he was up to, I’ve just derailed his train of operations and he has to revise his whole campaign.”
“No wonder I didn’t see . . . I’m simply not in your class. But would you mind if I stay and look on?”
“We’ll be glad to have you, but it won’t be fast. We’re playing strict tournament rules and taking the full four minutes for each move.”
“That’s quite all right. I really enjoy watching Grand Masters at work.”
Master though he was, Thlasoval had no idea at all of what a terrific game he watched. For Joan Janowick and Neal Cloud were not playing it; they merely moved the pieces. The game had been played long since. Based upon the greatest games of the greatest masters of old, it had been worked out, move by move, by chess masters working with high-speed computers.
Thus, while Joan and Storm were really concentrating, it was not upon chess.