Masters of the Vortex by E. E. Smith - HTML preview

Chapter 14
 ______VESTA THE GAMBLER

JOAN WAS HANDLING the card games, Cloud the wheels. The suggestion that it would be smart to run honest games had been implanted in the zwilniks’ minds, not because of the cards, but because of the wheels; for a loaded, braked, and magnetized wheel is a very tough device to beat.

Joan, then, would read a deck of cards, and a Lensman or a Rigellian would watch her do it. Then the observing telepath would, all imperceptibly, insert hunches into the mind of a player. And what gambler has ever questioned his hunches, especially when they pay off time after time after time? Thus more and more players began to win with greater or lesser regularity and the gambling fever—the most contagious and infectious disorder known to man—spread throughout the vast room like a conflagration in a box-factory.

And Storm Cloud was handling the wheels.

“Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, before the ball enters Zone Green,” the croupiers intoned. “The screens go up, no bets can be placed while the ball is in the Green.”

If the wheels had not been rigged, Cloud could have computed with ease the exact number upon which each ball would come to rest. In such case the Patrol forces would not, of course, have given Vesta the Vegian complete or accurate information. With her temperament and her bank-roll, she would have put the place out of business in an hour; and such a single-handed killing was not at all what the Patrol desired.

But the wheels, of course, were rigged. Cloud was being informed, however, of every pertinent fact. He knew the exact point at which the ball crossed the green borderline. He knew its exact velocity. He knew precisely the strengths of the magnetic fields and the permeabilities, reluctances, and so on, of all the materials involved. He knew just about how much braking force could be applied without tipping off the players and transforming them instantly into a blood-thirsty mob. And finally, he was backed by Lensmen who could at need interfere with the physical processes of the croupiers without any knowledge on the part of the victims.

Hence Cloud did well enough—and when a house is paying thirty-five to one on odds that have been cut down to eight or ten to one, it is very, very bad for the house.

Vesta started playing conservatively enough. She went from wheel to wheel, tail high in air and purring happily to herself, slapping down ten-credit notes until she won.

“This is the wheel I like!” she exclaimed, and went to twenties. Still unperturbed, still gay, she watched nine of them move away under the croupier’s rake. Then she won again.

Then fifties. Then hundreds. She wasn’t gay now, nor purring. She wasn’t exactly tense, yet, but she was warming up. As the tenth C-note disappeared, a Chickladorian beside her said:

“Why don’t you play the colors, miss? Or combinations? You don’t lose so much that way.”

“No, and you don’t win so much, either. When I’m gambling I gamble, brother . . . and wait just a minute . . .” the croupier paid her three M’s and an L. . . . “See what I mean?”

The crowd was going not-so-slowly mad. Assistant Manager Althagar did what he could. He ordered all rigging and gimmicks off, and the house still lost. On again, off again; and losses still skyrocketed. Then, hurrying over to the door of a private room, he knocked lightly, opened the door, and beckoned to Thlasoval.

“All hell’s out for noon!” he whispered intensely as the manager reached the doorway. “The crowd’s winning like crazy—everybody’s winning! D’you s’pose it’s them damn Patrolmen there crossing us up—and how in hell could it be?”

“Have you tried cutting out the gimmicks?”

“Yes. No difference.”

“It can’t be them, then. It couldn’t be anyway, for two reasons. The kind of brains it takes to work that kind of problems in your head can’t happen once in a hundred million times, and you say everybody’s doing it. They can’t be, dammit! Two, they’re Grand Masters playing chess. You play chess yourself.”

“You know I do. I’m not a Master, but I’m pretty good.”

“Good enough to tell by looking at ’em that they don’t give a damn about what’s going on out there. Come on in.”

“We’ll disturb ’em and they’ll be sore as hell.”

“You couldn’t disturb these two, short of yelling in their ear or joggling the board.” The two walked toward the table. “See what I mean?”

The two players, forearms on table, were sitting rigidly still, staring as though entranced at the board, neither moving so much as an eye. As the two Chickladorians watched, Cloud’s left forearm, pivoting on the elbow, swung out and he moved his knight.

“Oh, no . . . no!” Shocked out of silence, Thlasoval muttered the words under his breath. “Your queen, man—your queen!”

But this opportunity, so evident to the observer, did not seem at all attractive to the woman, who sat motionless for minute after minute.

“But come on, boss, and look this mess over,” the assistant urged. “You’re on plus time now.”

“I suppose so.” They turned away from the enigma. “But why didn’t she take his queen? I couldn’t see a thing to keep her from doing it. I would have.”

“So would I. However, almost all the pieces on that board are vulnerable, some way or other. Probably whichever one starts the shin-kicking will come out at the little end of the horn.”

“Could be, but it won’t be kicking shins. It’ll be slaughter—and how I’d like to be there when the slaughter starts! And I still don’t see why she didn’t grab that queen. . . .”

“Well, you can ask her, maybe, when they leave. But right now you’d better forget chess and take a good, long gander at what that Vegian hell-cat is doing. She’s wilder than a Radelgian cateagle and hotter than a DeLameter. She’s gone just completely nuts.”

Tense, strained, taut as a violin-string in every visible muscle, Vesta stood at a wheel; gripping the ledge of the table so fiercely that enamel was flaking off the metal and plastic under her stiff, sharp nails. Jaws hard set and eyes almost invisible slits, she growled deep in her throat at every bet she put down. And those bets were all alike—ten thousand credits each—and she was still playing the numbers straight. They watched her lose eighty thousand credits; then watched her collect three hundred and fifty thousand.

Thlasoval made the rounds, then; did everything he could to impede the outward flow of cash, finding that there wasn’t much of anything he could do. He beckoned his assistant.

“This is bad, Althagar, believe me,” he said. “And I simply can’t figure any part of it . . . unless. . . .” His voice died away.

“You said it. I can’t, either. Unless it’s them two chess-players in there, and I’ll buy it that it ain’t, I haven’t even got a guess . . . unless there could be some Lensmen mixed up in it somewhere. They could do just about anything.”

“Lensmen? Rocket-juice! There aren’t any—we spy-ray everybody that comes in.”

“Outside, maybe, peeking in. Or some other snoopers, maybe, somewhere?”

“I can’t see it. We’ve had Lensmen in here dozens of times, for one reason or another, business and social both, and they’ve always shot straight pool. Besides, all they’re getting is money, and what in all eleven hells of Telemanchia would the Patrol want of our money? If they wanted us for anything they’d come and get us, but they wouldn’t give a cockeyed tinker’s damn for our money. They’ve already got all the money there is!”

“That’s so, too. Money . . . hm, money in gobs and slathers. . . . Oh, you think . . . the Mob? D’ya s’pose it’s got so big for its britches it thinks it can take us on?”

“I wouldn’t think they could be that silly. It’s a lot more reasonable, though, than that the Patrol would be horsing around this way.”

“But how? Great Kalastho, how?”

“How do I know? Snoopers, as you said—or perceivers, or any other ringers they could ring in on us.”

“Nuts!” the assistant retorted. “Just who do you figure as ringers? The Vegian isn’t a snooper, she’s just a gambling fool. No Chickladorian was ever a snooper, or a perceiver either, and these people are just about all regular customers. And everybody’s winning. So just where does that put you?”

“Up the creek—I know. But dammit, there’s got to be snoopery or some other funny stuff somewhere in this!”

“Uh-uh. Did you ever hear of a perceiver who could read a deck or spot a gimmick from half a block away?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. But what stops me is what can we do about it? If the Mob is forted up in that hotel across the street or somewhere beside or behind us . . . there isn’t a damn thing we can do. They’d have more gunnies than we could send in, even if we knew exactly where they were, and we can’t send a young army barging around without anything but a flimsy suspicion to go on—the lawmen would throw us in the clink in nothing flat. . . . Besides, this Mob idea isn’t exactly solid, either. How’d they get their cut from all these people? Especially the Vegian?”

“The Vegian, probably not; the rest, probably so. They could have passed the word around that this is the big day. Anybody’d split fifty-fifty on a cold sure thing.”

“Uh-uh. I won’t buy that, either. I’d’ve known about it—somebody would have leaked. No matter how you figure it, it doesn’t add up.”

“Well, then?”

“Only one thing we can do. Close down. While you’re doing that I’ll go shoot in a Class A Double Prime Urgent to top brass.”

Hence Vesta’s croupier soon announced to his clientele that all betting was off, at least until the following day. All guests would please leave the building as soon as possible.

For a couple of minutes Vesta simply could not take in the import of the announcement. She was stunned. Then:

“Whee . . . yow . . . ow . . . erow!” she yowled, at the top of her not inconsiderable voice. “I’ve won . . . I’ve won . . . I’VE WON!” She quieted down a little, still shell-shocked, then looked around and ran toward the nearest familiar face, which was that of the assistant manager. “Oh, senor Althagar, do you actually want me to quit while I’m ahead? Why, I never heard of such a thing—it certainly never happened to me before! And I’m going to stop gambling entirely—I’ll never get such a thrill as this again if I live a million years!”

“You’re so right, Miss Vesta—you never will.” Althagar smiled—as though he had just eaten three lemons without sugar, to be sure, but it was still a smile. “It’s not that we want you to quit, but simply that we can’t pay any more losses. Right now I am most powerfully psychic, so take my advice, my dear, and stop.”

“I’m going to—honestly, I am.” Vesta straightened out the thick sheaf of bills she held in her right hand, noticing that they were all ten-thousands. She dug around in her bulging pouch; had to dig half-way to the bottom before she could find anything smaller. With a startled gasp she crammed the handful of bills in on top of the others and managed, just barely, to close and lock the pouch. “Oh, I’ve got to fly—I must find my boss and tell him all about this!”

“Would you like an armed escort to your hotel?”

“That won’t be necessary, thanks. I’m going to take a copter direct to the ship.”

And she did.

It was not until the crowd was almost all gone that either Thlasoval or Althagar even thought of the two chess-players. Then one signalled the other and they went together to the private room, into it, and up to the chess-table. To the casual eye, neither player had moved. The board, too, showed comparatively little change; at least, the carnage anticipated by Thlasoval had not materialized.

Althagar coughed discreetly; then again, a little louder. “Sir and madam, please. . . .” he began.

“I told you they’d be dead to the world,” Thlasoval said; and, bending over, lifted one side of the board. Oh, very gently, and not nearly enough to dislodge any one of the pieces, but the tiny action produced disproportionately large results. Both players started as though a bomb had exploded beside them, and Joan uttered a half-stifled scream. With visible efforts, they brought themselves down from the heights to the there and the then. Cloud stretched prodigiously; and Joan, emulating him, had to bring one hand down to cover a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Excuse me, Grand Master Janowick and Commander Cloud, but the Club is being closed for repairs and we must ask you to leave the building.”

“Closed?” Joan parroted, stupidly, and:

“For repairs?” Cloud added, with equal brilliance.

“Closed. For repairs.” Thlasoval repeated, firmly. Then, seeing that his guests were coming back to life quite nicely, he offered Joan his arm and started for the door.

“Oh, yes, Grand Master Janowick,” he said en route. “May I ask why you refused the Commander’s queen?”

“He would have gained such an advantage in position as to mate in twelve moves.”

“I see . . . thanks.” He didn’t, at all, but he had to say something. “I wonder . . . would it be possible for me to find out how this game comes out?”

“Why, I suppose so.” Joan thought for a moment. “Certainly. If you’ll give me your card I’ll send you a tape of it after we finish.”[3]

The two Patrolmen boarded a copter. Joan looked subdued, almost forlorn. Cloud took her hand and squeezed it gently.

“Don’t take it so hard, Joan,” he thought. He found it remarkably easy to send to her now; in fact, telepathy was easier and simpler and more natural than talking. “We had it to do.”

“I suppose so; but it was a dirty, slimy, stinking, filthy trick, Storm. I’m ashamed . . . I feel soiled.”

“I know how you feel. I’m not so happy about the thing, either. But when you think of thionite, and what that stuff means. . . ?”

“That’s true, of course . . . and they stole the money in the first place. . . . Not that two wrongs, or even three or four, make a right . . . but it does help.”

She cheered up a little, but she was not yet her usual self when they boarded the Vortex Blaster II.

Vesta met them just inside the lock. “Oh, chief, I won—I won!” she shrieked, tail waving frantically in air. “Where’d you go after the club closed? I looked all over for you—do you know how much I won, Captain Nealcloud?”

“Haven’t any idea. How much?”

“One million seven hundred sixty two thousand eight hundred and ten credits! Yow-wow-yow!”

“Whew!” Cloud whistled in amazement. “And you’re figuring on giving it all back to ’em tomorrow?”

“I . . . I haven’t quite decided.” Vesta sobered instantly. “What do you think, chief?”

“Not being a gambler, I don’t have hunches very often, but I’ve got one now. In fact, I know one thing for certain damn sure. There isn’t one chance in seven thousand million of anything like this ever happening to you again. You’ll lose your shirt—that is, if you had a shirt to lose,” he added hastily.

“You know, I think you’re right? I thought so myself, and you’re the second smart man to tell me the same thing.”

“Who was the first one?”

“That man at the club, Althagar, his name was. So, with three hunches on the same play, I’d be a fool not to play it that way. Besides, I’ll never get another wallop like that . . . my uncle’s been wanting me to be linguist in his bank, and with a million and three-quarters of my own I could buy half his bank and be a linguist and a cashier both. Then I couldn’t ever gamble again.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Because Vegians, especially young Vegians, like me, haven’t got any sense when it comes to gambling,” Vesta explained, gravely. “They can’t tell the difference between their own money and the bank’s. So everybody who amounts to anything in a bank makes a no-gambling declaration and if one ever slips the insurance company boots him out on his ear and he takes a blaster and burns his head off. . . .”

Cloud flashed a thought at Joan. “Is this another of your strictly Vegian customs?”

“Not mine; I never heard of it before,” she flashed back. “Very much in character, though, and it explains why Vegian bankers are regarded as being very much the upper crust.”

“. . . so I am going to buy half of that bank. Thanks, chief, for helping me make up my mind. Good night, you two lovely people; I’m going to bed. I’m just about bushed.” Vesta, tail high and with a completely new dignity in her bearing, strode away.

“Me, too, Storm; on both counts,” Joan thought at Cloud. “You ought to hit the hammock, too, instead of working half the night yet.”

“Maybe so, but I want to know how things came out, and besides they may want some quick figuring done. Good night, little chum.” His parting thought, while commonplace enough in phraseology, was in fact sheer caress; and Joan’s mind, warmly intimate, accepted it as such and returned it in kind.

Cloud left the ship and rode a scooter across the field to a very ordinary-looking freighter. In that vessel’s control room, however, there were three Lensmen and five Rigellians, all clustered around a tank-chart of a considerable fraction of the First Galaxy.

“Hi, Cloud!” Nordquist greeted him with a Lensed thought and introduced him to the others. “All our thanks for a really beautiful job of work. We’ll thank Miss Janowick tomorrow, when she’ll have a better perspective. Want to look?”

“I certainly do. Thanks.” Cloud joined the group at the chart and Nordquist poured knowledge into his mind.

Thlasoval, the boss of Chickladoria, had been under full mental surveillance every minute of every day. The scheme had worked perfectly. As the club closed, Thlasoval had sent the expected message; not by ordinary communications channels, of course, but via long-distance beamer. It was beamed three ways; to Tominga, Vegia, and Palmer III. That proved that Fairchild wasn’t on Chickladoria; if he had been, Thlasoval would have used a broadcaster, not a beamer.

Shows had been staged simultaneously on all four of Fairchild’s planets, and only on Vegia had the planetary manager’s message been broadcast. Fairchild was on Vegia, and he wouldn’t leave it: a screen had been thrown around the planet that a microbe couldn’t squirm through and it wouldn’t be relaxed until Fairchild was caught.

“Simultaneous shows?” Cloud interrupted the flow of information. “On four planets? He won’t connect the Vortex Blaster with it, at all, then.”

“We think he will,” the Lensman thought, narrowing down. “We’re dealing with a very shrewd operator. We hope he does, anyway, because a snooper put on you or any one of your key people would be manna from heaven for us.”

“But how could he suspect us?” Cloud demanded. “We couldn’t have been on four planets at once.”

“You will have been on three of them, though; and I can tell you now that routing was not exactly coincidence.”

“Oh . . . and I wasn’t informed?”

“No. Top Brass didn’t want to disturb you too much, especially since we hoped to catch him before things got this far along. But you’re in it now, clear to the neck. You and your people will be under surveillance every second, from here on in, and you’ll be covered as no chief of state was ever covered in all history.”