Chapter VI: Part 6

“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 ver_ee_ 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.

_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.”

-----

[3] A few months later, Joan did send him the full game, which white of course won. Thlasoval studied it in secret for over five years; and then, deciding correctly that he never would be able to understand its terrifically complex strategy, he destroyed the tape. It is perhaps superfluous to all that this game was never published. E.E.S.

_Chapter 15_
▂▂▂▂▂▂JOAN AND HER BRAINS

THE TRIP FROM Chickladoria to Vegia, while fairly long, was uneventful.

Joan spent her working hours, of course, at her regular job of rebuilding the giant computer. Cloud spent his at the galactic chart or in the control room staring into a tank; classifying, analyzing, building up and knocking down hypotheses and theories, wringing every possible drop of knowledge from all the data he could collect.

In their “spare” time, of which each had quite a great deal, they worked together at their telepathy; to such good purpose that, when so working, verbal communication between them became rarer and rarer. And, alone or in a crowd, within sight of each other or not, in any place or at any time, asleep or awake, each had only to think at the other and they were instantly in full mental rapport.

And oftener and oftener there came those instantaneously-fleeting touches of something infinitely more than mere telepathy; that fusion of minds which was so ultimately intimate that neither of the two could have said whether he longed for or dreaded its full coming the more. In fact, for several days before reaching Vegia, each knew that they could bring about that full fusion any time they chose to do so; but both shied away from its consummation, each as violently as the other.

Thus the trip did not seem nearly as long as it actually was.

The first order of business on Vegia, of course, was the extinguishment of its five loose atomic vortices—for which reason this was to be pretty much a planetary holiday, although that is of little concern here.

As the _Vortex Blaster II_ began settling into position, the two scientists took their places. Cloud was apparently his usual self-controlled self, but Joan was white and strained—almost shaking. He sent her a steadying thought, but her block was up, solid.

“Don’t take it so hard, Joanie,” he said, soberly. “Margie’ll take ’em, I hope—but even if she doesn’t, there’s a dozen things not tried yet.”

“That’s just the trouble—there _aren’t_! We put just about everything we had into Lulu; Margie is only a few milliseconds better. _Perhaps_ there are a dozen things not tried yet, but I haven’t the faintest, foggiest smidgeon of an idea of what any of them could be. Margie is the last word, Storm—the best analogue computer it is possible to build with today’s knowledge.”

“And I haven’t been a lick of help. I wish I could be, Joan.”

“I don’t see how you can be. . . . Oh, excuse me, Storm, I didn’t mean that half the way it sounds. Do you want to check the circuitry? I’ll send for the prints.”

“No, I couldn’t even carry your water-bottle on that part of the job. I’ve got just a sort of a dim, half-baked idea that there’s a possibility that maybe I haven’t been giving you and your brains a square deal. By studying the graphs of the next three or four tests maybe I can find out whether. . . .”

“Lieutenant-Commander Janowick, we are in position,” a crisp voice came from the speaker. “You may take over when ready, madam.”

“Thank you, sir.” Joan flipped a switch and Margie took control of the ship and its armament—subject only to Cloud’s overriding right to fire at will.

“Just a minute, Storm,” Joan said then. “Unfinished business. Whether what?”

“Whether there’s anything I can do—or fail to do—that might help; but I’ve got to have a lot more data.”

Cloud turned to his chart, Joan to hers; and nothing happened until Cloud blew out the vortex himself.

The same lack of something happened in the case of the next vortex, and also the next. Then, as the instruments began working in earnest on the fourth, Cloud reviewed in his mind the figures of the three previous trials. On the first vortex, a big toughie, Margie had been two hundred fifty milliseconds short. On the second, a fairly small one, she had come up to seventy-five. On Number Three, middle-sized, the lag had been one twenty-five. That made sense. Lag was proportional to activity and it was just too bad for Margie. And just too _damn_ bad for Joanie—the poor kid was just about to blow her stack. . . .

But wait a minute! What’s this? This number four’s a little bit of a new one, about as small as they ever come. Margie ought to be taking it, if she’s ever going to take anything . . . but she isn’t! She’s running damn near three hundred mils behind! Why? Oh—amplitudes—frequencies extreme instability. . . . Lag isn’t proportional _only_ to activity, then, but jointly to activity and to instability.

That gives us a chance—but what in all nine of Palain’s purple _hells_ is that machine _doing_ with that data?

He started to climb out of his bucket seat to go around to talk to Joan right then, but changed his mind at his first move. Even if Margie _could_ handle this little one it wouldn’t be a real test, and it’d be a crying shame to give Joan a success here and then kick her in the teeth with a flat failure next time. No, the next one, the only one left and Vegia’s worst, would be the one. If Margie could handle _that_, she could snuff anything the galaxy had to offer.

Hence Cloud extinguished this one, too, himself. The _Vortex Blaster II_ darted to its last Vegian objective and lined itself up for business. Joan put Margie to work as usual; but Storm, for the first time, did not take his own place. Instead, he came around and stood behind Joan’s chair.

“How’re we doing, little chum?” he asked.

“Rotten!” Joan’s block was still up; her voice was choked with tears. “She’s come so close half a dozen times today—why—_why_ can’t I get that last fraction of a second?”

“Maybe you can.” As though it were the most natural thing in the world—which in fact it was—Cloud put his left arm around her shoulders and exerted a gentle pressure. “Bars down, chum—we can think a lot clearer than we can talk.”

“That’s better,” as her guard went down. “Your differential ’scope looks like it’s set at about one centimeter to the second. Can you give it enough vertical gain to make it about five?”

“Yes. Ten if you like, but the trace would keep jumping the screen on the down-swings.”

“I wouldn’t care about that—closest approach is all I want. Give it full gain.”

“QX, but why?” Joan demanded, as she made the requested adjustment. “Did you find out something I can’t dig deep enough in your mind to pry loose?”

“Don’t know yet whether I did or not—I can tell you in a couple of minutes,” and Cloud concentrated his full attention upon the chart and its adjacent oscilloscope screen.

One pen of the chart was drawing a thin, wildly-wavering red line. A few seconds behind it a second pen was tracing the red line in black; tracing it so exactly that not the tiniest touch of red was to be seen anywhere along the black. And on the screen of the differential oscilloscope the fine green saw-tooth wave-form of the electronic trace, which gave continuously the instantaneous value of the brain’s shortage in time, flickered insanely and apparently reasonlessly up and down; occasionally falling clear off the bottom of the screen. If that needle-pointed trace should touch the zero line, however briefly, Margie the Brain would act; but it was not coming within one full centimeter of touching.

“The feeling that these failures have been partly, or even mostly, my fault is growing on me,” Cloud thought, tightening his arm a little: and Joan, if anything, yielded to the pressure instead of fighting away from it. “Maybe I haven’t been waiting long enough to give your brains the leeway they need. To check: I’ve been assuming all along that they work in pretty much the same way I do; that they handle all the data, out to the limit of validity of the equations, but aren’t fast enough to work out a three-point-six-second prediction.

“But if I’m reading those curves right Margie simply isn’t working that way. She doesn’t seem to be extrapolating _anything_ more than three and a half seconds ahead—’way short of the reliability limit—and sometimes a lot less than that. She isn’t _accepting_ data far enough ahead. She acts as though she can gulp down just so much information without choking on it—so much and no more.”

“Exactly. An over-simplification, of course, since it isn’t the kind of choking that giving her a bigger throat would cure, but very well put.” Joan’s right hand crept across her body, rested on Cloud’s wrist, and helped his squeeze, while her face turned more directly toward the face so close to hers. “That’s inherent in the design of all really fast machines . . . and we simply don’t know any way of getting away from it. . . . Why? What has that to do with the case?”

“A lot—I hope. When I was working in a flitter I had to wait up to half an hour sometimes, for the sigma curve to stabilize enough so that the equations would hold valid will give a longer valid prediction.”

“Stabilize? How? I’ve never seen a sigma curve flatten out. Or does ‘stabilize’ have a special meaning for you vortex experts?”

“Could be. It’s what happens when a sigma becomes a little more regular than usual, so that a simpler equation will give a longer valid prediction.”

“I see; and a difference in wave-form that would be imperceptible to me might mean a lot to you.”

“Right. It just occurred to me that a similar line of reasoning may hold for this seemingly entirely different set of conditions. The less unstable the curve, the less complicated the equations and the smaller the volume of actual data. . . .”

“Oh!” Joan’s thought soared high. “So Margie may work _yet_, if we wait a while?”

“Check. Browning can’t take the ship away from you, can he?”

“No. Nobody can do anything until the job is done or I punch that red ‘stop’ button there. D’you suppose she _can_ do it? Storm? How long can we wait?”

“Half an hour, I’d say. No, to settle the point definitely, let’s wait until I can get a full ten-second prediction and see what Margie’s doing about the situation then.”

“Wonderful! But in that case, it might be a good idea for you to be looking at the chart, don’t you think?” she asked, pointedly. His eyes, at the moment, were looking directly into hers, from a distance of approximately twelve inches.

“I’ll look at it later, but right now I’m. . . .”

The ship quivered under the terrific, the unmistakable trip-hammer blow of propellant heptadetonite. Unobserved by either of the two scientists most concerned, the sigma curve had, momentarily, become a trifle less irregular. The point of the saw-tooth wave had touched the zero line. Margie had acted. The visiplate, from which the heavily-filtered glare of the vortex had blazed so long, went suddenly black.

“_She did it_, Storm!” Joan’s thought was a mental shriek of pure joy. “_She really worked!_”

Whether, when the ship went free, Joan pulled Storm down to her merely to anchor him, or for some other reason; whether Cloud grabbed her merely in lieu of a safety-line or not; which of the two was first to put arms around the other; these are moot points impossible of decision at this date. The fact is, however, that the two scientists held a remarkably unscientific pose for a good two minutes before Joan thought that she ought to object a little, just on general principles. Even then, she did not object with her mind; instead she put up her block and used her voice.

“But, after all, Storm,” she began, only to be silenced as beloved women have been silenced throughout the ages. She cut her screen then, and her mind, tender and unafraid, reached out to his.

“This might be the perfect time, dear, to merge our minds? I’ve been scared to death of it all along, but no more . . . let’s?”

“Uh-huh,” he demurred. “I’m _still_ afraid of it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and doing some drilling, and the more I play with it the more scared I get. It’s dangerous. It’s like playing with duodec. I’ve just about decided that we’d better let it drop.”

“Afraid? For yourself, or for me? Don’t try to lie with your mind, Storm; you can’t do it. You’re afraid only for me, and you needn’t be. I’ve been thinking, too, and digging deep, and I know I’m ready.” She looked up at him then, her quick, bright, impish grin very much in evidence. “Let’s go.”

“QX, Joanie, and thanks. I’ve been wanting this more than I ever wanted anything before in my life. But not holding hands, this time. Heart to heart and cheek to cheek.”

“Check—the closer the better.”