"No he won't," Bailey said in a level tone. Buncey turned to look him up and down. He dandled the gun on his palm.
"Use it or put it away," Bailey said. "We don't bluff."
"Kid, listen-" Gus started.
"You tired of breathing?" the small man inquired softly, curling his fingers around the weapon.
"Don't play dumb," Bailey said. "You've been covered like a bashful bride ever since you came in here."
"Yeah?" the small man said tightly. "Maybe. But I could still blow you down, junior."
"Does your boss want to spend three chips for a couple of front men?"
"Our boss doesn't like small-time competish," the gunman growled.
Bailey showed him a crooked grin. "Dream on, Buncey. We booked in half a million tonight. Does that look like small time?"
"You're cutting your own throat, cheapie-"
"There won't be any throats cut," Bailey said. "Wake up, there's been a change. Our outfit is in-and we're not settling for small change. Our backers are taking a full share."
Buncey snorted. "You're showing your cuff, dummy. The play's backed from the top-all the way up. And it's a closed operation, all tied up, a tight operation. You got no backers. Your bluff is bust-"
"There's more," Bailey said. "Sure, your Cruster bosses have always cut the pie their way. But as of tonight, there's one more slice. And this one stays below decks, where it belongs."
"What are you pulling?" Buncey looked uneasy. "There's not a bundle under the floor that could roll a full book."
"Not until now," Bailey said. "The syndicate changes that."
"Syndicate?"
"That's right. Every operator in Mat'n is with us."
"You're lying," Buncey snapped. "No two Preke grifters could work together for longer than it takes to mug a zek on a string lay!" He brought the gun up with a sure motion. "I'm calling your bet, little man-"
He stiffened at a sound from the hall leading to the back room. A tall, lean man appeared, glancing casually about. He nodded at Aroon, ignoring the gunmen.
"I liked the night's play," Farb said easily. "I'm plowing my cut back in. So are the rest of us." He dropped a stack of fully charged cash cards on the table. Only then did he turn a look on the man called Buncey. "You can go now," he said. "Better put the iron away. We don't want any killing."
Buncey slowly pocketed his gun. "You Prekes are serious," he said. "You think you can buck topside…"
"We know we can-as long as we don't get too greedy," Bailey said. "Try to strong-arm us, and the whole racket blows sky-high. Concede us our ten percent of the action and nobody gets hurt."
"I'll pass the word. If you're bagging air, better look for a hole-a deep one. These things can be checked."
"Check all you want," Farb said. "We like the idea of a little home industry. We're behind it all the way."
After the three had left, Gus slumped into a rump-sprung chair with a guttural sigh.
"Bailey, you walked the thin edge just now. How'd you know they wouldn't call you?"
"They're gamblers," Bailey said. "The percentages were against it." He looked at Farb. "You mean what you said?"
Farb nodded, the glint of honest greed in his eyes. "I don't know where you came from, Bailey, or why: but you worked a play that I wouldn't have given a filed chit for twelve hours ago. Keep it up; you'll have all the weight you want behind you."
7
Three months later, Bailey told Aroon he was leaving.
"The operation's all yours, Gus. I've got what I need. It's time to move on."
"I can't figure you, kid," the older man said, shaking his heavy head. "You take chances that no other guy would touch with a chip-rake-and when they pay off, you bow out. Why not stay on? On your split you could live like a king "Sure I could, here. But there are things that need doing that take more than a fat credit balance. I need a tag, to start with. Can you fix it?"
Gus grunted. "It'll cost you a slice of that pile you've been sitting on."
"That's what it's for."
"Class Three Yellow about right?"
Bailey shook his head. "Class One Blue."
"Are you outa your mind, Bailey?" Aroon yelled. "You can't bluff your way Topside!"
"Why not? I bluffed my way into Preke territory."
"Your roll won't carry you a week up there."
"All I need is the price of admission."
"Face it, Bailey. There's more to it than the loot. You don't look like a Cruster, you don't act like one. How could you? Those babies have all the best from the day they're born, the best food, the best education, the best training! They have their own way of walking and talking, sniffing flowers, making up to a frill! They've got class where it shows, and they can back it up! You can't fake it!"
"Who said anything about faking it, Gus? You must know the name of a reliable tapelegger."
"A print man?" Aroon's voice had automatically dropped to a whisper. "Bailey, that ain't demi-chit stuff. Touch a wrong strip and it's a wiping rap!"
"If I'm caught."
"And anyway-a good tech line is worth a fortune! You couldn't touch even a Class Two tape job for under a quarter million."
"I don't want a tech education," Bailey said. "I want a background cultural fill-in-the kind they give a Cruster after a brain injury or wipe therapy."
"I guess there's no need my asking why you want to load your skull with fancy stuff you'll never use, that'll never buy you a night's flop?" Gus said hoarsely.
"Nope. Can you put me on to a right man?"
"If that's the way you want it."
"It's the way it's got to be for where I've got to go."
Aroon nodded heavily. "I owe you that much-and a lot more. You shook this whole lousy setup to bedrock, something that needed doing for a long time." He rose. "Come on. I'll take you there."
"I'll go alone, Gus. Just give me the name and address, and I'm on my way."
"You don't waste much time, do you, kid?"
"I don't have much time to waste."
"What is it you got to do that's eating at you?"
Bailey frowned. "I don't know. I just know the time is short for me to do it."
8
It was a narrow, high-ceilinged room, walled with faded rose and gold paper, furnished with glossy dark antiques perched around the edge of a carpet from which the floral pattern was almost worn away. An elaborate chandelier fitted with ancient flame-shaped incandescent bulbs hung from a black iron chain. Tarnished gilt lettering winked from the cracked leather spines of books in a glass-fronted case. The man who surveyed Bailey from the depths of a curve-legged wing chair was lean, withered, with a face like a fallen soufflй. Only his eyes moved, assessing his customer.
"Do you have any idea what it is you're asking?" he inquired in a voice like dry leaves stirred by the wind. "Do you imagine that by absorbing from an illegally transcribed cephalotape the background appropriate to a gentleman of birth and breeding, that you will be magically transformed from your present lowly state?"
"Can you supply what I want, or can't you?" Bailey said patiently.
"I can supply a full Class One socio-cultural matrix, yes," the old man snapped. "As to providing a magical entrйe into high places-"
"If what you've got to offer won't fill the bill, I'll be on my way." Bailey got to his feet. The old man rose quickly, stood stoop-backed, eyeing him.
"Why aren't you content to absorb a useful skill, a practical knowledge of a saleable trade? Why these grandiose aspirations to a place you can never fill?"
"That's my business," Bailey said. "Yes or no?"
The old man's puckered face tightened. "You're a fool," he said. "Come with me."
9
In a back room, Bailey took a seat in a worn leather-covered reclining chair; the tapelegger clucked and muttered to himself as he attached the electrodes to Bailey's skull, referring frequently to the dials on the wheeled cart beside him. As he pressed buttons, Bailey felt the stirrings and tinglings of the neuro-electric currents induced within his brain by the teaching machine.