"I do," insisted the gambler. "I want to try something new. These shells," he explained. "As I move them about I slip this little ball beneath one. I can manipulate it as I wish." His pudgy hands moved the shells with deft skill. "Right. Now pick out the shell with the ball. Guess correctly and I will give you five. Guess wrongly and you pay me the same. Deal?"
"The odds are in your favor," pointed out Dumarest. "Two to one."
Ewan shrugged. "The house has to have some edge. Now pick."
Dumarest smiled and rested the tip of a finger on one of the shells. It was the finger on which he wore his ring. With his free hand he tipped the remaining two shells over. Neither hid the little ball.
"This one," he said, tapping the remaining hemisphere. "Pay me."
Ewan scowled. "You cheated. That isn't the right way to play."
"It's my way," said Dumarest, "and others will do the same. You've had a cheap lesson; take my advice and stick to cards and dice. It will be safer."
Ewan handed over the money. "Not if you're with me, Earl," he said. "How about it? A fifth of the profit if you will act as bodyguard and shill."
Dumarest shook his head.
"A quarter then? I can't make it more. I've got to pay for the concession, hold capital for the next season and hold more for emergencies. A quarter, Earl, just for standing by in case of trouble and leading, the betting. You could do it in your sleep. Certain cash, Earl, a high passage at least; you can't lose."
The gambler frowned as Dumarest showed no interest.
"What's the alternative?" he demanded. "Acting as guide to some fat tourist, risking your life hunting rare spores, collecting fungi for the processing sheds?" Ewan blew out his cheeks and shook his head. "You should know better; there are easier ways to make money. You're fast, quick as any man I've seen. You've got a look about you which would make any trouble-maker think twice. A third. Earl. That's as high as I can go. A clear third of the profit. What do you say?"
"Thank you," said Dumarest, "but no."
"A gambling layout is a good place to pick up gossip," said Ewan shrewdly. "Most of the new arrivals want to test their luck and they talk while doing it." He picked up a deck of cards and riffled them, his pudgy fingers almost covering the slips of plastic. "Sure you won't change your mind?"
"If I do I'll let you know," said Dumarest. He hesitated, looking down at the gambler. Had Ewan been trying to tell him something? He resisted the impulse to find out. Two men were dead and the less said about either of them the better.
He crossed to where a layout of colored holograms showed a variety of fungi in all stages of growth in perfect, three-dimensional representation. Each was labeled. The display was the property of a company operating the processing sheds and the fungi were the strains they wanted.
"Simple, safe and secure," said an ironic voice at his side. "All you have to do, Earl, is to turn yourself into a mobile hopper. Go out and drag back a few tons of fungi and, with luck, you'll get enough profit to keep you in food for a week."
"You don't have to do it," said Dumarest evenly. "No one is holding a knife to your throat."
Heldar coughed, holding his hand before his mouth as he fought for air. "Damn spores," he muttered at last. "One in the lungs is one too many." He scowled at the display. "You don't know," he said bitterly. "When hunger has you by the guts you don't stop to think of what the small print says. You just want a square meal."
"And you got it," said Dumarest. "So why are you complaining?"
Heldar scowled. "It's all right for you," he said. "You've got money. You can-"
He broke off, looking upwards. Dumarest followed his example. Every man in the place stopped what he was doing and stared at the roof.
The silence was almost tangible.
For weeks they had been deafened by the unremitting thunder of winter rain.
Chapter Two
The captain was effusive with his apologies. "My lord," he said, bowing, "my lady, I regret to inform you that we are no longer on schedule."
Jocelyn raised his eyebrows. "Regret?"
His wife was more to the point. "Why?" she demanded. "How can it be that we are as you say? Are you no longer capable of plotting a simple course from star to star?"
The captain bowed even more deeply. As master of the sole vessel owned by the ruler of Jest, his position was an enviable one; and if at times he wished that his command had been a little more modern, he kept such thoughts to himself.
"We became embroiled in the fringe of an interstellar storm, my lady," he explained. "The magnetic flux disturbed our instruments and retarded our passage a matter of some three days. I can, of course, accelerate our speed if you so desire."
As you could have done in the first place, thought Jocelyn. So why report the matter at all? Fear, he decided To safeguard himself against the report of a spy, to insure himself against the ambition of a junior officer. He felt his lips twist into a familiar wryness. Did he really appear so formidable?
"My lord?" The captain was sweating. "My lady?"
"You shall be flogged," snapped Adrienne, "stripped of your command! I shall-"
"Do nothing without due consideration," interrupted Jocelyn curtly. "The man is hardly to blame for the elements, and on Jest, we do not use the barbaric means of punishment common on other worlds."
"Barbaric!" He had touched her. Spots of color glowed on her thin cheeks, the anger reflecting itself in her narrowed eyes. "Are you referring to Eldfane?"
"Did I mention your home world?" Jocelyn smiled into her eyes. "You are too sensitive, my dear, too quick to take offense. But the fault is not yours. Those who trained you when young are to blame; they discouraged your childish laughter. That was wrong. In this universe, my darling wife, laughter is the only answer a man can make to his destiny, the only challenge he can throw into the faces of his gods."
"Superstition!" Contempt replaced her anger. "My father warned me of your peculiar ways. That is why-" She broke off, conscious of the listening captain. "Why do you linger?"
"My lady." His bow was mechanical, an automatic response rooted in defense. "My lord," he said straightening, "I await your instructions."
"Have they changed?" Jocelyn frowned. "Are we not proceeding to Jest?"
"We were, my lord, but the storm has placed us in a peculiar relationship. We are equidistant from both Jest and Scar and our relative speed is common to both. That means we can reach either in the same amount of time." The captain took a deep breath. "I am not a superstitious man, my lord, but the workings of destiny can sometimes reveal itself in strange forms."
"Such as a storm, a malfunction of the instruments and a peculiar coincidence?" Jocelyn nodded thoughtfully. "You could be right, Captain. You think we should proceed to Scar?"
The captain bowed, disclaiming responsibility. "The decision is yours, my lord."
And the derision should the journey be pointless, thought Jocelyn ironically. But could any journey ever be that? Jest waited with the same eternal problems and could wait a little longer without coming to harm. It would almost be a kindness to delay their arrival. Adrienne was accustomed to a softer world and less independence. She would have troubles enough once they had landed and she had been installed as his queen.
He glanced at her, noting the thin arrogance of her profile, the imperious tilt of her head. Strange how those with the least reason adopted the greater dignity, stranger still how the bare facts could be transmuted by pompous phraseology. He, the ruler of Jest, had married the daughter of Elgone, the Elder of Eldfane. If the people thought of it as a love-match, they were more stupid than he guessed. As a dowry she had brought him one hundred thousand tons of basic staples, the revenues from her estate on Eldfane, a million units of trading credit to be used on her home world, the services of an engineering corps for three years; and the promise of an obsolete space vessel when one should be available.