“Call,” announced Mirelle prettily.
She was yet a different person now. She acted as if each development was the delight of a lifetime. But she didn’t chatter.
Titus wished she’d just stop playing her anthropological game. Every once in a while, when something got through to her, she revealed flashes of her true self that intrigued him unbearably.
Titus put his cards down. “I’m out.” He’d been holding a pair of threes and a pair of twos. He figured Mirelle had at least a flush, and Abbot a full house or above, for he hadn’t drawn any cards.
Abbot and Gold called. Mirelle won with a flush just one card higher than Abbot’s. Then they each won a round, Titus raking in the highest pot as he bluffed out the two humans when Abbot folded. But two rounds later, Mirelle was ahead and Titus caught Abbot glaring at him. Titus grinned back, knowing his father wouldn’t bring Influence to bear after promising not to.
Play became brisk and silent, a battle of nerve in which even Mirelle settled into stony concentration. Mihelich lowered his newsletter and stared. Responding to the tension between Titus and Abbot, the humans also played as if their lives depended on it. In a way, they did. The luren who’d respond to the Tourists’ SOS would regard humans as cattle and Earth’s civilization as an inconvenience to be wiped away. With all the space stations long ago rendered defenseless by W. S. treaty, it would be no contest.
Then Titus sensed a thrum of Influence gathering about Abbot. He might consider it fair to read the other players’ cards or the next cards to be drawn. Looking straight at his father, he roused his own Influence and cast a wave that interfered with the older vampire’s nearly tangible power. At will, Abbot could overpower anything Titus could do. Titus said, “I’m glad we’re playing straight, uncomplicated draw poker. It reveals the mettle of one’s opponents.”
“Honor takes many forms,” Abbot mused. “Sometimes real honor lies in the sacrifice of honor.” Simultaneously, the Influence tension abated. Without even counting his chips, Abbot shoved them all to the center of the table.
Gold stared at the pile. He couldn’t match the bet. He folded and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.
Mirelle matched the bet with one red chip to spare.
Titus’s hands shook as he counted chips. He was holding a royal flush, but there were eight hands that could beat his. He was pretty sure Abbot didn’t have one of those, or he wouldn’t have been worried enough to use Influence. But Mirelle might have that hand. Not might, does!
Titus matched the bet, with one white chip left over. Titus stared at her red chip. She’s won.
“Throw it in, Titus,” urged Mirelle. “Raise.”
It was a symbolic gesture, nothing more. Mirelle had won, but would be under Abbot’s Influence in a flash as soon as the game was over. With a shrug, Titus pushed the remaining white chip out. “Raise one.”
Abbot placed his cards face down in their holder. “I’m out.” His eyes never flickered, but his Influence gathered. He’d dictate to Mirelle how to distribute the calculators.
Mirelle fingered her red chip and explored Titus’s eyes. Then she gazed at Abbot. “I did say the one with the most chips at the end of the game would win, and that’s me. But I’d rather match hands with Titus. Winning seems to mean a lot to him. Perhaps if he wins, we’ll find out why.”
Titus felt Abbot start, a frisson of alarm that shivered through the thick fabric of Influenced space between them. Abbot had always dominated humans. He had never bothered to understand them. Titus smiled. She had chosen him over Abbot, and he marveled at how warm that made him feel.
She snapped her cards down on the table. “Hearts. King. Queen. Jack. Ten. Nine.”
Titus, realizing she was in this only for fun, extended the tension much as he would prolong foreplay because a woman liked it. As if about to announce his win, he snapped his cards down. “Spades. Eight. Nine. Ten. Jack. Queen.”
She burst out laughing. Twisting in her seat, she could just barely reach Titus’s shoulders to embrace him. “Titus, you are wonderful! But even so, I’m glad I won.”
Then she reached for the net. “I’ll take Abner’s TI-Alter, and give my custom job to.” Titus felt the Influence build. He tried to block Abbot. She paused and looked as if she’d forgotten what she’d intended to say then started over, “Since it seems to matter to Titus and Abbot more than I’d ever expected, I’m going to award Abbot’s Varian to Titus. And my custom to Abbot. Which leaves Titus’s Bell to Abner.” With a little frown, she said, “Doesn’t that make perfect sense?”
“Are you sure that’s the way you want it, Mirelle?” asked Abbot.
“Well?”
In a hard voice, Titus answered, “She’s sure. The game isn’t over until we settle up!”
She cocked her head to one side, and Titus felt her strive against the Influence aimed at her. If a resistive human had fought Influence half so valiantly, the luren would have little chance in public. But Mirelle was susceptible. She said doubtfully, “I think I’m sure. The object of the game is to make it interesting. And since Abbot seems to want to keep his Varian out of Titus’s hands, the best way to make the game interesting is to put it into Titus’s hands.”
Even though Abbot could have made her change her mind, these people would be confined with them for a year. It was essential not to arouse their suspicions. As he hesitated, the warning chime sounded and Titus collected the Varian, passing the others out as Mirelle had specified while they hurried to stow the cards and chips before docking maneuvers.
No sooner had the ship stopped pulsing and surging than the attendants appeared to escort them through the linked hatches and into Goddard Station-the first stepping stone into space, orbiting high above Earth’s surface.
The station rotated, providing gravity. The lights were bright, but not too strong for Titus’s dark contacts. The air had the blank feel of dustless, processed air marbled with streaks of human odor. Under the hum of machinery, there was the sharp sound of human voices confined in a metal shell.
Abbot had contrived to stay behind Titus all the way from the skybus to an area where the scientists had to pass a brief instrument check to determine their response to the low gravity, litus walked with one hand in his pocket on Abbot’s Varian. seeing his chance, he squirmed through the press, muttering apologies, and headed for the hatch marked MEN. Glancing behind, he saw Abbot detained by a knot of laughing Turkish engineers teasing a Greek mathematician.
Titus dodged around three women huddled over a glossy fax of a bubble chamber tracing, arguing heatedly. He caught half a sentence and chipped in, “No, if it were, it would go clockwise. Ask that tall, skinny gentleman over there.” He pointed at Abbot.
As the women followed his gesture, he ducked through a crack in the wall of people and backed into the men’s room. Two men pushed out past him discussing better designs for low-grav urinals. Titus locked himself in a stall and attacked the Varian’s case, using his thumbnail as a screwdriver. He heard the door open, and thought he was lost. The screw wouldn’t budge. Then, with the steps coming toward him, it turned. Someone went into the adjacent stall, and Titus knew it wasn’t Abbot-should have known all along.
Calm down, he admonished himself. At last the case opened. He sorted through modified boards and connectors. He tricked me! He wanted me to believe there was a transmitter component in here!
Abbot was capable of such subtlety, and Titus was ashamed for not having considered that before. But then a small bit of circuitry fell out into his hand. It was as long as his palm, and no more than five millimeters thick, but he could see the circuitry etching inside, and the microprocessor. It was an advanced design, glittering like a diffraction jewel, and it wasn’t attached to the Varian.