Zwingli arranged his cards as he spoke; he had two aces, three kings, two queens, and a good sequence in hearts.
"What am I supposed to discard?" Stone asked, frowning at his cards.
"That is the art of piquet; there are several quite good books about the strategy of discarding. But in general, we try to exchange weak cards for stronger ones. In the first part of the game we score for point, that is the largest number of cards in one suit, and then the highest sequence, which is like a straight in poker, except that it can have as little as three cards. And triplets and fours-they are the same as three of a kind and four of a kind. But also you want to keep cards that will take tricks, beginning with aces, then kings and queens, and so on. Understood?"
"Yeah, I guess." Stone discarded three. "Now what, do I draw from the pack?"
"From the upper packet, yes."
Stone took three cards.
"Now, since you drew only three," Zwingli said, "you are allowed to look at the other two. You may wish you had taken them as well."
Stone looked at the cards, said, "Oh, yeah," and put them down again.
"You see, Mr. Stone," Zwingli said kindly, "there is another reason for discarding five and not three-to keep your opponent from drawing aces. This is so important in piquet that it is usually good to discard even something fairly useful, in order to keep your opponent from drawing something better."
"Oh, I get it. Hey, there's more to this than I thought."
They scored for point, went through sequence, triplets and fours and counted them out; then they began to play. Zwingli's aces and kings were good for six tricks, and he took three more by careful management. His score for the hand was twenty-eight, and Stone's was nineteen.
Zwingli gathered the cards and tapped them together. He smiled at Stone. "So, would you like to try another hand?"
"Sure. Is this a game you play for money, or just for matches?"
"For money is always better, don't you think? Shall we say ten dollars a point?"
"How much is game?"
"One hundred points, if one player reaches it first in six hands. If both score over one hundred, then the higher score wins the difference between the two, plus one hundred. If neither reaches one hundred points, the higher score wins the sum of the two totals, plus one hundred."
"Okay."
"All right, let's begin again. This time we cut the deck, and low card deals."
Stone showed a jack; Zwingli picked up a nine. "Very good," he said, "and now I deal once more, but after this the deal changes with each hand, so that in six hands we each deal three times."
"Is that because the dealer has an edge?"
"No, the opposite, it is the other one who has the advantage. Because he can take five cards from the stock, and therefore he has five chances to improve his hand, but the dealer has only three."
Stone sat back in his chair. "I thought you said the dealer had the edge because he could see the whole stock, not just the upper packet."
"Yes, but that was because you let me do it, Mr. Stone. If you draw only one from the stock this time, I can draw seven, and that will be very good for me."
"Okay, I get it. That's the way I learn, right?"
"That is the way we all learn, Mr. Stone."
At the end of an hour and a half, Zwingli added up the scores; he had seventy-one and Stone fifty-three. "Very good for a first venture, Mr. Stone. Would you like to play again tomorrow?"
Stone was tapping the deck absentmindedly on the table. "Sure." He laid some bills on the table, and Zwingli put them in his pocket.
"Thank you, Mr. Stone." Zwingli got up. "And now I bid you good afternoon." As he was leaving, Stone called after him, "Hey, did you tell me there are some books about piquet?"
Zwingli half-turned. "Yes. I don't have copies here, but I'm sure you can download them from the computer. Get Miss Clitterhouse to help you if you have trouble." He bowed and left.
All day they had been rising under power, and now they were cruising over the peaks and pinnacles of the Alps; the sunlight, reflected from the snow in the crystalline air, was so blinding that they had to wear dark spectacles.
"That is Mont Blanc," said Zwingli. "The man who first climbed it said that it gave him a sense of uneasiness. When he got to the top, what he felt was not joy, as he had expected; it was anger. Don't you think that is surprising? And other climbers, later on, reported the same thing. Nobody knows why."
"Maybe because they're too big?"
"The mountains? Yes, quite possibly. This is the kind of beauty that is not soft and sweet, like flowers in a garden; it is a frightful beauty. We are drawn to mountains because we know they can destroy us, isn't that so? But they are part of our world."
A few days later they were cruising down the Rhine, and Stone remarked on how dirty it looked. "Yes," Zwingli said, "the Rhine is polluted and stinking, but four centuries ago there were thatched cottages here. Do you have any idea under what conditions those people lived? Dirt, despair, vermin. We shall be lucky if we do not go back to the thatched cottages now."
"Isn't there some way to have clean water and clean houses, too?"
"If there is, Mr. Stone, we have not found it."
By the end of December, they had played thirty games, and the score stood at 2,890 to 2,130 in Zwingli's favor. Stone's play was improving; he was very good on attack, but he had not mastered the art of minimizing his losses when the cards were against him. Miss Clitterhouse and Van Loon reported that he was spending much of his free time playing practice hands against himself. That was all to the good, Zwingli thought; it kept him out of mischief.
Before dinner one evening Zwingli touched the console and said, "Pilot, I believe we are going to have a good sunset. Will you tum south, please, until we have watched it?"
After a moment the distant clouds and mountains began to rotate. The sun drifted into view, behind long ragged streamers of orange and purple edged with scarlet. "Oh, yes, it's going to be a good one," said Zwingli; and he lit a cigar.
"I never saw sunsets like this before," Stone said. "Are they different over here?"
"In this part of the world? No, I don't think so, Mr. Stone. It is the pollution, of course, that makes them so beautiful, but it is also the pollution that makes it hard to see them in large cities."
"Oh." Stone got up, opened a window and leaned out. Clitterhouse glanced at Zwingli, but he shrugged and said nothing. The molten edge of the sun had dipped below the clouds now, and the room was illuminated by a coppery glow.
Clitterhouse went over to Stone and stood beside him. "What are those lights down there?" he asked without turning.
She leaned out and saw a scattering of yellow sparks. "Some French village, unless we've crossed over into Germany by now."
He put his arm around her and drew her close. "What would they do if I said I was going to throw you out?" he muttered in her ear. "Don't struggle, or I'll do it." His arm tightened; he was very strong.
"Something you wouldn't like, probably. Better let me go."
"Suppose I say land here and let me out, or over she goes? Keep your voice down."
"All right, I expect they'd say yes." As she spoke, Clitter-house waved one leg in what she hoped was a marked manner. "And then what? You've got to carry me into the elevator or down the stairs, I suppose, and threaten to strangle me or something." She waved her leg again, listening to the drone of conversation behind her.
"Right. That's a good idea."
"Yes, and then before you can do it, they hit you on the head."
He put his thumbnail in his mouth and chewed it reflectively. "Okay, we could both jump from here after it lands. How high are we when it's on the ground?"