‘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
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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.’
‘Urn … 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.’
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‘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, highspeed 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
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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
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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. / am really flattered that you have heard of me. But Commander Cloud …?’