He took yet another drink and gave no answer. Sweat broke and ran at his temple.
“How many games yet remain?” she asked.
“We dock three days from now.”
“With time in the evening for a set?”
He shook his head. This was to his advantage. He still had his lead.
“Twenty games, then.” She glanced at the Istrans, gestured them to seats on opposite sides of her table, between him and her. Their faces blanched. There was rage there, and offence. They came, and sat down. “Do you want to play a round for amusement?” she asked Jim.
“I would rather not,” he said. “I’m superstitious.”
Azi served them, all four. Jim stared at the area of the table between his hands.
“It’s been a long voyage,” Kont’ Raen said. “Yet the society in the salon has been pleasant. What brings you out from Istra and back, Seri?”
“Trade,” Kest said
“Ah. ”
“Kontrin—” Merek Eln said. She looked at him. He moistened his lips and shifted his weight in big chair. “Kontrin, there’s been some disturbance on Istra. Matters are still in a state of flux. Doubtless—doubtless you’ve had some report of these affairs.”
She shrugged. “I’ve kept much to myself of late. So trade took you off Istra.”
There was a hesitation, a decision. Merek Eln went pale, wiped at his face. “The need for funds,” he confided. His voice was hardly more than a hoarse whisper. “There has been hardship on Istra. There’s been fighting in some places. Sabotage. One has to be careful about associations. If you’ve brought forces—”
“You expect too much of me,” Kont’ Raen said “I’m here on holiday. That is my profession.”
This was irony even they understood as such.
They said nothing. Kont’ Raen sipped at her drink and finished it. Then she rose and left the table, end Jim excused himself hastily and withdrew among the azi who served.
The thought occurred to him, not for the first time, that Kont’ Raen was simply insane.
He thought that if she gave him the chance now to withdraw from the wager, he would take it, serve the ship to the end of his days, content in his fate.
He lost two points off his margin the next evening. The tally stood at four hundred sixty-seven to four hundred sixty-three.
There was no sleep that-night. Tomorrow evening was the last round. No one in the azi quarters offered to speak to him. The others sat apart, as if he had a contagion. It was the same when one approached termination. If he won, they would hate him; if he lost, he would only confirm what they believed, the luck that made them what they were. He crouched on his mat in a corner of the compartment, tucked big knees up to his chin and bowed his head, counting the interminable moments of the final hours.
vi
Jim was at the table early as usual, waiting with the wands and the dice. The Istrans arrived. Other azi served them, while even beta crew arrived in the salon to watch the last games. The whole ship was shut down to skeleton crew, and those necessary posts were linked in by monitor.
Jim looked at the table surface rather than face the stares of free men who owned his contract, who had come to watch the show. They would not own it after this night, one way or the other.
There were light steps in the corridor, toward the door. He looked up, saw Kont’ Raen coming toward him. He rose, of respect, the same ritual as every evening. Azi set drinks on the table, as every evening.
She was seated, and he resumed his chair.
What others did in the room now he neither knew nor cared. She cast the dice for the first throw; he did, and won the right to begin.
He won the first game. She won the next. The sigh of breath was audible all about the salon.
The third game was hers, and the fourth and fifth.
“Rest?” she asked. He wiped at the sweat that gathered on his upper lip and shook his head. He won the sixth and lost the seventh and eighth.