In any case it was a violent and quick defeat for Pretty Blue Fox. The vuggish side had won $70,000 from the bank for having landed on the square and an additional $70,000 from the group’s funds due to the inaccurate call of bluff. $140,000 in all. Dazed, Pete sat back, trying to keep himself composed, at least externally. For the sake of the others in the group he had to.
“Again,” the vug said, “I ask your party to concede.”
“No, no,” Joe Schilling said, as Jack Blau shakily counted out the group’s funds and passed them over.
“This is a calamity,” Bill Calumine stated quietly.
“Haven’t you survived such losses in The Game before?” Joe Schilling asked him, scowling.
“Have you?” Calumine retorted.
“Yes,” Schilling said.
“But not in the end,” Calumine said. “In the end, Schilling, you didn’t survive; in the end you were defeated. Exactly as you’re losing for us, now, here at this table.”
Schilling said nothing. But his face was pale.
“Let’s continue,” Pete said.
Calumine said bitterly, “It was your idea to bring this jinx here; we never would have had this bad luck without him. As spinner—”
“But you’re not our spinner any longer,” Mrs. Angst spoke up in a low voice.
“Play,” Stuart Marks snapped.
Another card was drawn, passed unread to Dave Mutreaux; he sat with it face down before him and then, slowly, he moved their piece ahead eleven places. The square read: Pet cat uncovers valuable old stamp album in attic. You win $3,000
The vug said, “Bluff.”
Dave Mutreaux, after a pause, turned over the card. It was an eleven; the vug had lost and therefore had to pay. ‘ It was not a huge sum, but it proved something to Pete that made him tremble. The vug could be wrong, too.
The phenothiazine-crippling was working effectively.
The group had a chance.
Now the vug drew a card, examined it, and its piece moved ahead nine spaces. Error in old tax return. Assessed by Federal Government for $80,000.
The vug shuddered convulsively. And a faint, barely audible moan seemed to escape from it.
This, Pete knew at once, could be a bluff. If it was, and they did not call it, the vug—instead of losing that sum-collected it. All it had to do was turn over its card, show that it had not drawn a nine.
The vote of Pretty Blue Fox, member by member, was taken.
It was in favor of not calling the move as a bluff.
“We decline to call,” Joe Schilling stated.
Reluctantly, with agonized slowness, the vug paid from its pile of money $80,000 to the bank. It had not been a bluff, and Pete gasped with relief. The vug had now lost back over half of what it had won on its great previous move. It was in no sense whatsoever an infallible player.
And, like Pretty Blue Fox, the vug could not conceal its dismay at a major setback. It was not human, but it was alive and it had goals and desires and anxieties. It was mortal.
Pete felt sorry for it.
“You’re wasting your affect,” the vug said tartly to him, “if you pity me. I still hold the edge over you, Terran.”
“For now,” Pete agreed. “But you’re involved in a declining process. The process of losing.”
Pretty Blue Fox drew another card, which, as before, was passed to Dave Mutreaux. He sat, this time, for an interval that seemed forever.
“Call it!” Bill Calumine blurted, at last
Mutreaux murmured, “Three.”
The Terran piece was moved by Joe Schilling. And Pete read: Mud slide endangers house foundations. Fee to construction firm: $14,000.
The vug did not stir. And then, suddenly, it stated, “I— do not call.”
Dave Mutreaux glanced at Pete. He reached out and turned over the card.
It was not a three. It was a four.
The group had won-not lost-$14,000. The vug, had failed to call the bluff.
“Astonishing,” the vug said, presently, “that such a handicapping of your ability would actually enable you to win. That you should profit by it.” It savagely drew a card, then shoved its piece ahead seven squares. Postman injured on your front walk. Protracted lawsuit settled out of court for the sum of $300,000.
Good god in heaven, Pete thought. It was a sum so staggering that The Game certainly hinged on it. He scrutinized the vug, as everyone else in Pretty Blue Fox was doing, trying to discover some indication. Was it bluffing or was it not?
If we had one single telepath, he thought bitterly. If only—
But they could never have had Patricia, and Hawthorne was dead. And, had they possessed a telepath, the vug authority would undoubtedly have summoned up some system of neutralizing it, just as they had neutralized its telepathic factor; that was obvious. “Both sides had played The Game too long to be snared as simply as that; both were prepared.
If we lose, Pete said to himself, I will kill myself before I let myself fall into the hands of the Titanians. He reached into his pocket, wondering what he had there. Only a couple of methamphetamines, perhaps left over from his luck-binge.
How long ago had it been? One day? Two? It seemed like months ago, now. Another world away.
Methamphetamine hydrochloride.
On his binge it had made him temporarily into an involuntary telepath; a meager one, bat to a decisive degree. Methamphetamine was a thalamic stimulator; its effect was precisely the opposite from that of the phenothiazines.
He thought, Yes!
Without water he managed—gagging—to gulp down the two small pink methamphetamine tablets.
“Wait,” he said hoarsely to the group. “Listen; I want to make the decision on this play. Wait!” They would wait at least ten minutes he knew for the methamphetamine to take effect.
The vug said, “There is cheating on your side. One member of your group has ingested drug-stimulants.”
At once, Joe Schilling said, “You previously accepted the phenothiazine class; in principle you accepted the use of medication in this Game.”
“But I am not prepared to deal with a telepathic faculty emanating from your side,” the vug protested. “I scanned your group initially and saw none in evidence. And no plan to obtain such a faculty.”
Joe Schilling said, “That appears to have been an acute error on your part.” He turned to watch Pete; all the members of Pretty Blue Fox were watching Pete, now. “Well?” Joe asked him, tensely.
Pete Garden sat waiting, fists clenched, for the drug to take effect.
Five minutes passed. No one spoke. The only sound was Joe Schilling drawing on his cigar.
“Pete,” Bill Calumine said abruptly, “we can’t wait any longer. We can’t stand the strain.”
“That’s true,” Joe Schilling said. His face was wet and florid, shiny with perspiration; now his cigar had gone out, too. “Make your decision. Even if it’s the wrong one.”
Mary Anne said, “Pete! The vug is attempting to shift the value of its card!”
“Then it was a bluff,” Pete said, instantly. It had to be, or
the vug would have left the value strictly alone. To the vug he said, “We call your bluff.”
The vug did not stir. And then, at last, it turned over the card.
The card was a six.
It had been a bluff.
Pete said, “It gave itself away. And,” he was shaking wildly, “the amphetamines didn’t help me and the vug can tell that it can read my mind, so I’m happy to say it aloud. It turned out to be a bluff on our part, on my part. I didn’t have enough of the amphetamines and there wasn’t any alcohol to speak of in my system. It was not successfully developing a telepathic faculty in my system; I wouldn’t have been able to call it. But I had no way of knowing that.”
The vug, palpitating and a dark slate color, now, bill by bill paid over the sum of $300,000 to Pretty Blue Fox.
The group was extremely close to winning The Game. They knew it and the vug opposing them knew it. It did not have to be said.
Joe Schilling murmured, “If it hadn’t lost its nerve—” With trembling fingers he managed to relight his cigar. “It would at least have had a fifty-fifty chance. First it got greedy and then it got scared.” He smiled at the members of the group on both sides of him. “A bad combination, in Bluff.” His voice was low, intense. “It was the combination in me, many years ago, that helped wipe me out. In my final play against Bindman Lucky Luckman.”
The vug said, “It seemed to me that I have, for all intents and purposes, lost this Game against you Terrans.”
“You don’t intend to continue?” Joe Schilling demanded, removing his cigar from his lips and scrutinizing the vug; he had himself completely under control. His face was hard.