by Chris Bunch
“Healthy as two horses. You are …?”
“You can call me Thetis.”
Joshua grinned. “You pick that yourself, or did somebody with a crystal ball come up with it?”
“My grandfather gave it to me. Said he never liked what I’d been birth-named with.” She shrugged. “I don’t even remember my other name now.”
“My name’s Joshua Wolfe. Hang on while I grab a couple of things.”
• • •
The Grayle’s lock hissed shut behind Joshua, and the platform retracted as soon as he’d stepped into Thetis’s boat. He wore white trousers, deck shoes, a light green shirt, and a coarsely woven silk windbreaker. He did not appear armed.
“Where to?”
“Like you said, the grand tour. I’d like to get an idea of what the island’s like. Never been here before.”
Thetis put the boat into drive and sent it hissing away, its wake purling white. The boat looked very old-fashioned, about eighteen feet long with a covered foredeck, a glass windshield, and three rows of seats. The hull was lacquered, and the detail was gleaming white.
“Is this real wood?”
“It is,” the girl said. “Hand-laid by Granddad, but now I’m the one who’s got to keep it afloat. Keeps me busy, but I don’t mind. Wood feels different than resin or even metal. I wouldn’t trade Dolphin for anything.” Without a noticeable pause she asked, “You on vacation?”
“Why else would anybody come here?”
“Lots of reasons,” Thetis said.
“Such as?”
The girl looked at him, then away at the harbor. “My grandfather said, when he turned the boat over to me, never to ask the customers more than they want to say and tell ‘em even less.”
“Your grandfather sounds like he’s been around.”
“And then some. He mostly raised me. He said I didn’t need to go to Diamant’s schools as long as I passed his teachings. I guess I did all right.”
“Who was Thetis’s father?”
“Ask me a hard one. Nereus. His folks were Pontus and Gaea.”
“Where are your forty-nine sisters?”
The grin vanished from the girl’s lips.
“They didn’t live through the war,” she said tonelessly. “Any more’n my mother and father did. My grandfather tracked me down in a crèche.”
“Sorry,” Joshua said, apologizing. “I lost my own folks when the war started.”
The girl nodded but didn’t respond. After a moment: “Diamant,” she began, “has about fifty thousand legal residents, maybe sixty now. There’s about double that who’re visitors, or who have job permits, or who’re just here without bothering anybody. The island’s industries are tourism, fishing — ”
“I read the Baedeker coming in,” Joshua interrupted. “How many casinos does Diamant have now?”
The girl turned. “Now I’ve got your ID. You didn’t look like a banker on the run or somebody here to toast his toes. You a pro or just somebody who likes the action?”
“Only a man who’s interested in the sporting life.”
“You just gave me the rest of it,” she said with satisfaction. “Granddad says that anybody who’s careful of what he says about gaming generally is somebody who’ll make you a bet he can make the jack of diamonds jump out of the deck and piddle in your ear, and you’d best not play with him unless you want a real wet ear.
“We’ve got five big casinos, plus there’s who knows how many quiet games or even full-scale joints. There’s enough action to keep anybody happy. You see all those islands?” She pointed out away from the harbor. “Those are all private. Could be anything on any of them. The Diamant Council doesn’t care much once somebody buys or leases them. If there’s complaints or troubles, they’ll send somebody out to see what’s going on and levy a fine if it’s real bad.”
“Do gamblers have to register?”
“They’re supposed to. But nobody bothers. What kind of gaming you looking for?”
“Thetis, anybody ever tell you don’t act like — what, fourteen?”
“Fifteen next month. Thanks, mister. Nobody with a sure fix on anything wants to be a kid any longer than she has to, right?”
Joshua inclined his head in agreement. “You ever hear of anybody named Sutro? He’s supposedly a resident.”
“Nope. But I don’t ask much, either.”
Joshua took a bill from his pocket, folded it, and tucked it in the girl’s coverall. She looked down into the pocket and looked surprised.
“That’s just for asking?”
“It is. But ask quietly.”
“Mister Wolfe, I don’t do anything noisily. It doesn’t pay to attract attention unless you want to. I’ll find out and get back to you.
“You still want the tour?”
“I paid for it, I’m going to get it,” Joshua said, and lounged back on the brightly colored canvas seat.
The girl looked at him speculatively, then went on with her description of the scenic wonders of Morne-des-Esses.
• • •
“Here,” Thetis said as Joshua stepped out of the boat onto the dock, and handed him what appeared to be a thick calling card. “Press on the little boat symbol if you need transportation, and that’ll buzz me. Twenty-four-hour call.” Without waiting for a response, she tapped the drive into gear and shot away.
Joshua turned to the gangplank and stretched like a great cat in the sun, then went up the cleated ramp.
A man who, with his baggy multistriped pants and cotton shirt that reaffirmed that he really was on TRINITÉ, SO BEAUTIFUL GOD SHOULD HAVE QUIT HERE, could only be a tourist was staring into the back end of an elaborate camera. The camera sat on a tripod of absurdly thin and shiny metal that should never have supported its weight.
The camera was focused on a woman at the edge of the dock. She was some years younger than the man and perhaps half again his weight.
Joshua looked over the man’s shoulder curiously. The camera’s rear showed an exact duplicate of the harbor in front of them. The man held a small pointer and, one by one, eliminated all the anchored ships. To one side of the frame a large sailing yacht was entering the harbor. The man touched the pointer to it and moved the image closer to the center of the screen. He saw Joshua’s shadow and turned.
“Morning, friend. Isn’t this the way it’s supposed to be?”
“Damned if I know,” Joshua said. “I didn’t know there was any right or wrong way for scenery.”
“Sure there is. The man who teaches the class I take said that the object of attention — that’s my wife, Dorena — should be at the lower third of the picture. Then the eye should move upward, to the right, which is why I moved that boat where I did. Then the eye goes left again, to that big building up on the hill that looks like a toadstool, whatever it is — ”
“That’s one of the casinos.”
“ — and that’s what makes good composition. Right?”
“Guess so. What do you do next?”
“Seal the image, then print it.”
“One thing you might want to do,” Joshua suggested, “is move that lamp standard that’s growing out of your wife’s head.”
“Well, I’ll be …” The man laughed at himself, obliterated the pole, then touched buttons, and a print obediently slid out the base of the camera. “C’mere, hon. Meet the man who just kept me from doing it dumb again. Mister …”
“Wolfe. Joshua.”
“I’m Arabo Hofei. We just came down yesterday on the Darod. We’ll be here for two weeks and enjoying every minute of it. I saw you come in from that starship anchored out there. Is it yours?”
“It is.”
The man shook his head. “Wish I could figure out a way to make those kind of credits. But then, some of us are meant to have it and some of us meant not, right, Dorena?”
“We do all right,” the woman said. “Besides, what would we do with a big hulk like that? Keep it on our balcony? I imagine docking fees mus
t be astronomical.”
Joshua laughed, and after a moment the woman decided she’d just been clever and joined in. She suddenly broke off, looking behind her.
Two unobtrusive men wearing dark sober clothing walked past. Their faces were calm, and their low conversation was of serious matters most likely beyond this world’s concern.
“Now, don’t those two look like they’re having a swell time,” she said a bit loudly — loudly enough for one of the men to look at her calmly, then turn his attention away. Dorena blushed.
“I didn’t mean to be overheard,” she almost whispered. “Wonder who they are.”
“Chi something, I think,” her husband said.
“Chitet,” Joshua added.
“What are they? Some kind of priests?”
“Sort of,” Arabo said. “I read something about them once. They’re like a cult, aren’t they? Don’t believe in emotions or things like that, right?”
“Pretty much,” Joshua said. “They’re an old group. Men, women, children. They pretty much keep to themselves. They have half a dozen, maybe more worlds of their own.
“There’s a story that three or four hundred years ago they planned a coup against the Federation. They thought they were entitled to run things because they never let emotion get in the way. They thought they could take a few key posts, or so the story goes, and the Federation would shrug, realize the Chitet were the best possible governors, and let what’d happened go on.
“The coup never came off. The story says that at the last minute their leaders ran probability studies and decided they had only a fifty-fifty chance and called it off.
“Supposedly the authorities arrested their leadership but couldn’t get anyone to talk. Since there hadn’t been any bodies in the street or government houses blown up, the Chitet weren’t proscribed.
“But that was a long time ago. Since they’re like you said, priding themselves on always using pure logic, they’re considered pretty respectable, and a lot of businesses, even governments, use them for comptrollers, auditors, and things like that.”
“Pretty good, Joshua,” Arabo said admiringly. “You rattled that off like you were reading it from a screen. What are you, some kind of professor?”
“When you’re between stars,” Joshua said, “there isn’t much else to do but read. Sorry. I guess I did sound a little pompous.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Dorena said. “Lord knows we could all do with more learning than what we have.” She leaned close to Arabo, whispered something, then giggled. Arabo chuckled.
Joshua lifted an eyebrow.
“My wife wondered if these Chitet, uh, make love.”
“I guess they do,” Wolfe said. “There’s supposed to be a lot of them.”
“I knew nobody could stay sobersided all the time,” Dorena said. “We’re going out on the glass-bottom boat, Mister Wolfe. You want to go with us?”
“No, thanks,” Joshua said. “I just grounded and want to look around.”
The Hofeis gathered their photographic gear, and Joshua moved on toward the road that led to the big mushroom-shaped building on the hill.
• • •
In the daytime, the Casino d’Or was cheap-looking, smelling of broken promises and stale perfume, like all whores in sunlight. There were only a handful of people on the tables trying to spend fast enough to catch up with their fleeing dreams.
Joshua leaned against a wall, picking out the various games. A beefy man wearing a tunic tailored to hide a gun drifted up and pretended interest in a gaming machine a few feet away.
Joshua walked over to him.
“You work here.” It was a statement, not a question.
After a moment the man moved his head a trifle vertically.
“I’m looking for a friend of mine by the name of Sutro. Since he likes to gamble, I thought you might be familiar with him.”
The man’s dead eyes gazed at Joshua.
Wolfe took out a bill, folded it, and held it out. The man didn’t take the note, nor did he respond. Joshua put the bill away.
“My apologies, friend. I thought you were sentient,” he said, and started for the exit.
CHAPTER TEN
Joshua jerked back from the display as an Al’ar glared at him.
Around the holograph, words formed:
THE
SECRETS
OF THE
AL’AR
Their Secret Weapons!
Their Covert Society!
Their Hidden Ways!
Their Murderous Skills!
Their Perverted Culture!
… which was coming very soon, less than two E-months away, to Morne-des-Esses, fresh from triumphs on Worlds A, B, C, and so on, and Joshua would be well advised to buy his tickets in advance, for the demand for this Educational Opportunity would be Most Great …
“Never underestimate the absolute goddamned stupidity,” Joshua began in some disgust, about to punch out of New and Notable on Trinité but he was interrupted.
“We have visitors,” the ship announced. “It is the girl Thetis and an old man. Shall I extend the loading platform?”
“Go ahead.” Joshua got up, started for the lock, then turned aside, opened the arms cabinet, and tucked a small blaster in his waistband at the small of his back.
“Give me a visual.”
He saw Thetis and a fierce-looking old man with archaic sideburns that ran up into a walrus mustache that bristled rage. He shrugged.
“Open the port.”
It slid open just as the man and girl were getting out of the wooden speedboat.
“Good evening,” Wolfe said civilly.
Without preamble: “I’m Jacob Libanos. You gave Thetis quite a bit of money today. I want to talk to you about it.”
“I’m listening.”
“Trinité can make you think everything’s for sale. There’s some things that ain’t. Thetis is one of them.”
The girl looked embarrassed.
“I never thought she was,” Joshua said dryly.
The old man studied him for long moments, then nodded. “I’ll work on the assumption you’re telling the truth. But that isn’t the only thing I wanted to talk about. You asked her to look around for somebody named Sutro. You puttin’ her to risk?”
“No,” Joshua said. “Sutro’s a legitimate resident of Diamant, or my sources say he is. I just want to know more about him.”
“I’d say you was law, but I checked your ship’s registry. Damned odd sort of Federation man’d come out of Carlton VI.”
A half smile came and went on Joshua’s face. “You’ve been there.”
“I have. It tries just as hard to be decadent as Trinité, but it ain’t got the credits to pull it off.”
“That’s a pretty good description,” Joshua agreed. “Come aboard if you want the grand tour.”
Libanos nodded and followed Joshua inside.
“Damned big ship,” he observed, “for just one man. Or is there crew out of sight?”
“Just me. Ship’s automated.”
“Heard they’d finally got that down. Haven’t been aboard one yet.” They went up to the control room. Libanos studied the main station carefully. “Looks pretty easy to run,” he observed. “All those damned gauges and readouts that did nothing but beep at you — glad to see them gone. All they did was clutter the mind, anyway. By the time they told you were in trouble, generally you were ‘most dead.”
“You have your papers?”
“Commercial master, passenger master, the mate buttons to go with ‘em. But it’s been a long time.”
Joshua waited for the man to volunteer his current occupation, but nothing came.
“Let me ask you something, Mister Wolfe.”
“Joshua.”
“We’ll keep it mister for a while, if you don’t mind. Thetis … or maybe me … finds out about your Sutro, what happens then?”
Joshua didn’t reply.
“I didn’t figur
e you’d answer that one.” Libanos thought for a while, trying to stroke his mustache back into some sort of order.
“All right. We’ll do what we can.”
Without saying more, he turned toward the port.
• • •
Joshua put one hand over the two cards, waited while the bettors made their decisions, then pushed counters across the line.
“Carte,” he said, and a card slid across the green baize. He looked at it calmly. “Non.”
The banker turned his cards over. He had seven. He took another card. A queen stared haughtily up.
Joshua turned his cards, showing six, and let the croupier’s paddle take away more of his counters.
The banker touched the shoe, and Joshua felt what would happen.
“Banco,” he said.
The banker looked pointedly at the small pile of credits beside Joshua. Wolfe reached into an inner pocket of his formal jacket, took out a small plastic card, spun it across. The banker looked at it, buried surprise, and handed it back.
Two cards whispered out of the shoe to Joshua, to the other man playing, and to the banker.
Joshua, without looking at his hand, flipped his cards over. He held a natural.
The banker lifted the corner of his cards and grimaced. The croupier carefully pushed the large stack of credits across, then ceremoniously moved the shoe to Joshua.
The man who’d been banker stood, bowed, and left the table. Another player slid into his seat.
“Gentlemen,” Joshua said, and waited for the bets.
• • •
Joshua cashed in his winnings, turned away from the cage, and noticed the beefy man. Joshua nodded politely, stepping around him.
He hesitated, then started for the dinner theater. “If you’re going to be one, be a big red one,” he said to himself wryly.
The line stretched out the door of the theater almost into one of the main gambling rooms. Joshua saw his photographer friend and wife. They beckoned, and he went over.
“Is the show that good?”
“Supposed to be. Sold out an hour ago.”
“Oh, well,” Joshua said, putting mock sorrow into his voice. “Guess I’ll settle for plain food, then.”
