Canto Bight [Star Wars]

by Saladin Ahmed

  “So lucky!” Blue-Face said.

  “Not really.” Kal took the Cantocoins from the pot and stacked them neatly, leaving his next bet before him. “Let’s play.”

  He was not lucky, of course. Zinbiddle pitted players against one another using cards dealt from multiple decks, with participants drawing additional cards from each depending on special circumstances. It was a high-class pursuit, unlike sabacc—and far too complicated for the society types he was usually stuck with. It was also extremely conducive to Kal’s systems, which combined bet management with a complicated mental count of cards played and unplayed.

  So Kal worked for a living, but he didn’t expect the afternoon crowd at the Canto Casino to be able to tell the difference. These were the pedestrian gamers, mainly oldsters and tour-groupers just off the shuttle, still sober and waiting for the first dinner service to start. The casino didn’t offer discounted meal rates for early diners, and by definition none of its patrons needed to care about money. But the afternooners were as predictable in their preferences as in their play. Not one had ever managed a hand in a way Kal hadn’t expected, and that helped his math.

  “You look nice,” Tree Person said of Kal’s ensemble. “Doesn’t he look nice?”

  “He must be doing well, winning all our money,” her friend observed.

  If that really was all your money, you won’t be staying long. In fact, Kal had not been doing well for quite some time—and had the debts to prove it—but he still insisted on looking stylish. His dress jacket and slacks were as jet black as his hair, which today was combed around his crinkly gray face in a manner that spoke rakish style—even as it made reading his sky-blue eyes difficult for other players. Heptooinians were blessed with assets that made them seem born for gaming: noseless, eyebrowless faces that appeared amiable no matter what they were feeling—not to mention minds for math.

  Five. One plus eight. Up three. Take a card.

  “Zinbiddle,” he declared again.

  “Another hand to the prop,” the dealer said, pushing Kal his meager winnings. A floor manager tapped the dealer on the back, ending her shift. She showed her hands to one of the many security holocams infesting the Canto Casino and stepped back into the pit.

  Blue-Face looked at Kal’s accumulated winnings and uttered what he suspected was the vilest oath she knew, only to pardon herself a second later. “He is so lucky!”

  “Lucky to be at the table with you two,” announced a baritone voice from behind. Ganzer, the whiskered white-and-green-clad bartender, used the break in the action to deliver a tray of drinks. “Exotic treats for our most appealing guests,” he said. The tourists giggled at the old-fashioned service; no server droids for them. The manager of a popular bar just off the card room, Ganzer made a habit of making rounds on the casino floor to check on his workers—and charm the occasional patron. “There are no losers at the Canto Casino,” he said with a wink.

  Tree Person touched the bartender’s arm. “I’ve never seen such luck,” she said, admiring Kal’s latest winnings. “What did the dealer call him just now? A perp?”

  Ganzer chuckled. “Ah. You see the badge on the lapel of our good friend Kaljach here? It means he’s a proposition player, employed by the casino.”

  Blue-Face covered her mouth. “Does that mean we’re playing against the…the home?”

  “House, madam. No, as you know, the dealer doesn’t participate in zinbiddle hands, except to cover the bonus bets. The casino pays players like Kaljach a salary to make games in the slow hours. He bets his own money and can keep what he wins—but he receives no preferential treatment.”

  “That’s for sure,” Kal said, looking at his stacks. It had been another one of those days when he’d spent hours clawing back from a bad beat.

  Ganzer passed him a drink. “Your usual, friend.”

  “My hero.” Kal hadn’t ordered anything, but Ganzer took care of him. Fizzy water in one of the tall glasses used for cocktails, to give the impression he was soused.

  “Running a new system?”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Kal said.

  “Of course you wouldn’t.” Ganzer smirked. An observant eye and excellent recall were hardly cheating, but card rooms liked their players clueless. The barkeeper looked at the digital display on the table. “Still after the progressive, I see.”

  “That’s all I’m after.”

  The progressive bonus was funded by coins kicked in from an endless series of games; if they were left on the table, the structure would collapse under the weight. Kal had circled the progressive like a predator after its dinner—if said creature was willing to go months at a time without eating. The goal hand, the vaunted Ion Barrage, was exceedingly rare. Yet Kal was confident he would achieve one. Part of what made the hand so elusive was that there were a hundred ways to screw it up with middle-round decisions; he knew every one, and would avoid them all. The table was a battlefield. Kal would wend his way between the blaster shots on the way to his reward.

  And some reward. “Eight hundred thousand,” Ganzer said. “You’ll get massages at Zord’s for days.”

  “I can’t think that far ahead.”

  “Of course you can.”

  Of course he could—but he knew his creditors would have to be satisfied first in any event. Kal rubbed his eyes. “What’s up, Ganz? Haven’t seen you all day.”

  “I just got here. Two late-shift staffers ran off with zillionaires. Everything’s a jumble,” Ganzer said. “I’m working straight through until dawn.”

  Not that anyone would notice the time. Casinos galaxy-wide kept the lighting steady so players remained focused on the games, but Canto Bight took it to an extreme, even washing its outdoor fathier track in light so races could run through the night. Kal hardly required a timepiece when he was already keeping track of every card dealt in every game he was in. All that mattered was his cash flow—of late, his greatest nemesis.

  But not the only one. “Master Ganzer!” A towering woman approached from inside the pit, her words knives of ice. “Were you intending to play a hand?”

  “My apologies, madam.” After shooting Kal a sheepish look, Ganzer bowed to the floor manager and backed away, tray under his arm.

  At two and a half meters—tall even for a Quermian—Vestry was well suited to life as a pit boss. She hovered over the evening shift like a ghoul, piercing yellow eyes the only obvious feature on a shrunken white face. She gestured for a new dealer to attend the table.

  Kal kept his head down, hoping not to be noticed. No such luck. Vestry addressed the two oldsters with a charming “Welcome, honored guests,” before adding “and others,” punctuated with a chilly glance at him. “Are you enjoying Canto Bight?”

  “Oh, yes,” Blue-Face gushed.

  “The joy never ends,” Kal said, smiling weakly.

  “Fine.” Vestry introduced a youth with spots on her forehead whose uniform looked as if it had just come from the manufacturer. “Minn here is a trainee on her first shift. I know she will do an exemplary job.”

  “How delightful,” said Tree.

  How wonderful, thought Kal. Now he’d have Vestry sticking her long neck into things more than usual. Bad news, as the floor manager immediately proved.

  “Don’t give him any more comps,” she said to the rookie. “He’s a prop. He buys his own meals.”

  “Since when?” Kal said. Catching Vestry’s gaze, he amended that to, “Who has time to eat?”

  Vestry stepped outside the pit and approached him on the side opposite the tourists. Extending her neck so she could speak into his ear, she said in a low voice, “I know who you’re mixed up with.”

  Kal’s eyes widened. “Come again?”

  “I won’t have it. The countess has her reasons for allowing…a diversity of clientele. But this room is mine.”

  She withdrew, leaving Kal speechless. He didn’t report directly to her, and he didn’t know what she thought she knew. But Vestry could cause him problems—
or rather, even more problems. The only way out of all of them was to win, and not just an ante here and there. He needed the progressive.

  Kal returned his attention to it, trying to ignore the tourists, competing now with complaints about their joints. Trying to ignore Minn the dealer, who dealt from the decks with a motion better suited to swatting insects. And trying most of all to ignore Vestry, and what she might know…

  Eight. Two plus…fourteen? Kal licked his lips. Up ten!

  He breathed quickly. After several hands, the decks had gone far into his favor. He might be able to build the legendary Ion Barrage with the right cards. And a dealer on her first day would deal them.

  Kal played hand after hand. The count kept improving. And then—

  “Chef Targalla has begun the first seating,” announced a droid from behind. Startled, Kal looked around. At once, everyone who was an adult during the Clone Wars was up and moving, many abandoning their hands.

  Including, to his horror, the Terrible Two. “Thank you, dear,” Tree Person said, tipping the dealer.

  Blue-Face touched his arm. “I’ve enjoyed your company. I’d never met a plop before!”

  “But…” Kal gawked at the tabletop and the hands the women had abandoned. “Don’t leave now!”

  “Why, you make it sound like your whole life depends on it.”

  “It might.”

  “Oh. Well, we have dinner reservations. Good luck!”

  KAL COULDN’T FEEL HIS HEART. Minn pushed the paltry pot to him and collected the cards the tourists had forsaken. “I’m afraid I’ll have to—”

  “Don’t close up,” Kal said, reaching toward her.

  “I have to.” The Devaronian dealer looked around. “I can’t make a game with just you. I’m sorry.”

  “No, wait!” Kal’s eyes bulged. The decks would all be reshuffled then—and his advantage would vanish. “You can wait, can’t you?”

  Vestry appeared behind the dealer. “What’s going on?”

  “I can’t make a game,” Minn said.

  “Then close.” The floor manager glared at Kal. “Zinbiddle will be back this evening.”

  Kal didn’t play evenings. Real money hit the room and the cost of everything went up. If he could play then, he wouldn’t need to be here now. He eyed the decks again. “Just give it a minute.”

  Vestry clasped both her pairs of hands. “Master Sonmi, you work for the casino. We work for the casino. Exactly who profits from you sitting here alone for another ten hours?” She pointed. “Go home.”

  “I don’t have a—”

  “Then eat something. But go.”

  Kal’s throat went dry as he saw Minn’s hands move toward the undealt cards, ready to dispose of the decks. Please, don’t—

  “Oooh, it’s zinbiddle!”

  Kal turned to see a diminutive reptilian in a formal black coat, accentuated with a dazzling stellabora lapel bloom. The green-skinned creature flashed a smile so broad it nearly bisected his face as he dropped a fat tray of coins onto the tabletop to Kal’s right. “Deal me in,” he said, hopping up into the chair beside Kal.

  Kal stared at the ebullient arrival, mystified, before looking to the dealer, who suspended her cleanup. He told Vestry, “I guess I’m in luck.”

  The pit boss stared silently at the players. Kal could swear he saw her mouth form the words, That’s what you think.

  “I was at the yacht races,” the newcomer said. “Were you at the yacht races?”

  “No.”

  “You should have been at the yacht races.” He offered a chubby green hand. “Dodibin. Dodi for short—but don’t call me that.”

  “Don’t call you Dodi?”

  “Don’t call me short.” He looked stern for a moment—and then laughed. “And you are Kaljach.”

  Lucky guess, he began to say, before remembering his badge. “Kal is fine.” He watched as the Suerton—the species he thought Dodi was—unloaded his chips. Then Dodi pushed a large stack onto the instant-win marker, a side bet the casino covered from its rake.

  “That’s a long shot,” Kal said.

  “Excellent.” Chipper, Dodi rocked back and forth in his chair as Minn started dealing.

  It was no skin off Kal’s nonexistent nose; the side bet was against the house, not him. Though he would have loved to cover it, because there was no greater joy than taking money off someone too stupid to—

  “Zinbiddle!”

  Kal gawked. “You got it?”

  Dodi flipped up his cards, all in the proper suit and sequence. “Dealt pat.”

  Kal hadn’t even looked at his cards yet. He quickly did, and took note of what Dodi had shown, before Minn recovered them all. That was the risk in riding “final station,” the seat on the dealer’s right; Kal saw more cards that way, but occasionally an instant winner would cut a hand short. Fortunately, the odds said that wouldn’t happen very—

  “Zinbiddle,” Dodi chirped.

  “She’s still dealing the hand!” Kal spouted. Calling early was a dumb move, disqualifying if the hand wasn’t as declared. Unless the fool actually had it?

  “Well, what do you know?” Dodi said, overturning his four cards as soon as they’d landed. “I had a feeling.” He’d left his winnings from before on the instant-win marker; he’d won again. Minn went to work exchanging Dodi’s coins for higher-denomination ones.

  And now, Kal saw, Vestry was back, keeping a discreet watch from behind Minn. She knew everything, or so she put on. What did she know about this guy?

  The good news was Kal was only out two initial stakes, and the decks, if anything, had swung even more into his favor. If a hand ever lasted long enough for him to play, he could start building out his pyramid in pursuit of the progressive. But he was beginning to wonder what he was up against—

  —and wondered some more when he heard a voice like Dodi’s, only lower-pitched, from behind. “There you are!”

  Kal turned to see another Suerton, looking much like Dodi apart from a few extra centimeters’ height, more pronounced ears, and a necklace of silver ringlets. “Thodi!” Dodi said, hopping off his chair. “Kal, meet Thodi, my brother.”

  “I’m the smart one,” Thodi said, and smiled. “At your service.” He glanced at Dodi’s stack on the table. “What are we doing?”

  “Winning,” Kal said.

  “Well, I know that.” Thodi pushed Dodi. “Step aside for the master, my good chump.”

  Dodi resisted. “I was doing fine on my own.”

  “I doubt that.”

  Minn was befuddled. “Who’s playing, gentlebeings?”

  “I was hatched first,” Thodi said. “Ten seconds earlier. Mom said.”

  Dodi smirked at Kal. “He always gets me with that.” The slightly younger brother withdrew, and Thodi climbed into the chair. He looked down at Dodi’s winnings. “Oh, now, see, you’re making these silly blind bets again.” He pulled the stacks of coins back from the table and began to sort them. “What you need to do is add up the values of your cards, and bet that. If the number is even, double it. And if it’s prime, you bet your age.”

  Wow, Kal thought. That is completely wrong.

  “Thodi,” Dodi said, “that is completely wrong.”

  “You’re just a gambler,” the elder Suerton said. “Me—I’m a gamer. Watch.”

  Thodi played the hand his way—and, in the end, was completely wrong. Kal won some coins, but not many. He must not be that old, Kal thought. But he could live with it. The green guys’ fortunes seemed to dim as the brothers bickered—and that meant the hands lasted longer, giving Kal more data about the decks with every card. And the Ion Barrage chance was ever closer.

  This is it! Kal fought to stay calm. Forget the brothers. This was him against fate, months and months of it. This hand, he’d be all in, buying extra draws as necessary to build his pyramid. And then all his problems would be—

  “Hi ho!” shouted someone in the aisle.

  “Wodi!” the brothers replied in unis
on. “Over here!”

  “What now?” Kal said. He shot an anguished look at Vestry, whose steely reserve had yet to crack. Her eyes were on the aisle, where a Suerton with a bounding gait approached—and then receded, in pursuit of a droid carrying liquid refreshments.

  Dodi poked Kal in the ribs. “Wodi, my kid brother. You’ll like him, Kal. Dad used to call him the kind of guy who’d fly all the way to Alderaan if he heard a party was starting.”

  “Didn’t Alderaan blow up?”

  “Well, Wodi wasn’t responsible.” Dodi pursed his giant lips as Wodi, having scored a tray of beverages, let out a loud whoop. “At least, I don’t think he was. When did it happen?”

  WODI APPROACHED, SOMEONE ELSE’S DRINK in hand. He resembled his brothers, or would have if they’d spent some time in a water turbine. Wodi’s expensive jacket was on inside out, his tie was hanging from his neck backward, and all his clothes were dripping wet.

  “I looked everywhere for you,” Thodi said. He left his seat to confront Wodi. “Where have you been?”

  “Incarcerated,” Wodi said. “That’s the word they used, but it sure looked like a jail to me.” He flicked water from his forehead and downed the cocktail.

  Kal looked in all directions. “There aren’t any more of you, are there?”

  “No,” Dodi said, adding in singsong: “Three there shall always be.”

  “Except when one of us is being held for questioning,” Thodi added.

  “That was not my fault,” Wodi said, wringing out his jacket over the floor. “When you said our yacht won, I thought we’d won the yacht.”

  “We only bet on the yachts, Wodi.” Dodi looked at Kal and smirked. “At least he didn’t get too far out of the harbor.”

  Thodi frowned. “But the race ended two hours ago. Why are you still wet?”

  “That was just now,” Wodi said. “The fountain outside. Somebody’s child dared me.”

  Thodi tut-tutted. “I suppose you brought back handfuls of riches from the deep.”

  “No, but thanks for reminding me.” Wodi fished around his coat and proudly pulled out a single coin. “Don’t tell me kids aren’t allowed to gamble!”