“Good, fine,” I said at his rounded eyes. “Science, as you see, has triumphed again. Do it some more.”
He arranged them in different combinations, knocked his knuckles and got what he arranged every time. He shook them without knocking and they were random.
The usual dice game is just two throws, one by each player and the one that gets the highest count of points in his throw wins.
“Now,” I said, “as you know, the maximum number of points is seventy-two. Half of seventy-two is thirty-six. So if you always arrange the dice so as to total more than forty, in the long run you will win. The other player, using these very dice, will get random. But the different combinations you arrange, if always above forty, will let you win all the other fellow’s money. And he will never suspect.”
“I’m not going to do it,” said Snelz. “Aside from fraternizing with prisoners” (was there a sneer at me here?), “I like Heller. I was an officer in the Fleet Marines until I was cashiered. Even amongst Fleet officers, he would be tops. I’m not going to do it and lose a friend.”
“You’re going to do it or lose your head,” I said.
He looked at my hand on a blastick and sighed. Beaten. Then he bristled a bit. “But I won’t use my own money. You can’t order me to do that. You’ll have to fund me.”
This was a new twist. I thought it over. But then, I realized, it was a good investment. I started to reach for my wallet but Snelz held up his hand.
“I doubt,” said Snelz, “that you’re carrying enough. You have miscalculated how much Heller has got. I am absolutely certain they shipped him at least five thousand credits. I see him handle his money more than you do.”
Ow! If we started with too little, the odds could make us lose. It would take a lot of throws to do it or Heller would become suspicious.
“To be convincing in a deal like this,” said Snelz, “you have to be able to lose before you win it back. I’m an expert at this. I was cashiered from the Marines for cheating. So what you have to do is go draw some money. Match his bankroll. Five thousand credits to be safe. Otherwise we’ll never get started.”
It was very painful. And then I realized how many paychecks I was drawing. Being General Services pay and not hazard I could get an advance easily. I even had the certified orders on me.
So, after a lot more persuasion by Snelz, we went to the finance office and bribed the clerk to do his routine duty and my identoplate got us a five-thousand-credit advance. That was nearly a year’s pay. But soon, I was confident, I would be several thousand credits richer. And I would be in no danger afterwards from the stalled mission.
My stomach was acting up again but I was very hopeful.
I gave Snelz the money and the dice and left him practicing. Heller would shortly be headed for Earth!
PART FOUR
Chapter 8
Jettero Heller sat in my room, idly watching Homeview. Each day there had been three sagging hours between the time he came back from training and the moment the Countess was smuggled up for supper and the night.
Apparently the Countess had to put in some time late in the day to teach her assistants to train and, female-like, there was some nonsense about bathing and getting dressed before her nightly date.
Heller had glanced over the four-foot pile of old Blito-P3 surveys, more to identify them than get any data out of them. He had smiled to see the lists of revolts and pretenders in that one province of Manco but he had also laid it aside. He was doing just one thing—waiting for the Countess. He glanced at his watch: nearly all of the three hours had yet to run. He sighed, bored.
I sat in a chair over by the wall, pretending to study some entries in my notebooks—actually I was looking at blank pages. Tonight would be different!
A knock on the door. Snelz entered. He took off his cap to indicate it was social. He said to me, “Officer Gris, is it all right with you if I talk to Officer Heller for a bit?”
It was all rehearsed. “Go ahead, go ahead,” I said.
Heller looked up languidly. He pointed to a chair.
Snelz said, sitting down, “Jettero, I need some help. As you know, we play a lot of dice down at Camp Endurance and there are some very sharp fellows there. I once heard in the Fleet, before they cashiered me, that you were really an expert at dice. As a personal favor, could you teach me something about it?”
Heller looked at him a bit oddly, I thought. I held my breath. Was this going to work?
But Heller laughed. “I shouldn’t think there could be much about dice that a Fleet Marine officer didn’t know.”
“Oh, come along,” pleaded Snelz in a very convincing protest. “There’s lots to know about it. I’ve just come into a bit of money and I don’t want to be smarted out of it. What I don’t understand is probabilities and second bets.”
In the most popular version of dice then in vogue, there was always a second side bet between the players. The original bet was made and then there was a throw and then a second bet was made based on odds for or against the other player winning. The one who threw would then chant something like, “Ten credits to one you can’t beat that.” Then the other would throw and if he had beaten the first player’s throw, he won both bets.
“Oh?” said Heller. For a bit it looked like he wasn’t going to help. Then he shrugged and took a sheet of paper from his kit. He rapidly wrote, from left to right, across the bottom of the page, the numbers six to seventy-two. “With six dice, each one with twelve points, the total you can shoot will add up to anything from six to seventy-two.”
“Yes, yes,” said Snelz, pretending great interest.
Heller wrote a series of numbers up the left side of the sheet vertically. “These are the numbers of combinations of dice that produce the total score. As you can see, it is a high number.”
“Interesting,” said Snelz, gazing intently, just as if he weren’t a past master at it, which he was.
“Now,” said Heller, “when we draw a curve, using these two factors, we get a bell curve.” And he drew it: it did look like a bell, bulged very high in the middle.
“Fascinating,” said Snelz, who must have worked out the same curve a hundred times.
Patiently, Heller drew a vertical line roughly up from the twenty-eight and the fifty at the bottom so they crossed the bell shape. “Now the odds against your making anything below twenty-eight or above fifty are very high. The odds in favor of shooting anything between twenty-eight and fifty are pretty good. So on the second bet, you keep that in mind.
“There’s more to this but that’s a starter. You sure you don’t know all this?”
“Oh, I really appreciate it,” said Snelz who probably learned it at the age of five. He turned to me. “Officer Gris, would you mind terribly if Jettero and I had a little game?” He turned to Heller. “I surely would like to try this out. Just for modest stakes, of course.”
“You sure?” said Heller. “I don’t want to be accused of taking advantage of a beginner.”
“No, no, no,” said Snelz. “This is all fair and square. Anything you win, you win. Anything I lose, I lose. All right? I just happen to have a set of dice on me.”
They sat down on either side of the table and Heller took the dice Snelz held out.
“I always like to do something,” said Heller. “I don’t want to be accused of switching dice during play. So we’ll just mark these.” He reached for his little tool kit, took out a tiny ink bottle and in the upper corner of the one on each dice, made a microscopically small dot. “That ink fades after a few hours. It just makes sure we’re playing with the same dice all the time. No offense. Just a precaution.”
I mentally rubbed my hands together. If they played with those same dice the whole game, I was going to wind up a much richer officer. I began to calculate how much I would give Snelz: a hundred credits? Fifty? Even forty-five would be a fortune for an Apparatus officer.
They began with a modest half-credit bet. Snelz threw twenty. Heller declined
to make a second bet that he could beat it. He threw fifty-one. He won. Ah, well. Good strategy. Heller was to win for a while.
“Let’s bet one credit,” said Snelz. “I feel lucky.”
Heller took the dice. Now dice players have a routine all their own, all unnecessary. They take the six dice in their cupped palms; they shake them on the right side of their head; they shake them on the left side of their head; then they tap one set of knuckles or the other on the table and send the dice bouncing onto the board with a sort of shovel motion. And they sing to the dice as they do it. Heller did all this. But he had two wrinkles of his own. He blew onto the palmed dice first and then shook them and he shook them longer and harder than I have seen dice shaken before. His hands sort of blurred in the shake—very, very fast!
Heller threw a sixty-two. Against his own advice, he said, “One credit to a hundred says you can’t beat that. I frankly advise you to decline.”
“No, I’ll take it,” said Snelz. He placed the dice carefully in his palm. When he shook them, he didn’t permit them to roll about. He banged his knuckles on the table.
I thought, hey, this is early to start winning. The bang on the table, of course, settled the lead pellets into the goo in the hollow. The dice rolled out a ten!
Oh, I thought. Clever boy. He’s carrying out the strategy.
“Ouch,” said Snelz. “Looks like I better up my stakes to recover my loss. Two hundred credits all right with you for this next bet?”
Of course, it was really Heller’s turn, as he didn’t have the first throw, to set the stake for the first bet. But he shrugged, overlooking the irregularity, looking as tolerant as you would look at an amateur who didn’t quite know the rules.
Snelz threw. It was a fifty. Any dice player can add up the points at a glance if he is expert and I thought Snelz made an error by calling “Fifty!” instantly in a loud voice. I guessed Snelz was too excited to mask his expertise. “Fifty credits to fifty credits says you can’t top it.”
Heller was in the swing of it now. He blew upon the dice. He shook to the right and shook to the left and as he did it, he sang:
Money for my honey
Booze for my cruise,
Fly them over fifty
And don’t let this spacer lose.
He threw and cried, “Fifty-five!” after the dice stopped rolling. He picked up the money with an easy sweep.
Snelz said, “You certainly are lucky. I know I am just a beginner at this, but I am afraid I will have to double my bet again. Four hundred credits all right with you?
“Actually,” said Heller, “doubling is a devil’s game. I advise against it.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to insist,” said Snelz.
Heller shrugged. He picked up the dice. He blew on them quite a long time. Then he sang:
Don’t reimburse the purse,
Of the loser we won’t nurse.
Fly a winning number
And win the universe.
His shake had been extremely hard. The roll was expert with a back spin. “Forty! Try and beat it. Ten credits to three hundred and seventy-five says you won’t.”
Snelz put the dice very carefully in his palm, blew on them, pretended to shake them. He sang:
Dicies balm and calm,
Don’t cramp the champ.
Better up the forty
And put money in my camp!
He threw. “Thirty-five!” Heller raked in the money.
Good. Snelz was following the strategy. Any moment now, he would turn the game around and start to win. And that would be the end of Officer Heller’s ability to buy favors, and off to Earth we’d go.
There was a knock on the door. A guard tiptoed in and whispered to me: “Dr. Crobe just sent up word that if you didn’t see him at once, you’d be real sorry.”
Well, I should have expected it. I was supposed to take Heller back to him, and what was it now, seven days? and we hadn’t gone near him. I didn’t want to leave this game. But Snelz would bring it off. How could he lose with those dice? I left.
But the second I started to go down the tube, I also started to get sick at my stomach. A bad feeling of pain with a bit of nausea.
I found Crobe in his foul office. He left off scraping some cells from a severed foot. He raised his head and leveled his scummy eyes down his beak nose.
“You,” he said, “are up to something. You have not brought that special agent back here for bugging.”
I felt very ill. “I’ve been busy.”
“I have a direct order from Lombar Hisst to fix up this special agent. You have not brought him back. You are up to something.”
I had to sit down. I really was feeling ill. Maybe it was that severed foot. It looked green in the green glowplates. It was putrefying.
“Officer Gris,” said Crobe, “do you know of any way to prevent me from reporting this to Lombar Hisst?”
My stomach gave a new turn. I could hardly lift my head. But in my field of view, there lay his filthy hand, palm up. It was unmistakable.
Feebly I reached into my tunic and got out my wallet. I only had about thirty-five credits in it. I pulled out a ten.
Crobe took the ten, then reached over and took the rest of the money out of the wallet. “Thirty-five credits.” he counted. “Won’t do.” He threw them aside.
It was a lot of money. For the dungeons of Spiteos. They never had any money down here. But I realized that I would shortly have thousands. “Make it a hundred. I’ll pay the rest later.”
Crobe picked up his gummy scraping knife and pointed it at me. “You’re really up to something, Officer Gris. Do you realize the danger to me personally if I don’t follow out Lombar Hisst’s orders?”
I was too sick to think straight. The pains were like dagger stabs!
“Two hundred,” said Crobe.
Oh, no! But I was about to be rich. I hurt. I wanted out. I nodded numbly.
Crobe picked up the thirty-five credits and counted them again. “Then you’ll owe me a hundred and sixty-five and you’ll pay me tomorrow or up to Hisst I go!”
I managed to say, “All right,” and then I got out of there. When I got into the tube and started going up I suddenly felt completely well! Mysterious. What was this odd illness?
Reasoning that my recovery was probably an anticipation of Snelz’s winnings, I got back into the room.
Heller was just finishing a song. He threw the dice expertly. “Sixty-five!” And he scooped up the bet money.
It took me a moment to register the scene. Snelz was sitting there tense. Beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead. The pile of money in front of Heller was huge!
I glared at Snelz. He was carrying this losing streak too far! He had better turn this tide around and quick!
Snelz said, “I bet a thousand!”
Heller put the dice in his palm, cupped his hands, blew into them long and hard. He sang:
Conserve your nerve,
You made the parade,
Roll a high number
And complete the ambuscade!
He was shaking those dice so hard I couldn’t really find any shape in his hands. He knocked his knuckles on the table. “Seventy!”
Snelz looked stunned. He stammered, “I decline to make a second bet.”
“Wise boy,” said Heller.
Snelz picked up the dice for his throw. Who could beat seventy? He looked at each die very carefully. He was looking for the spots.
“You don’t think I switched dice on you, do you?” said Heller.
“No,” said Snelz in a little tiny voice. “These are the same dice.”
Heller laughed. He said, “I’m so glad. Duels can get so final and as an ex-Marine, you’re probably a good shot.”
Snelz looked like somebody in torment. The joke Heller had made was far too near home for him. He probably couldn’t win a duel with Heller if he had the odds of a blastcannon. Snelz placed the dice very carefully in his palm. I knew what he was doing. H
e was taking an awful chance but he was covertly arranging the dice to shoot a seventy-two! All twelves! With a shock, I saw that his money was very low. His money? My money. Snelz sang:
Don’t bust through the crust,
Put a flag on the crag,
Please, please, a high number!
And bring home the swag!
He threw. The dice stopped. He looked at them like he was seeing a zitab snake. “Sixteen,” he whispered.
Heller raked in the credits. “I shouldn’t tell you to stop playing as I’m the winner. But you ought to think about it. I had no intention of trying to clean you out.”
Snelz was in a total spin. From the looks of him, he couldn’t figure what had gone wrong. He was in desperation. “I’ve got just twelve hundred credits left,” he said. “I’m going to bet all of it.”
“Oh, no,” groaned Heller.
“Oh, yes!” cried Snelz. And he pushed out the last of my money, the last of five thousand credits!
He put the dice in his palm with great care. He blew on them prayerfully. He began to shake them lightly. He sang:
Don’t bruise with bad news,
I’ll cry if I die,
Give me a HIGH number,
A total in the SKY!
He tossed them ever so gently, hoping not to disturb the lead pellets in them. They came to a stop. He didn’t even call the number. It was eight! Almost anything could beat it.
Heller said, “No second bet possible, as you’re out of money. So I’ll just roll.”
He hardly bothered to shake them. He didn’t even sing. He just tossed them on the table. “I’m awfully sorry,” he said. “Forty-nine.” He picked up the money, cleaning the board. “I really shouldn’t take your money. I could be accused of laundering a beginner.”
I anxiously awaited Snelz’s “I’ll take it back.” But he didn’t. Factually, by the codes, he couldn’t. Heller was just being very polite. “I started the game,” said Snelz, trying not to look at me.
“There’s an awful lot of money here,” said Heller, mounding it up. And indeed there was: you could have bought every officer in Spiteos with it and a hunting preserve as well! He didn’t count it. He wadded up all five thousand and held it out to Snelz. “You better take it back.”