The Alliance (41 page)

“We won’t start playing until one. The preliminaries will take fifteen minutes and the first round is nothing. Aim to join me before twenty past.” He stood up, his meal finished. “I’ve one or two domestic chores to deal with first.”

She watched him walk away, each step taking him further into his professional persona, a version of himself he thought of as “The Gambler.”

Ten minutes later, she surveyed the line of gowns in the walk-in wardrobe of their suite. Over-dressing would be fatal, signaling her purpose and destroying her effectiveness. It was an afternoon session, the one-way glass of the roof open to the sky, both to give the sense of space to a small room and to prevent the deployment of unauthorized watching devices. She must dress appropriately, achieving her effect by hints rather than the open display she would use later.

A dramatic color or pure white
?

She could wear either and her wardrobe provided choices Viridia had never seen.

White it was. A simple dress with a decorous neckline in a fabric soft enough to cling, promising much while revealing nothing. Hair loose, brushed until it shone, no decorations and no jewelry. She’d looked into Rohan’s mind and seen herself there. She’d make that image live and see how he reacted.

At one fifteen, she entered the game room and found a high chair waiting for her behind Dakar’s chair. She sat, ankles crossed, legs decorously slanted to one side and accepted a drink from a passing waiter as Dakar’s guest, and she would pay for nothing, the gold token unnecessary.

A deal proceeded. The automatic machine delivered cards to each player in the prescribed order, so she had an excuse not to look at Rohan. It was enough to feel his reaction in her mind.

He was fascinated, not even looking at his cards until Dakar reminded him. He reacted badly and then lost the hand with foolish bid. The knuckles of the hand holding the cards turned white when he realized his mistake.

Kayelle wasn’t proud of her satisfaction. It felt unclean, as if she lowered herself in everyone’s eyes.

All players returned their cards to the machine and it whirred longer in the shuffle than usual before announcing the deck damaged. No one looked at Rohan as the supervisor passed a new deck with the seals unbroken around the table before removing the jokers and inserting it in the machine.

Dakar was right. The cards were boring, the individual reactions predictable, as round followed round, and the odd mistake in calculating the probabilities coming almost as a relief. Even the big pots followed predictable patterns and Kayelle stopped following the run of the cards when she sensed Dakar played with only half his mind. The rest waited for a pattern to emerge to say that the next kill was imminent.

Rohan’s mind was more active. He felt hungry, not for the credits, but for the thrill. He enjoyed the build-up to the moment when his opponent realized they’d over-committed and would lose big. He wanted Kayelle to witness his triumph. Dakar had taken her away before the last one; she’d have to stay for the next.

It started slowly, with the player on Dakar’s left calculating whether he could afford the Authority’s rental on his chair. As long as he occupied it, the charge was one million per week, only vacated chairs were auctioned. He’d shared the spoils of the last kill.
Was it enough
?

The tiny doubt was the trigger for him to shift his reading of the probabilities just a little. His selections became unconsciously more aggressive. Two hands later both Dakar and Rohan had recognized the shift and pounced.

Until this moment, Kayelle had accepted Dakar’s reputation without considering what it meant. She’d thought him a good man, honorable, and decent. Now she saw the killer instinct unleashed as he planned one destruction and prepared the way for others. Rohan looked no further than his current victim. Dakar set up future conquests when the spoils would be higher and the task a hundred times more difficult.

She had a decision to make.

Did she follow Jean-Paul’s example and interfere because she could, or stand back and observe
? The young man on Dakar’s left was out of his depth with these two. She could nudge him into making the right decisions and let him escape the consequences.

There was the oddest sense of some mind just beyond her perception watching, judging.
Could the Authority employ telepaths to monitor the game
? It could be their final, unbeatable, defense against cheating. Jean-Paul had proved he could monitor their minds undetected.
Was there another like him here
? She could almost feel him surrounding her. A sudden longing swept the young gambler’s plight from her mind.

“
Jean-Paul, where are you? I need you!”

* * * *

Jean Paul started awake, his heart racing, his mind still enmeshed with his dream of Kayelle calling his name.

“We’ve found her.” Peter stood by the bed. “Jack traced her to Xanadu. She’s at the Pleasure Dome and safe.”

“I heard her calling and thought it a dream.”

“She’s safe. Karrel is watching over her. Go to the ship. Jack has sent a message saying where she is. Show it to her parents and the Tetrarch and say you’re going to fetch her and then return to the ship. Jack will fly it to Xanadu while we go ahead.” Peter gave him a hug. “We’ve found her and she’s safe.” He stepped back into Limbo, leaving Jean-Paul staring at nothing. Jean-Paul’s mind still whirled with the transition from his dream.

“Jean-Paul.” Ella stood at the door. “I felt you wake. Do you have news?”

His shielding must have slipped.

“Yes,” he said. “I have to go to my ship. There’s a message.” He’d think of some explanation later. Almost everything about the ship was a mystery to Ella.

“About Kayelle?” The dawn of hope in her mind washed over him. She’d secretly given up.

“I think it is. I’ve had others searching off-planet.”

“Go, then.” She stood aside. “Hurry.”

It gave Jean-Paul an excuse to run.

* * * *

Kayelle disciplined her mind back to the problem in hand.
Should she interfere
? Not to do so felt wrong, but the young man had entered the game knowing the risks, balancing them against a chance of riches and the thrill of playing for high stakes. His decision to squirrel away his original stake absolved her for the moment. She’d stand back unless he decided to breach it.

Rohan and Dakar played two more hands with no move. She began to relax when she sensed a stir of excitement to her left. The young man’s hole cards were good. He resisted the temptation to study them, placing them face down with studied casualness. He would bet fifth, but his cards and the three cards dealt face up gave him a flush in spades, a good hand with potential to become better. He held a four and a five in spades and a six, a three, and a nine, all spades, lay face up before him. If the fourth or fifth card dealt face up were either a two or a seven of spades, he’d have an unbeatable hand unless someone held the eight and ten of spades and the seven came up rather than the two.

The player on Rohan’s right opened the betting with a hundred credits. Rohan, holding two eights, one of which was the spades, giving him a possible flush and blocking a straight flush in one direction, doubled the stake. The others followed the pattern and the bet was eight hundred credits when it reached Dakar. His hole cards, both threes, gave him three of a kind with the three of spades showing, so he raised the ante to sixteen hundred.

The young man hesitated a fraction before making the bet three thousand, two hundred credits. The sixth player had the ace of spades as one of his hole cards, giving him a possible ace-high flush, so he pushed six thousand, four hundred credits into the center.

The machine dealt another card, face-up. the eight of clubs.

Kayelle felt the next player’s struggle. The eight hadn’t helped him, yet the two of spades in his hole cards gave him a possible flush. One that any other spade would beat. His fall back was a pair of nines. To keep himself in the game until the final card, he covered the bet and called.

Rohan now had three eights. On what showed, only three nines, a flush, or an unlikely straight flush could beat him. He doubled the bet to twelve thousand, eight hundred.

The next two players called by covering the bet.

Dakar’s situation had changed. He blocked out the threes, but any other possible three of a kind would beat him, as would a flush and he held no spades. Common sense said cover the bet and call, and his reading of the other players supported this action. He sensed a flush to his left, the hesitation had been a fraction too deliberate, and Rohan’s bet suggested a superior three of a kind opposite. The others, he could discount, unless the last card was a spade.

Kayelle felt amazed. Dakar, without the benefit of telepathy, had defined the situation precisely.

He stacked chips until he had twelve thousand, eight hundred credits in front of him and sat looking at them, considering, and then added another twelve thousand eight hundred before pushing them all into the center, shaking his head all the time.

The young man playing on his left counted his chips. His only fear was a spade, other than a two or a seven, or a pair to make either a full house or four of a kind. Without these, the hand was his. He took five ten-thousand credit chips and added twelve one-thousand credit chips to double Dakar’s bet and tossed them into the center.

The next player covered this and called.

The machine dealt the final card—a three of hearts.

The original better folded. He had nothing but the pair on display.

Rohan now had a full house. He could beat a flush, the most probable hand on the face cards and his eights ranked second of the face cards, only someone holding a pair of nines or a pair of threes could beat him. He doubled the bet.

The next two players folded and it was Dakar’s turn, with the winning hand of four threes before him. A straight flush was impossible. He couldn’t be beat.

Kayelle expected elation and found disappointment instead. He didn’t like sure things. Winning without risk was Dead Sea fruit, ashes in his mouth. He’d milk the player on his left and cut as deeply as he could into Rohan’s stake, knowing he couldn’t lose on the cards and could ride out any attempt to buy the pot, but the thrill disappeared.

“Hello.”

Engrossed in the puzzle of Dakar’s reaction, Kayelle didn’t respond immediately and then her mind froze. He was here.

“You called me, and I came halfway across the galaxy to have you ignore me.” Jean-Paul’s tone teased her. “A kiss would be nice. I’ve been worried.” His arm wrapped around her waist. “You seem to have coped very well.”

“I knew you’d find me.”
It was important he understood her trust. “
Can we go somewhere private?”

“Of course.”
Her lips tingled for a phantom kiss.

She remembered to signal a toilet break to Dakar and he welcomed the excuse to look away from the table, giving Jean-Paul a long considering look.

“Will you be coming back?”

“Anneke will watch your back for the rest of the session,” Jean-Paul replied, gesturing to the woman on the other side of Kayelle.

This was no conventional beauty, Anneke had chosen bright colors, vibrant with life, and let the intelligence in her face commanded attention. “Will I do,” she asked Dakar.

“I am honored,” he said. “We’ll discuss how much after this hand.” He turned back to the table, but Kayelle sensed Anneke’s face in his mind.

“Hi, Kayelle. I’m this idiot’s sister. You led us quite a chase, but the whole family is waiting.”
Anneke may have ended her greeting with a warning, but Kayelle felt her mental embrace and its warmth told her this was an ally. “
You’ll find we all are.”
Jean-Paul was not the only one who could scan minds without opening theirs.

“Shall we go?” Jean-Paul had taken her hand and waited. “We’ve taken the suite next to Dakar’s.”

Kayelle blessed the circumstances leading to her choice of clothes, meeting Jean-Paul’s family was gong to be ordeal enough, without having to explain why she was dressed like a Pleasure Girl.

“You don’t think they’d understand.”

“I’d worry they’d understand too well, especially if I make you greet me properly first.”

His delighted chuckle answered her.

They walked out of the game room and paused to kiss passionately in a secluded niche, one of the many provided by an understanding Authority. It took some time to satisfy her need and longer to repair the effect on her appearance.

“How did you find me?”

“You showed up in a data bank search by the Pleasure Dome Authority and I sensed you calling me.” He mind-shared the rest.

“What happened to me?”

“I was careless.” He made no excuses. “I left a portal active and you sensed Limbo because I’d taken you there when we first met.” She nodded her understanding. “Once there, all the portals we’d ever used were available to you, including the one to Xanadu, and we had to search them individually to find you, an impossible task.” He mind-shared their efforts.

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” she warned. “I understood only half of that.”