Dragon's Honor - Kij Johnson [57]
“Not at all,” Picard insisted. While the assassin remained at large, he did not dare leave the Emperor alone. He resigned himself to a long and possibly tedious evening. “Perhaps we might even touch upon the treaty as we play?”
“If you insist,” the Dragon allowed, with a great show of tolerant bemusement. A pungent odor wafted through the kitchen; the scent was redolent of hot blacktop submerged in cod liver oil. Picard almost gagged at the smell alone. “Ah, grand, it is ready.” The Dragon clapped his hands together. His fingernails clattered like chopsticks. “The first bite is all yours, my dear captain.”
“You honor me too much,” Picard said.
“A full house,” the Heir said, and laid out a king, two queens, and a five and three of diamonds.
“Not exactly,” Riker said, trying not to sigh. Good thing the Enterprise had been able to beam down a deck of cards so promptly. After all, one never knew when one would end up having to amuse a harem full of feuding warriors during a drunken bachelor party.
“It looks full to me,” Chuan-chi protested. “A man, a woman, and some jewels.”
“I’m sorry,” Riker said. “I have two pair, and I’m afraid I win again.”
Poker had not been an unmitigated success. True, the novelty of the game had intrigued the Pai nobles, and no one had tried to murder him recently, but cardplaying did not come easily to the Heir and his guests. Riker had explained three times now the combinations possible, and the odds of each, yet the Pai seemed no closer to understanding the game.
Pillows and cushions had been cleared away to provide a flat square of floor on which to play. Riker, the Heir, the Second Son, and a bookish-looking young man named Meng Chiao squatted around the square, cards in hand, while the rest of the bachelors leaned over their shoulders, watching the games with varying degrees of interest and befuddlement. Coins of gold, silver, and bronze were piled upon the floor. Riker’s stake came from a replicator on board the Enterprise; Geordi had beamed them down to the party after Riker sent him a few sample coins. Serving girls continued to glide through the outer harem, refilling goblets and fetching refreshments.
“I do not see the sense of it,” the Second Son complained as he handed over a pile of the golden coins they were using in the place of real poker chips. Riker hoped the coins were not too valuable; he had little sense of Pai currency or of the stakes they were playing for. “You give me cards on which I bet. And then you give me more cards, and then you win. There must be more to it than that.”
“There is,” Riker said. “It’s all a matter of odds.” This was a familiar speech by now; having given it three times, he felt he could recite it in his sleep or in any language throughout the galaxy. “Different combinations of cards have varying degrees of likelihood that they will show up.”
“Oh, I understand that,” Chuan-chi said sourly. “The Admirable Tutor of Advanced Mathematics explained probability to me when my younger brother still required a nursemaid. No, what puzzles me is the notion that the odds will change anything.”
They will if you bear them in mind and bid thinking of the likelihood of drawing a specific card from the pack to fill out your hand.”
There was shocked silence. “You mean,” Kan-hi said, “cheat?”
“It is not considered cheating to compute odds in poker and use them to your advantage,” Riker explained.
“It can hardly be honorable,” the Heir said. “It would be taking unfair advantage of the other players.”
“As the stars fall from the sky, so does the lilac entice the bee,” Meng Chiao intoned. “Silver spurs outweigh the ostrich.” Riker had learned that the scrawny youth’s official title was Speaker of Aphorisms, and Meng Chiao seemed to be doing his best to live up to his title. So far, none of Meng Chiao’s