Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [5]
Lando sat back disappointed, drew on his cigarillo. It was too much, he reflected, to have expected to get rich off this emaciated college professor. “I move around too much to extend credit, Ottdefa.”
“I appreciate that fully, sir, and wish to … well, how much would you consider allowing on a Class Two multi-phasic robot, if one may ask?”
“One may indeed ask,” the gambler replied evenly. “Thirty-seven microcredits and a used shuttle pass. I’m not in the hardware business, my dear Ottdefa.” There was an idea, however: he could rent a pilot droid to get the ship from here to the Rafa—or wherever else he decided to go. He reconsidered. A Class Two was worth a good deal, perhaps half again the value of his spaceship. In these circumstances …
“All right, then, a kilocred—not a micro more. Take it or leave it.”
The Professor looked displeased, opened his mouth to bargain Lando up, examined the determined expression on the gambler’s face, and nodded. “A kilo, then. I haven’t any use for the thing in any event, it was attempting to help me break into the Sharu ruins, and I—”
“Will you have a card, Supervisor Fori?” Lando interrupted.
“I’m out; this game’s gotten too rich for me, and I’m on shift in fifteen minutes.” Much the same was true for Arun Feb. They sat through the hand, enjoying watching somebody else lose for once.
Osuno Whett, however, bet heavily with his borrowed thousand, perhaps in an attempt to tap the gambler out. He was assisted in this by Constable Phuna. The money on the table grew and grew as Lando met their every raise, increasing the stakes himself. He wanted the game over with, one way or the other.
He’d dealt himself a Two of Sabres and a Four of Coins, taking an additional card after his two opponents had accepted them. Abruptly, the Four became a Three of Flasks, and his extra, which had been a Nine of Staves, transformed itself into the Idiot.
“Sabacc!” Lando cried in double triumph. To judge from the money on the table before him, and the lack of it in front of Whett and Phuna, that was the game. “Where can I pick up that droid, Ottdefa? I’m going to put it to work immediately as a naviga—”
“On Rafa IV, Captain. I left it in the custody of a storage-locker company, intending to sell it there or send for it—now, please don’t get angry! I have here the title and an official tax assessment indicating its true value. You may take these with you, or use them to get a fair price for the robot here!”
Lando had risen, violence flitting briefly—very briefly—through his mind. That he had been gulled like any amateur was his first coherent thought. That he had a small but powerful pistol secreted beneath his decorative cummerbund was his second. That he could wind up dead, or in jail, on this sweltering fistful of slag was his third.
There wasn’t time for a fourth.
“Hold on there, son!” the Constable said, seizing Lando’s arm. “No need for any uproar. We’re all friends here.” He pointed with his free hand to the papers Whett had proferred. “The Ottdefa here can post bond to you in the full amount of—say, what’s this?”
Lando felt something small, round, and cool thrust up beneath his embroidered sleeve. He glanced down just as Phuna was pretending to remove it, and groaned. It was a flat, smooth-cornered disk a centimeter thick, perhaps four centimeters in diameter. He knew precisely what it was, although he’d never owned one in his life.
“A cheater!” the indignant Constable exclaimed. “He had a cheater all the time! He could change the faces of the cards to suit him any time he wanted! No wonder—”
With a feral snarl, Osuna Whett took advantage of the asteriod’s minimal gravity, launching himself across the table at Lando. Just as his skinny frame was halfway to its target, a dirty denym jacket flopped over his head, followed by a knobbly set of knuckles belonging to Arun Feb’s right hand. There was a dull thump of contact