Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [86]
Lando, with a Seven of Coins and the negative card, Demise, needed something better than minus six to win this hand. He dealt himself an Ace of Sabres, bringing the score to nine—still insufficient. The next player also took a card; the Administrator Senior had already decided to refuse; the player to his left took a card; the one to Lando’s right stood pat.
Lando dealt himself another card, the betting proceeding with each turn around the table. They had anted at a thousand credits that night, Lando’s fourth in the Oseon, and after three rounds of betting, an impressive amount of money lay on the table.
Mistress of Coins. Lando was one point short of a pure sabacc. He held his peace. The cards seemed slow tonight, reluctant to perform their transmutations. He could feel his luck glowing warm within him. He was relaxed.
The player to his left took a card. The Administrator Senior still stood pat. The next player took a card—and immediately slammed her hand down on the table.
“Zero!” she grumbled in disgust. There were three ways of going out in the game: exceeding twenty-three, falling below minus twenty-three, or hitting zero. The player to Lando’s right stood pat.
A flicker of movement in his hand caught Lando’s eye. One of the cards was changing.
“Sabacc!” he said with satisfaction. Demise had made itself into Moderation. The odds against such consecutivity were high, and so was the value of the pot the young gambler raked in.
The others tossed their cards on the table. The deal would stay with Lando for another hand.
Shuffling the cards, he considered those playing with him. There was, of course, Lob Doluff, too conservative a player to make any real gains—no threat, but a reliable source of income. He should stick with managing a bureaucracy. He wasn’t cut out to be a gambler.
That night they were at Doluff’s estate. The game shifted to a new place each night it was played. A few kilometers outside what passed for a city, it was a rather large dome on the surface, filled with moist air and tropical plants. The cold stars rose clearer and sharper than they had any natural right to do above the thick jungle that surrounded the players.
The table had been placed on a broad, tiled walkway in the very center of the giant decorative greenhouse. A fountain burbled agreeably nearby. It was practically the only noise: the Administrator Senior had not seen fit to populate his garden with animals. From time to time, a mechanical servant would emerge from between the heavy plantings to offer the players a drink. Lando stuck with snillik, a thick liqueur from somewhere near the galactic Center, one he actively detested and therefore drank slowly and judiciously.
Having shuffled the deck a fifth and final time, he offered it to the player on his right for a cut. That worthy accepted, divided the deck into three stacks, and reassembled it in a different order. Lando kept an eye on him; he had the look of yet another professional, although he’d claimed to be a retired businessman. Perhaps he was both.
Approximately of middle age, Del Cycer was extraordinarily tall for a human being, well over two meters. He was also extraordinarily thin. He was dressed in a bright green caftan and wore a great many rings on his fingers.
“You have been recently to the Rafa, I heard it said, Captain Calrissian. Is it true they’ve found the legendary lost civilization that was supposed to be there?” Cycer’s tone was conversational, friendly, interested.
Lando reclaimed the cards, dealt them around the table in a practiced, leisurely manner.
“It might be more accurate to say the lost civilization found us. I was there when