Piers Anthony - Juxtaposition

“Thank you. Rife,” Merle said. She discarded one card face down. “I will take your center card. Stile, if you please.”

Stile spread his hand without looking and lifted out the center card. It was the 10 of diamonds. There went his pair already!

The Rifleman dealt Stile a replacement card. It was the 6 of hearts. Now he had only ace-high, a likely loser. “One ounce,” she said. The Rifleman slid a white poker chip across to her, and she touched it into the center of the table.

So that was the unit of currency—safely penny-ante after all. Relieved, Stile discarded his 10 of hearts, to keep his opponent from getting it and having a pair, and asked for Merle’s left-end card, which in a conventional arrangement might be her high one. Of course it wasn’t; she had not arranged her cards physically, either. Too much could be telegraphed that way. It was the jack of dubs. Now he had ace of spades, 6 of hearts, jack of dubs, 4 of clubs and 2 of dubs. Perhaps three legs on a flush, if he didn’t lose his dubs to Merle’s drawings. But he had to call, raise, or drop. He was unwilling to quit so early, so he called, contributing one white chip. Merle discarded another, and drew his ace. She was having uncanny luck in destroying his hand! Then she added a red chip to the pot. She was raising the ante—five more grams.

The Rifleman passed Stile another replacement card. It was the king of dubs. Now Stile had four clubs—almost a flush. A full flush would very likely win the pot; only one hand in 200 was a flush. But by the same token, flushes were hard to come by. Merle would have four chances in five to steal away one of his clubs on her next turn. Should he call or fold?

He looked at Mellon. The serf nodded affirmatively, approving the bet. So Stile discarded the 6 of hearts, drew another card from Merle—and got the ace of spades back. Disappointed, he matched the red chip.

Merle frowned faintly within her helmet, and Stile was frustrated again, unable to gauge her true mood. With an unfamiliar game variant and an unfamiliar opponent, he could exercise little of his natural skill. A person’s eyes could tell a lot; if the pupils widened, the hand was positive. But her pupils were shadowed by that translucency. She took another card: his king of clubs. He got an 8 of spades from the pack. Already his promised flush was fading, as he had feared. His hand still amounted to nothing. Merle put in a blue chip. Another ten grams! That brought her total up to sixteen grams of Protonite. At the rate she was raising the ante, he could not afford to let this game continue too long. But he would surely lose if he stood pat now; she must have amassed at least one pair. He wanted to make a good showing, so that other Citizens would want to make wagers with him.

Stile decided to keep trying for the flush. Therefore he discarded his ace of spades, reckoning it too risky to hold for her possible reacquisition, and drew from Merle—his original 10 of diamonds. No good to him at all, at this stage, since he had discarded his matching 10 before. Again he matched her bet, though he thought it would have been smarter to drop. She probably had ten times as much wealth to gamble with as he did. If Melon knew how week Stile’s hand was, the serf would hardly have tolerated this bet.

Merle took his jack of dubs, further decimating his flush. And she put five more blue chips into the pot. Sixty six grams total: she surely had a good hand now! Stile accepted the replacement card: the 6 of spades. Now his hand was the 8 and 6 of spades, 10 of diamonds, and 4 and 2 of dubs. No pairs, no flush, no high card—and a monstrous ante racing him if he wanted to keep playing.

Then something clicked. He had almost missed the forest for the trees!

“I stand pat on this hand,” Stile announced. “Adviser, may I bet my limit?”

Mellon agreed reluctantly. Stile put eight blue chips and four white ones into the pot, bringing his total to one hundred grams. Now it was Merle’s turn to call or fold; she could not raise during his turn. Would she be bluffed out?

She called, putting in another thirty-four grams. She laid down her hand, face up. “Blaze,” she said. “Two kings, two queens, one jack.”

That meant she had to have had one pair last round, perhaps two pairs, beating him. She had waited until she had what she wanted: a pat hand, all court cards. She had played with nerve.

But Stile had beaten her. “Skip straight,” he said, laying it out. “Ten-high.” There it was: 10-8-6-4-2. This hand was not as strong as a straight, but was stronger than any of the other hands from three of a kind down.

“Very nice. Stile,” she agreed. “The pot is yours.” She made a little gesture of parting and walked away.

“He took her,” one of the male Citizens said. “That’s one kilo for me.” Another nodded glumly.

“Very nice indeed,” the Rifleman said. “You have added another hundred to your estate. It is so recorded.” A total of 219 grams of Protonite added to his original thousand—in the course of just two supposedly penny ante games. But Stile knew he could just as readily lose it again.

Mellon approached as the group of Citizens dispersed.

“Sir, you must desist now.”

“I’ll be glad to. But what is the reason? I thought you would stop me from betting before.”

“This is the bait, sir. Now the serious bettors will seek you out.”

The serious bettors. Of course. Stile had, as it were, dipped his toe. He needed to announce himself, so that he could step into the real action, where the upper limit would rise. Obviously a gain of 219 grams was statistically insignificant, compared with the 2000 kilograms that was his target level. He had won only one ten-thousandth of his stake. This could be as difficult a climb as it had been through the levels of the Tourney.

Yet Mellon was not concerned about the luck of individual wagers. He had a certain program of challenge planned. His limit on Stile’s initial betting had been merely to prevent Stile from losing his stake in the course of making himself known to the key wagering clientele.

“Did I hear correctly?” Stile asked the Rifleman. “Did one of the spectators bet a full kilogram of Protonite on the outcome of my game with Merle?”

“He did,” the Rifleman agreed. “Citizens bet on any thing.”

“Ten times what I bet—and he wasn’t even playing!”

The Rifleman smiled. “That’s the way it is. Your adviser protected you from getting into that level too soon, Come on—there’s more than wagering to get into.” Stile allowed the Rifleman to show him around some more. There were different levels and slants and curves to the invisible floor, with refreshments on one tier, dancing on another, and conversation on a third. Coupled with the ubiquitous holographic astronomy, the effect was potent. This was a wonderland, as impressive in its lavish expense as in its execution. Yet the Citizens, long used to this sort of thing, ignored the setting and socialized among them selves.

“You do get accustomed to it,” the Rifleman said, divining Stile’s thoughts. “This is merely a standard social occasion, a kind of Citizen concourse, where any can come for idle entertainment and socializing on an amicable plane. All comforts and amusements are available at every Citizen’s private residence, but they get bored. Of course they have holo contact, but you can’t actually touch a holo, or push it aside or make love to it.” “

You say they,” Stile observed.

“I’m still a serf at heart. You’ll be the same. The Citizens do not discriminate against our kind—to do so would be to dishonor their system—but we discriminate against ourselves, internally. We react to what is beneath their notice. Look there, for instance.” He gestured upward. Stile looked. Above them was a transparent spaceship, inside which Citizens were dancing. The men wore archaic black tailed-coat costumes, the women white blouses and slippers and voluminous skirts. From this nether vantage he could see right up their prettily moving legs, under their skirts where the white bloomers took over. Stile had gotten used to nakedness in Proton and to clothing in Phaze, but this halfway vision was intensely erotic for him. He did have some acclimatizing to do, lest he embarrass himself. Again the Rifleman was with him in spirit.