The Ganymede Club (15 page)

"That's the one," said the tiny earphone. "The woman in blue."

"Got a name for her?"

"Her credit note gave the name as Dulcie Iver. Could be fake, but I don't think so."

"Right. I'm going to take a look." He stepped forward, filled with a tension that was pure pleasure.

"Good luck," the voice said. "She's still winning, not all that big, but too steady. She's way outside the odds. I've been working on this for two hours, and I've not come up with a thing."

"Keep the cameras going, Sid."

He waited and watched in silence for a few minutes. The woman was dark-haired and pale in complexion, maybe twenty-five years old. Her pale-blue dress was short, low-cut front and back, and sleeveless. Her legs and arms were bare, with smooth skin as white as chalk. She wore no jewelry, carried no purse, and her shoes were simple dark-blue flats. She had slipped them off, and every few seconds her toes wiggled and clenched as though responding to some unreadable emotion.

"You sure you scanned for implants, Sid? "

"Of course." The voice in his ear was reproachful. "What you think I am? Implants and telemetry and calculator. She's clean."

"Just wanted to be sure." Even with Sid's reassurance, he made his own careful assessment, seeking evidence of scars on the fine skin or bulges within the clothing. As he did so he felt a sudden stab of lust, strong enough to surprise him.

He turned his attention to the terminal and screen in front of the woman. Dulcie Iver was playing
Delphi,
a group game, with nineteen other members. Another round was under way, and bets were already being made.

He knew the game well—he ought to, he was one of its designers.
Delphi
was popular, but the house take was big, an average of eighteen percent. A clever player, by taking advantage of the pattern of betting, could change the odds so that an eighteen percent loss was converted to a two percent gain—at the expense of the other members of the group. Dulcie Iver, for the past two hours, had made an average profit of eleven percent. As Sid had pointed out, she was way outside the reasonable statistical variation provided by the game's random element.

But Sid's value lay in his reliability, not his intellect. In this business, you didn't want too many people too smart.

The clock was ticking down, and only twenty seconds were left in which to lay bets. Dulcie Iver sat with her fingers poised over her board. She was studying the display, but so far she was not in the game.

Ten seconds. A flurry of activity, as a dozen bets were made in two seconds. Still her fingers did not move, but her toes began to wiggle and clench. At the last moment, with no more than two seconds to go before the cutoff, she stabbed at the board in front of her, placing five bets before the board went blank. There was a tiny pause, as the electronic selector took its input from quantum fluctuations—totally random and totally unpredictable. Then the winning selection appeared on the main display.

Eleven members had lost, four of them heavily. Five others had broken even, or chosen not to make a bet. Three players showed small gains. And Dulcie Iver had come out ahead, with a profit of thirteen percent on her bet. She did not respond in any way to her success. Once more she was sitting back in her chair, fingers and toes still.

He went for three more rounds, watching and calculating furiously until he was absolutely sure. Then he said, "Don't worry about her, Sid. She's clean. I'll take care of this."

He moved forward and touched her on the shoulder. "Miss Iver? Could I have a word with you?"

She turned, taking in his casual dress and absence of ID. "I don't think I know you. "

"Not yet. " He smiled at her. "I'm with the management, as you probably guessed. A private word, if you don't mind."

After a moment she slipped her shoes on and stood up. She was tall, almost as tall as he. She followed him without speaking—no comment, no question. He nodded his private approval. Smart woman. I bet you think you know what this is about, but you give nothing away until you're sure.

He took her to the small office, high up on the wall of the gaming chamber. It looked out over the whole room through its wall of one-way glass, adding direct observation to the ranks of monitors that allowed the activity to be seen from every angle. He gestured to a seat.

"I won't waste your time or mine, Ms. Iver. I know what you're doing."

Still she did not speak.

"But I want to be sure that I know
how,"
he went on. "Would you like to tell me how you operate?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Miss Iver, please. Let us not insult each other's intelligence. If you insist, I will tell you how you operate. When you play
Delphi,
you have one minute in which to place your initial bet. Then when you have seen what everyone else has bet, you have a chance to bet again. The first bets that are placed change the odds, but you only have ten seconds to use that fact in the second round. Lots of players don't bother, or at least they don't take real advantage of the first-round bets. The few who do we call second-level players. They are the ones who will go home a winner most of the time. Agreed?"

"Probably. But I'm not a second-level player."

"I agree completely. You, Ms. Iver, are a rarity that I have not seen for a long time. You are a
third-level
player. You place your own bet in those final brief seconds when all the second bets are complete. True?"

"What if it is?" She had dazzling violet-blue eyes, startling with such black hair and white skin. She was staring at him stone-faced, still giving away nothing. "Everything that you have said is within the
Delphi
rules."

"It is not against the rules of
Delphi,
nor is it against house rules—though it disconcerts my staff considerably.
Delphi,
you see, was carefully designed. The calculations required to operate at the third level are more than can be done in the time available. Even with a computational aid, the interval is too short to enter the data and then use the result. And you have no such aid."

"You seem to have just proved that I am not a third-level player."

"I do, don't I? But I want to suggest another answer. You are what in another age would have been termed a 'lightning calculator,' a person with the ability to perform feats of memory and rapid mental calculation that most people would consider impossible."

At last, he saw a reaction. Her blue eyes were frightened, and her lower lip was quivering. "You can't prove any of that."

He reached out and patted her hand. "My dear Ms. Iver—may I call you Dulcie?—you do not understand. I am not seeking proof. I did not bring you here to accuse or punish you. I wanted to congratulate you and to admire your talent. And to offer a proposition."

"Ah." Her expression became contemptuous. "I've been getting those since I was fourteen."

"Not that sort of proposition, Dulcie. " (Not yet, at any rate.) "I mean a
business
proposition. Come and work here, with me."

"You mean as an employee, in this place? Why should I? I can make more money playing
Delphi."

"You can. Unless—or rather, until—you are blackballed here and in the other gaming rooms. But I don't think you are telling me the truth. Your gains have not been large. Also, I watched you. You don't play for money. You play for the thrill, the excitement of beating the system. I know that thrill, all too well."

"How can you? You sit on the house side, you
make
the system. There's no way you can lose."

"Do you think I always sat up here, in this room, rather than down at the tables? How do you think I was able to recognize third-level play so quickly? If you want proof, come back with me to the gaming floor, and let me convince you that at least one other person in the world is capable of third-level Delphi play."

"You are—"

"Of course I am. It takes one to know one. " He reached out his hand. This time she grasped it in both of hers, and smiled at him in a way that sent tingles up his back.

"I never met another. I never thought I would." She laughed like a child. "We should compare what we can do."

"You show me yours and I'll show you mine?" He thought it might be too soon to say that, but all it did was make her smile more broadly. "And there is something that is even more fun than playing the games. I'm referring to
designing
them, creating something that offers scope for all skills from blind betting to your own level of play. Are you interested in working with me on that? I can make you an attractive offer. And I can assure you, there is no one else with talents remotely like yours in this establishment."

"I am interested. Very interested." The excitement on her face brought back memories of his own younger days. "But you have to tell me more about everything, and everybody here. I don't even know your name. Who are you?"

"My name?" He paused. Why was there a reluctance to tell her? "My name is—"

Don't say it, don't say it. That was the past. You are not that man any more.

The deep mental block came into play, shattering reality. He was falling again, falling as he had fallen many times, falling on a dark airless world—lungs gasping out a final bloodied froth of breath—falling until the solid roof below rushed up to put an end to everything. . .

And Lola, breaking out of the haldane synthesis with a second shock that rivaled the first one in its sickening intensity, knew that with Bryce Sonnenberg she was out of her depth. Memories of Mars, and now memories of Earth, when according to his own statements and all his records, he had never been to either planet. If those were false memories, how many more of the things that he had told her might be untrue?

She had to learn more about his past if she were to help him, and she could not rely on him to provide that information. To make progress, she herself must have independent help.

* * *

Lola tossed and turned in her bed. She had known that she needed assistance even before the most recent session with Sonnenberg; today had merely provided a confirmation. But when possible help had come along, she had rejected it, and for all the wrong reasons.

She remembered, ruefully, what she had told Spook a hundred times:
Don't judge people by appearances.
That was exactly what she herself had done when Bat had lumbered onto the scene. Thinking back, she felt sure that he had formed no better impression of her than she had of him. He had not spoken one word from the time Spook dragged him in to the time he dragged him out again. And he had scowled at her throughout the brief meeting.

But Spook insisted that Bat was a genius, someone who as Megachirops operated at the highest Masters' level on the Puzzle Network. He had shown her some of Bat's problems and solutions, and Lola acknowledged that the mind that came up with those possessed a subtlety and a deviousness far beyond what she would ever be able to achieve, plus an uncanny skill at handling large data bases.

Unfortunately those were skills that she had rejected, out of hand, because of a fat body and a few food stains.

She turned over in bed and looked at the clock. It was the middle of Ganymede's sleep period, a time when everyone sensible was asleep. But if she didn't do something, she was not likely to join that group.

Lola rose, pulled on a grey, one-piece suit, and walked along the dim-lit hall that led to Spook's rooms. He had chosen a separate part of the living quarters, as far away as he could get from where Lola lived. There was a message in that choice: Spook liked privacy. But in this case she didn't intend to do more than leave him a note on the door of his bedroom.

She opened the outer door quietly and slipped inside. She had expected all to be dark, but as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she could see a faint light showing under the closed study door. Lola shook her head. Everyone
sensible
was asleep at this hour. She ought to have known that category would not include Spook.

She tapped gently, waited a second, and went in. Spook was there, peering into the display volume at a bloated cylinder with six convoluted and reentrant legs that sprouted from and reattached to its body. At Spook's side, arms folded like a judgmental Buddha, stood Rustum Battachariya.

Lola hadn't expected Bat still to be here, but actually it might make her job simpler. Before she could get to that, though, she had to fulfill her duty as a responsible surrogate parent.

"You shouldn't be up at this hour." She glared at both of them, the scrawny Spook and the Great Bat, and realized for the first time how young Bat was. Certainly no more than sixteen or seventeen. His huge size made you think he must be old, but his face had the innocent, unlined, and peaceful countenance of a baby. "Both of you should be asleep in bed."

"The late hour, I am afraid, is my fault." Bat spoke to her for the first time. "I pleaded with Ghost Boy—Spook—for instruction as to a certain geometrical construction technique."

"No, it's
not
your fault. You don't know the house rules." She pointed her forefinger at Spook. "He certainly does. What are you doing up so late?"

"Hey, it's no big deal." Spook was more annoyed than defensive. "I'm up as late as this nearly every night. The only reason you don't know it is you're always in bed, snoring your head off. A better question is, what are
you
doing up so late?"

"I couldn't sleep." Lola sat down on the one free chair in the cluttered workroom and told herself that she was making the right decision, improbable as it seemed. "I threw the two of you out earlier today, and I shouldn't have."

Spook shrugged. "That's all right. We could have done nothing if we'd stayed. I explained to Bat that you were stoned out of your skull."