A cautious citizen approached, saying, “What did you do?”
“Taxidermy is my passion,” the captain explained. “I stuff birds.”
“Where do you stuff them?”
“In the ship.”
The beggar, limping worse than ever, approached the captain, rattling his tin cup. “Gimme a break, sir,” he whined. “Gimme a break, will ya?”
The captain, embarrassed, took a coin from his pocket and dropped it into the cup. “Here you are, my good man.” The beggar stared into his cup, dumfounded.
Billy Shelby said, “Shall I take the bird back to the ship. Captain?”
“Thank you, Lieutenant, thank you.”
Off went Billy with the bird.
Another citizen, pointing after the bird, said, “Even money you can’t do that again.”
Scratching his wrist, the captain said, “Eh?”
“Even money’s the best I can do,” the citizen warned him.
The captain looked slowly around the plaza, at last registering the human activity here. “Are they,” he said, pointing at one pair of dice players, “are they gambling?”
“They’re all gambling,” Ensign Benson assured him. “Fascinating, fascinating.”
“My goodness,” the captain said.
“They’ve turned their weakness into strength,” Ensign Benson went on. “Their vice into virtue. Their swords into— Well, no.”
They strolled together over to a group playing cards around a cement table. “Pardon me,” the captain said, “but is this a game of chance?”
“That depends,” said one of the players.
“I mean a gambling game.”
Another player — the prosperous citizen, in fact — said, “It’s a fine game, my friend, and very easy to learn. Care to sit in?”
“No, no. I’ll just watch.”
“Then come sit by me,” said the citizen, hospitable as a spider. “Name’s Scanney. I’ll explain it to you as we go.”
In the chief tout’s office, the chief tout himself, in appearance a cross between a distinguished politician and a sleazy gambler, sat at a desk playing a board game against himself. It looked something like Monopoly but was much more complex, being spread over several layers of boards, with ramps, elevators and slides. The chief tout held two dice cups. one in each hand, and played one hand against the other. It had been years since anyone — not even Scanney — would play against him.
He looked up from his left hand’s predicament as his secretary — that is, the loser in that day’s steno pool — came in to say, “Three to two you don’t know what Earth is.”
“Original Source of mankind,” the chief tout immediately responded. ‘“They brought us here five hundred years ago, said they’d be right back, haven’t been heard from since. Why?”
“They’re back,” the disconsolate girl said, counting out three hard-won Iukes onto the chief tout’s desk. “There’s a fat one ontside.”
“Send him in,” the chief tout said, smiling from ear to ear and rubbing his competing hands together.
A moment later. the fat one himself was ushered in, accompanied by two wolfishly grinning citizens. They’d be demanding a finder’s fee later on; the chief tout could tell just by looking at them.
Meanwhile, the fat one was in voice: “I am, Your Honor, proud to announce that I am Councilman Morton Luthguster, representative plenipotentiary from the Supreme Galactic Council, and it is my esteemed pleasure to welcome you back to the Confederation of Earth.”
“Haven’t heard from you people In quite a while,” the chief tout said.
“I am empowered,” Luthguster said, puffing himself up, “to negotiate with you on several fronts. Mutual defense, for instance. Trade agreements, technical advisory personnel. Earth can do much for you now that you’re back in the Confederation.”
“Trade agreements, eh?” Gesturing toward the game board, the chief tout said, “That’s what this game’s all about, in a way. Familiar with it?”
Luthguster gave the board a suspicious look. “Uh, no,” he said. “I don’t believe so.”
“Sit down here,” the chief tout said making room for a chair beside himself. “I’ll show you how it works.”
•
“I’m going to take a stroll around town,” Ensign Benson said. “You’ll be all right here, Captain?”
The captain nodded in a distracted way; most of his attention was on his new friend Scanney’s explanation of this fascinating card game. “I’m fine, Ensign Benson; you go ahead.
“Now, if you get two alike,” Scanney was saying, “that’s good. But three alike is even better.”
Vaguely worried, Ensign Benson said, You won’t play or anything, will you, Captain?”
“No, no, no, I’m just observing. Now, Mr. Scanney, what are those cards with the nooses?”
In the main corridor of the Hopeful. Billy Shelby passed Astrogator Pam Stokes, still too involved with her slide rule to notice either him or the bird he carried. He said, nevertheless, believing it good manners — and good for morale — to greet crew members when spotted. Unanswered, he went on to dump the dead bird in the captain’s office, then to make a quick round of the interior, reassuring himself that everything was spaceshipshape. In the main engine room. He found Chief Engineer Hester Hanshaw whamming away at a pipe with a hammer. The sound was awful. “Hester? Something the matter?”
“No,” Hester said. “I’m just keeping my arm loose.” Fortyish, stocky and blunt-featured, Hester was blunt in manner and personality and rather blunt in brain as well.
“Our very lives,” Billy reminded her, “depend upon those engines.”
“Is that right?” Hester hammered some more, flailing away.
Billy blinked at every bang. “Hester, is it serious?”
Hester put down her hammer and turned to frown at Billy. “You tell me,” she said. Picking up a white plastic china coffee mug, she turned a spigot, filled the mug with black liquid and handed it to Billy. “Give that a taste.”
Doubtful, Billy said, “Taste?”
“Go on, go on.”
So Billy took a tiny sip, and his face wrinkled up like a cheap shirt. “Oog!” he said.
“You call that coffee?” Hester demanded.
“No! Is it supposed to be?”
“Yes, it’s supposed to—” Struck with sudden doubt, Hester took back the mug and sniffed it, “No, you’re right; that’s crankcase oil. Wait a minute, now.”
Turning away, Hester began following pipes with a pointing finger. Billy, making bad-mouth faces, headed for the door, but before he got there, Ensign Benson walked in, saying. “Bad news.”
“Don’t drink the coffee,” Billy said.
“What? No, this is worse. The captain got into a game.”
Hester looked away from her maze of pipes. “He what?”
“He lost the ship.”
“Oh, Captain, my, Captain,” Billy said. “Whatever made you do it?”
“I had a hunch,” the Captain said. He looked dazed.
A citizen passing with an armchair on his head — Scanney, the new owner, was moving into the Hopeful — paused to say, “You should never draw to an inside quork.”