The casino was located at one end of a slowly rotating arm, which was mounted horizontally on a pivoted mast that extended straight up from Hell's Snowball. On the other end of the arm were the restaurants that served the passengers. Both modules were spherical; the structure resembled an anemometer with silver balls instead of cups on the ends. The view was tremendous. Overhead was the silver sphere that contained the restaurants. To one side was the slowly moving surface of the comet, a dirty gray even in the searing sunlight. To the other side were the stars and the main attraction: Sol itself, blemished with a choice collection of spots. The viewing was going to be good this trip. If anyone was alive to view it, Quester added to himself.
"Twenty-seven, you say?" the woman asked again.
"That's right, twenty-seven."
"One hundred Marks on number twenty-seven," she said and placed her bet. Quester looked up, wondering how many times he would have to repeat himself before she understood him.
The ball clattered to a stop, on number twenty-seven, and the croupier shoveled a tottering stack of chips to the woman. Quester looked around him again at the huge edifice he was sitting in, the incalculable tonnage of the spinning structure, and laughed.
"I wondered why they built this place," he said. "Who needs gravity?"
"Why did they build it?" she asked him, picking up the chips.
"For him," he said, pointing to the croupier. "That little ball would just hang there on the rim without gravity." He felt himself being lifted to his feet, and stood in precarious balance. He threw his arms wide.
"For that matter, that's what all the gravity in the system's for. To bring those little balls down to the number, the old wheel of fortune; and when they've got your number, there's nothing you can do because your number's up, that's all there is, twenty-seven, that's all..."
He was sobbing and mumbling philosophical truths as she led him from the room.
The ride in the elevator to the hub of the rotating structure sobered Quester considerably. The gradually decreasing weight combined with the Coriolis effect that tended to push him against one wall was more than an abused stomach could take. The management knew that and had provided facilities for it. Quester vomited until his legs were shaky. Luckily, by then he was weightless and didn't need them.
The woman towed him down the passageway like a toy balloon. They ended up in the grand ballroom.
The ballroom was a hemisphere of nullfield sitting on the surface of the Snowball. From inside it was invisible. The dance area was crowded with couples trying out free-fall dances. Most of them had the easy grace of a somersaulting giraffe.
Quester sobered a bit in the near-zero gee. Part of it was the effect of the antinausea drugs he had taken for free-fall; they also tended to reduce the effects of alcohol.
"What's your name?" he asked the woman.
"Solace. You?"
"I'm Quester. From Tharsis, Mars. I'm... I'm confused about a lot of things."
She floated over to a table, still towing Quester, and fastened him to one of the chairs. He turned his attention from the twisting bodies in the dance area to his companion.
Solace was tall, much taller than a man or a woman would naturally grow. He estimated she was two and a half meters from head to toe, though she had no toes. Her feet had been replaced with peds, oversized hands popular with spacers. They were useful in free-fall, and for other things, as he discovered when she reached across the table with one slender leg and cupped his cheek with her ped. Her legs were as limber and flexible as her arms.
"Thanks," she said, with a smile. "For the luck, I mean."
"Hmmm? Oh, you mean the bet." Quester had to drag his attention back from the delightful sensation on his cheek. She was beautiful. "But I wasn't advising you on a bet. I was trying to tell you..."
"I know. You were saying something about the lifeboats."
"Yes. It's astounding, I..." He stopped, realizing that he couldn't remember what was astounding. He was having trouble focusing on her. She was wearing a kaleidoholo suit, which meant she was naked but for a constantly shifting pattern of projections. There seemed to be fifty or sixty different suits contained in it, none persisting for longer than a few seconds. It would melt smoothly from a silver sheath dress to an almost military uniform with gold braid and buttons to a garland of flowers to Lady Godiva. He rubbed his eyes and went on.
"They're salvaging the ship," he said. "The last I heard there were only twenty-seven lifeboats left. And more are leaving every hour. They're taking the electronic equipment with them. And the furnishings and the machinery and who knows what else. I overheard the captain talking to a company representative. He's worried, the captain! But no one else seems to be. Am I worrying over nothing, or what?"
Solace looked down at her folded hands for a moment, then brought her eyes back up to his.
"I've been uneasy, too," she said in a low voice. She leaned closer to him. "I've shared my apprehensions with a group of friends. We... get together and share what we have learned. Our friends laugh at us when we tell them of our suspicions, but..." She paused and looked suspiciously around her.
Even in his befuddled state Quester had to smile. "Go on," he said.
She seemed to make up her mind about him and leaned even closer.
"We'll be meeting again soon. Several of us have been scouting around—I was covering the casino when we met—and we'll share our findings and try to come to a consensus on what to do. Are you with us?"
Quester fought off the feeling, quite strong since his suspicions began to haunt him, that he was somehow trapped in an adventure movie. But if he was, he was just getting to the good part. "You can count me in."
With no further ado, she grabbed his arm in one of her peds and began towing him along, using her hands to grab onto whatever was handy. He thought of objecting, but she was much better than he at weightless maneuvering. "May I have your attention, please?"
Quester looked around and spotted the captain standing in the center of the stage, in front of the band. He was not alone. On each side of him were women dressed in black jumpsuits, their eyes alertly scanning the audience. They were armed.
"Please, please." The captain held up his arms for quiet and eventually got it. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief.
"There is no cause for alarm. No matter what you may have been hearing, the ship is in no danger. The stories about the main engines having been removed are lies, pure and simple. We are looking for the people who planted these rumors and will soon have all of them in custody. The chief engineer wishes to announce that tours of the engine room will be resumed—"
One of the women shot the captain a glance. He mopped his brow again and consulted a slip of paper in his hand. The hand was shaking.
"Ah, a correction. The engineer announces that tours will not be resumed. There is, ah... that is, they are being overhauled, or... or something." The woman relaxed slightly.
"The rumor that the main reactor has been shut down is unfounded. The surgeon has told me that there has been no spillage of radioactive material, and even if there had been, the amount was insignificant and would only have been a danger to those passengers with high cumulative exposures. The surgeon will be collecting dosimeters at 1400 hours tomorrow.
"Let me repeat: there is no cause for alarm. As captain of this ship, I take a very dim view of rumormongering. Anyone caught disseminating stories about the unspaceworthiness of this vessel in the future will be dealt with sternly."
"Lifeboat drill will be held tomorrow on A Deck, as scheduled. Anyone who has not as yet been checked out on his life jacket will do so by noon tomorrow, ship's time. That is... is that all?" This last was addressed to the woman to his left, in a whisper. She nodded curtly, and the three of them walked off the stage, their magnetized shoes sticking to the deck like flypaper.