Ganch suppressed a desire to ask for figures on naval strength. This guileless dice-thrower might well spout them on request, but—

  The slide walk had reached the waterfront by now, and they got off. Here the sea glistened blue, streaked with white foam, and the harbor was crowded with shipping. There were not only flying boats, but big watercraft moored to the ferroconcrete piers. Machines were loading and unloading in a whirl of bright steel arms, warehouses gaped for the planet’s wealth, the air was rich with oil and spices. A babbling confusion of humanity surfed around Ganch and broke on his eardrums in a roar.

  Wayland pointed unobtrusively here and there, his voice almost lost in the din: “See, we have quite a cultural variety of our own. That tall blond man in the fur coat is from Norrin, he must have brought in a load of pelts. The little dark fellow in the sarong is a spice trader from the Radiant Islands. The Mongoloid wearing a robe is clear from the Ivory Gate, probably with handicrafts to exchange for our timber. And—”

  They were interrupted by a young woman, a very good-looking young woman with long black hair and a tilt-nosed freckled face. She wore a light blue uniform jacket with a lieutenant’s twin comets on the shoulders, as well as a short loose-woven skirt revealing slim brown legs. “Will! Where have you been?”

  “Showing the distinguished guest of our government around,” said Wayland formally. “The Prime Selector himself appointed me to that pleasant task. Ganch, may I have the honor of presenting my niece, Lieutenant Christabel Hesty of the New Hermesian Navy? Lieutenant Hesty, this gentleman hight Ganch, from Dromm. It’s a planet lying about fifty light-years from us, a very fine place I’m sure. They are making a much-overdue ethnographic survey of this Galactic region, and Ganch is taking notes on us.”

  “Honored, sir.” She bowed and shook hands with herself in the manner of Arkinshaw. “We’ve heard of Dromm. There have been visitors thence in the past several years. I trust you are enjoying your stay?”

  Ganch saluted stiffly, as was prescribed for the Great Cadre. “Thank you, very much.” He was a little shocked at such blatant sexual egalitarianism, but reflected that it might be turned to advantage.

  “Will, you’re just the man I want to see.” Lieutenant Hesty’s voice bubbled over. “I came down to wager on a cargo from Thorncroft and you—”

  “Ah, yes. I’ll be glad to help you, though of course the requirements of my guild are—”

  “You’ll get your commission.” She made a face at him and turned laughing to Ganch. “Perhaps you didn’t know, sir, my uncle is a Tipster?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said the Dromman. “What profession is that?”

  “Probability analyst. It takes years and years of training. When you want to make an important wager, you call in a Tipster.” She tugged at Wayland’s sleeve. “Come on, the trading will start any minute.”

  “Do you mind, sir?” asked Wayland.

  “Not at all,” said Ganch. “I would be very interested. Your economic system is unique.” And, he added, the most inefficient I have yet heard of.

  They entered a building which proved to be a single great room. In the center was a long table, around which crowded a colorful throng of men and women. There was an outsize electronic device of some kind at the end, with a tall rangy man in kilt and beryllium-copper breastplate at the controls. Wayland stood aside, his face taking on an odd withdrawn look.

  “How does this work?” asked Ganch—sotto voce, for the crowd did not look as if it wanted its concentration disturbed.

  “The croupier there is the trader from Thorncroft,” whispered Christabel Hesty. This close, with her head just beneath his chin, Ganch could smell the faint sun-warmed perfume of her hair. It stirred a wistfulness in him, buried ancestral memories of summer meadows on Earth. He choked off the emotion and listened to her words.

  “He’s brought in a load of refined thorium, immensely valuable. He puts that up as his share, and those who wish to trade get into the game with shares of what they have—they cover him, just as in craps, though they’re playing Orthotron now. The game is a complex one, I see a lot of Tipsters around…yes, and the man in the green robe is a Games Engineer, umpire and technician. I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand the rules at once, but perhaps you would like to make side bets?”

  “No, thank you,” said Ganch. “I am content to observe.”

  He soon found out that Lieutenant Hesty had not exaggerated the complications. Orthotron seemed to be a remote descendant of roulette such as they had played on Thanit before the war, but the random-pulse tubes shifted the probabilities continuously, and the rules themselves changed as the game went on. When the scoreboard on the machine flashed, chips to the tune of millions of credits clattered from hand to hand. Ganch found it hard to believe that anyone could even learn the system, let alone become so expert in it as to make a profession of giving advice. A Tipster would have to allow for the presence of other Tipsters, and—

  His respect for Wayland went up. The little man must have put a lightning-fast mind through years of the most rigorous training; and there must be a highly developed paramathematical theory behind it all. If that intelligence and energy had gone into something useful, military technics for instance—

  But it hadn’t, and New Hermes lay green and sunny, wide open for the first determined foe.

  Ganch grew aware of tension. It was not overtly expressed, but faces tightened, changed color, pupils narrowed and pulses beat in temples until he could almost feel the emotion, crackling like lightning in the room. Now and then Wayland spoke quietly to his niece, and she laid her bets accordingly.

  It was with an effort that she pulled herself away, with two hours lost and a few hundred credits gained. Only courtesy to the guest made her do it. Her hair was damply plastered to her forehead, and she went out with a stiff-legged gait which only slowly loosened.

  Wayland accepted his commission and laughed a little shakily. “I earn my living, sir!” he said. “It’s brutal on the nerves.”

  “How long will they play?” asked Ganch.

  “Till the trader is cleaned out or has won so much that no one can match him. In this case, I’d estimate about thirty hours.”

  “Continuous? How can the nervous system endure it—not to mention the feet?”

  “It’s hard,” admitted Christabel Hesty, seeming to wake from a troubled dream. Her eyes burned. “But exciting! There’s nothing in the Galaxy quite like that suspense. You lose yourself in it.”

  “And, of course,” said Wayland mildly, “man adapts to any cultural pattern. We’d find it difficult to live as you do on Dromm.”

  No doubt, thought Ganch sardonically. But you are going to learn how!

  On an isolated planet like this, an outworlder was always a figure of romance. In spite of manners which must seem crude here, Ganch had only to suggest an evening out for Christabel Hesty to leap at the offer.

  He simply changed to another uniform, but she appeared in a topless gown of deep-blue silkite, her dark hair sprinkled with tiny points of light, and made his heart stumble. He reminded himself that women were breeders, nothing else. But Principle! How dull they were on Dromm!”

  His object was to gain information, but he decided he might as well enjoy his work.

  They took an elevated way to the Stellar House, Arkinshaw’s only skyscraper, and had cocktails in a clear-domed roof garden with sunset rioting around them. A gentle music, some ancient waltz from Earth herself, lilted in the air, and the gaily clad diners talked in low voices and clinked glasses and laughed softly.

  Lieutenant Hesty raised her glass to his. “Your luck, sir,” she pledged him. Then, smiling: “Shall we lower guard?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “My apologies. I forgot you are a stranger, sir. The proposal was to relax formality for this evening.”

  “By all means,” said Ganch. He tried to smile in turn. “Though I fear my class is always rather stiff.”

  Her long, soot-black eyelashes fluttered. “Then I hight Chris tonight,” she said. “And your first name…?”

  “My class does not use them. I am simply Ganch, with various identifying symbols attached.”

  “We meet some strange outworlders,” she said frankly, “but in truth, you Drommans seem the most exotic of all.”

  “And New Hermes gives us that impression,” he chuckled.

  “We know so little about you—there have been only a few explorers and traders, and now you. Is your mission official?”

  “Everything on Dromm is official,” said Ganch, veraciously enough. “I am only an ethnographer making a detailed study of your folkways.” And that was a lie.

  “Excuse my saying so, I shouldn’t criticize another civilization, but isn’t it terribly dull having all one’s life regulated by the State?”

  “It is…” Ganch hunted for words. “Secure,” he finished earnestly. “Ordered. One knows where one stands.”

  “A pity you had that war with Thanit. They seemed such nice people, those who visited here.”

  “We had no choice,” answered Ganch with the smoothness of rote. “An irresponsible, aggressive government attacked us.” She did not ask for details, and he supposed it was the usual thing: interest in other people’s fate obeys an inverse-square law, and 50 light-years is a gulf of distance no man can really imagine.

  In point of fact, he told himself with the bitter honesty of his race, Thanit had sought peace up to the last moment; Dromm’s ultimatum had demanded impossible concessions, and Thanit had had no choice but to fight a hopeless battle. Her conquest had been well-planned, the armored legions of Dromm had romped over her and now she was being digested by the State.

  Chris frowned, a shadow on the wide clear brow. “I find it hard to see why they would make war—why anyone would,” she murmured. “Isn’t there enough on any planet to content its people? And if by chance they should be unhappy, there are always new worlds.”

  “Well,” shrugged Ganch, “you should know why. You’re in the Navy yourself, aren’t you, and New Hermes has fought a couple of times.”

  “Only in self-defense,” she said.

  “Naturally, we now mount guard on our defeated enemies, even 70 years later, just to be sure they don’t try again. As for me, I have a very peaceful desk job in the statistics branch, correlating data.”

  Ganch felt a thrumming within himself. He could hardly have asked for better luck. Precise information on the armament of New Hermes was just what Dromm lacked. If he could bring it back to old wan Halsker—it would mean a directorship, at least!

  And afterward, when a new conquest was to be administered and made over…His ruby eyes studied Chris from beneath drooping lids. A territorial governor had certain perquisites of office.

  “I suppose there are many poor twisted people in the universe,” went on the girl. “Like those Oberkassel priests, with their weird doctrine they wanted to force on all mankind. It’s hard to believe intolerance exists, but alien planets have done strange things to human minds.”

  There was a veiling in her own violent gaze as she looked at him. She must want to know his own soul, what it was that drove the Great Cadre and why anyone should enjoy having power over other men. He could have told her a great deal—the cruel wintry planet, the generations-long war against the unhuman Ixlatt who made sport of torturing prisoners, then war between factions that split men, war against the red-eyed mutants, whipped-up xenophobia, pogroms, concentration camps…Ganch’s grandfather had died in one.

  But the mutation was more than an accidental mark, it was in the nervous system, a steel answer to a pitiless environment. A man of the Great Cadre simply did not know fear on the conscious level. Danger lashed him to alertness, but there was no fright to cloud his thoughts. And, by genetics or merely as the result of persecution, he had a will to power which only death could stop. The Great Cadre had subdued a hundred times their numbers, and made them into brain-channeled tools of the State, simply by being braver and more able in war. And Dromm was not enough, not when each darkness brought a mockery of unconquered stars out overhead.

  A philosopher from distant Archbishop, where they went in for imaginative speculation, had visited Dromm a decade ago. His remark still lay in Ganch’s mind, and stung: “Unjust treatment is apt to produce paranoia in the victim. Your race has outlived its oppressors, but not the reflexes they built into your society. You’ll never rest till all the universe is enslaved, for your canalized nervous systems make you incapable of regarding anyone else as anything but a dangerous enemy.”

  The philosopher had not gone home alive, but his words remained; Ganch had tried to forget them, and could not.

  Enough! His mind had completed its track in the blink of an eye, and now he remembered that the girl expected an answer. He sipped his cocktail and spoke thoughtfully:

  “Yes, these special groups, isolated on their own special planets, have developed in many peculiar ways. New Hermes, for instance, if you will pardon my saying so.”

  Chris raised level brows. “Of course, this is my home and I’m used to it, Ganch,” she replied, “but I fail to see anything which would surprise an outsider very much. We live quietly, for the most part, with a loose parliamentary government to run planetary affairs. The necessities of life are produced free for all by the automatic factories; to avoid the annoyance of regulations, we leave everything else to private enterprise, subject only to the reasonable restrictions of the Conservation Authority and a fair-practices act. We don’t need more government than that, because the educational system instills respect for the rights and dignity of others and we have no ambitious public-works projects.

  “You might say our whole culture is founded merely on a principle of live and let live.”

  She stroked her chin, man-fashion. “Of course, we have police and courts. And we discourage a concentration of power, political or economic, but that’s only to preserve individual liberty. Our economic system helps; it’s hard to build up a gigantic business when one game may wipe it out.”

  “Now there,” said Ganch, “you strike the oddity. This passion for gambling. How does it arise?”

  “Oh…I wouldn’t call it a passion. It’s merely one way of pricing goods and services, just as haggling is on Kwan-Yin, and socialism on Arjay, and supply-demand on Alexander.”

  “But how did it originate?”

  Chris lifted smooth bare shoulders and smiled. “Ask the historians, not me. I suppose our ancestors, reacting from the Caledonian puritanism, were apt to glorify all vices and practice them to excess. Gambling was the only one which didn’t taper off as a more balanced society evolved. It came to be a custom. Gradually it superseded the traditional methods of exchange.

  “It doesn’t make any difference, you see; being honest gambling, it comes out even. Win one, lose one…that’s almost the motto of our folk. To be sure, in games of skill like poker, a good player will come out ahead in the long run; but any society gives an advantage to certain talents. On Alexander, most of the money and prestige flow to the successful entrepreneur. On Einstein, the scientists are the rich and honored leaders. On Hellas, it’s male prowess and female beauty. On Arjay, it’s the political spellbinder. On Dromm, I suppose, the soldier is on top. With us, it’s the shrewd gambler.

  “The important thing,” she finished gravely, “is not who gets the most, but whether everyone gets enough.”

  “But that is what makes me wonder,” said Ganch. “This trader we saw today, for instance. Suppose he loses everything?”

  “It would be a blow, of course. But he wouldn’t starve, because the necessities are free anyway; and he’ll have enough sense—he’ll have learned in the primaries—to keep a small emergency reserve to start over with. We have very few paupers.”

  “Your financial structure must be most complicated.”

  “It is,” she said wryly. “We’ve had to develop a tremendous theoretical science and a great number of highly trained men to handle it. That game today was childish compared with what goes on in, say, the securities exchange. I don’t pretend to understand what happens there. I’m content to turn a wheel for my monthly pay, and if I win to go out and see if I can’t make a little more.”

  “And you enjoy this—insecurity?”

  “Why, yes. As I imagine you enjoy war, and an engineer enjoys building a spaceship, and—” Chris looked at the table. “It’s always hard and risky settling a new planet, even one as Earth-like as ours. Our ancestors got a taste for excitement. When there was no more to be had in subduing nature, they transferred the desire to—Ah, here come the hors d’oeuvres.”

  Ganch ate a stately succession of courses with pleasure. He was not good at small talk, but Chris made such eager conversation that it was simple to lead her: the details of her life and work, little insignificant items but they clicked together. By the coffee and liqueur, Ganch knew where the military microfiles of New Hermes were kept and was fairly sure he knew how to get at them.

  Afterward they danced. Ganch had never done it before, but his natural coordination soon fitted him into the rhythm. There was a curious bittersweet savor to holding the girl in his arms…dearest enemy. He wondered if he should try to make love to her. An infatuated female officer would be useful—

  No. In such matters, she was the sophisticate and he the bumbling yokel. Coldly, though not without, regret, he dismissed the idea.

  They sat at a poker table for a while, where the management put up chips to the value of their bill. Ganch was completely outclassed; he learned the game readily enough, but his excellent analytical mind simply could not match the Hermesians. It was almost as if they knew what cards he held. He lost heavily, but Chris made up for it and when they quit they only had to pay half what they owed.

  They hired an aircar, and for a while its gravity drive lifted them noiselessly into a night-blue sky, under a flooding moon and a myriad stars and the great milky sprawl of the Galaxy. Beneath them, a broken bridge of moonlight shuddered across the darkened sea, and they heard the far, faint crying of birds.