Starman's Quest Part 16

"Can't complain."

"It's too bad you had that slump right at the end. If you'd quit half an hour earlier you'd be two hundred credits richer."

Hawkes smiled. "If you'd been born a couple of hundred years later, you'd be a lot smarter."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Alan felt annoyed by Hawkes' remark.

"Simply that I lost deliberately toward the end." They turned into the Undertube station and headed for the ticket windows. "It's part of a smart gambler's knowhow to drop a few credits deliberately now and then."

"Why?"

"So the jerks who provide my living keep on coming back," Hawkes said bluntly. "I'm good at that game. Maybe I'm the best there is. I can feel the numbers with my hands. If I wanted to, I could win four out of five times, even at a Cla.s.s A place."

Alan frowned. "Then why don't you? You could get rich!"

"I _am_ rich," Hawkes said in a tone that made Alan feel tremendously foolish. "If I got much richer too fast I'd wind up with a soft burn in the belly from a disgruntled customer. Look here, boy: how long would _you_ go back to that casino if one player took 80% of the pots, and a hundred people competed with you for the 20% he left over? You'd win maybe once a month, if you played full time every day. In a short time you'd be broke, unless you quit playing first. So I ease up. I let the others win about half the time. I don't want _all_ the money the mint turns out--just some of it. It's part of the economics of the game to let the other guys take a few pots."

Alan nodded. He understood. "And you don't want to make them too jealous of you. So you made sure you lost consistently for the final half hour or so, and that took the edge off your earlier winning in their minds."

"That's the ticket!"

The Undertube pulled out of the station and shot bullet-like through its dark tunnel. Silently, Alan thought about his night's experience. He saw he still had much, very much to learn about life on Earth.

Hawkes had a gift--the gift of winning. But he didn't abuse that gift.

He concealed it a little, so the people who lacked his talent did not get too jealous of him. Jealousy ran high on Earth; people here led short ugly lives, and there was none of the serenity and friendliness of life aboard a stars.h.i.+p.

He felt very tired, but it was just physical fatigue; he felt wide awake mentally. Earth life, for all its squalor and brutality, was tremendously exciting compared with s.h.i.+pboard existence. It was with a momentary pang of something close to disappointment that he remembered he would have to report back to the _Valhalla_ in several days; there were so many fascinating aspects of Earth life he still wanted to explore.

The Undertube stopped at a station labelled _Hasbrouck_. "This is where we get off," Hawkes told him.

They took a slidewalk to street level. The street was like a canyon, with towering walls looming up all around. And some of the gigantic buildings seemed quite shabby-looking by the street-light. Obviously they were in a less respectable part of the city.

"This is Hasbrouck," Hawkes said. "It's a residential section. And there's where I live."

He pointed to the tarnished chrome entrance of one of the biggest and shabbiest of the buildings on the street. "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like North Hasbrouck Arms. It's the sleaziest, cheapest, most run-down tenement in one hemisphere, but I love it. It's a real palace."

Alan followed him through a gate that had once been imposing; now it swung open rather rustily as they broke the photobeam in front of it.

The lobby was dark and dimly lit, and smelled faintly musty.

Alan was unprepared for the shabbiness of the house where the gambler lived. A moment after he spoke, he realized the question was highly impertinent, but by then it was too late: "I don't understand, Max. If you make so much money gambling, why do you live in a place like this?

Aren't there any better--I mean----"

An unreadable expression flitted briefly across the gambler's lean face.

"I know what you mean. Let's just say that the laws of this planet discriminate slightly against Free Status people like yours truly. They require us to live in approved residences."

"But this is practically a slum."

"Forget the _practically_. This is the raw end of town, and no denying it. But I have to live here." They entered a creaky old elevator decorated with too much chrome, most of it chipped, and Hawkes pressed _106_. "When I first moved in here, I made up my mind I'd bribe my way into a fancier neighborhood as soon as I had the cash. But by the time I had enough to spare I didn't feel like moving, you see. I'm sort of lazy."

The elevator stopped with a jarring jolt at the hundred-sixth floor.

They pa.s.sed down a narrow, poorly-lit corridor. Hawkes paused suddenly in front of a door, pressed his thumb against the doorplate, and waited as it swung open in response to the imprint of his fingerprints against the sensitive electronic grid.

"Here we are," he said.

It was a three-room apartment that looked almost as old and as disreputable as the rooms in the Enclave. But the furniture was new and attractive; these were not the rooms of a poor man. An elaborate audio system took up one entire wall; elsewhere, Alan saw books of all kinds, tapes, a tiny mounted globe of light-sculpture within whose crystal interior abstract colors flowed kaleidoscopically, a handsome robot bar.

Hawkes gestured Alan to a seat; Alan chose a green lounge-chair with quivering springs and stretched out. He did not want to go to sleep; he wanted to stay up half the night and talk.

The gambler busied himself at the bar a moment and returned with two drinks. Alan looked at the gla.s.s a moment: the drink was bright yellow in color, sparkling. He sipped it. The flavor was gentle but striking, a mixture of two or three tastes and textures that chased each other round Alan's tongue.

"I like it. What is it?"

"Wine from Antares XIII. I bought it for a hundred credits a bottle last year. Still have three bottles left, too. I go easy on it; the next s.h.i.+p from Antares XIII won't be in for fourteen more years."

The drink made Alan mellow and relaxed. They talked a while, and he hardly noticed the fact that the time was getting along toward 0300 now, long past his s.h.i.+ptime bunk-hour. He didn't care. He listened to every word Hawkes had to say, drinking it in with the same delight he felt when drinking the Antarean wine. Hawkes was a complex, many-faceted character; he seemed to have been everywhere on Earth, done everything the planet had to offer. And yet there was no boastfulness in his tone as he spoke of his exploits; he was simply stating facts.

Apparently his income from gambling was staggering; he averaged nearly a thousand credits a night, night in and night out. But a note of plaintiveness crept into his voice: success was boring him, he had no further goals to shoot for. He stood at the top of his profession, and there were no new worlds for him to conquer. He had seen and done everything, and lamented it.

"I'd like to go to s.p.a.ce someday," he remarked. "But of course that's out. I wouldn't want to rip myself away from the year 3876 forever. You don't know what I'd give to see the suns come up over Albireo V, or to watch the thousand moons of Capella XVI. But I can't do it." He shook his head gravely. "Well, I better not dream. I like Earth and I like the sort of life I lead. And I'm glad I ran into you, too--we'll make a good team, you and me, Donnell."

Alan had been lulled by the sound of Hawkes' voice--but he snapped to attention now, surprised. "Team? What are you talking about?"

"I'll take you on as my protege. Make a decent gambler out of you. Set you up. We can go travelling together, see the world again. You've been to s.p.a.ce; you can tell me what it's like out there. And----"

"Hold on," Alan said sharply. "You've got things mixed up a little bit.

I'm going to Procyon on the _Valhalla_ at the end of this week. I appreciate everything you've done for me, but if you think I'm going to jump s.h.i.+p permanently and spend the rest of my life----"

"You'll stay on Earth, all right," Hawkes said confidently. "You're in love with the place. You know yourself you don't want to spend the next seven decades of your life shuttling around in your old man's stars.h.i.+p.

You'll check out and stay here. I know you will."

"I'll bet you I don't!"

"That bet is herewith covered," Hawkes drawled. "I never pa.s.s up a sure thing. Is ten to one okay--your hundred against my thousand that you'll stay?"

Alan scowled angrily. "I don't want to bet with you, Max. I'm going back on the _Valhalla_. I----"

"Go ahead. Take my money, if you're so sure."

"All right, I will! A thousand credits won't hurt me!" Suddenly he had no further desire to listen to Hawkes talk; he rose abruptly and gulped down the remainder of his drink.

"I'm tired. Let's get some sleep."

"Fair enough," Hawkes said. He got up, touched a b.u.t.ton in the wall, and a panel slid back, exposing a bed. "You sack out here. I'll wake you in the morning and we'll go looking for your brother Steve."

_Chapter Ten_