No Phule Like an Old Phule

3

Journal #653

The job description of a junior Legion officer-and make no mistake about it, my employer was extremely junior does not in the normal course of affairs include diplomatic negotiations with the supreme rulers of alien planets. For the most part, a Legion captain is expected to avoid attracting the notice of 'anyone other than his immediate superiors. As far as any actual decision-making, that Is best left to those qualified, which in practice usually means the sergeants nominally under his command.

In this matter as in many others, my employer had made himself the exception, as much by sheer luck as by any great personal initiative. Having been the first human- to make contact with the Zenobians, he found himself invited to lead the first military expedition to the home world of that unusual race. And, more or less by default, once on Zenobia, he became the senior representative of the Alliance government. As a result, he was responsible for the negotiation of all kinds of business between off worlders and the natives.

As the astute reader will already have grasped, this had both its advantages-notably the possibility of putting himself in the position of prime beneficiary of any unusually lucrative business-and its disadvantages. After a number of months on the planet; my employer had just begun to realize just what some of the latter might be.

"That is impossible, Captain," said Chief Potentary Korg. Phule couldn't read the Zenobian leader's face, but there wasn't much doubt about what his words meant. The translator's confidence-level readout was sitting on 93% +/-5%.

Between the languages of two races of sophonts that had evolved on separate planets with no interspecies contact until the last couple of years, electronic translation didn't get any more confident than that. At least, the machine seemed to think so...

"The Legion doesn't like to use that word," said Phule, with a smile he hoped the Zenobian would read the same way a human would. A display of teeth wasn't necessarily a friendly gesture, especially when dealing with a race of carnivorous dinosaur-like aliens, but so far he hadn't had any adverse reactions to the expression.

"The Legion's lexical preferences are not my affair," said Korg. He showed his own teeth-which Phule knew was probably equivalent to a human smile. At least, when Flight Leftenant Qual showed his teeth, it was a smile. So at least the Zenobian didn't seem to be personally offended by the request. It looked more as if his refusal was a policy matter that Phule could turn around by offering a few incentives.

Phule had dealt with that kind of problem before. "Of course, we - wouldn't expect to bring a party of off-world hunters onto your planet without some compensation..." he began.

"Compensation?" Korg blinked. "It is not a matter that can be orthagonalized by compensation, Captain. This is the sacred ancestral swampland of the Zenobian race that you propose I allow your off-world hunters to invade."

Phule held up his hands. "Chief Korg, I hope you don't think I'd come to you with such an unseemly proposal. In fact, we offworlders are only here at your invitation. It would be very bad form for us to try to tell you to open up any particular areas of your beautiful planet for off-world visitors. But you were willing to open an area that your people weren't using for our Legion camp: Why not another area for off-world people to hunt in-for appropriate compensation, of course?"

Korg stood up and went to the window, staring out at the huge asparagus-like trees that lined the street outside. After a moment he turned to face the video pickup, and said, "I will take this under consideration. There may be areas we can allow your hunters to visit-as long as they remain within the-bounds specified, and destroy only those species we permit And at the same time I shall determine what compensation ought to be appropriate-if your hunters are prosperous enough to come visit Zenobia simply to hunt, I would expect that they can sustain a significant disbursement for the privilege."

"That sounds like something we can agree on," said Phule. "Could you have some of your people give me a list of areas that might become available for hunting? And, if possible, some indication of what kind of game would be available in those areas? Once I have that in hand, we can begin to find out how much our bigwigs might-be willing to pay for the privilege of coming here to hunt."

"So let it be encoded," said Chief Potentary Korg. "So let it be done." He closed the videophone connection.

Phule turned to Beeker, who had sat just out of the video pickup's field of view, monitoring the exchange.

"Well, Beeks, I think we've got what we're after-assuming the old lizard doesn't set too high a price for shooting his dinos."

"Since State will be footing the bill, I suspect the price will be no object, sir," said Beeker.

"They can simply have the IRS pass the cost along to the taxpayers-business as usual, in other words."

"IRS?" said Phule. "Ugh-don't remind me. If you hadn't found me a galaxy-sized loophole, those bloodsuckers would have drained me dry. I'm amazed they gave up so easily."

"Don't be so sure that they have, sir," said Beeker. "Or alternatively, that they haven't persuaded their friends in other government agencies to single you out for their attentions. It may be no coincidence that the Alliance Ecological Interplanetary Observation Union has chosen to request an environmental impact statement from you, not exactly the thing one would expect them to require of a military unit, if you follow me."

"Oh, I doubt that's anything to worry about," said Phule. He leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk. "Odds are, it's just some bureaucrat looking for a way to pressure us into tossing him a bribe. I don't mind that-as long as the rascal stays properly bribed, once I've paid him."

"There's never any real guarantee of that, sir," said Beeker. "The best one can hope for is that not too many other bureaucrats learn where the pot of gold is located. But sooner or later, they're certain to sniff it out."

"We'll worry about that if it happens," said Phule. "And unless I get old and fat before my time, I'll have moved on to something else by the time they realize they might be able to get a few credits out of me. It's hard to pick a man's pockets when he won't stand still and wait for you."

"I hope you're right, sir," said Beeker. "One never ought to underestimate one's enemies-especially when they wield the power to tax and to imprison."

"Oh, I won't underestimate them, old bean," said Phule.

"But I'm not about to let them scare me, either."

"Very well, sir," said Beeker, but his expression made it clear that he had ample reservations.

"Well, if you're trying to hide anything from me, you're doing a damned good job of it," said Victor Phule, grudgingly.

"The captain brought in some pretty slick accountants," said Tullie Bascomb, with a shrug. "In this business, your bookkeeper can make you almost as much money as your bookmaker."

"Understood," said Victor Phule. "That's precisely why I asked to examine both sets of books-more to the point, it's why I'm still not entirely convinced they're accurate. Are you certain you don't have a third set you're hiding from me?"

"If there's a third set, the captain hasn't told me anything about it," said Bascomb. The casino manager stood comfortably at the foot of the desk where Phule was working, showing no signs of anxiety. "Not that it's any of my business, you understand," he continued. "I make sure the floor's running smoothly, and leave the rest up to the people the captain's put in charge. He wants my opinion, all he has to do is ask. But I'm not going to stick my nose into their business."

Victor Phule shuffled the hard copy pages, thinking. He knew better than to comment on Bascomb's unstated corollary: that a certain nose that was being stuck into the captain's business and that it didn't belong there. Still, he made a mental note of the crack. Bascomb was far as he could tell, a thoroughly competent manager, but it was worth remembering that his loyalty lay with the younger Phule.

That was all right with Victor Phule, as long Bascomb was willing to do as good a job for the father he'd done for the son-assuming, of course, that Bascomb had been doing a good job for the son. As long as he was sticking his nose into his son's business, Victor Phule intended to find that out as well. If he was going to stir up resentment, he might as well do a thorough job of it.

He stood up from the desk and said to Bascomb, "I can see already that the gambling operations are driving the entire business-it looks as if everything else you're doing is designed to attract customers to the casino floor to bet. So I want you to show me through the casino, give me a satellite view of all that's involved in that end of the business."

"OK," said Bascomb, without any great show of enthusiasm. "You want the tour right now?"

"Right now," said Victor Phule, his voice absolutely level. It was time to show Bascomb who was boss. Phule hadn't built a galaxywide munitions business by being soft on his people. That appeared to be a lesson his son had failed to learn. Well, if the boy couldn't do a man's job, there was a man here ready to do it. He smiled coldly.

"Lead the way," he said, and fell in behind Bascomb as the casino boss led him out of the office. Behind Phule came his bodyguard, quiet and unobtrusive.

Their first stop was a large room filled with video screens showing the casino from the viewpoint of the myriad cameras mounted above the floors. For every two or three screens, there was a casino employee intently peering at the scenes on display. "This is the nerve center of the whole operation," said Bascomb. "Everything that goes on is recorded, so any funny business that goes on can be nipped in the bud. There's always somebody who thinks he can beat us at our own game. We don't mind the system players-in the long run no system can change the fact that the odds are rigged in the house's favor. If a few people win in the short run, that just encourages more people to try to beat us. And the bigger the handle, the bigger our profit."

"So what are you looking for?" asked Victor Phule.

"You've got a lot of expensive equipment here, and a lot of people sitting here watching it. What are they doing to earn their pay?"

"We're looking for two things," said Bascomb. "Professional cheaters can cost us, at least if they can get in and out before we catch them. We've got a database of known cheaters that we share with the other major betting houses, and we can spot most of the grifters before they even get to the betting tables-sometimes even before they set foot in the casinos. Watch this." He touched a remote control and a nearby monitor changed its display. Now it showed an elderly Asian woman pumping chips into a bank of quantum slots, with the zombielike affect of so many bored retired people. "Can you see what made us pick her out?" asked Bascomb.

Victor Phule squinted at the display. "No," he said, then, "Wait a minute. She's not using the same tokens as everybody else, is she? They're counterfeits!"

"Pretty good," said Bascomb, grudgingly. "Maybe we could get you a job as a spotter. But here's the real catch she's not just putting in counterfeit tokens, they're specially improved. Every one of them has a chip designed to increase her odds of winning one of the big jackpots. We might not have spotted it except she got caught five years ago doing the same thing at the Horny'toad Casino. She changed her disguise, but we still got her once the computer matched up her appearance with her MO. And a good thing-if we'd let her play a couple of hours, she was likely to walk out with ten or twenty thousand. Now look at this one." The grandmotherly type disappeared and was replaced by a middle-aged businessman in ostentiously casual garb at the craps table. At the end of a play, the man scooped a pile of chips off the table and walked casually toward the cashier's booth. "Do you see the hustle?" asked Bascomb.

Victor Phule scratched his head. "Run it again:" he said, annoyed that he hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary.

"OK, keep your eyes open," said Bascomb, with a smirk.

Again the scene played out-perhaps ten seconds long.

"I've got it!" said Phule. "Right where he turns, and his hand goes in his pocket----I don't know what he's doing, but that's got to be when he does it." Bascomb laughed. "Nab, he's just putting his hand in his pocket, maybe to check his hotel key. As far as we can tell, he wasn't doing anything this time." Victor Phule glowered. "So what's the point, then?" Bascomb toggled the remote, and the display changed to show the businessman and the Asian woman side by side. "The point is, this is the same hustler you saw before.

Different day, different disguise."

"That's hard to believe," said Phule, peering intently at the two faces. "They're so different..."

"Right, and so are these," said Bascomb, toggling the remote to show a series of other faces: a flashily dressed young male, a weary-looking little fellow who might have been a file clerk, a statuesque black woman... "And the damnedest part is, the hustler isn't even human," he added.

"You see what we have to deal with?"

"I guess I do," said Victor Phule, shaking his head.

"What do you do when you catch... it?"

"Put them on the first ship leaving the station and send the pic to the guards at the port of entry," said Bascomb, with a smile. Now he'd shown the elder Phule that he was in charge, and that he belonged in charge. "With any luck, you'll catch the hustlers before they even get to the casinos. That's one of the advantages of operating on a selfgoverning space station-you have a chance keep the troublemakers out altogether, instead of having to catch them in the act"

"A good policy," said Phule, nodding. "The same idea works in the weapons business. You might be able to dodge missiles once they're launched, but it's a lot more effective to keep the other side from launching them to begin with."

"Makes sense to me;" said Bascomb. "The same idea is behind our employee-screening program. We do an intensive background check on anybody applying for a job where they'll handle money. That prevents most of the potential problems. These monitors here are our best shot at catching the ones we can't interdict at the hiring stage. Every employee comes through this room as part of the orientation process, so they know their every move is being watched. That keeps most of 'em honest"

"And the rest?"

"The rest we catch in the act," said Bascomb. "And when we do, it's a one-way ticket off Lorelei-forever."

"When?" Victor Phule's voice had a skeptical edge to it "I think you mean if. You don't mean to say you catch all of them, do you?"

"You better believe we catch all of them," said Bascomb, stubbornly. "Nobody gets away with ripping off the Fat Chance."

"Overconfidence is your worst enemy," said Victor Phule. "If you think you're catching everything, you're bound to be overlooking something. Come on, admit it you can't stop it all."

"We can, and we do," said Bascomb, his jaw set even harder."

"You can't," said Victor Phule. "And I'm going to prove it!"

"That I want to see." growled Bascomb. "Exactly how are you going to prove it?"

"If I tell you, you'll be looking for it." said Phule. "Now, excuse me-I think I'll go take a look at things from ground level. I have an idea exactly where you're going wrong, and I'm going to rub your nose in it. And when I do, I think my son will want to know just what kind of man he's put in charge of this casino." He turned and stalked away, his bodyguard a pace behind him.

"He already knows what kind of man I am, Mr. Phule," muttered Bascomb. "Too bad you don't know him well enough to trust his judgment." He smiled, then turned to the casino employees watching the monitors. "Did you see that man who just left? I want you to watch him like a hawk every second he's on camera. Here's what I think he's going to try..."

The Reverend Jordan Ayres was frustrated. For the first time in his career as a minister of the Church of the New Revelation, popularly known as the Church of the King, Rev had run into a problem he couldn't solve by consulting the sacred texts and commentaries. Not even applying his good common sense-a commodity he believed himself to possess in ample measure-had he been able to get to the bottom of it. He tapped his fingers on his desk, staring at the useless computer readout, trying to decide what avenue to follow next. .

The problem was, there just wasn't enough known about the Zenobians. It had been only a few short years since the human race had encountered the reptilian sophonts, who in their appearance and habits resembled nothing so much as miniature allosaurs. That had been back on Haskin's Planet, where Captain Jester's troops had intercepted one of their spaceships-an exploring party commanded by none other than Flight Leftenant Qual. And to the best of Rev's knowledge, other than the members of Omega Company, no human being had set foot on the Zenobians' home world.

Of course, the Alliance had done a fair amount of crash research into this new race when the Zenobians had requested formal membership-but much of that research remained unpublished, or at least inaccessible to someone with Rev's

resources, which were far more comprehensive than those available to most civilians. In particular, nothing of the Zenobians' religious beliefs had been recorded by the diplomatic, military, and commercial interview teams that did the groundwork for the Alliance treaty. It wasn't even known for certain that they had any such beliefs. Except for the intriguing morsel that Flight Leftenant Qual had offered in response to Rev's questions about the King...

'L'Viz. Qual had claimed that Zenobian myth spoke of a figure with that name, a name that resonated curiously with that by which the King had gone in his Earthly days. Even more intriguingly, Qual had remarked that, when Zenobians had first learned of the King, they had taken Him as a human borrowing from their own mythology. Could the King have manifested Himself on Zenobia, bringing his message to the reptilian sophonts of a world far distant from his own home? Rev knew he had to penetrate to the bottom of this mystery, one of the deepest he had found in all his years of reading the sacred texts. Its implications for the Church were staggering-and its solution could catapult him to the first rank of its spokesmen.

But where to begin? Qual had implied that Zenobians were not comfortable speaking of such things to outsiders. That meant that Rev would need to take some sort of indirect approach. Did the little reptiles have sacred texts he might access somehow? Their libraries must have the information he wanted-but so, far they had not linked their data to the Alliance's interplanetary UniNet. Doubtless there were technicians who could make the connection unilaterally and find what Rev wanted. But where was he going to get a tech wizard with that level of expertise, and how was he going to pay him?"

Rev stood up from his desk. He paced over to his office window and stared out onto the Legion camp's parade ground, thinking. The King had always said that no problem was too difficult to tackle-if the highest mountain stood between him and his goal, he would just climb it. All Rev needed to do was put his mind to it. There had to be a way. There had to be a way...

Zigger had never been aboard a space liner before. In fact, as far as he knew, nobody in his whole family had ever left their home world-not before he had decided to realize his ambition to join the Space Legion. The experience was considerably less dramatic than he had expected.

For one thing, the spaceport had apparently been designed with the idea of giving travelers as forgettable an experience as possible. The furniture, the decor, the sights and sounds and smells, everything might as well have been designed to linger just below the threshold of annoyance, without ever breaking out into anything that evoked a specific response.

And the ship itself-it might as well have been a crosstown hoverbus, for all the passengers' awareness of being in deep space. Zigger found himself in one of a row of identical seats in the main cabin, unless he preferred to stay in his spartan bunk in the dormitory-like sleeping area. The Space Legion, for all its attempt to woo its new recruits, had made it perfectly clear that it was not going to pay for anything more than the basic intersystem fare from the Lepoid's home world to the nearest Legion training camp. That meant a steerage-class ticket, with a very strict weight allowance for personal belongings. "Don't you worry about extra clothes," the recruiting sergeant had told him when he handed him the ticket. "You'll be wearing Legion black before long."

Zigger would have liked to have at least a view screen in the cabin so he could watch the stars outside, even though he knew that hyperspace travel wildly distorted the appearance of everything outside the ship. Supposedly there was a view screen in the first-class lounge. Zigger was tempted to sneak up and take a look for himself, but he couldn't figure out how to get past the heavy plasteel doors firmly protecting the People Who Mattered from curious Legion recruits and other such rabble. The population in steerage did seem to have a particularly high proportion of nonhuman sophonts, Zigger thought. Well, where he was going, that would be different.

Meanwhile, there was nothing else to do but sit in the main cabin and view his Poot-Poot Brothers tri-vees. They were almost the only reminders of his youth that he hadn't been prepared to leave behind as he embarked on his new life. His broad-jump medals, his talking ukelele, the lucky eighter he'd found on the street the day he'd won the math contest-even the favorite winter hat he'd worn until his mother had to mend the earholes three times: All were left behind. Even if he'd been sentimental about those artifacts, the exorbitant charges for overweight luggage would have changed his mind quickly enough.

But the spaceline provided cheap tri-vee viewers for its passengers, and a reasonable library of current hits and all time favorites, knowing full well that it offered little enough else to keep them from going slowly nuts in the long stretches between stars. And tri-vees took up almost no weight or space. So Zigger's old friends, the Poot-Poot brothers, came along-and so did Oncle Poot-Poot and Mam'selle Toni and all the other series regulars.

Zigger was scrolling through one of the early episodes, "Oncle Poot-Poot Meets Barky," when he became aware of someone looking over his shoulder. He turned around to see a human-a young-one, he thought, although he wasn't familiar enough with the species to be entirely be sure of his judgment. "Hey, I hope I'm not bothering you." said the human. "It's just been a long while since I saw a Poot-Poot tri-vee-that stuff's really sly. I loved it when I was a kid.

Especially that one with Barky, the Environmental Dog."

"I still like it," said Zigger. "Are you from Teloon?"

"No, I got on back at Fiano," said the human. "I'm on my way to Mussina's World to join the Space Legion."

"No goofing!" said Zigger. "That's where I'm bound, as well. I guess we're going to be comrades in arms. What's your name?"

"Well, they say that legionnaires don't tell anybody their real names," said the human. "They only go by their Legion names. The only problem is, I haven't decided on mine yet. Have you got one picked out?"

"Sure," said Zigger. He'd been thinking about his Legion name ever since his first decision to enlist. He'd looked into several books about Old Earth, hunting for something with just the right feeling. The answer, when he'd found it, seemed just right. "You can call me 'Thumper,' " he said.

"Thumper. That's pretty sly," said the human. He wrinkled his brow, then confided. "I've been thinking about calling myself 'Sharley' -you think that fits?" Zigger looked the human up and down, then nodded.

"It's you," he said, not quite sure what made him say so.

But it was obviously the right thing to say. "All right!" said Sharley. "Thumper, you and me gotta stick together.

They say the Legion drill sergeants eat recruits for breakfast. Between the two of us, I bet we can keep each other one step ahead of the game. Is it a deal?"

"Sure," said Zigger-no, his name was Thumper now.

Thumper grinned, and said, "I've got a whole bunch of Poot-Poot tri-vees. Come sit next to me and we can watch 'em while we figure out what we want to do now that we're Legion buddies."

"All right," said Sharley again. "Look out, sergeants here we come!"

"Yo, Soosh, c'mere," said Do-Wop, grinning evilly. "I got a swindle that can't lose."

"Right," said Sushi, raising an eyebrow. He'd been listening to Do-Wop' s harebrained schemes ever since Captain Jester had made the two of them partners. Almost without exception, he'd ended up having to talk Do-Wop out of his grandiose plans-most of which had some loophole big enough to drive a space liner through. "What's the plan this time?"

"This one's as solid as neutronium," confided Do-Wop.

"You know how Chocolate Harry runs a big-ass poker game every time he wants some spare cash, which is like every couple-three days?"

"Sure," said Sushi, leaning back on the fender of a cargo carrier. He folded his arms over his chest and looked Do-Wop in the eye. "Don't tell me you're going to fry to cheat the sarge at his own game. It'll never work."

"Nab, this is even sleener," said Do-'Wop. "I'm gonna get up my own game and swindle everybody else."

"Not very likely," said Sushi. "I know you. You lose every time you play poker with C. H., and every other time I've ever seen you play. What makes you think it'll be any different just because you're the one running the game?"

"Because I've been watching the sarge, and I finally figured out how he cheats," said Do-Wop. "It's so evil, I don't know why I didn't think of it myself."

"Really?" Sushi was impressed in spite of himself. If Do-Wop had actually caught the Supply sergeant cheating, he'd done something that had defied the best efforts of the entire company for as long as anyone remembered. "How does he do it?"

"Scope this out," said Do-Wop. He glanced around to make sure there were no eavesdroppers, and lowered his voice. In a dramatic whisper, he said, "The fat old snarkler drops out of a hand when he ain't gonna got good cards."

"What?" Sushi's voice rose nearly an octave, and his mouth fell open in surprise.

"Shh, you want everybody to hear what it is?" said Do-Wop, peering around worriedly. "I tell ya, it's a pure stroke of genius. Why, a dude could get rich overnight doin' that..."

"Do-Wop, that's not cheating," said Sushi. "It's the way you're supposed to play poker."

"Oh, su-u-ure," said Do- Wop, scornfully. "Go try that one out on Tusk-anini-it ain't gonna fly with me. If what you said was true, why don't everybody play that way?"

"Now there's a question well worth asking," said Sushi, grinning. "In fact, 1 think I'm going listen to myself and ask it. Why don't you play that way?" Do-Wop's jaw dropped. "What, and miss the chance of winning a really big one? Believe me, Soosb-there ain't no bigger rush than when everybody looks at your hand and thinks it's total crunk, and tries to boost the betting so's to clean you out, and then your last hole card gives you that sure winner."

"Right," said Sushi, with a sigh. "So how often does that happen?"

"All the time, man," said Do-Wop, excitedly. "I had a hand like that just a couple weeks ago. Had to draw a six to make my straight on the last card. 1 hung in there and got the sucker, on the last card. Woulda cleaned house, too-but all the dudes except Double-X had folded before then, and 1 only won seven--eight bucks on it."

"Uh-huh," said Sushi, unimpressed. "And how many times do you play for that kind of hand and wind up with crunk anyhow?"

"Sometimes it happens," Do-Wop admitted. "But hey, like C. H. says-you never go for it, you never get it!"

"Yeah, he would say that," said Sushi. "You know, I'd be tempted to give you a lesson about poker odds, except 1 seem to remember that you got one of those from Tulle Bascomb back on Lorelei, and it obviously didn't take.

Maybe he was right-it's a waste of time to wise up a sucker."

"Hey, who you callin' sucker?" said Do-Wop. "If you wasn't my buddy..." Whatever he was about to say, it was cut off by a fresh voice. "Good mornin', boys. Would y'all be interested in a little special project 1 just cooked up?" The two legionnaires turned to see Rev standing just behind them, with the half sneer that was the closest he came to a smile. "Yo, Rev, what's up?" said Do-Wop.

"A li'l ol' electronic reconnaissance project, 1 think would be the best thing to call it," said Rev. "When 1 ran into this here problem, 1 couldn't help but think of you" boys, rememberin' how you were the ones that cracked the Nanoids' transmissions. How'd you like to do somethin' along that line for me?"

Sushi shrugged. "Depends on what you've got in mind," he said. "Why don't you start talking, and we'll let you know whether it interests us."

"Sure, sure," said Rev, glancing around the parade ground. "But I'll tell you what-why don't y'all come into my office, where maybe it's a little more private? Then 1 can tell you the whole thing."

"Lead the way," said Sushi. "Come on, Do-Wop, this" might be fun."

"What the hell, it's a slow day," said Do-Wop. The two legionnaires fell into line behind Rev and followed him to his office. At first, Sushi didn't know whether or not to make anything of the fact that Rev led them on" a roundabout route instead of using the entrance nearest to his office, where Flight Leftenant Qual and two of his fellow Zenobians were working on some of their electronic equipment. But when Rev began to describe his plan, Sushi understood.

"All right, tell me about these games," said Victor Phule, standing in the middle of the Fat Chance Casino's main gambling floor. "How do they work, and what does the house get from them?"

"Yes, sir," chirped the young resort PR person Tullie Bascomb had assigned to show him around. Marti Mallard was blond and perky, dressed in a short, tight skirt-the very image of a cheery bubblehead. Phule knew better than to take her at face value. He'd already had a look at the casino's personnel files, and noticed that Ms. Mallard had graduated magna cum laude in Interspecies Studies from Libra Arts University, followed by a business degree from Taurus Tech. Underneath that perky exterior was a steel trap of a mind, and her presence on the Fat Chance Casino's staff showed that his son's personnel department hadn't been completely asleep when it put her on the job. "The most popular attraction in almost all casinos is the slot machines," said Marti, leading Victor Phule into a large bay filled with customers happily pumping tokens into an array of quantum slots. "One of the leading points of our ad campaign has been: Captain Jester's decision to make the Fat Chance Casino's slot machine payouts the highest on Landoor..."

"I wish you wouldn't call my son by that stupid Legion name," growled Victor Phule. "What exactly is the payout percentage on these machines, and why did my idiot son have to go raise it? That sounds like it'd cut into profits."

Marti moved closer to Victor Phule, and said in a low voice, "You probably don't want to talk about that in front of all these players, Mr. Phule. The fact is, even after your son shaved off one percent of the casino's percentage on the slots, it's still by far the most profitable of all the games we offer. No matter how big the jackpots are, on the whole, we're taking in a steady twenty percent of every dollar played." Just then a bell began ringing, accompanied by bright flashing lights and a honking Klaxon. "Yes-s-s-s!" shouted an enthusiastic voice, and along the ranks of avid quantum slots players, many (but far from all) heads turned to see what had set off the noise, which now included an electronically amplified victory march. "There's one now," said Marti. "The bells and lights mean it's at least-a thousand dollars. We want to make sure everybody knows when there's a big winner."

Victor Phule was incredulous. "You're giving away a thousand dollars?"

"Of course," said Marti. She managed somehow to whisper out of the comer of her mouth without losing her bright smile. "The players have to believe that they have a chance to win-and win big-if they're going to come here instead of one of the other casinos. On any given play, a player has a chance to win a jackpot of a hundred, a thousand, even ten thousand dollars-and when one of them does hit a jackpot, we give them the bells and lights so nobody can forget they have that chance."

Victor Phule's expression was skeptical. "To tell you the truth, I've never understood why anybody would bet on anything but a sure winner," he said. "And when you're giving somebody a chance to take away a thousand dollars--or more, if what you say is right-then the casino is betting on a losing proposition. On top of that, we give them free drinks and free food-and entertainment at a bargain price, as well. Why aren't we charging a competitive price for that, when we're giving away money hand over fist in the casinos?"

Marti's voice dropped even lower. "Because for every big jackpot, there are hundreds of losing bets, and that's the foundation of the business. Every single day of the year, as inevitably as taxes, the casino takes in many times what even the luckiest player can expect to win.. Over the long run, the casino comes out solidly in the black."

"Solidly in the black is all right," said Victor Phule.

"But I got my MBA at Rakeitin School of Business, and they taught us that any businessman worth his salt aims to maximize profits. I've built my arms business into the biggest in the galaxy by following that principle, and I can't see why it doesn't apply to this so-called business, as well."

"You saw the books, Mr. Phule," said Marti, shrugging.

Even now, the smile never left her face. "If you don't want to believe what you saw, there's not much I can do to change your mind. The odds are stacked in the house's favor, and always will be."

Phule frowned. "There's a loophole somewhere," he said. "If the odds are so heavily stacked, none of these people would keep coming back to play. Yet I've already heard several of them say they're back for a fourth or fifth visit.

There are obviously some consistent winners. That's what worries me. If one person can keep winning, then others can-and if enough learn how, they can put this place out of business."

Marti shook her head. "It doesn't work that way, Mr. Phule," she said patiently. "There's no way around the odds. In the long run..."

"Long run? Pfui!" said Victor Phule. "Your whole business principle is wrong, and I'm going to prove it. Where do I get tokens to play these machines?"

"Right over there, Mr. Phule," said Marti, pointing. She smiled quietly. It wasn't the first time somebody had refused to believe the simple facts. Nor would it be the last.

Every casino in the galaxy made its money because of people who didn't believe in the odds. It looked as if Victor Phule was about to find that out-the hard way.