Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 by Devil's Planet (v1.1) Read Free Book Online Page A

began to buckle outward at the staple
clamp some fifty feet below. Stover’s eighty pounds of weight swung it out
across the chasm. He dared not look at the depths below. His eyes, turned
overhead, watched the crawl of Deimos’ disk across the starry sky. The tube was
bending swiftly now—he was traveling out and down in a swift arc.
                Ping ! The tube broke at the lower staple. At the
same instant Stover felt his shoulder brush against the wall of the building opposite. He let go of the tube, tried to clutch a window
sill, and missed. He felt suddenly sick as he slid down the crag of concrete.
His boot-heels smacked on a sill below, flew from it, and he made another
desperate grasp. This time he made good his hold, and swung there, staring in.
                 The
sizeable room was garishly lighted. People stood or sat inside, close-packed
around tables. There was music from a radio tuned in on Earth, and a cheerful
hubbub of everyone talking and laughing. At the table nearest the window were
men and women in middle-class celebration clothes.
                 One
of them flourished his loose-clenched fist, then brought it down and whipped it
open. Out danced two pale cubes with black spots on their faces.
                 Dice—a
game known when the pyramids were new, perhaps in the precivilized days before. Dice, which in ancient Rome had gained and lost
mighty fortunes; which had delighted such rulers as Henry VIII of England , and such philosophers as
Samuel L. Clemens of America . Dice, the one gambling
game which had lasted to the thirtieth century.
                 '‘Game-dive,”
panted Stover. “Crowded, confused, relaxed. No worry
about murders. I’ll go in.”
                 He
worked along the sill, toward the next window. It was too far for his arms to
span, but he spun his body sidewise, hooked a boot-toe within, let go and
hurled himself across the sill and in.
                 He
was in a private dining-room. A man and a woman sat at a table strewn with
dishes, smirking affectionately at each other. As Stover drew himself up, the
woman gave a little smoothered cry of alarm and shrank into her chair. The man
rose.
                 “Listen,”
he snarled to her, “if you say this is your husband, I’ll tell you I’m too old
for such a blackmail game.
                “I’m nobody’s husband,” Stover interrupted.
“I just climbed in on a bet. Thought it was a game-dive.”
                 “You're
one window mistaken,” the man said. “Get out of here.”
                 Stover
apologized and walked through a door, into the crowd beyond.
                 At
the large central table, “indemnity” was being played. This old space-pirate
game was almost as simple as blackjack and simpler than roulette. Each player
could call for a card at each deal, or could refuse. Only those whose cards
were of the same color stayed in. When all were satisfied, unretired players
totaled the values of their cards, and high man won both stakes and deal. The
money, which could be won or lost swiftly, was the chief excitement.
                 Stover
carried a sheaf of value- notes in his pouch, most of them in thousand-unit
denominations. Entering the game, he lost twice and then won a big pot and the
deal. As he distributed the cards, the radio music ceased.
                 “Late
news,” said an announcer’s voice, and the vision-screen across the room lighted
up.
                 UPON
it, huge and stern, appeared WJ a
man’s head and uniformed shoulders. Congreve!
                 “We’re
cutting in to enlist the help of all law-abiding listeners,” said Congreve’s
magnified voice, and all play ceased as attentions turned to him. “Yesterday a
murder occurred in the upper tower section. Mace Malbrook
                 The
rest was momentarily