Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (29 page)

They went to
the main casino room to find only a few people at the gaming tables
at this time. The world was so beautiful most spent the light hours
outside. The main part of the gambling wouldn't start until after
dark.

Z played the
roulette. Thing studied the first three spins (All of which Z lost
money on), then placed ten thousand credits on each of the largest
winners. It was very rare for anyone to bet them because the odds
were so highly stacked against them hitting. They paid a hundred to
one.

The Nineth
woman spinning the wheel shook her head and spun.

Orange gold
star. One hundred to one.

Thing stacked
the chits carefully on its floater, saluted with a tentacle, and
went over to the Demon Trap game. Z followed.

"HOW did you do
that?!" Z cried when they were out of hearing. "The odds of hitting
any of those numbers you played was over ten thousand to one
against!"

[ She spins
that wheel about three thousand one hundred and twenty times per
shift. It's such a routine to her she spins once with a certain
force, then again with a harder one. She doesn't realize she's
doing it. I watched two spins before you bet and the three after
your bets. It was really rather easy. I had a better than
fifty-fifty chance the star would be hit and a good chance one of
the others would be hit if she figured why I bet the star and
changed her force. Obviously, she didn't figure it. She has spun
twice since we left. This spin will be black six and next green
nine or blue nine. ]

Z watched the
spins and saw the black six come up, then yellow nine. It had
missed by one slot.

[ Hmm. It must
be near the end of her shift. She's tiring. If you can get over
there before she spins bet silver ship at twenty five to one. ]

Z waited and
they watched the silver ship come up.

"It's basic
mathematics," Z decided. "You just happen to be a particularly good
mathematician. I'll tell Maita. Maybe it can work out something a
bit more difficult to figure, though I doubt anyone else in the
galaxy could figure it that close."

[ Make a
machine to figure it. Make a machine that spins the wheel at random
speeds and the largest bettor calls when to stop the motor. It's
not important, because gamblers use such silly systems. If someone
would watch that wheel for an hour and bets patterns they can win
more than lose. The pattern is complicated, so very few would tend
to waste the time. ]

Z sat at one
side of the Demon Trap board and bet two thousand credits against
the house. He was good at the game and won six hundred credits.

Thing went to
the Stars and Comets game and started at a half credit a point
against the house machine. By the time Z finished his game, there
was a crowd watching Thing ringing up points. It was up by nearly
thirty thousand points over the house and the machine was actually
slowing down to try to counter the attack. It had a total of sixty
two points. There were fifty thousand points per game, and most
played for no more than a ten percent per point. The gambler paid
four of whatever he was playing for. If it was a tennie, the house
paid a tennie a point. A very skillful player could sometimes rack
up as much as fifteen thousand points. The average player didn't
get more than a hundred points.

There was a
large sign on the machine saying the odds were the player would
lose forty percent of whatever they bet.

When Thing left
the table it had won forty five thousand four hundred and thirty
three credits. They were stacked along the edge of the floater in
neat rows, along with the fortune it won on the roulette. They
could be certain anyone who hadn't heard of them from the credit
rating would definitely hear of them from the credits they were
taking from the hotel. A winner of that magnitude was rare.

The meal was
delicious, if less than they were used to, and they took their time
eating it, then they headed for the casino farther along the
street.

Place Your
Bet, Take Your Chances

Thing was at
the Wheel of Chance, just watching. Several patrons came in and
told what happened at the Hot Spot, so a crowd was hanging not far
out, but weren't getting too close – yet.

Z played Demon
Trap, then went to the dice table. He won at Demon Trap, which had
an element of skill, and lost some of it at the dice. When Thing
suddenly plopped down five thousand credits on each of four
forty-to-one slots a murmur went through the watchers and they
moved closer. As only one bet could be placed on any one slot,
others, in some gambler's illogic, raced to play the big wins on
other wheels.

Z grinned to
himself and went to the table to stand beside Thing's floater. One
big slot won on a nearby wheel, but only on a bet of two hundred
credits. A murmur of disappointment sounded as Thing drew back to
watch again.

"Tough," Z
said. "Your system isn't doing so well, it seems."

[ I'd think
you'd know a setup when you saw it. Didn't Earth have a lot of
these kinds of things? ]

They waited two
more spins, then Thing moved to place twenty thousand credits on
the orange flag at sixty-to-one. Everyone came closer, the woman at
the wheel, a Mome, grinned to herself, waited for the rest of the
bets, and spun.

Orange flag.
Thing collected one million two hundred thousand credits, stacked
the ten thousand credit chits along the front of the floater, and
drew back. Z grinned and suggested they go to another casino before
they broke the bank here. On the way down the street, Z asked how
Thing had figured it at that wheel.

They turned in
their chits, payed the ten percent flat tax on winnings (The tax
money went to education on Sentah, to University, and to Hospital),
and deposited the rest of the money into their joint account.

The vacation
worlds supported both University and Hospital, and were also known
for the best normal educational systems in the empire on the
revenues raised by the games.

[ It was quite
simple. She heard I watched and won at the Hot Spot and was warned
that I had some kind of rhythm system, so was instructed to vary
her rhythms and strength of throw on the wheel push. I played the
first, knowing I could possibly win if she broke the rhythm in
either of two ways. She grinned, telling me I was anticipated,
which was what I wanted to know. I also noted how she varied the
push, so simply figured in that information at the critical time. I
almost bet several slots, but wanted to show her she wasn't quite
so clever as she thought she was. What are your plans with this
moving around? Won't our quarry come to us if we continue to win
this way? ]

"Yes, but
they'd be suspicious. They'll think we have hidden observers to
catch them if we're agents, so will watch us for awhile to see who
else is always around. If no one else seems to be particularly
interested outside of the gamblers they already know they'll feel
safer. I want to be approached for a private game," I answered.
"I'll hang around you and insist that you be included in the
invitations, which is what they'll want in any case. That'll serve
several ends. The floater can detect cheating and can give you the
information while your own talents can make you a big winner.

"I'll go for
the game I always knew as poker. Sooner or later the big
wheeler-dealers in that syndicate are going to try to get some of
your millions back. They'll really get steamed if you win
anymore."

[ I'll play
Stars and Comets for enough to break them. Maybe a fifty point game
at a million a point? If I can beat Maita I can certainly beat any
of these! I'll even play against a machine, but the house limit is
a thousand a point on a twenty point game. You pay five thousand
for the game. It's rare for anyone to make five points against the
machines. ]

"No person is
going to play against you for those stakes!"

[ To the
contrary. They will if they don't see me play against a machine
first. I have to refuse small stakes, because I'm only going to be
able to play one game. ]

Z nodded, and
they went into the Royale. Thing won only a hundred thousand
credits there, and Z won three thousand, himself, with a lucky game
of Sticks or Stones. He was able to save sticks and drew a
firestarter at a critical moment, so was able to burn the supports
from the stones to win. It was a fast-moving game and was strictly
a matter of chance. It was very popular and was generally played
for the maximum, as Z had played it.

They went to
two more places, then back to the hotel, where they spoke with T6,
who updated them about Tab, who was holding his own.

T6 and Maita
were to meet at a nearby system where the TTH14 would be installed.
There would be no further contact for a few days except through the
public fastcom.

They stayed in
the hotel rooms the rest of the day, then went sightseeing the
following morning. They both wanted to see what kinds of changes
had taken place in the years since they were on the planet. It was
still being built according to the original plan. It was truly a
beautiful place. There were some very expensive shops where they
spent some money as tourists were known to generally do, had lunch
in another city, spent the afternoon in a town on the next
continent, and flew back for dinner at the Hot Spot. They went back
to their room, where the com system showed they had received
several calls, but no one had left a message.

The floater
also located two listening devices in the rooms as they entered.
Expected. They were careful about what they said there. There was
also a fiberoptic bead in one wall, which Z innocently hung a coat
over. He opted to wear clothing here, because it was so much easier
to conceal the devices he wanted to carry under clothes, though
Maita had installed a recorder inside his chest to reproduce every
sound made near him for a total of twenty eight days. At that time
the device would have to be removed and the cartridge replaced. The
medical machines did that in minutes.

A woman came to
ask if they had any laundry, so they put a tag on her in the form
of a very small bit of traceable material she would never know
about. It would show only where she went for the next seventy
minutes, then would evaporate. Thing answered the door and knew
immediately she was there because their visual pickup was behind
the coat, not because the hotel wanted any laundry. It was
customary to place all laundry in the receptacle by the door to be
picked up at regular times. This was an obvious ruse.

Thing turned to
ask Z about laundry as it placed the chemical tracer.

She went along
the hall until Thing closed the door, then came back to enter the
room from which the fiberoptic bug was being watched next door to
their suite.

They then went
to the casinos again, where they again won a fair amount of money
and where Z let several people know he liked poker in private games
and was getting tired of the casinos.

They returned
to their hotel room to find the coat now hung on another hook
across the room from where they left it. That told them someone who
worked for the hotel was definitely working with whoever bugged the
room before. There simply wasn't anyway anyone else could get their
hands on the electronic key. Those code keys weren't copied by any
technology anyone here had use of. Only a very complicated machine
could open the doors. There was no such machine around, except for
Thing's floater. The keys had tracers built-in, and each one was
located at all times on a computer at the hotel.

Z decided to
make an issue of sorts of the fact the coat was moved, so asked
Thing why the coat was over there.

[ How would I
know, With? I've been with you the entire time. ]

Z looked
puzzled, then asked why the coat would be moved. He began to study
the hook, then the wall under the area.

"Ahha! There's
a spy optic here! Call hotel security! I want to know what's going
on! Those things are illegal! I'll really have someone's hide over
this!

"Why would
anyone want to spy on us?"

[ I suppose
because I won a little money. I'll call security. They'll stop it.
The hotel will not tolerate any such thing here. It could ruin
their reputation. ]

Security came
and Z innocently pointed out the optic bead and explained about the
moved coat. The security man immediately called the computer, then
called more security to come to the room. Z asked why all the
excitement?

"We have to get
into that room, we have to find who put the thing there!" the
security man said. "We have to know how anyone got into your room.
That is very important to the hotel. It's supposed to be impossible
for anyone unauthorized to get into a room here.

"Do you have
any particular reason to believe the optic bead wasn't already
there when you arrived?"

[ I told With
it was suspicious when a maid came for laundry. You have the box
for that. I was suspicious from that moment. ]

Z then told the
security man about the woman coming to ask for their laundry soon
after the coat was hung. He had to describe the woman. The security
man insisted it definitely wasn't an employee of the hotel.

Others came to
find the adjoining room shouldn't have anyone in it. The passkey
was used at a certain moment that indicated it could only have been
used by one certain employee. It was a Bentan male. He was
questioned, but took a fine and ten days detention rather than say
who had hired him to move the coat.

[ Well, we
didn't learn too much there. The sonic bugs also were being
monitored in that room. I thought you'd never steer that security
man to the sonic bugs! ]

Z laughed. They
discussed several possible options before sleeping. They decided to
simply keep trying until they were invited into a private game.
That would be the act that tipped the hand of the leaders of the
organization. Those kinds of people would never let the loss of so
much money go. They would try to find a way to get their own cut.
It was in their nature.