"Blind Shemmy by Jack Dann" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

She took a lift to the top level to catch up with Pfeiffer.
It was like walking into the foyer of a well-appointed home. The high walls were stucco and the floor was inlaid parquet. A small Dehaj rug was placed neatly before a desk, behind which beamed a man of about fifty dressed in camise and caftan. He had a flat face, a large nose that was wide, but had narrow nostrils, and close-set eyes roofed with bushy, brown eyebrows, the color his hair would have been, had he had any.
Actually, the room was quite small, which made the rug look larger and gave the man a commanding position.
"Do you wish to watch or participate, Monsieur Pfeiffer?" he asked, seeming to rise an inch from the chair as he spoke.
"I wish to play," Pfeiffer said, standing upon the rug as if he had to be positioned just right to make it fly.
"And does your friend wish to watch?" the man asked, as Joan crossed the room to stand beside Pfeiffer. "Or will you give your permission for Miz Otur to become telepathically connected to you." His voice didn't rise as he asked the question.
"I beg your pardon?"
"A psyconnection, sir. With a psyconductor"-a note of condescension crept into his voice.
"I know what it is, and I don't want it," Pfeiffer snapped and then moved away from Joan. But a cerebral hook-in was, in fact, just what Joan had hoped for.
"Oh, come on," Joan said. "Let me in."
"Are you serious?" he asked, turning toward her.
Caught by the intensity of his stare, she could only nod. "Then I'm sorry. I'm not a window for you to stare through."
That stung her, and she retorted, "Have you ever done it with your wife?" She immediately regretted her words.
The man at the desk cleared his throat politely. "Excuse me, monsieur, but are you aware that only games organe are played in these rooms?"
"Yes, that's why I've come to your house."
"Then, you are perhaps not aware that all our games are conducted with psyconductors on this floor.
Pfeiffer, looking perplexed, said, "Perhaps you had better explain it to me."
"Of course, of course," the man said, beaming, as if he had just won the battle and a fortune. "There are, of course, many ways to play, and, if you like, I can give you the address of a very nice house nearby where you can play a fair, safe game without hook-ins. Shall I make a reservation for you there?"
"Not just yet," Pfeiffer said, resting his hands, knuckles down, upon the flat-top Louis XVI desk.
His feet seemed to be swallowed by the floral patterns of the rug, and Joan thought it an optical illusion, this effect of being caught before the desk of the casino captain. She felt the urge to grab Pfeiffer and take him out of this suffocating place.
Instead, she walked over to him. Perhaps he would relent just a little and let her slide into his mind.
"It is one of our house rules, however," said the man at the desk, "that you and your opponent, or opponents, must be physically in the same room."
"Why is that?" Joan asked, feeling Pfeiffer scowling at her for intruding.
"Well," he said, "it has never happened to us, of course
but cheating has occurred on a few long-distance transactions. Organs have been wrongly lost. So we don't take any chances. None at all." He looked at Pfeiffer as he spoke, obviously sizing him up, watching for reactions. But Pfeiffer had composed himself, and Joan knew that he had made up his mind.
"Why must the game be played with psyconductors?" Pfeiffer asked.
"That is the way we do it," said the captain. Then, after an embarrassing pause, he said, "We have our own games and rules. And our games, we think, are the most interesting. And we make the games as safe as we can for all parties involved."
"What do you mean?"
"We-the house-will be observing you. Our games master will be telepathically hooked in, but, I assure you, you will not sense his presence in the least. If anything should go wrong, or look as if it might go wrong, then pfft, we intercede. Of course, we make no promises, and there have been cases where-"
"But anything that could go wrong would be because of the cerebral hook-in."
"Perhaps this isn't the game for you, sir."
"You must have enough privileged information on everyone who has ever played here to make book," Pfeiffer said.
"The hook-in doesn't work that way at all. And besides, we are contract-bound to protect our clients."
"And yourselves."
"Most certainly." The casino captain looked impatient.
"If both players can read each other's mind," Pfeiffer said to the captain, "then there can be no blind cards."
"Aha, now you have it, monsieur." At that, the tension between Pfeiffer and the desk captain seemed to dissolve.
"And, indeed," the captain continued, "we have a modified version of chemin de fer, which we call blind shemmy. All the cards are played face down. It is a game of control (and, of course, chance), for you must block out certain thoughts from your mind, while, at the same time, tricking your opponent into revealing his cards. And that is why it would be advantageous for you to let your friend here connect with you."
Pfeiffer glanced toward Joan and said, "Please clarify that."
"Quite simply, while you are playing, your friend could help block your thoughts from your opponent with her own," said the captain. "But it does take some practice. Perhaps, it would be better if you tried a hook-in in one of our other rooms, where the stakes are not quite so high." Then the captain lowered his eyes, as if in deference, but in actuality he was looking at the CeeR screen of the terminal set into the antique desk.
Joan could see Pfeiffer's nostrils flare slightly. The poor sonofabitch is caught, she thought. "Come on, Carl, let's get out of here now."
"Perhaps you should listen to Miss Otur," the captain said, but the man must have known that he had Pfeiffer.
"I wish to play blind shemmy," Pfeiffer said, turning toward Joan, glaring at her. She caught her breath: If he lost, then she knew he would make certain that Joan lost something, too.
"I have a game of nine in progress," the captain said. "There are nine people playing and nine others playing interference. But you'll have to wait for a space. It will be quite expensive, as the players are tired and will demand some of your points for themselves above the casino charge for the play."
"How long will I have to wait?"
The captain shrugged, then said, "I have another man waiting, who is ahead of you. He would be willing to play a game of doubles. I would recommend you play him rather than wait. Like you, he is an amateur, but his wife, who will be connected with him, is not. Of course, if you wish to wait for the other . . ."
Pfeiffer accepted, and while he and Joan gave their
prints to the various forms, the captain explained that
there was no statue of limitations on the contract signed
by all parties, and that it would be honored even by those