"Harry Harrison - Deathworld 1 " - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

the years of work, we still don't know much about psi. They can train people a bit, and improve skills a bit-but that's all.
He was feeling strong tonight, he knew that the money in his pocket gave him the extra lift that sometimes helped him break
through. With his eyes half closed he picked up the dice-and let his mind gently caress the pattern of sunken dots. Then they shot
out of his hand and he stared at a seven.
It was there.
Stronger than he had felt it in years. The stiff weight of the million credits had done it. The world all around was sharp-cut and
clear and the dice were completely in his control. He knew to the tenth credit how much the other players had in their wallets and
was aware of the cards in the hands of the players behind him.
Slowly, carefully, he built up the stakes.
There was no effort to the dice; they rolled and sat up like trained dogs. Jason took his time and concentrated on the
psychology of the players and the stickman. It took almost two hours to build his money on the table to seven hundred thousand
credits. Then he caught the stickman signaling they had a heavy winner. He waited until the hardeyed man strolled over to watch
the game, then he breathed on the dice, bet all his table stakes-and blew it all with a single roll. The houseman smiled happily, the
stickman relaxed-and, out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw Kerk turning a dark purple.
Sweating, pale, his hand trembling ever so slightly, Jason opened the front of his jacket and pulled out one of the envelopes of
new bills. Breaking the seal with his finger, he dropped two of them on the table.
"Could we have a no-limit game," he asked. "I'd like to-win back some of my money."
The stickman had trouble controlling his smile now, he glanced across at the houseman who nodded a quick yes. They had a
sucker and they meant to clean him. He had been playing from his wallet all evening; now he was cracking into a sealed envelope
to try for what he had lost. A thick envelope, too, and probably not his money. Not that the house cared in the least. To them
money had no loyalties. The play went on with the Casino in a very relaxed mood.
Which was just the way Jason wanted it. He needed to get as deep into them as he could before someone realized they might
be on the losing end. The rough stuff would start and he wanted to put it off as long as possible. It would be hard to win smoothly
then-and his psi power might go as quickly as it had come. That had happened before.
He was playing against the house now, the two other players were obvious shills, and a crowd had jammed solidly around to
watch. After losing and winning a bit, he hit a streak of naturals and his pile of gold chips tottered higher and higher. There was
nearly a billion there, he estimated roughly. The dice were still falling true, though he was soaked with sweat from the effort.
Betting the entire stack of chips, he reached for the dice. The stickman reached faster and hooked them away.
"House calls for new dice," he said flatly.
Jason straightened up and wiped his hands, glad of the instant's relief. This was the third time the house had changed dice to
try and break his winning streak. It was their privilege. The hard-eyed Casino man opened his wallet as he had done before and
drew out a pair at random. Stripping off their plastic cover, he threw them the length of the table to Jason. They came up a natural
seven and Jason smiled.
When he scooped them up, the smile slowly faded. The dice were transparent, finely made, evenly weighted on all sides-and
crooked.
The pigment on the dots of five sides of each die was some heavy metal compound, probably lead. The sixth side was a ferric
compound. They would roll true unless they hit a magnetic field-which meant the entire surface of the table could be magnetized.
He could never have spotted the difference if he hadn't looked at the dice with his mind. But what could he do about it? Shaking
them slowly, he glanced quickly around the table. There was what he needed. An ashtray with a magnet in its base to hold it to the
metal edge of the table. Jason stopped shaking the dice and looked at them quizzically, then reached over and grabbed the ashtray.
He dropped the base against his hand.
As he lifted the ashtray, there was a concerted gasp from all sides. The dice were sticking there, upside down, boxcars
showing.
"Are these what you call honest dice?" he asked.
The man who had thrown out the dice reached quickly for his hip pocket. Jason was the only one who saw what happened
next. He was watching that hand closely, his own fingers near his gun butt. As the man dived into his pocket, a hand reached out
of the crowd behind him. From its square-cut size, it could have belonged to only one person. The thick thumb and index finger
clamped swiftly around the houseman's wrist, then they were gone. The man screamed shrilly and held up his arm, his hand
dangling limp as a glove from the broken wrist bones.
With his flank well protected, Jason could go on with the game. "The old dice, if you don't mind," he said quietly.