On-Grid
Cardfall Casino
Majel had gone through the trade mission’s info-packet once, and left the pages spread over his desk while he got up to go to the window.
His apartment on the casino’s third floor gave him the view promised by the address. At this hour, the river was dark silk, the reflections of the lumenberry trees twinkling in its depths.
Normally, it was a view he found soothing and renewing.
This evening, however, his thoughts were occupied with the information in the packet, seeking to rectify it with the traders he had met.
The traders—in a word, the traders had been charming. The master trader was not an elder, despite the white hair. His manner had been easy; his whole aspect open and frank. The younger trader—the master’s daughter, according to the info-packet—had been at pains to put him at ease, which argued that she had been privy to his initial dismay at the speed with which everything had happened, from the moment he had brought his new business before the Council. That was not a surprise; he had been fairly warned that the mission’s principals were Talents. They were ethical persons, so Portmaster krogerSlyte had been at pains to assure him—and certainly they had seemed so, to him.
Portmaster krogerSlyte . . . In Majel’s experience, the portmaster had been a stolid sort of councilor. She voted with the majority more often than not, and introduced nothing more than the quarterly port budget into the Council’s business.
Her partiality for the trade mission might be seen as worrisome, Majel thought, until one recalled that the portmaster’s concern had always been the port. If Colemeno became a hub, or merely expanded to accommodate a permanent Tree-and-Dragon trade office—then Portmaster krogerSlyte’s worth to the Redlands increased.
Looked at from that angle, her eagerness to have the mission succeed made a great deal of sense.
Nor was the portmaster the only one who stood to benefit from the success of the master trader’s work, he thought wryly.
Why, only see that upstart, Majel ziaGorn, newest councilor at the table, who had been vinsEbin’s aide for a scant six Standard Years before being seated in her chair—practically leaping out of that same chair in order to grasp a position of influence.
Majel half-laughed. Yes, well. Durella had warned him that ambition would be his downfall.
And to be perfectly fair, he had not fallen. He had placed himself into a position of trust, the like of which had never before been held by the Chair of the Citizens Coalition. If he were careful, and honest in his duty, he stood to gain much, not only for himself, but for those he represented. If the Council—if the Civilized could be brought to see that being Deaf meant nothing more than an inability to interact with the ambient, and did not also carry a meaning of vulnerable, half-witted, or frail—that would be success. For the Deaf to become accepted fully as citizens into Civilization—that was where his ambition led him.
So. The traders were charming, mannered, and Civilized. The info-packet had outlined some difficult times for Tree-and-Dragon Trade family and Clan Korval, directly preceding their arrival at Colemeno, including banishment from Liad. In that trouble, at least, they held solidarity with the Redlands, the ancestors having been likewise banished from the homeworld.
He was minded, here, of tryaBent’s assertion that Clan Korval was known to promote violence, and the archivist’s counterproposal of “unlooked-for events,” backed by cites. That was information that might also be of value to the liaison to the trade mission.
He turned from the window toward the desk, intending to make a note to ask ivenAlyatta for the cites regarding Tree-and-Dragon’s propensity for—trouble.
The on-floor comm buzzed, and Majel slapped the button, stylus forgotten.
“ziaGorn.”
“Sir, we’ve got a chizler down here at the security station. Do you want to talk to her, or should we just call the proctors?”
Majel sighed. This was the fifth chizler in the last twelve days. They’d turned the previous four over to the proctors and pursued full penalties. Word of that must have gotten to the siblinghood of rascals by now. Truly, after the fourth, he had expected to see no more.
Twelve days, five chizlers.
The situation had graduated from annoying to worrisome.
“I’ll come down,” Majel said. “Do you have the vid?”
“Yes, sir, all queued up and ready to show.”
“Fine. On my way.”
* * *
The chizler had watched the vid of herself manipulating the cards at the Sixes table with an air of cool, professional interest. She had made no plea of innocence, nor protested the arrival of the proctors. Merely, she rose, and bowed to Majel, thanked him gravely for an evening of interesting play, and allowed herself to be taken away to the station house.
“That,” said Seylin, who was head of in-house security, “was almost more worrisome than the act itself. As if she intended to be caught, and the evening has proceeded exactly to her expectations.”
Majel looked up from the vid, which was replaying on loop.
“Intended,” he said. “She meant to be caught.”
Seylin blinked at him. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking of five chizlers in twelve days. This last had the coolest head, but none of the others displayed any outrage at having their honor impugned. Did even one of them say, ‘Sir, I do not cheat at cards’?”
“I don’t recall that any did, but we have the tapes. You think they’re—probing? Looking for the weak point in our security?”
“Something like that.”
“But we caught them,” Seylin said. “The only thing they’ve learned is that our security is tight.”
Majel bit his lip, not liking where his thoughts were tending, but one looked for reasons to explain anomalies. Five chizlers in twelve days. Oh, he didn’t want to go any further down that road. Only—
He met Seylin’s eyes.
“Did we?” he asked. “Did we catch all of them? Or worse, are the ones we caught only a diversion?”
Seylin took a breath.
“The vids—”
“The vids require time to review,” Majel interrupted. “Assuming each chizler was cover for something else, we have twelve days to review.” He paused, eyes narrowed. “Even if the first chizler was a probe . . . ”
Seylin looked sour.
“Close tomorrow?” she asked.
That was prudent, Majel thought. One didn’t wish to tip one’s hand.
But—five chizlers in twelve days. Ample time to have altered machines. And if the manipulation had been done by Talents, it might not show up on vid. Which would mean calling in specialists, and a longer delay before reopening.
“Close tonight,” he said. “Tell the floor crew and the bouncers. We don’t want a rush, just a general feeling among the patrons that going elsewhere would be . . . pleasant.”
“Yes, sir,” Seylin said, clearly unhappy, which made two of them.
Majel stood up.
“I’ll be in the bar, if you need me.”