"Call," said Sushi, whose own pile of chips was slightly smaller than Chocolate Harry's, but still a good bit larger than when he'd bought into the game.

L. P. Asho, in the dealer's seat, looked at his cards. "What the hell, it's only money," he said. "Your ten"... he slid a blue chip into the pot-"and mine." He added a second blue, grinning.

"That's what 1 like to see," said Harry, beaming. "Man knows how to play the game. You still in, Street?"

"Not with these cards 1 ain't," said the legionnaire, turning his cards face down. "Can't get high or low either one. Why don't somebody invent a game where middle hand wins 1"

"You can call it when it's your deal," said Harry.

"Meanwhile, we got cards and money on the table, and time's a-wastin'. You in, Mr. Tay-Shun?" Austen Tay-Shun took a sip of his drink-bourbon and cactus juice-and contemplated first his own cards, then those visible in the other hands. "I like what 1 see," he said.

"Call."

"You can't like it that much or you'd raise," said Harry.

"Your turn, O'Better. Fifteen bucks to play, jet out for free.

What'd'ya say?"

"I said I'd see another card," said O'Better, putting in two chips. He looked like a man whose word of honor has just been impugned. Which of course was exactly what Chocolate Harry was banking on.

"Here's the raise," he said, "and last raise for another blue one." Punk went his chips into the pot. Sushi rolled his eyes and folded, but the three hunters all called, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The game had been going like this all night long.

"More cards, Mr. Dealer," called out Harry. "Make 'em good-I don't want to hear no complaints about how folks came to Chocolate Harry's to play poker and couldn't get a hand to play!"

"Yeah, yeah," said Asho, turning over another card for each of the players. "Read' em and weep."

"That's what the farmer said," said Tay-Shun. "Or was it 'Weed 'em and reap'? Har har." He shoved a red chip into the pot. "Five."

Euston O'Better snorted. "I don't know what's worse, your jokes or my cards. And that's a mighty sad comment on this hand." He tossed his hand in and pushed back his chair. "Gotta get me another brew."

"Help yourself-we got plenty of it," said Chocolate Harry, gesturing toward the cooler in the back of the Supply shed. He turned back to his cards and shoved two chips into the pot. "Your nickel and my dime."

"Sarge is nickel-dimin' us to death," said Street, looking enviously at the growing pot.

Chocolate Harry snorted. "A man wants to take the boodle home, he got to feed the pot," he said. "You don't have to play the game if it's too rich for your blood-we got a lot of folks on base would like to take some of this money if you ain't up to it. Hey, Soosh, you think Do-Wop's up for a game?" Before Sushi could answer, Street said, "I didn't say I was givin' up my seat. Just kibitzing, is all."

"Whatever you say," said Harry. "Didn't want to see a man jump in over his head."

"Sure you did," said Sushi, leaning back in his chair to study the visible cards. "You run a poker game every few days, and I never yet saw you tell somebody he couldn't play because he wasn't good enough. Or rich enough, for that matter. You might be the most democratic sergeant in the Space Legion, when it comes to taking other people's money."

"Well, I'll take that as a compliment," said Chocolate Harry. "Even though I have to say you're wrong. You give me my choice, I'd much sooner take a rich man's money than a poor man's. And the reason why is easy..."

"Because there's more of it to take," said Sushi and Street in unison.

Chocolate Harry frowned. "What's wrong with you boys, steppin' on all a man's best lines?"

"Just tryin' to save you the effort," said Street, grinning broadly. "You workin' so hard as it is..."

"Hellfire, there's a game goin' on," said Austen Tay-Shun. "You boys playin' or not? It's your bet, ain't it, L. P.?"

"I'm callin' ," said the dealer. "You in or out, buddy? If you ain't holdin' anything better than you're showing, you best get out while you still got some skin left."

"There's one more card before the buy," said Tay-Shun, unfluttered. "Plenty of time to get better. Cal!." The call went around the table and Asho dealt the remaining players one card each, face down. "All right, pay dirt!" said Tay-Shun, peeking at the card he'd gotten.

"You might have the dirt, but I'm the one who's takin' home the pay," said Chocolate Harry, with a broad grin. He was showing three queens in his face-up cards.

"We'll just have to wait and see on that there question," said Asho. "You can brag all you want about your popgun, but don't expect it to carry no weight with somebody that's got a cannon."

"That's the truth," said Austen Tay-Shun. "There's gas and there's neutronium, and a man that don't know which one's which better keep tight hold of his wallet. I bet twenty-five." Chocolate Harry looked at Tay-Shun's cards. "Must be goin' low. Bump it twenty-five."

"And another twenty-five," said Asho, shoving three blue chips into the pot and grinning broadly.

Tay-Shun raised another twenty-five. "Looks like we got you whipsawed, Sarge," he said.

Chocolate Harry chuckled deep in his throat. "You talk bad, but it's the cards that get the last word." Sushi had been kibitzing the game, waiting for the next deal. Perhaps that was why he noticed that O'Better, after folding his hand, was taking a long time to fetch himself a beer. He looked around the shed and spotted the absent player standing by a rack of weapons. He had a beer can in his hand, all right, but his attention was raptly focused on the military hardware. Casually, Sushi made his own way back to the cooler, got himself a cold one, and sauntered over to stand next to O'Better. "You look like a man who knows his way around a gun," said Sushi.

"Huh?" said the hunter, startled. "Oh yeah, yeah-gotta have some serious weapons if you're gonna hunt big game, heh heh. I surely do admire some of the stuff you Legion boys have got, though."

"Yeah, I guess it's pretty exotic to civilians," said Sushi. "We use it all the time, so it's nothing special to us. Then again, we have specialized requirements-most of this stuff would be no use for you. You don't get much of a trophy if you blow the whole animal to constituent quarks, do you?"

"Naw, I reckon not," said O'Better, with a guffaw. "But there's trophies and trophies, y'know? And with some of the critters I hear tell this planet's got, maybe just stunnin' the critter so's you could cut off the head would be fine. ." He waved his hand in the direction of a Zenobian stun ray-a weapon that, as far as Sushi knew, was still available only to Omega Company, thanks to the captain's father's munitions plant.

"Stun it? Yeah, that'd be triff, if there was some weapon that would do it," said Sushi, watching O'Better's reaction carefully. But before the Tejan could say anything, a voice came from the card table.

"Hey, Euston, you playin'? We're dealin' Chainsaw..."

O'Better gulped, and said, "Scuse me." He headed back to the card table, obvious relief on his face. But Sushi couldn't help but note that both Tay-Shun and Asho were staring daggers at their fellow hunter.

Ernie sauntered into the Fat Chance Casino as if he owned the joint. Well, why not? Looking and acting confident putting up a good front-was one of the main weapons in a con man's arsenal. If nobody thought to question him, he was home free. And, after all, right there in his pocket were chips worth $4000 that he was planning to play with. That gave him just as much right to be there as anybody else-more than most of the other customers, if the amount of money he had meant anything.

His first stop was at the cashier's window, to change one of the thousand-dollar chips into fifties. The smaller denominations would allow him to gamble with the money over a longer stretch of time, although he'd still be betting amounts significant enough to distinguish him as a bigtime player-an "elephant," in the casino workers' slang. He would reserve the remaining big chips to play Victor Phule's thousand-dollar slots, allowing him-or so he hoped-to strike up a further conversation with the weapons magnate.