Lucky at Cards

I.
It was a dark and stormy night when I first caught sight of my new home.

Harsh blue-white port lights made barely a dent in the vast darkness outside the tattered collection of ships rimming the landing field. Dark enough. And stormy? Maybe it wasn't stormy by the definition of this place, but it was close enough for me, fresh from the controlled climate of Apollo. Wind swirled between the ships and driving rain plastered my jeans to my legs as we few passengers waited for what turned out to be a dingy, slow-moving old-fashioned hovercraft. Wheezing and given to sudden inexplicable tilts, it took us from the field to the garish cluster of metallic buildings that passes for a spaceport here on Sagitta IV.

The night teemed with cliches. The ship's crusty captain, the bedraggled port buildings, the laughable customs procedures, the annoying, frustrating, ceaseless rainstorm, the discovery that no one was expecting me, no one had made any arrangements for my arrival: An appropriate welcome for a writer who's been sent to the end of nowhere.

Jacson Ellerbe, hotshot writer, loads of promise, the next big thing on the news nets: That's who I was. Plain old Jac, cooling his heels on this armpit of a planet for who knows how long because he couldn't keep his big mouth shut: That's who I am now.

So there I stood, outside the Port Authority building on the planet Sagitta IV in the dark, in a pouring rain, without a clue what to do next. I'd stashed my few belongings in a rental locker inside the P.A. and wandered out into the night with nothing but the rapidly soaking clothes on my back. On my head was one of my most prized possessions, an antique battered brown narrow-brim hat just like the ones that always sported PRESS cards in their bands when worn by newspaper reporters in old American vids. Probably nobody's seen an actual newspaper outside a museum in better than three hundred years, but I've always loved the legend. Those guys led interesting lives.

Unlike mine, which had started with promise but was rapidly going downhill.

Wet, depressed, miserable and new in town, I did what any self-respecting journalist would do. Hunching my shoulders against the rain, I slipped into the back of the next group of passing spacers and followed them off port. No crowds of welcoming natives met us at the gate with armloads of tacky souvenirs. No mob of public transport vehicles cluttered the area outside the gate. In fact, I had my head down and almost didn't register the fact that we'd passed through the gate between the spaceport and the city. At the back of the group of sullen spacers I crossed a grassy area outside the gate, and with no fanfare we were in the city itself.

The portside area of Brendan's Spaceport offered little in the steady rain, just a series of hard-surfaced streets fronted by brightly-lit buildings of every a rchitecture I'd ever seen - and then some. The few people abroad in the pouring rain scurried from doorway to doorway, cloaked head to foot in what I would later learn were the most common outer garments in the city, massive waterproof capes.

Maybe later I'd find all that interesting.

Not then, though.

On that sodden evening, I had only one driving ambition. I turned in at the door of the first bar I saw and got carefully, methodically and thoroughly drunk.

II.
Several decades later, I hauled myself up out of a pit of unconsciousness into blackness so profound I was temporarily certain I had died. Eventually my brain, scraping and grinding in an effort to churn out a coherent thought, pointed out that if I were dead my head wouldn't be pounding like a whole clan of happy Titans was doing a mickeyhart between my temples.

Good point, I wuzzily agreed with myself, and idly began to consider the prospect of blindness.

Much, much later, after the sludge inside my head managed to ooze into about three consecutive thoughts, I realized I wasn't, of course, blind. I just had my eyes shut. By supreme effort I managed to force one eyelid up just enough to glimpse my surroundings. The room was apparently windowless and the light was off. An excellent idea in view of the condition of my head. From the feel of it, I was in a bed. Not a bad place to be, under the circumstances, and much better than the vagracell I'd expected. I tried to roll onto my side and discovered that someone had apparently been using my body for a battering ram.

Everything hurt. The sound I made probably sounded like something out of a cheap horror vid.

"Good morning!" an obscenely perky male voice shouted.

I'm sure I screamed. I meant to scream, certainly, and if I didn't, I should've. That insane bellow, practically in my ear, sent every naked, raw nerve ending in my body pelting for cover. The drumming in my head reached epic proportions.

"Ah, bit of a hangover, eh?" the voice said, and a second voice chi med in, "Didn't you pick up some inhibitors back on Panjung?"

"Of course, of course," the first voice said to the accompaniment of a damp smack. Either he slapped his forehead or kissed the producer of the second voice. I was afraid to pull my hands away from my eyes for fear they'd fall out on the pillow. I was pretty sure my arms and legs had fallen off with the first shout. The contents of my stomach, whatever they were, had insurrection in mind.

"Here you go," the second voice said after a century or so, and I felt a damp patch against the skin of my neck for a moment, then another on the opposite side. "You look like you could use a double dose." The voice sounded mildly amused and younger than the first voice.

I had time to draw two shallow breaths before the inhibitor hit my brain. Inhibitors are a great idea: They negate most of the effects of alcohol hangover in mere minutes. What nobody likes to talk about is the minutes themselves. From more than sufficient experience, I can assure you those few minutes are like getting individual shock therapy for every pain receptor in your body and then living for a year on nothing but dried salted fish in the middle of a Vulcan sand storm.

Not good. Not good at all.

On the bright side, after surviving that hell, you tend to have a downright cheerful attitude about the remaining tatters of your hangover.

So it was that I didn't scream (heck, I didn't even yelp a little) when my mystery roommates turned on a light a few minutes later. I closed my eyes and eased my head from side to side gently. Satisfied that everything seemed to be orbiting in a more or less normal manner, I pushed up onto my elbows and surveyed the room.

It was pleasant if a bit crowded, with half-packed boxes, computer equipment, and clothing stacked and strewn and piled on every available surface. Still, I could tell that the dark green and gold furnishings underneath were tasteful in a lush sort of way. The pale gold room had seemed so dark because there were only two windows, both high on the wall and covered with thick emerald green drapes. I was the sole inhabitant of an amazingly luxurious bed, bigger than any I've seen since my Terra days and piled high with gold sheets, green blankets and brocaded spreads that looked like they were made of natural fibers.

"Feeling a bit better, are you?" the first voice asked, and I turned to see who had picked me up this time. He was ensconced comfortably in a plush green high-backed chair, and the first thing I noticed was his hair, which was thick and sandy blond and fell loosely around his shoulders, seeming almost to gleam in the low light. A full beard, also sandy colored but touched with a hint of silver, obscured the lower half of his face, and lively grey eyes smiled above an uneventful nose. Height's hard to judge when people are seated, but he didn't seem particularly tall or short, and he carried a few of the soft extra kilos around the middle that men get when they don't work at keeping in shape. I know. I get'em myself. Regularly.

"Allow me to introduce myself," my host said. "Chris Light, professional traveller. Sometimes writer," he added in a mildly self-deprecating tone.

The name rang a vague bell somewhere in the depths of my brain, but that's not unusual for a journalist. We tend to read, see and hear more than the average person and retain it on a subconscious level instead of up where we can get at it. If the name was of any true significance, that connection would float to the top of my mind sooner or later. I had other things to worry about at the moment, like remembering where I was.

The owner of the second voice stepped into view next to the chair, a short, slightly pudgy young man with deep-set dark brown eyes and short dark hair.

"And Tom Royce," the second man added. "Chris' spear-carrier."

Chris glanced briefly at the younger man and chuckled, then directed his piercing gray gaze back at me.

"And you are?"

"Didn't I tell you?" I asked, finding myself slightly hoarse. Tom Royce, without a word, quietly left the room.

"You told us a great many things, dear lad." Chris Light smiled. "Many of them, I'm sure, apocryphal. You claimed to be, at one point, the sole surviving inheritor of the D'Andrati fortune, for instance. Since I've seen many holos of the D'Andratis and you couldn't pass for their butler, much less one of the family, I assume that much, at least, was fiction."

I felt myself blushing. I've been trying to stop that for years now, but involuntary reactions are a bitch to control. I heard the sound of liquid splashing in the background, and Tom Royce drifted back into sight, holding out a glass of what turned out to be iced water. Thanking him, I took it and used the opportunity of the interruption to consider the potential for just how big a fool I might've made of myself during the past... past... I had no idea how long I'd been here.

"How long..." I began, then stopped. I wasn't even sure what I needed to ask. How long have I been asleep? How long have I been in this room? How long have I been on planet?

"We met you out on the street during an impromptu Festival party two days ago," Tom Royce said, settling on the arm of the chair. "You said you'd only been on planet for a day or so. We invited you to join us, and you did."

Chris laughed. "I'll say," he added. "For a newcomer to this not-so-fair planet, you certainly made yourself at home with some of the... peculiarities of Festival."

This was not sounding good. Especially since I didn't even know what Festival was. In fact, I was only vaguely beginning to remember what planet I was on. Sagitta IV: Garbage dump of the known worlds. Backwater extraordinaire. And here I was in the (room? house?) of two men I'd never seen before. Well, brazen it out, I told myself.

"Jacson Ellerbe," I introduced myself, holding out a hand that only barely trembled. "Associated Newsnet."

"So that was true!" Tom said, sounding mildly excited. "Excellent. You'll want to do a story on Chris, then."

"Tom," Chris said in an indulgent, mildly warning tone, but I could see the twinkle in his eyes. I felt the sigh inside, but long habit kept it from showing. Somebody else who wanted something from me: The story of my life. Still, I'd chosen it, so it was nobody's fault but my own.

"Three days, you say?" I asked finally.

"I believe so," Chris said. "You didn't have anything with you except this."

He reached down to the floor beside the chair and handed up my still-soggy battered brown hat. Ah, yes, I thought, the legend returns.

"And don't forget this," Tom added, stepping into the other room and leading out a small person whose gaze was fixed on the floor. A human child, I could tell at a closer look: thin, pale, with fine, limp white-blond hair falling in wisps around a face that would break hearts in a few years. The body was so flat and utterly childlike that telling its gender was impossible.

I stared at it and said something stupid in an interrogative mode, along the lines of, "What?" or "Huh?" I'm not sure what I said. I know I was absolutely floored.

"She's yours," Chris said and I thought I heard a hint of amusement behind the uninflected words. "I'm a bit hazy on the details, but I believe you won her. In a card game."

"You had a good night at the tables last night," Tom added with a small, slightly embarrassed grin. "You told us you were due a streak of luck at cards."

"Mine?" I managed. "But what..." And ran out of words again.

"She's very low maintenance," Tom said. "She doesn't talk, but she'll do anything you ask."

I sat on the edge of the bed, temporarily frozen, hat in hand. The girl looked up at me from under silky bangs with eyes as blue as Terra's seas and almost as large.

"Well," I said, and stopped as my brain spun loose for a few revolutions then finally caught traction on a thought and began to ease into low gear.

Three days was long enough to mope. Three days was sufficient to feel sorry for myself, to be a pathetic drunk. I've never been the sort of person who can stay down too long. Life's just too short.

So I was stuck on Sagitta IV, armpit of the universe, for the time being. With a couple of acquaintances whose names rang a vague bell and a pre-pubescent heart-breaker apparently all my own. What the hell. I'd been in stranger situations. I'd make the best of it.

It was time to start introducing myself to my new world.

III.

Less than an hour later, I was standing in the dining room downstairs, having made a gracious (I hope) thank you to my companions and a promise to join them again later, for dinner and some coherent conversation this time. The girl, who I was beginning to think of as my pale shadow, hovered somewhere behind me.

The excuse I'd given for my sudden retreat was quite true. I really did need to check in with my boss, since she might actually be wondering if I'd fallen into the darkness between Jumps. Chris and Tom had informed me, with mild regret, that the Cherta Inn had no keyboard connections to the datanets. At least, none that were available to the public beyond simple debit/credit registers. Something about a peculiarity of the owner, who didn't like having the nets in her inn.

I could understand that. I have a couple of peculiarities about the nets myself. I'm not jacked, for instance, although some of my cohorts tell me that's the only way to file stories. I just don't trust it. Frankly, the idea of having my head wired for direct connection to the datanets makes me a bit queasy. Some folks are going the nection route these days, with a super-sensitive headband that picks up electrical frequencies from your brain and feeds them into its circuitry. You can connect to the nets through that, but the technology's still undependable. So far it's used mostly for interactive gaming and a few soft business applications. Most people still stick with keyboards unless they're heavy net users, militaries or Jump pilots and need the fast-as-thought speed a direct cerebral jack provides. On Corellia, before the Conflagration, a successful market was beginning to develop for rec chips that plugged directly into the brain jacks, but production was set back years with the loss of that planet's technological resources.

But I digress. You'll have to forgive me. Journalists tend to stockpile information, and it leaks out through our attempts at communication like air around an undependable vacuum seal.

At the foot of three flights of old-fashioned stairs, I found myself in a cozy dining room that looked like something out of a historical vid. A wide fake wood bar wrapped around one side of the room, with actual swinging doors behind it. One set opened into what was obviously a kitchen, and the smells that leaked from it were mouth-watering. The other set led to a dim hallway. The main room of the dining area was scattered with tables of the same fake wood, and three walls were lined with glorious brightly-colored tapestries. The front w all was entirely transparent except for a doorway outlined in massive wooden beams. Whether glass, fiberglass, ceraglass, plastic or some other substitute, I couldn't tell without closer inspection. I wandered closer to the windows. Outside, dim diffuse light indicated the presence of dawn, but everything was shrouded in a thick blanket of mist. Even the buildings directly across the street were obscured. A few people moved without haste on the sidewalks.

I sat at a table near the window and studied it briefly. As I suspected, it wasn't exactly the solid wood it seemed at first glance. I brushed my arm over the foggy area near my side of the table and waited while the menu floated up to the surface, then ordered coffee and the smallest breakfast special. As empty as my insides felt, I probably could've put away two of their largest meals, but I've learned from experience not to eat too much on a too-empty stomach.

Suddenly remembering my shadow, I motioned her into the seat across from me and ordered a second small breakfast for her, along with a protein drink. She looked like she could use it.

Waiting for the food, I stared out into the slowly brightening street and considered what to do next. I needed to check in with work, since it had been three days after all. But I also needed to check into local customs and find out what to do with the girl. I studied her across the bare table. Her clothing was clean but worn, a pair of thin blue leggings and a loose red and yellow striped tunic that had seen better - and brighter - days. I smiled at her with my most ingratiating expression, the one that always works on interviews who don't really want to talk to me but find the possibility hard to resist. She stared back without expression.

"Have a name?" I asked, tiring of the silent treatment.

Except for a single blink, she could've been a statue.

"OK," I said. "I have to call you something. How about..." I scanned my memory for synonyms for girl. "Lassie? Nah, doesn't sound quite right. How about Colleen?" I had a college friend from New Wales who was always talking about the colleens back home. I always thought they sounded like dogs. And the kid was sorta like a glum pet....

I looked at her carefully, from her pale wispy hair to the small, tidy hands folded before her on the tabletop, like porcelain against the dark wood.

"Colleen," I repeated, and reached over to touch her cool hand gently. "Understand? Colleen."

No response.

"I'm Jac," I said, touching my own chest. She might as well have been carved from marble. This was turning out to be no fun at all.

I sighed and went back to the problem of what to do next. Checking in with work probably was the best idea. I'd left them with no misunderstanding on my feelings about being assigned to Sagitta, but I didn't want the relationship to deteriorate entirely. After all, journalism was all I knew, and the Associated Newsnet was the only real game in town for journalists who wanted more than a subsistence living. I'd given them six excellent years of hard work and high productivity. I'd won awards and produced consistently highly-rated 'casts. If I'd only stayed away from that one damned story on Apollo....

But I wasn't ready to drag that particular punching bag back out again yet. No, I really needed to keep the battering at a manageable level, and getting back in touch with my boss was going to be enough for today.

My boss, Destiny Jones, was the hottest of all the hot young items on AN's current slate of superstars. A talented writer with an insatiable curiosity and a legendary dedication to thoroughness, she was also incredibly intelligent and drop-dead gorgeous to boot. It was no surprise that she'd shot straight to the top of the newsnet charts, the Wonder Girl of the late teens, fawned over by fans and corporate monkeys alike.

What was a surprise, at least to many of our co-workers, was that our affair had lasted as long as it did. Three whole glorious years, with Des shooting up the ratings ladder and me following at a slower but still impressive rate. Three years of long hours of work and far too short hours together. We were a perfect pair, the golden girl and her brilliant shadow.

Then came Apollo, and that damned story. And when it came to a choice between her AN career and me, Des hadn't hesitated for a moment. Bye-bye Jackie-boy. Hello advancement.

Bitch.

And now, in a sweep of irony that must have the gods of journalism - and lovers - chortling still, she was to be my boss, news director of the Altares sector, including Altares, Panjung, Kwy Chin, Sagitta, Fortyniner and points unknown.

"Hello?" a soft voice said in that tone that means you've already been addressed at least once. I snapped out of my reverie and looked up to find myself facing a tray of steaming food held by a fresh-faced young woman with a shock of orange-red curls and a sprinkle of dark brown freckles on a porcelain-pale face. Having caught my attention, she slid the tray onto the tabletop and started unloading breakfast.

"Here you are," she said. "I brought an extra pot of coffee and a warmer. Most of our early morning customers seem to enjoy that."

"Thank you." I reached for a puffy bread roll and broke it open to a cloud of steam and a heavenly aroma.

"Would you care for anything else?" the girl asked, glancing at my table partner with a hint of speculation.

I shook my head, wordless, anticipating the first taste of the bread. It was all the smell promised. Within fewer minutes than is probably wise, I cleaned the plate of every bite. It was one of the most delicious meals I've ever tasted, and I've eaten at some of the best places on Luna, Terra and Apollo. Across the table, Colleen methodically plowed her way through her meal as well, chewing with a furor my mother would have cheered and punctuating the process with curious bird-like tosses of her head. Neither of us left anything for the recyclers. As I relaxed over the second cup of coffee, idly watching a steadily increasing flow of customers enter the inn's dining room, the waitress approached us again.

"Is everything all right?" she asked pleasantly.

"Wonderful."

She nodded and began to move away. "Excuse me," I called before she could move too far. "Can you tell me where I can find the nearest public comm?"

"There's one just outside to the left," she said automatically. Probably a fairly common question here. I thanked her and pushed back from the table, having already thumbed in my payment with the reader I'd found in the usual position on the side of the table. Since paying Colleen attention didn't seem to have any effect, I decided to try ignoring her. I heard the scrape behind me as she followed.

Outside, the air was damp and chill. I wondered what time of year it was here, and what sort of seasons I had to look forward to. I'd been so infuriated about the posting that I hadn't done my usual thorough job of advance research, so I'd have plenty to keep me busy in my first few days here.

The comm was no more than ten steps from the inn door, a small well-kept building with a dozen stations, two-thirds of them with seating. Only four of the stations were in use, so I made myself at home at one of the seated stations near the back, where I could watch the door, and absentmindedly keyed in my access. Colleen settled onto the floor at my side without a word. This was getting unnerving.

Passing the public menus, I headed straight for the personal menu linked to AN HQ in Chicago, Terra. As I'd expected, several messages were waiting, along with a large text file. I queried a direct link to Terra, but on the commercial channel it was going to involve a 36-hour lag time. I could call priority and charge it to AN, but it probably wasn't worth aggravating them at this point. I'd just drop Des a message and she could pick it up whenever she happened to see it. I opened the first of the message files.

PLEASE LOG ON AS SOON AS YOU REACH SAGITTA. MAIN DESK NEEDS TO WORK YOU INTO THE FLOWSHEET ASAP. D. JONES Standard operating procedure. All bureaus were scheduled into a regular transmission flow to avoid bottlenecks on everything but breaking news stories. The second message was more of the same.

AN HQ, CHICAGO, TERRA, TO ALL BUREAUS: PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL STORIES ORIGINATING FROM ANY OF THE PLANETS IN THE JALLALUDIN SYSTEM SHOULD BE DATELINED WITH THE NAME OF THE INDIVIDUAL PLANET ALONG WITH JALLALUDIN. THIS POLICY CHANGE IS EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.

Junk mail.

AN HQ, CHICAGO, TERRA, ADVISORY: ANY OUTSTANDING INSURANCE CLAIMS MUST BE FILED BY DEC. 31 TERRAN STANDARD. ANY CLAIMS FILED AFTER THAT DATE WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DISALLOWED.

More junk mail.

D. JONES TO J. ELLERBE: (This was more like it!) IS THERE SOME PROBLEM WITH YOUR ASSIGNMENT? ACCORDING TO OUR RECORDS YOU SHOULD HAVE ARRIVED BY NOW. PLEASE LOG ON ASAP.

I could imagine her in her big new office at AN HQ, probably one of the massive corner ones with windows on two sides, overlooking the Canadian Bay. I hoped it was raining.

D. JONES TO J. ELLERBE: LOG ON, DAMMIT. I KNOW YOUR SHIP ARRIVED AND THE TRIP RECORD SHOWED NO PROBLEM. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

OK, so I laughed a little over that one. Maybe she was starting to chew on one of those expensive fingernails - her dirty little off-air secret.

JACSON ELLERBE: (She must really be getting furious now. The full name yet.) YOUR FAILURE TO LOG ON UPON ARRIVAL AT BRENDAN SPACEPORT COULD BE CONSIDERED A BREACH OF CONTRACT. ACCORDING TO YOUR JOB REQUIREMENTS, YOU ARE EXPECTED TO PRODUCE NO FEWER THAN FIVE STORIES PER STANDARD WEEK. FAILURE TO MEET THAT STANDARD CAN BE GROUNDS FOR TERMINATION. YOUR WEEK STARTS WITH YOUR ARRIVAL THERE. PLEASE LET HQ KNOW WHEN WE CAN EXPECT TO SEE YOUR STORIES.

My, my. Sweet little Des was sweating now. I wondered just how secure she was in her new job. Granted it was a coup for her: Less than 10 years out of university and already a sector director. But the Altares Sector was known for heavy turnover.

Altares itself is the only relatively quiet part of the sector.

Panjung and Kwy Chin produce a massive flow of clan and gang murder and destruction stories, as producers wrestle for control of the lucrative drug and toxin trade in the system. They were also beginning to market some of the rec chips Corellia had been perfecting, but the Panjung versions were unreliable in the extreme. Several particularly gruesome deaths had been recorded from people who got bad chips from Panjung. Anybody can get anything on Panjung, but the ignorant and the innocent rarely make it off planet with their purchases. It makes for a heavy news flow.

Sagitta is such a backwater it never produces any news worth mentioning, and reporters tend to burn out quickly from the inanity.

Fortyniner is as dreary and business-like as you can imagine, but between the endless series of mineral and metal strikes and the random destruction pelted at the planet from its asteroid belt, it's a heavy source of stories for the nets.

So Altares Sector was where sweet young hot-shots were sent to prove their worth. You've heard of paying your dues? Well, if you're going to get anywhere in the hierarchy of AN, you've got to do your time on the Altares Sector. It's where the Net makes the first, most severe and largest culling of new talent. I'd determined I was going to survive my time in the Altares Sector and come out smelling like a rose. But if I could cause a little disruption for sweet Destiny along the way, well....

The next message, which was dated a mere 72 Standard hours earlier, was the voice of my own lovely Destiny: JAC, LOG ON TO THE FUCKING NET. I KNOW YOU'RE THERE. I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU THINK YOU'RE TRYING TO PROVE, BUT IT ISN'T WORKING. I'M 24 HOURS FROM REPORTING YOU FOR INSUBORDINATION.

Oooooooh, scary. Still, she sounded suitably frantic. Darling Des always responded to fear and uncertainty by turning into a bossy bitch. It was one of the things I loved about her. And I could afford to be magnanimous. What the hell, I was a slaveowner now.

J. ELLERBE, BRENDAN SPACEPORT, SAGITTA IV, TO D. JONES, AN HQ, CHICAGO, TERRA: IN PLACE AS ORDERED, HON. YOU MUST NOT HAVE GOTTEN MY EARLIER MESSAGE. I'M SENDING THIS ONE OVER THE BROAD HQ NET SO YOU WON'T MISS IT. I MISS YOU ALREADY, SWEET THIGHS. JAC

So I was laughing when I walked out of the comm and into the thinning mist. So? Do you blame me?

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