The Blue Marble Gambit Read Free

Orlyx, "is one human head."
    I
nodded, demonstrating the mobility of the bet.
    The
Orlyx pulled a tiny sliver of material from somewhere and set it on the
table. It blossomed into a huge
musty yellow-paged hidebound book whose mass threatened for a moment to capsize
the gravtable, until the ancient and balky repulsors compensated.
    Galactic Book Of Corporeal Equivalents read the title, in all seventeen Galactically-approved languages, several of which I could decipher. The Orlyx used ebony spikes to nimbly
flip the pages, which were faintly translucent and layered with multiple layers
of microscopically-fine holoprint.
    "Feeling
impatient," the Mainer muttered in a low rattle, and began to snap his
fighting claw. It sounded like
bones breaking.
    After
a long search the starboard Orlyx head raised to fix its three shimmering black
eyes on me. “As we thought, you
simple live-borne spawn, according to the Galactic Book the parts corresponding
to a primate skull are those we have wagered."
    Species-ism
was again rearing its ugly, so to speak, head.
    "Don't
close the book," I said, and tossed into the pot my heart and liver, both
accurately depicted by small glowing images. The holo heart was actually beating,
which nicely illustrated the point that sometimes too much cleverness is . . .
too much. The aliens again
consulted the Galactic Book, grumbled and chittered, and finally put in their
heads, and so the stakes were sort of even, except for the three-headed Orlyx,
for whom the loss of a head was but a minor social inconvenience, a petty faux
pas, a temporary embarrassment.
    The
Orlyx was obviously cheating. Good.
    The
aliens complained as I slid another fat holochip forward. This one held a tiny image of my right
arm. Then I added another, bearing
my left. There were more annoyed
consultations of the Galactic Book, and the aliens put in more holochips. I raised again. They came up with pincers,
eyestalks, ocular pits, mandibles, antennae, and more. The miniaturized dismembered bodies that
made up the pot looked like the aftermath of some awful interspecies space
wreck.
    More
flashing deals of holocards, more body parts, and finally I tossed in three
toes and my pancreas. Still more
cards flickered out in the intricate ballet and again I drew and discarded and
huffed and grinned, finally adding two sebaceous glands and my aorta to the
pot. I had been carefully tracking
the other player's cards and I knew my own hand to be weak but within striking
range. I laid down three cards which , united as the rules allowed, would be able to
attack and capture another player's cards. I waited tensely. This was a
critical juncture for my head and I.
    The
table took in my gambit for a long while in silence. I imagined strange pulses sparking
through the dark and misshapen caverns of alien brain pans .
    Then
with a triumphant clatter the Mainer laid down a set of four cards and swept
mine up. Captured. I could not win.
    Perfect,
I said to myself with relief.
    "I
don't have a human head," the Mainer remarked conversationally, as a
rubbery red stalk on his frontal lobe swung towards me. The eyeball tacked to its end spun
furiously.
    "Yet,"
the Mainer finished.
    The
death spiral of the game wound tighter and tighter but the ending was
certain. At least I would have my dissection
previewed when the chips were distributed.
    Finally
there were no more moves to make and no more body parts to bet. What was left of me wouldn't fill a
sock. Especially since both feet were
on the table.
    "Final
call," intoned the Orlyx.
    I
gazed at my shimmering squares. I
didn't want to lose, but I didn't want to win, either. I didn't have the equipment. Only the Mainer did. That big claw, coupled with that nasty
attitude.
    I
set down my cards. Three Rexes of Comets. Not great, not bad. A
gamble.
    The
Orlyx showed two Suns. Weak. The Mainer and the Meba were both
better, but that didn't matter. Low
card was the loser.
    "You
lose," I said to the Orlyx. Then I looked at