ng 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, box cars 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 house man'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.

Dazedly the stick man pushed them over. Jason shook quickly and rolled.
Before they hit the table he realized he couldn't control them--the
transient _psi_ power had gone.

End over end they turned. And faced up seven.

Counting the chips as they were pushed over to him he added up a bit
under two billion credits. They would be winning that much if he left
the game now--but it wasn't the three billion that Kerk needed. Well, it
would have to be enough. As he reached for the chips he caught Kerk's
eye across the table and the other man shook his head in a steady _no_.

"Let it ride," Jason said wearily, "one more roll."

He breathed on the dice, polished them on his cuff, and wondered how he
had ever gotten into this spot. Billions riding on a pair of dice. That
was as much as the annual income of some planets. The only reason there
_could_ be stakes like that was because the planetary government had a
stake in the Casino. He shook as long as he could, reaching for the
control that wasn't there--then let fly.

Everything else had stopped in the Casino and people were standing on
tables and chairs to watch. There wasn't a sound from that large crowd.
The dice bounced back from the board with a clatter loud in the silence
and tumbled over the cl