thes through the mob of gamblers, trays of free drinks in their
hands. This time Pheola didn't have the same greedy grab for the _hors
d'oeuvres_. She'd wrapped herself around a couple pounds of
high-quality protein before we had come to the casino.

The gamblers were urging the dice with the same old calls, and the
stick-men were chanting: "Coming out!" "Five's the point!" "And _seven_!
The dice pass!" and all the rest. The ivories had a way to go before
they reached us. I gave Pheola a stack of ten-buck chips and let her
bet, without making any effort to tip the dice. She still had it. She
moved the chips back and forth from "Pass" to "Don't Pass" and won at
every roll. I could see Fowler Smythe begin to scowl as she let her
winnings ride, building up a real stack.

* * * * *

Without warning she dragged down her winnings and leaned close to me,
sniffling. "You'll get all wet!"

I looked around, seeing a waiter near me. He had just served drinks to
the rear, half of the table, to the gamblers nearest the dealers. His
tray was still half-full. This was the moment. It was a generalized sort
of lift, the kind of thing that qualifies a TK for the Thirty-third
degree. I heaved at the thousand-dollar bills I had had marked in the
morning, without the faintest idea of where they were. The tray lurched
in the waiter's hand, throwing glasses to the floor. Most of them
shattered when they struck the real wood planks, splashing whisky and
mix on our legs.

I looked across the table and grinned at Fowler Smythe. His scowl had an
awful lot of forehead to work on. "What the devil!" I could read his
lips say over the racket. But Barney, the stick-man who'd felt my
Blackout, caught on a lot quicker.

I was about to freeze him with a clamp on his thyroid. It's just as
effective as wrapping your fingers around the throat. But Pheola upset
the apple cart.

She grabbed my right arm, so newly powerful. "No, Billy Joe!" she cried.
"I _don't_ want to die!"

"Who's dying?" I snapped.

"He's shooting me!" she gasped.

Shoot? With what? I had one terrified moment--what to lift? What was
aimed at her? At the last possible moment I saw it. His crap-stick was a
hollow tube, and he was raising it toward _me_, not toward Pheola. I'd
heard of things like that--a gas-powered dart gun. Silent, and shooting
a tiny needle with a nerve poison in grooves cut in its tip.

I lifted, but half in panic. Fowler Smyt