THE SONG OF

PHAID THE

GAMBLER

Mick Farren

A New English Library Original Publication, 1981

Copyright © 1981 by Mick Farren

0450053431

e-book ver. 1.0

1

the building with the sign that proclaimed it a hotel was half swallowed by the jungle. Inch by inch, over long centuries, the slow power of creeper and vine, sapling and dark green undergrowth had claimed it back. The jungle could crack stones and distort structures. The humidity and thick miasmic mists from the great river corroded and eventually ate away all metal. What the jungle couldn't destroy it simply covered up; permanently shrouded it in a thick carpet of greenery.

The building with the sign that proclaimed it a hotel must have once been very beautiful. A rich man's up river, jungle retreat. Originally there had been a low white dome fashioned from thick, cool masonry. The dome's solidity had been offset by a fragile wandlike spire, but that had long since fallen to the creepers. Set in a clearing on the riverbank, it was still possible just to distinguish where there had been a wide piazza. If you dug around on the jungle floor, you could just find strips of mosaic and the pipework that had fed water to a complex of fountains.

Only the dome could be described as having put up a fight. Apart from a jagged crack that arched across one side of it, it had remained almost intact. It was inside the dome that a traveller could find such hotel service as was promised by the sign. There were few travellers who pulled over to the broken dock and the sorry overgrown clearing. There were few travellers and, in consequence, the service provided by the hotel was scant, basic and without flourish.

Despite the sad present and the seemingly hopeless future, a small but unsanitary village had grown up around the dome. Lethargic primitives who had wandered in from the deep jungle had set up hovels made from salvaged plastic sheet and scrap lumber. There were others who had come from the river, spiritually worn out wanderers who couldn't wander any further and who had lapsed into a dull existence with either a local partner or the local hooch. There were even some who had just appeared as if from thin air. Nobody knew where they had come from and nobody cared. Whatever their origin, all the inhabi­tants of the ramshackle little village seemed rarely to smile. The closest they came to hope was a sullen yearning for something to come down the river that might change their situation. In the meantime they squatted and waited and sweated in the heat.

It was hot, even inside the dome. The air was heavy and sluggish, pressing stickily on those who had to live in it and breath it. There was no hint of a breeze, just a reluctant, almost viscous motion. It was as though carry­ing the weight of the relentless humidity was too much for the atmosphere.

Once there had been cooling tubes set at regular intervals around the dome but these no longer worked. They were clogged with dirt and dead leaves. No one in the village had the skills to make them function again. In the big public room that took up most of the dome floor, a leaf-bladed fan, operated by a semi-comatose primitive was supposed to supply some kind of relief. In fact it did nothing but disturb the fat metallic green flies that floated torpidly into its path. For a moment the beat of their wings would quicken and, if anybody noticed, they'd crackle briefly with mechanical, insect annoyance. Mur­murers that hung from the roof of the dome were sup­posed to emit a stream of hostility that would keep most insects outside, but the fat flies seemed impervious to them and their electronic threats.

The heat reached a peak in the mid-afternoon. Plants seemed bloated and overly lush, as if they'd overfed on the poisonous moisture. Dogs slept with their tongues lolling out. Men found excuses to sneak off to a quiet patch of shade, also to sleep. Everyone and everything waited for the time before sunset when the rain would start, when water would drop from the sky as though a faucet had been turned on and, for a few precious hours, the air would at least hold the illusion of being clean and fresh.

There were exceptions in the village. Not even the heat and the humidity of the high afternoon could stop the gamblers. Weren't there stories of gamblers so obsessive that they had to be dragged out of burning buildings; of gamblers who would risk frostbite in an icefield by taking off their gloves to deal a hand; of gamblers who would sweat out the kind of temperatures that made even lizards blink their black and hostile eyes and refrain from moving?

Even though it had been going on for a day and a night, the game still had a makeshift air to it. The three men using a slab of polished basalt as a table. One man sprawled in a low chair: the other two hunkered down on the dirt floor as though they were more used to pitching bones in a back alley than playing cards on a table.

The two who squatted played with the bright-eyed desperation of men who hoped that at any moment their luck would return and all would be well. The third conducted his game in a totally opposite manner. He dealt the cards almost wearily, with an economy that showed all too clearly that the heat was getting to him. Sweat ran down his face in oily rivulets, soaking his now grimy silk shirt.

It was only a sense of professionalism that kept him going. He was, after all, a professional gambler. It was his game. If the amateurs on either side of him were intent on throwing away their money, he was beholden to ride with them and take it, even if it did mean playing through the steam oven afternoon of this poisonous region.

A gambling man has to make his living where he can. He can't always be the one to pick the time and the place, particularly if the gambling man had managed to get himself stranded in a torrid zone without the price of the long ride back to civilisation.

The name of the gambling man was Phaid. He had once had other names, a whole string of names in fact. Elabo­rate and lengthy names for male children were an idiosyn­crasy of his people. Those old names, however, had not been used for so long that he doubted if he'd respond, even if they were yelled right into his ear. For him, his homeland, its people and their archaic customs were something that belonged to the far away past.

The cards came to Phaid and he warily dealt them round. His two opponents were watching him with nar­row, suspicious eyes. One was a primitive, a warrior from some small bellicose tribe from way back in the jungle. His flat leathery face was a mass of tattoos and ritual scars. His arms were covered in pitted plasteel armour, they contrasted strangely with the amulets and necklaces of shells and parrot feathers that were festooned around his neck. By his side was a crude but effective dart launcher.

The second player's sallow skin and black greasy hair indicated that he probably had grown to maturity in the flat lands that lay down river. He wore a patched and stained military style jumpsuit. All the badges and insignia had, at one time or another, been torn from it. Phaid suspected that he was possibly a deserter from the army of one of the lowland city states, or a mercenary who had wandered too far up river and too far into the jungle. Certainly at some time his left eye and part of the left side of his face had been blown away. It had been replaced by a crudely flexible permapatch and a glittering black optic sensor that swivelled in synchronisation with his good eye. The military image was further reinforced by the powerful fuse tube that hung from a wide leather belt.

Primitive scooped up his cards and spat into the dirt. 'How'm I goin' t' get anyplace if'n all I get dealed is shit like yon?'

Phaid didn't bother to reply. It took too much energy. He didn't have to bother with any of their nonsense. All he needed to do was doggedly stick with the odds. The others could play with their suspicions and make the conversation and the mistakes. Phaid was too far ahead to be hurt. He doubled the bet and waited to see if the man had the nerve to keep going.

When he'd started the game the previous evening he had known that this would be a game without a trace of subtlety. Subtlety was a long way down the river, many stops behind him on his disastrous run of bad luck. Originally there had been seven players. There had been the three men who were about the only inhabitants of the town who had anything resembling real money. One was the owner of the hotel, the other two, brothers, operated the small boat dock at the front of the cracked and broken, overgrown steps that led down to the river. In addition to them, there was a sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued, thrice widowed boat woman who had a flatboat and a pair of freight blimps moored at the jetty.

The three villagers were only there for a good time. They were strictly bread and butter work for Phaid. They drank too much, sweated profusely and their breath reeked of the spice that the river people shovelled over everything they ate. They'd come into the game with a small roll and once they'd lost it they'd retired gracefully, quite grateful for the night's entertainment.

The boat woman had been a little more serious in her play, and with her, Phaid had almost been close to enjoying himself. She'd run her cards with hard-headed common sense, never confronted Phaid directly, and around dawn, when she'd amassed a small profit, she'd excused herself and left.

Phaid hadn't relished the idea of being left with the duo. It was clear they were nothing more than river rats, backwater lowlife, the kind who liked to haunt isolated townships, because isolated townships were about the only places that their graceless swagger and unimaginative braggadocio had a hope of being taken seriously.

When they told Phaid that they'd come to the township looking for a good time, he'd stared at them with open contempt. What kind of good time did they imagine was waiting for them in this forsaken spot? It hardly had the life to stop the forest growing over it again, let alone provide a good time. The sum total of its sunset attrac­tions were the overgrown hotel and a trio of slovenly teenagers, two girls and a chubby boy, who'd bed down with anyone for five tabs and a jug of wine.

The pair had come into the game with a lot of money. This in itself should have been a warning to Phaid. It was more money than a couple of jungle bums should rightful­ly be carrying, too much to have been earned from a lucky prospect strike or deck handling on a flatboat. It was more likely that the money was evilly come by. Its previous owner, in all probability, was lying face down in the swamp water of an isolated stretch of forest even jungle folk rarely visited.

As the night wore on, and the two river rats lost more and more and grew increasingly surly and ill tempered, Phaid knew that he was drifting into a potentially deadly situation. It was clear that the pair would use any sort of violence if they thought it would get back what they had lost. In other circumstances, Phaid would have walked away from them and flatly refused to play. Right now, though, he knew that he had to take the risk of playing with these unsavoury characters. Phaid was sufficiently close to being a beggar that he couldn't afford to be a chooser. He needed all the cash he could get his hands on, no matter what the risk. He had to play this game to the end and then walk away with his winnings as best he could. If he couldn't buy his way out of this dreadful jungle and back to civilisation, he'd wind up as low as the men on either side of him. For Phaid, that was a fate that didn't bear thinking about.

Another two rounds went down. The one-eyed man won a little and started muttering about how maybe his luck was changing and how it was about time. Once again Phaid ignored him. He looked around the rest of the public room. He had to admit that it was little more than a ruin. A group of natives in feathers and beads nodded and dozed against the curve of the wall. A drunk in the garb of a flatboat roustabout was face down on the floor. His body was bisected by the bright strip of light where the sunlight lanced through the crack in the dome. There seemed to be some sort of sexual activity going on in one of the deep recesses formed by the shallow curve of the dome. As the afternoon wore on Phaid noticed that it didn't pay to look too deeply into those dark recesses. Ancient garbage formed strange shapes and after thirty-six hours his eyes could play tricks.

Phaid slowly and reluctantly gathered in the cards. He would have to stop soon. One Eye and Primitive had a predatory look about them. It was a similar malevolent patience to that of a vulture, or a jackal or a lupe out on the tundra. Phaid glanced at the makeshift and dangerous looking wooden stairs that led up to the private rooms in the dome. He wondered how he was going to make his way up those stairs with his winnings in his hand. It was time to put it to the test. He looked straight at One Eye and then at Primitive. He took a deep breath and sighed.

'The rain'll be starting soon.'

Three eyes and a sensor drilled into his face.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

Phaid knew that he would have to handle this extremely carefully. He eased his position in the less than comfort­able chair. He took a sip from the shot glass of warm absinthia and smiled thinly.

'So we've played all night and most of the day. When the rain comes down it's the start of the second evening. That's enough entertainment for anyone. It seems to me that that would be an ideal time for me to pull out of this game.'

He watched the pair carefully, trying to gauge their reaction. Primitive had become slit eyed.

'You got a lot o' our money, gambling man.'

Phaid moved his arm so he could reassure himself that the stinger was safely hidden in his sleeve. One Eye altered his position so his fuse tube was within quick and easy snatch.

Phaid kept his expression deliberately blank. He let his right arm hang loosely over the back of the chair so, if the need came, the stinger would drop easily into the palm of his hand. After a disastrous experience in another river village, the stinger, with its circular silver body and its ten spider legs was the only weapon he had at his disposal. It wasn't a particularly honourable weapon, but Phaid wasn't too concerned about honour. All he wanted was to get out of the game with both his skin and his money intact. Honour was a luxury of civilisation. One Eye fixed Phaid with his eye and his sensor.

'It seem t' me we got a right t' win some o' our money back now.'

'You've been trying to get some of it back for hours, for most of the day, in fact. It hasn't done you any good.'

Primitive folded his armoured arms.

'Could be a reason f' that.'

Phaid raised an eyebrow. He had to slow this all down. They were already looking for an excuse to climb all over him.

'What exactly are you trying to say?'

'We think you probably know what.'

'So say it.'

'Maybe it don't need t' be said 'til you try an' get up from this here game.'

Phaid slowly nodded. The course from here on was becoming all too clear.

'We'll just have to see what happens.'

'That's right, gambling man. We'll just have to see.'

One Eye leered.

'Deal the cards, gambling man.'

Phaid grinned.

'I think it's your turn to deal, my friend.'

One Eye blinked. Phaid noticed that when the good eye was closed, the sensor became dull and lost its glitter. One Eye was clearly discomfited by his mistake. Phaid decided to turn the screw just a little.

'Deal up then, friend. Let's get to it.'

One Eye spun out the cards. Phaid picked up his hand and found himself looking at a combination of lathes and cornelians that gave him a grand encirclement. The hand was almost unbeatable. As if that wasn't sufficiently unbelievable, One Eye started to shamelessly force up the betting. Phaid, curious to know what was getting One Eye so excited, rode along with it, as did Primitive. The pot steadily grew until both of the pair had exhausted their reserves. When Primitive was down to his last ten, he threw down his cards in disgust and glanced grimly at his companion.

'I tells you, Jackman, you better have something, else you and me will be into falling out.'

One Eye smiled knowingly.

'I got it all.'

Phaid pretended to ignore the exchange. He glanced over at the makeshift bar. The bartender was still asleep. There was also a serving android. That too was motion­less. From the scars and rust on its outer casing, Phaid suspected that it probably hadn't worked for years.

Phaid turned back to the game. Both One Eye and Primitive seemed to be waiting for Phaid to make a move. Phaid smiled; he knew that the coup de grace wasn't far away.

'What's your pleasure, my friends?'

The mobile side of One Eye's face twisted into a triumphant sneer.

'My pleasure's t' call you, gambling man.'

He flipped his cards over. It would have been an impressive hand in any game, a brace of lathes backed up by golds. The odds against Phaid having a hand to beat it were astronomical. For an instant Phaid felt a genuine sympathy for One Eye. Then he spread out his own hand. 'I'm sorry, it didn't ought to happen to a dog.'

One Eye stared at Phaid's hand in disbelief.

'Wait a minute . . .'

Phaid caught the obvious implication.

'You dealt them yourself, my friend.'

Phaid slowly stretched out his hand to gather in his winnings. At exactly the same time the first drops of the evening rain crashed into the surrounding trees. The noise echoed ominously round the inside of the dome. It was one of those frozen moments that Phaid knew all too well but sincerely wished he didn't. The one eyed ex-soldier and the primitive were both violent men. They were experienced in violence. From the look of them they also derived a lot of grim, snarling pleasure from it. In a few seconds they would find the excuse they needed to commence creaming him all over the dome. Phaid didn't have what it took to be violent; efficiently and effectively violent. That was why he was a gambler, why he played according to the rules.

The rules, however, were dropping away. As the rain crashed all around and droplets of water were seeking a way down inside the dome, Phaid faced a situation that was, if not as old as time, at least as old as games of chance.

'It looks as though the game is over.'

With an air of total absorption he started to pack up his winnings. He knew what the next move would be, but could think of no way to avoid it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the fuse tube drawn from the belt. One Eye was almost casual as he pointed the weapon arrogantly at Phaid's head.

'Leave the money where it be, gambler.'

Phaid slowly eased back into the chair. With the stinger his sole weapon, he could only wait for his chance. He hoped fervently that there would be one.

'Just can't let me walk away with it all?'

One Eye nodded.

'You expect us to?'

Phaid sighed.

'No, not really.'

One Eye continued to cover Phaid as he rose carefully to a standing position. Primitive also got to his feet. With his dart launcher under his arm he scanned the row of sleeping villagers. Usually the sleepers woke with the rain and started drinking. On this day, however, they remained diplomatically slumbering. Only the bartender was taking an open interest, but he also seemed about to do or say nothing.

Satisfied that Phaid had no help at hand, One Eye fumbled under his suit and pulled out a soft leather bag. He threw it down on the table in front of Phaid.

'Put the money in there.'

Phaid silently did as he was told while the two men watched him. When all the cash was packed away he sat patiently back in the chair. One Eye picked up the bag. Primitive looked at him questioningly.

'What about him?'

They both looked at Phaid. One Eye laughed nastily.

'What about him?' He directed the enquiry to Phaid. 'What about you?'

'I'd hardly be worth killing.'

One Eye was warming to the idea that there might be some sport to be had with the gambler before they finished him. He became brutally brisk.

'Stand up, stand up! Let's look at you.'

Phaid did as he was told. He spread his hands in a semicomic appeal.

'You see, gentlemen, nothing worth killing.'

One Eye had obviously got to such a low point in his opinion of Phaid as an adversary that he felt safe to scratch his nose with the fuse tube.

'I got this here rule, see. I say if I cross a man 'tis best to leave him dead, lest he come after.'

That could be a problem.'

As he spoke he absent-mindedly scratched his head. One Eye laughed and looked at Primitive.

'Could be a problem for him. What you say, Naqui? What you say? Could be a problem for him.'

One Eye was so taken with his own wit that, for a moment, he was paying no attention to Phaid. Phaid's arm, still raised as though scratching his head, flashed forward. The stinger had already crawled down into his hand. He flipped it straight at One Eye. It landed on his neck just below the ear in the fold of his jaw. The tiny silver legs grabbed hold and clung. The stinger was quite close to the edge of the patch. As Phaid had flipped the tiny weapon, a small sphere had detached itself and  remained in Phaid's hand. This was the control. If he squeezed it, the stinger would go active and scramble One Eye's nervous system.

One Eye went rigid. Even though he couldn't see it he knew what had attached itself to his flesh. Eye and sensor swivelled towards Phaid.

'Stinger?'

'All I had.'

Primitive was raising his dart gun. He looked as though he was about to take a shot at Phaid. One Eye's yell was almost a scream.

'Don't!'

Primitive paused. One Eye had started to shake.

'If you get him with one of those, he'll take me f'sure. He's only got t' touch the control.'

'That's the truth.'

Primitive half lowered the dart launcher, then he grinned.

'What care I if n he takes you? The both of you'll be dead an' I'll have the money.'

One Eye glowered at him.

'I thought we was partners.'

'Partners?'

Primitive spat. It looked as though he was serious. Phaid spoke, as calmly as he could, to One Eye. 'There is one way out.'

The fuse tube roared. Primitive was all but cut in half. One Eye lowered the weapon. 'It's good that I think quick.'

Phaid nodded. 'Indeed it is.'

'What do I do now?'

'Drop the tube.'

One Eye dropped the tube.

'Kick it over here.'

He kicked it to Phaid. Phaid bent to pick it up. It wasn't the most expensive or the best looking weapon that Phaid had ever seen. Among the rovers, drifters and wanderers who roamed between scorched desert and the wind blasted icefields that girdled the world like bands of steel, the elite took much pride in their weapons. Ornate carving, delicate engraving and inlaid gems decorated the fuse tubes and blasters of the free rangers who kept ahead of life's games. One Eye had obviously never been ahead of the game. The long barrel of the tube was pitted with corrosion, and the butt was a simple construction of worn, high impact ceramic. Phaid hefted it as though he was testing its balance. Then he stuck it in his belt. He was close to trembling. The whole incident, in fact the whole game, had been too close to the edge of desperation for Phaid's peace of mind. One Eye took a chance to turn and face Phaid.

'What are you going to do with me?'

Phaid looked at the stinger control in his hand.

'I don't know.'

'Listen . . .'

The good side of One Eye's face twitched.

'I'm listening.'

'I wasn't going to kill you.' He nodded at the fallen Primitive. 'He might have done you, but not me.'

'You tried to steal my money.'

'We lost a lot, we was mad, we had a hard time gettin' that money. I wanted it back but I wasn't goin' to do you. I swears.'

'You do?'

'I swears.'

'So you're telling me that you weren't going to burn my head off?'

One Eye's half face tried to be ingratiating.

'That's right. You got it. We was just riled. You know how it is.'

Phaid adopted a mildly affable expression.

'Sure, I know how it is.'

'You do?'

'Sure I do.'

One Eye looked relieved.

'You mean that you ain't going t' do nothing? You going t' forget what we done?'

Phaid sadly shook his head.

'No, I couldn't quite do that. Didn't you tell me the rule yourself? How did it go? "Lest he come after you"?'

One Eye opened his mouth to protest, but Phaid didn't let him. He squeezed the control. The stinger made no noise. One Eye made a strangled sound, his back arched, he clawed at the air, then he collapsed. Phaid's whole body seemed to sag for a mo...