There was no effort to the dice; they rolled and sat up like trained dogs. Jason took his time and concentrated on the psychology of the players and the stickman. It took almost two hours to build his money on the table to seven hundred thousand credits. Then he caught the stickman signaling they had a heavy winner. He waited until the hardeyed man strolled over to watch the game, then he breathed on the dice, bet all his table stakes-and blew it all with a single roll. The houseman smiled happily, the stickman relaxed-and, out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw Kerk turning a dark purple.

Sweating, pale, his hand trembling ever so slightly, Jason opened the front of his jacket and pulled out one of the envelopes of new bills. Breaking the seal with his finger, he dropped two of them on the table.

“Could we have a no-limit game,” he asked. “I’d like to-win back some of my money.”

The stickman had trouble controlling his smile now, he glanced across at the houseman who nodded a quick yes. They had a sucker and they meant to clean him. He had been playing from his wallet all evening; now he was cracking into a sealed envelope to try for what he had lost. A thick envelope, too, and probably not his money. Not that the house cared in the least. To them money had no loyalties. The play went on with the Casino in a very relaxed mood.

Which was just the way Jason wanted it. He needed to get as deep into them as he could before someone realized they might be on the losing end. The rough stuff would start and he wanted to put it off as long as possible. It would be hard to win smoothly then-and his psi power might go as quickly as it had come. That had happened before.

He was playing against the house now, the two other players were obvious shills, and a crowd had jammed solidly around to watch. After losing and winning a bit, he hit a streak of naturals and his pile of gold chips tottered higher and higher. There was nearly a billion there, he estimated roughly. The dice were still falling true, though he was soaked with sweat from the effort.

Betting the entire stack of chips, he reached for the dice. The stickman reached faster and hooked them away.

“House calls for new dice,” he said flatly.

Jason straightened up and wiped his hands, glad of the instant’s relief. This was the third time the house had changed dice to try and break his winning streak. It was their privilege. The hard-eyed Casino man opened his wallet as he had done before and drew out a pair at random. Stripping off their plastic cover, he threw them the length of the table to Jason. They came up a natural seven and Jason smiled.