"I had to leave a hot cup of coffee back at the hangar, Major. I wish it was light so we could see what we were doing." "Stop bitching." "Hey, Major." "What?" "I've invented a new kind of dice." "You would." "What you do is take fifteen centiunit pieces and arrange them in a four-by-four square with one corner missing. Then you take a sixteenth one and shoot it within forty-five degrees either way of the diagonal into the missing corner. It works out that no matter how you do it, if all the coins in the square are touching, two coins will fly off of the far edge. Each of those has a number and the two numbers that fly off are like the two numbers that come up on the dice. It's better than regular dice because the chances are up on some combinations. And there's a certain amount of skill involved too. The guys call it Randomax. That's for _random numbers_ and _matrix_." "I'll play you a game someday," Tomar said. "You know, if you used a smaller coin than a centiunit for the one you fire into the missing corner, say a deciunit, the chances that it would hit both corner coins would go up, that is your randomness." "Really?" "Sure," Tomar said. "My girl friend's a mathematician, and she was telling me all about probability a few weeks ago. I bet she'd be interested in the game." "You know what, Major?" "What?" "I think you're the best officer in the damn army." Such was the conversation before the first battle of the war. * * * * * Such was the conversation Jon Koshar monitored in the laboratory tower of the Palace of the Stars in Telphar. "Oh damn," he said. "Come on, Arkor. We'd better get going. If the Duchess doesn't get here with Geryn soon.... Well, let's not think about it." He scribbled a note, set it in front of one visiphone and dialed the number of another that was on a stand in front of the receiving platform of the transit ribbon. "There," he said. "That's got instructions to follow us as soon as she gets here. And she better not miss it." They went down the metal steps to a double doorway that opened onto a road. Two mechanical vehicles stood there, both with pre-controls set for similar destinations. Jon and Arkor climbed into one, pushed the ignition button, and the car shot forward along the elevated roadway. White mercury lights flooded the elevated strip as it wound through the city. The road dipped and houses got wider and lower on each side. The horizon glowed purple and above that, deep yellow clouds dropped into late evening. There was a sound of planes overhead. As the car halted at the barren limit of the last suburb of Telphar, a sudden white streak speared from the horizon. "Uh-oh," said Jon. "That's what I was afraid of." Something caught fire in the air, twisted wildly through the sky, and then began to circle down, flaming. * * * * * "Major! Major! What happened to D-42?" "Something got him. Pull over. Pull over everybody!"