Here was life ... the kind of life one would never dream of back in the little cubby hole with its calculators and dusty books at Lunar Exports, Inc. In the space of an hour, he had seen more money pass across the table than he had ever owned in all his life. Pots that climbed and pyramided, fortunes gambled on the flip of a single card. But there was something else too ... something wrong about the dealing. He couldn't figure quite what it was, but he had read an article about how gamblers dealt the cards when they didn't aim to give the other fellow quite an even break. And there had been something about Luke's dealing ... something that he had read about in that article. Across the table Luke grimaced. "I'll have to call you," he announced. "I'm afraid you're too strong for me." Stiffy slapped down his hand triumphantly. "Match that, dang you!" he exulted. "The kind of cards I been waiting for all night." He reached out a gnarled hand to rake in the coins but Luke stopped him with a gesture. "Sorry," he said. He flipped the cards down slowly, one at a time. First a trey, then a four and then three more fours. Stiffy gulped, reached for the bottle. But even as he did, Oliver Meek reached out and placed his hand upon the money on the table, fingers wide spread. He'd remembered what he had read in that article.... "Just a minute, gentlemen," he said. "I've remembered something...." Silence thudded in the room. Meek looked across the table straight into the eyes of Luke. Luke said: "You better explain yourself, mister." Meek suddenly was flustered. "Why, maybe I acted too hastily. It really was nothing. I just noticed something about the deal...." Luke jerked erect, kicking his chair away with the single motion of rising. The crowd suddenly surged away, out of the line of fire. The bartender ducked behind the bar. Stiffy flung himself with a howl out of his chair, skidded along the floor. Meek, suddenly straightening from the table, saw Luke's hand streaking for the gun at his belt and in a split second he realized that here he faced a situation that demanded action. He didn't think about those days of practice in front of the mirror. He didn't call upon a single iota of the gun-lore he had read in hundreds of books. His mind, for a bare instant, was almost a blank, but he acted as if by instinct. His hands moved like driving pistons, snapped the twin guns from their holsters, heaved them clear of leather, grabbed them in mid-air. He saw Luke's gun muzzle swinging up, tilted down the muzzle of his own left gun, pressed the activator. There was a screeching hiss, a streak of blue that crackled in the air and the gun that Luke held in his hand was suddenly red hot.