Anacho spoke: "Eighteen men in the room, with ourselves. Nine will find sequins, nine will find none. Two may locate a node of high value, purple or scarlet.

Ten, perhaps twelve, will pass through Dirdir guts. Six, or perhaps eight, will return to Maust. Those ranging the farthest to find the choicest nodes run the most risk; the six or eight will show no great profit."

Traz said dourly, "Every day in the Zone a man faces one chance in four of death. His average gain is about four hundred sequins: it would seem that these men, and ourselves as well, value life at only sixteen hundred sequins."

"Somehow we've got to change the odds," said Reith.

"Everyone who comes to the Zone makes similar plans," said Anacho dryly. "Not all succeed."

"Then we must try something no one else has considered."

Anacho made a skeptical sound.

The three went forth to explore the town. The music houses showed red and green lights; on the balconies frozen-faced girls twitched and postured and sang strange soft songs. The gambling houses showed brighter lights and more fervent activity. Each seemed to specialize in a particular game, as simple as the throw of fourteen-faced dice, as complex as chess played against the house professionals.

They stopped to watch a game call Locate the Prime Purple Node. A board thirty feet long by ten feet wide represented the Carabas. The Forelands, the Hills of Recall, the South Stage, the gorges and valleys, the savannas, the streams and forests were faithfully depicted. Blue, red and purple lights indicated the location of nodes, sparse along the Forelands, more plentiful in the Hills of Recall and on the South Stage. Khusz, the Dirdir hunting camp, was a white block, with purple prongs rising from each corner. A numbered grid was superimposed upon all. A dozen players overlooked the board, each controlling a manikin. Also on the board were the effigies of four lunging Dirdir hunters. The players in turn cast fourteen-sided dice to determine the movement of all the manikins across the grid, as each player elected. The Dirdir hunters, moving to the same numbers, endeavored to cross an intersection on which rested a manikin, whereupon the manikin was declared destroyed and removed from the game.

Each manikin sought to cross the lights representing sequin nodes, thus augmenting his score. Whenever he chose, he left the Zone by the Portal of Gleams and was paid his winnings. More often, prompted by greed, the player held his manikin on the board until a Dirdir struck it down, by which he lost the totality of his gain. Reith watched the game in fascination. The players sat clenching the rails of their booths. They stared and fidgeted, calling hoarse orders to the operators, yelling in exultation when they won a node, groaning at the approach of the Dirdir, leaning back with sick faces when their manikins were destroyed and their winnings lost.

The game ended. No further manikins roamed the Carabas.

No Dirdir hunted an empty Zone. The players stiffly descended from their booths; those who had won free of the Zone took their winnings. The Dirdir returned to Khusz beyond the South Stage. New players bought manikins, climbed into the booths and the game began once more.

Reith, Traz and Anacho continued along the street. Reith paused at a booth to scan packets of folded paper on display. Placards read: Meticulously annotated across seventeen years: the chart of Sabour Yan, for a mere 1000 sequins, guaranteed to be unexploited.

"and"

The chart of Goragonso the Mysterious, who lived in the Zone like a shadow, nurturing his secret nodes like children, at a mere 3500 sequins. Never exploited.

Reith looked to Anacho for explanation.

"Simple enough. Such folk as Sabour Yan and Goragonso the Mysterious over the years explore the safer regions of the Carabas, seeking out low-grade nodes, the waters and milks, the pale blues which are known as sards, the pale greens. When they locate such nodes they carefully note their position and conceal them as best they may, under heaps of gravel or slabs of shale, thinking to return in later years after the nodes mature. If they find purple nodes so much the better, but in the near regions which for safety's sake they frequent, purple nodes are few save those which as 'waters' or 'milks' or 'sands,' were discovered and concealed a generation before. When such men are killed, their charts become valuable documents. Unfortunately, buying such a chart can be risky. The first person to come into possession of the chart might 'exploit' it, removing the choicest nodes, and then putting the chart up for sale as

'unexploited.' Who can prove otherwise?"

The three returned to the Alawan. In the foyer a single chandelier exuded the light of a hundred sullen jewels, which lost itself in the shadows, with only a colored gleam here and there on the dark wood. The refectory was also dim, occupied by a few murmuring groups. From an urn they drew bowls of pepper-tea and settled themselves in a booth.

Traz spoke in a disgruntled voice: "This place is insane: Maust and the Carabas together. We should leave and seek wealth in some normal manner."

Anacho gave an airy wave of white fingers and spoke in a didactic and fluting voice: "Maust is merely an aspect of the interplay between men and money, and must be viewed on this basis."

"Must you always talk gibberish?" demanded Traz. "To gain sequins either in Maust or in the Zone is a gamble, at poor odds. I do not care to gamble."

"As far as I am concerned," said Reith, "I plan to gain sequins, but I do not intend to gamble."

"Impossible!" Anacho declared. "In Maust you gamble with sequins; in the Zone you gamble with your life. How can you avoid doing so?"

"I can try to reduce the odds to a tolerable level."

"Everyone hopes to do the same. But Dirdir fires burn nightly across the Carabas, and at Maust the shopkeepers earn more than most sequin-takers."

"Taking sequins is uncertain and slow," said Reith. "I prefer sequins already gathered."

Anacho pursed his lips in quizzical calculation. "You plan to rob the sequin-gatherers? The process is risky."

Reith looked up at the ceiling. How could Anacho still misread the processes of his mind? "I plan to rob no sequin-takers."

"Then I am puzzled," said Anacho. "Whom do you intend to rob?"

Reith spoke with care. "While we watched the hunting game, I began to wonder: when Dirdir kill a taker, what happens to his sequins?"

Anacho gave his fingers a bored flutter. "The sequins are booty; what else?"

"Consider a typical Dirdir hunt-party: how long will it remain in the Zone?"

"Three to six days. Grand hunts and commemoratives are longer; competition hunts are somewhat less extended."

"And, in a day, how many kills will a typical party make?"

Anacho considered. "Each hunter naturally hopes for a trophy each day out. The usual well-seasoned party kills two or three times each day, sometimes more.

They waste much meat, necessarily."

"So that the typical hunting party returns to Khusz with sequins from as many as twenty takers."

Anacho said curtly, "So it might be."

"The average taker carries sequins to the value of, let us say, five hundred.

Hence each hunting party returns with a value of ten thousand sequins."

"Don't allow the calculation to excite you," Anacho remarked in the driest of voices. "The Dirdir are not a generous folk."

"The game-board, I take it, is an accurate representation of the Zone?"

Anacho gave a dour nod. "Reasonably so. Why do you ask?"

"Tomorrow I want to trace the hunt routes out from Khusz and back again. If the Dirdir come to the Carabas to hunt men, they can hardly protest if men hunt Dirdir."

"Who can imagine men hunting the Effulgents?" croaked Anacho.

"It's never been done before?"