Four Bells

Luisa shuffles the cards.

She can't send them shooting from hand to hand in a flashy waterfall like Nerila, can't cut them one-handed or flip them over her fingers. Can't palm an ace the way Nerila did.

Wouldn't if I could.

She shuffles, unfancy, precise, no Spirits-lost Gallente foolishness.  

Deals in a circuit, two cards, one, two more.


Five cards face down in front of her.


Five face down at each of the three empty places around the table.

You're a stupid, sentimental old woman, Lulu Kamajeck.


Fisk Hurun wasn't about to pick up the cards at the place to her left, his big hands dwarfing them, handling the squares of pasteboard with the exaggerated care of a man whose augmented strength could rip a door from its hinges in a moment of inattention.

No, he's off somewhere in that fancy battleship he flies these days, or living the highlife with that little Vherry girl he's taken up with. 


Nerila Janianial wasn't reaching for the cards to Luisa's right, either, long dark fingers deftly rearranging them and maybe slipping in a high card as she did it. Gone, without a word. I told Pilot not to hire a fucking junkie, but no. 'Everyone deserves a second chance, Luisa.'


Well, shit. Only people asking for second chances are those already proved themselves untrustworthy.


As turned out to be true. 


And Michael Mitcheson wasn't sitting across from her, playing footsie with his wife as if none of us noticed and watching the bottle go around the table with just a little bit too much interest.

And one thing you can say for that over-sexed, over-charming Gallente son-of-a-bitch, he's the only one of 'em hasn't left the ship.


No. Downstairs, is where Mitch is.  Cold and stiff in one of his wife's morgue drawers, waiting for someone to track down his junkie bride so the decencies could be done.

Luisa sweeps up her own hand and tosses it face up. Two acorns, four leaves, six and seven of hearts, ten bells.


Handful of trash, is what I got. 


Handful of trash.


There's still an inch left in the bottle of Invelen's fine Pator vodka. Luisa hooks it out of the cupboard and pours herself a careful quarter of that last inch, caps it and puts it back.

Better than I'll ever afford, that's certain.


And when it's gone, that'll be that.


Gone.


She toasts the empty chairs around the table and tosses the vodka back. The burn makes her eyes water and she blinks hard as she sweeps up the cards and begins to deal them out again, seven stacks in front of her this time, one, one two, one two three.


Five of acorns on the six of bells. Nine hearts on ten leaves.  Turn over eight acorns and move it over.

You can fool yourself into thinking poker's your game, Lulu. But in the end ... 


In the end, it's always solitaire.