(eng) Mike Resnick - Velvet Comet 02 by Eros At Zenith

Author:Eros At Zenith [Zenith, Eros At]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Crane arrested a very surprised Morales at 1200 hours, ship’s time, waited long enough to make sure that Cupid was disseminating the information, and then went to bed. He awoke at 2100 hours, feeling much refreshed, quickly shaved and showered, replaced his gray businessman’s suit with a metallic black one, and took the elevator up to the main level of the Resort.

He discovered that the Cosmic Room was booked solid through midnight, found a different restaurant that managed to accommodate him without a reservation, and spent the next hour dining on sautéed meats and flaming soufflés.

Finally, his hunger sated, he paid his first visit to the casino. It was a huge and opulent room, fully 200 feet long and 150 wide. Enormous crystal chandeliers provided more than ample illumination, and a number of waiters and waitresses were moving unobtrusively through the room, dispensing free drinks to anyone who was playing at the gaming tables.

He had been to casinos on Deluros and a handful of other worlds, and had usually been disappointed in them. Romantic fictions and cinemas had always portrayed them as the playgrounds for the very rich, whereas his experience was that the typical casino gambler had no more knowledge of taste or culture than he had of odds.

The Velvet Comet’s casino was more in line with what he had anticipated before he had actually gone out into the adult world. The noise was subdued, the faces of the participants reflected a sense of enjoyment rather than tension or frightened expectation, the dress mode was elegant, the behavior sedate. As he wandered in among the tables, he became aware of a string quartet performing in a far corner of the room. Holographs gave the illusion of a number of balconies overlooking a clear blue sea at twilight.

The tables were grouped by games—roulette, craps, baccarat, chemin de fer, blackjack, and a smattering of contests that were totally alien in origin—and there was a row of terminals lined up near one of the bars where contestants could match wits with Cupid in a variety of games ranging from chess to trivia. One section of the room had been turned over to a bookmaking parlor, where men and women sat in comfortable lounge chairs, made their selections on computer terminals, and then watched live holographs of various sporting contests that were transmitted up from Deluros V11I.

There was a stage near the center of the casino, right between the baccarat and roulette tables, on which a procession of nude and nearly-nude women executed graceful and intricate dances to the music of the quartet. Crane watched them for a few minutes, marveling at the sensual fluidity of their movements, and finding them far more erotic than the blatant entertainments he had seen elsewhere in his travels. He had a premonition that if he actually watched one of the Black Pearl’s video performances he would find it more artistic than pornographic.

He spent the next hour wandering through the casino, stopping every now and then to watch the action at one of the tables.

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