"WHAT?" The croupier's eyebrows jumped.
"Yeah."
He blinked. Studied. Blinked again. His philosophic thoughts were going out the space lock fast. He was trying to revise, trying to bring himself up to date. He wasn't getting anywhere. That golden-modo-strap was phony. A child could see it was. And yet....
"I'm not so good on my telepathy tonight," he said coldly.
"Skip it. I'm like a guy named Slan you used to read about. Had shields up around my brain."
That brought a cell of silence around the table. The croupier didn't speak, didn't blink, didn't breathe, didn't do anything.
"Looking for a man," said the woman finally. "Space-happy guy named Artie Sterling. Know him?"
The croupier caught a glint of something hard in the woman's eyes. He still didn't say anything.
"Don't think you're selling a good joe down the canal," the woman went on. "If you thought that, drop it. There isn't a creeping, crawling, oozing thing on all Mars to compare with him. I know. Who would know better than me?"
The croupier still didn't say anything. But his eyes said it for him; they were asking a question as big as space itself.