Morrie and I were seated lengthwise with the ship, and the first card he dealt sailed clear to the partition at the far end. The artificial gravity didn't pull the card to the deck as it would on earth. "Guess we'd better sit crosswise," he said, retrieving the card.
We shifted so that no matter which way Morrie sailed the card it would be "down." Axel dressed and then went into the control room. A few minutes later Dr. Joel came in. He saw us playing gin rummy.
"Good Lord! Interplanetary Las Vegas?"
"Want to join us, Warner?" I asked.
"Not for all the gold dust on the moon," he said. "If Spartan ever sees you playing cards, he'll hang you to an asteroid."
He watched us play, glancing apprehensively toward the forward bulkhead as if he expected Spartan to burst in on us at any moment. Then, at last, he got up and went through the door. I was facing the bulkhead but I didn't notice him leaving because I was trying to decide whether to gin or not. It was Morrie who heard the door open, whirling his head so suddenly it almost displaced him from his sitting position. "Hey!" he exclaimed, "Joel's gone. Do you suppose he intends to rat on us?"
"Let him," I said. "These cards are worth the powder it took to shoot 'em into space. They probably will preserve our sanity. That's why Spartan can't object."
Morrie looked at me as if he didn't know what to believe. I shrugged off his doubt, certain that Spartan was intelligent enough to see the cards weren't hurting anything, even though they'd been brought aboard illegally.
I ginned and won. Morrie was reshuffling the cards to deal again when the door opened and Dr. Spartan, followed by Warner Joel, came into the cabin.
"Stop this immediately!" Spartan barked.