"I'll get him," said Danny. "Meanwhile, we'll keep playing cards."
Things went on almost normally at the Bayless reactor. It was a privately-owned pool-type reactor, and we were sent samples of all sorts of material for irradiation from all over the country. Danny was one of the irradiation men; I generally handled controlling. The Outsiders had filled the place with telescreens and guards, and all mail was opened, but there was no real interference with the work. I began to worry a little about Danny. Almost every afternoon he spent an hour alone in our room, with the door closed.
Mattup kept getting worse; an animal with power. He used to go hunting with the damnable Outsider weapon, although the meat killed with it wasn't fit to eat, and he used it on birds until there wasn't one left anywhere near the plant. He never killed a bluebird, though. He said it was bad luck. Sometimes he drank moonshine corn liquor, usually alone, because the Outsiders wouldn't touch it, but sometimes he made some of us drink with him, watching sharply to see we didn't poison him and craftily picking his nose. When he was drunk he was abusive.
One night we were in our room, dead for sleep after a long game, and Danny said, "Let me show you something."
He shuffled the cards, I cut, and he dealt me an ace, king, queen, jack, ten and deuce of spades. He shuffled again and dealt me the same in hearts.
"Watch as closely as you can," he grinned. "See if you can catch me."
I couldn't.
"I've been practicing," he said. "I'm going to get Mattup."
"What good will it do to beat him in cards? You'll only make him sore." I was relieved to learn what Danny had been doing, alone in our room, but this card-sharp angle didn't make much sense to me.