He left the room and brought them in: a pair of white dice with black spots, still sealed in their plastic box bearing the stamp of Luna-Mars Exports. That was an unshakable guarantee that they were honest dice. I broke the seal. "Dori," I said, "come here." Dori came to my side. "Dori," I said, "I'm going to roll the dice with Mr. Odaan. I'm betting you against everything he owns, and everything I did own. If I lose, you belong to him and I'm a penniless outcast. Do you understand that, Dori?" "I understand," she answered in a low voice. "All right," I said. "Let them roll." We rolled first for possession of the dice. The dice bounced in slow motion, tantalizingly, in the weak Martian gravity. I rolled an eight, and Odaan rolled a five. I had the dice. I rolled them and watched them spin, holding my breath. Dori could control them. Would it be craps, or a natural? Would I lose, or win? The first one stopped on three. I let out my breath in a gasp of relief. Craps was impossible now. The second die rolled and tumbled, and stopped. It was another three. My point was six. Hot anger swept over me. Dori had not touched the dice with her mind. It was not just that it hadn't been a natural—I could tell. I had gambled long enough to tell when the dice fell free, and when they were influenced. "My point is six," I said. "Excuse me, Odaan, I want to talk with my bet a minute." I took Dori into the next room. "Dori, for God's sake!" I cried in a desperate undertone. "You are letting those dice roll free. Do you realize what happens to me—to us—if I don't make that point?" I give her credit for this: she didn't rant at me, as most women would, that I had no right to bet her in a dice game, like a slave. Nor did she throw up to me what she had overheard on the spaceship. She just looked at me silently, and that look told everything she could have said in words. "Dori, please," I said. I felt like getting on my knees to her. "Maybe you despise me now, but for the sake of what we've been to each other
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