JESS GARVEY made out that he thought lightly of me, calling me no more than a cosmic crap shooter, a blind gambler in the infinite casino of space, a feather blown by the lips of those old, old sisters, the fates. He mocked me now as I stood in my control room, before my digamma lever, saying that I was for all the worlds like an idiot before a dekakred slot machine, and that I had traveled a long way for the simple sake of putting my hand to a lever and taking a chance...