The Origin of the Deucat

Yesterday, Rei finally got his audience before the casino's management. It turns out the owner is an Essessoni named Andrea Granmuller. How and why she was running the place was anybody's guess. It was time for Rome and Rei to dig a little deeper. They need to ascertain whether she knew anything about Troutman and Steele, the would-be assassins. Rei just came out and asked her. Here is her response:

     Andrea narrowed her eyes. “What if I said I didn’t know anything about them?”
     Rei turned to Rome who nodded. She stood up and walked around the desk. Andrea watched her skeptically while Rome gently rested her hand on Andrea’s shoulder.
     “She’s lying,” Rome said. “She knows Troutman very well.”
     Andrea looked at Rome’s hand then up at Rei. “So that’s how you cheat? You read people’s minds?”
     “I can’t,” Rei said. “But she can. You might want to rethink the games you offer by acknowledging that the people here aren’t all like us.”
     “OK. Point taken. What do you want to know?” Andrea asked.
     “Anything. Everything,” Rei said. “Troutman and Steele tried to kill us with a bomb. I want to find them before they take another shot at it.”
     Andrea leaned back in her chair. She sighed. “I heard that, but David’s not a bad person,” she said.
     “He’s bad enough to try and blow me up,” Rei shot back with an edge.
     “That was Steele’s influence,” she said. “David just wanted to…” She didn’t finish the sentence.
     “How do you know Troutman?” Rei asked.
     “He and I, well, we’ve slept together a few times. He used to bring me the silver ingots I needed to make the coins.”
     “You’re minting the money?” Rei inquired. “Why? On this world, we get everything we need for free. Why bother?”
     “When you mix four races,” Andrea said, “not everybody values things the same way. By implementing a simple standard of exchange, the people down there…” Andrea pointed toward the tinted window mounted on the far wall. “…they can agree on what’s what. It levels the playing field. The market down below sets its value. We just use them as a way to get people in here.”
     “Why?” Rome asked, still standing over Andrea. “Why all of this?”
     Andrea looked up at her. “I’m a mathematician by trade. When we got here, nobody needed me for anything. I had to find something to do with my life. On Earth, we had to work just to survive. Here, we don’t. So I decided to do what I’ve always wanted. And I’ve always wanted to own a casino.” She waved her hand outward in a general gesture. “So I built this one. And that’s why we make the money. You can’t gamble if you don’t have anything to gamble with.”

Well, we finally have an explanation for why there is money on Deucado. To Andrea, they were really just another form of chips. To the people below, the Deucat had come to mean something more. I'm not sure this was really a contribution to the betterment of Deucado's society.

Tomorrow, we get to look at the tapes.