 Why was zarquil not played often by those in the area?
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was almost ordinary-looking. "You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look at them. And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance, was too much. There he inserted a coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions, reserving only a sum of money. "Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was wanted by then. Roulette...? Each time it happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a thrill-mill." Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to remember her existence. There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the newer models. He then requested a taxi driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification. Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of "crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator; otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse. Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it profitable for the Vinzz to run it.
 It was an illegal game.
 It was an illegal game.  It was only played by Dutchmen.  It was fabulously expensive.  It was dangerous.