Trullion

by Jack Vance

From Amazon.com - *Trullion--World 2262 of the Alastor Cluster--was a beautiful waterworld of fens, mists, idyllic islands set in clear oceans whose teeming richness provided food for the taking. The Trill were a carefree, easy-living race. But violence entered their lives during the raids of the galactic pirates known as the Starmenters. And there was also the planetwide game of hussade, when the Trill's ferocious passion for gambling drove them to risk all--even life itself--on the hazardous water-chessboard gaming fields. Their prize? The virginal body of the beautifu sheirl-maiden, the body any Trill is willing to die for.*