“Well, I’ll leave you two odd-ones-out to talk, shall I?” Pequil said, taking a step back, hands clasped. “Miss Dutleys-daughter’s father is over by the rear bandstand, Gurgee; if you wouldn’t mind returning the young lady when you’ve finished talking…?”
Gurgeh watched Pequil go, then smiled at the top of the young woman’s head. He cleared his throat. The girl remained silent. Gurgeh said, “I, ah… I’d thought that only intermediates—apices—played Azad.”
The girl looked up as far as his chest. “No, sir. There are some capable female players, of minor rank, of course.” She had a soft, tired-sounding voice. She still did not raise her face to him, so he had to address the crown of her head, where he could see the white scalp through the black, tied hair.
“Ah,” he said. “I thought it might have been… forbidden. I’m glad it isn’t. Do males play too?”
“They do, sir. Nobody is forbidden to play. That is embodied in the Constitution. It is simply made—it is only that it is more difficult for either—” The woman broke off and brought her head up with a sudden, startling look. “—for either of the lesser sexes to learn, because all the great colleges must take only apex scholars.” She looked back down again. “Of course, this is to prevent the distraction of those who study.”
Gurgeh wasn’t sure what to say. “I see,” was all he could come up with at first. “Do you… hope to do well in the games?”
“If I can do well—if I can reach the second game in the main series—then I hope to be able to join the civil service, and travel.”
“Well, I hope you succeed.”
“Thank you. Unfortunately, it is not very likely. The first game, as you know, is played by groups of ten, and to be the only woman playing nine apices is to be regarded as a nuisance. One is usually put out of the game first, to clear the field.”
“Hmm. I was warned something similar might happen to me,” Gurgeh said, smiling at the woman’s head and wishing she would look up at him again.
“Oh no.” The woman did look up then, and Gurgeh found the directness of her flat-faced gaze oddly disconcerting. “They won’t do that to you; it wouldn’t be polite. They don’t know how weak or strong you are. They…” She looked down again. “They know that I am, so it is no disrespect to remove me from the board so that they may get on with the game.”
Gurgeh looked round the huge, noisy, crowded ballroom, where the people talked and danced and the music sounded loud. “Is there nothing you can do?” he asked. “Wouldn’t it be possible to arrange that ten women play each other in the first round?”
She was still looking down, but something about the curve of her cheek told him she might have been smiling. “Indeed, sir. But I believe there has never been an occasion in the great-game series when two lesser-sexes have played in the same group. The draw has never worked out that way, in all these years.”
“Ah,” Gurgeh said. “And single games, one-against-one?”
“They do not count unless one has gone through the earlier rounds. When I do practice single games, I am told… that I’m very lucky. I suppose I must be. But then, I know I am, for my father has chosen me a fine master and husband, and even if I do not succeed in the game, I shall marry well. What more can a woman ask for, sir?”
Gurgeh didn’t know what to say. There was a strange tingling feeling at the back of his neck. He cleared his throat a couple of times. In the end all he could find to say was, “I hope you do win. I really hope you do.”
The woman looked briefly up at him, then down again. She shook her head.
After a while, Gurgeh suggested that he take her back to her father, and she assented. She said one more thing.
They were walking down the great hall, threading their way through the clumps of people to where her father waited, and at one point they passed between a great carved pillar and a wall of battle-murals. During the instant they were quite hidden from the rest of the room, the woman reached out one hand and touched him on the top of his wrist; with the other hand she pressed a finger over a particular point on the shoulder of his robe, and with that one finger pressing, and the others lightly brushing his arm, in the same moment whispered, “You win. You win!”
Then they were with her father, and after repeating how welcome he felt, Gurgeh left the family group. The woman didn’t look at him again. He had had no time to reply to her.
“Are you all right, Jernau Gurgeh?” Flere-Imsaho said, finding the man leaning against a wall and seemingly just staring into space, as though he was one of the liveried male servants.
Gurgeh looked at the drone. He put his finger to the point on the robe’s shoulder the girl had pressed. “Is this where the bug is on this thing?”
“Yes,” the machine said. “That’s right. Did Shohobohaum Za tell you that?”
“Hmm, thought so,” Gurgeh said. He pushed himself away from the wall. “Would it be polite to leave now?”
“Now?” The drone started back a little, humming loudly. “Well, I suppose so… are you sure you’re all right?”
“Never felt better. Let’s go.” Gurgeh walked away.
“You seem agitated. Are you really all right? Aren’t you enjoying yourself? What did Za give you to drink? Are you nervous about the game? Has Za said something? Is it because nobody’ll touch you?”
Gurgeh walked through the people, ignoring the humming, crackling drone at his shoulder.
As they left the great ballroom, he realized that apart from remembering that she was called somebody’s-daughter, he had forgotten the woman’s name.
Gurgeh was due to play his first game of Azad two days after the ball. He spent the time working out a few set-piece maneuvers with the Limiting Factor. He could have used the module’s brain, but the old warship had a more interesting game-style. The fact that the Limiting Factor was several decades away by real space light meant there was a significant delay involved—the ship itself always replied instantly to a move—but the effect was still of playing an extraordinarily quick and gifted player.
Gurgeh didn’t take up any more invitations to formal functions; he’d told Pequil his digestive system was taking time to adjust to the Empire’s rich food, and that appeared to be an acceptable excuse. He even refused the chance to go on a sightseeing trip of the capital.
He saw nobody during those days except Flere-Imsaho, which spent most of its time, in its disguise, sitting on the hotel parapet, humming quietly and watching birds, which it attracted with crumbs scattered on the roof-garden lawn.
Now and again, Gurgeh would walk out onto the grassed roof and stand looking out over the city.
The streets and the sky were both full of traffic. Groasnachek was like a great, flattened, spiky animal, awash with lights at night and hazy with its own heaped breath during the day. It spoke with a great, garbled choir of voices; an encompassing background roar of engines and machines that never ceased, and the sporadic tearing sounds of passing aircraft. The continual wails, whoops, warbles and screams of sirens and alarms were strewn across the fabric of the city like shrapnel holes.
Architecturally, Gurgeh thought, the place was a hopeless mix of styles, and far too big. Some buildings soared, some sprawled, but each seemed to have been designed without any regard to any other, and the whole effect—which might have been interestingly varied—was in fact gruesome. He kept thinking of the Little Rascal, holding ten times as many people as the city in a smaller area, and far more elegantly, even though most of the craft’s volume was taken up with ship-building space, engines, and other equipment.
Groasnachek had all the planning of a bird-dropping, Gurgeh thought, and the city was its own maze.
When the day came for the game to start he woke feeling elated, as though he’d just won a game, rather than being about to embark on the first real, serious match of his life. He ate very little for breakfast, and dressed slowly in the ceremonial garments the game required; rather ridiculous gathered-up clothes, with soft slippers and ho
se beneath a bulky jacket with rolled, gartered sleeves. At least, as a novice, Gurgeh’s robes were relatively unornamented, and restrained in color.
Pequil arrived to take him to the game in an official ground-car. The apex chattered during the journey, enthusing about some recent conquest the Empire had made in a distant region of space; a glorious victory.
The car sped along the broad streets, heading for the outskirts of the city where the public hall Gurgeh would play in had been converted into a game-room.
All over the city that morning, people were going to their first game of the new series; from the most optimistic young player lucky enough to win a place in the games in a state lottery, right up to Nicosar himself, those twelve thousand people faced that day knowing that their lives might change utterly and forever, for better or worse, starting from right now.
The whole city was alive with the game-fever which infected it every six years; Groasnachek was packed with the players, their retinues, advisors, college mentors, relations and friends, the Empire’s press and news-services, and visiting delegations from colonies and dominions there to watch the future course of imperial history being decided.
Despite his earlier euphoria, Gurgeh discovered that his hands were shaking by the time they arrived at the hall, and as he was led into the place with its high white walls and its echoing wooden floor, an unpleasant sensation of churning seemed to emanate from his belly. It felt quite different from the normal feeling of being keyed-up which he experienced before most games; this was something else; keener, and more thrilling and unsettling than anything he’d known before.
All that lightened this mood of tension was discovering that Flere-Imsaho had been refused permission to remain in the game-hall when the match was in progress; it would have to stay outside. Its display of clicking, humming, crackling crudity had not been sufficient to convince the imperial authorities that it was incapable of somehow assisting Gurgeh during the game. It was shown to a small pavilion in the grounds of the hall, to wait there with the imperial guards on security duty.
It complained, loudly.
Gurgeh was introduced to the other nine people in his game. In theory, they had all been chosen at random. They greeted him cordially enough, though one of them, a junior imperial priest, nodded rather than spoke to him.
They played the lesser game of strategy-cards first. Gurgeh started very cautiously, surrendering cards and points to discover what the others held. When it finally became obvious, he began playing properly, hoping he would not be made to look too silly in the rush, but over the next few turns he realized the others were still unsure exactly who held what, and he was the only one playing the game as though it was in its final stages.
Thinking that perhaps he’d missed something, he played a couple of more exploratory cards, and only then did the priest start to play for the end. Gurgeh resumed, and when the game finished before midday he held more points than anybody else.
“So far so good, eh, drone?” he said to Flere-Imsaho. He was sitting at the table where the players, game-officials and some of the more important spectators were at lunch.
“If you say so,” the machine said grumpily. “I don’t get to see much, stuck in the outhouse with the jolly soldier boys.”
“Well, take it from me; it’s looking all right.”
“Early days yet, Jernau Gurgeh. You won’t catch them that easily again.”
“I knew I could rely on your support.”
In the afternoon they played on a couple of the smaller boards in a series of single games to decide order of precedence. Gurgeh knew he was good at both these games, and easily beat the others. Only the priest seemed upset by this. There was another break, for dinner, during which Pequil arrived unofficially, on his way home from the office. He expressed his pleased surprise at how well Gurgeh was doing, and even patted him on the arm before he left.
The early-evening session was a formality; all that happened was that they were told by the game-officials—amateurs from a local club, with one imperial official in charge—the exact configuration and order of play for the following day, on the Board of Origin. As had now become obvious, Gurgeh was going to start with a considerable advantage.
Sitting in the back of the car with only Flere-Imsaho for company, and feeling quite pleased with himself, Gurgeh watched the city go by in the violet light of dusk.
“Not too bad, I suppose,” the drone said, humming only a little as it lay on the seat by Gurgeh. “I’d contact the ship tonight if I were you, to discuss what you’re going to do tomorrow.”
“Would you really?”
“Yes. You’re going to need all the help you can get. They’ll gang up on you tomorrow; bound to. This is where you lose out, of course; if any of them were in this situation they’d be getting in touch with one or more of the less well-placed players and doing a deal with them to go for—”
“Yes, but as you never seem to tire of telling me, they would all demean themselves doing anything of the sort with me. On the other hand though, with your encouragement and the Limiting Factor’s help, how can I lose?”
The drone was silent.
Gurgeh got in touch with the ship that night. Flere-Imsaho had declared itself bored; it had discarded its casing, gone black-body, and floated off unseen into the night to visit a city park where there were some nocturnal birds.
Gurgeh talked over his plans with the Limiting Factor, but the time-delay of almost a minute made the conversation with the distant warship a slow business. The ship had some good suggestions, though. Gurgeh was certain that at this level at least he must be getting far better advice from the ship than any of his immediate opponents were receiving from their advisors, aides and mentors. Probably only the top hundred or so players, those directly sponsored and supported by the leading colleges, would have access to such informed help. This thought cheered him further, and he went to bed happy.
Three days later, just as play was closing after the early-evening session, Gurgeh looked at the Board of Origin and realized he was going to be put out of the game.
Everything had gone well at first. He’d been pleased with his handling of the pieces, and sure he’d had a more subtle appreciation of the game’s strategic balance. With his superiority in position and forces resulting from his successes during the early stages, he’d been confident he was going to win, and so stay in the Main Series to play in the second round, of single games.
Then, on the third morning, he realized he had been over-confident, and his concentration had lapsed. What had looked like a series of unconnected moves by most of the other players suddenly became a coordinated mass attack, with the priest at its head. He’d panicked and they’d trounced him. Now he was a dead man.
The priest came up to Gurgeh when the session’s play was over and Gurgeh was still sitting in his high stoolseat, looking down at the shambles on the board and wondering what had gone wrong. The apex asked the man if he was willing to concede; it was the conventional course when somebody was so far behind in pieces and territory, and there was less shame attached to an honorable admission of defeat than to a stubborn refusal to face reality which only dragged the game out longer for one’s opponents. Gurgeh looked at the priest, then at Flere-Imsaho, who’d been allowed into the hall once the play had ended. The machine wobbled a little in front of him, humming mightily and fairly buzzing with static.
“What do you think, drone?” he said tiredly.
“I think the sooner you get out of those ridiculous clothes, the better,” the machine said. The priest, whose own robes were a more gaudy version of Gurgeh’s, glanced angrily at the humming machine, but said nothing.
Gurgeh looked at the board again, then at the priest. He took a long, sighing breath and opened his mouth, but before he could speak Flere-Imsaho said, “So I think you should go back to the hotel and get changed and relax and give yourself an opportunity to think.”
Gurgeh nodded his head slowly, rubbing his beard and
looking at the mess of tangled fortunes on the Board of Origin. He told the priest he’d see him tomorrow.
“There’s nothing I can do; they’ve won,” he told the drone once they were back in the module.
“If you say so. Why not ask the ship?”
Gurgeh contacted the Limiting Factor to give it the bad news. It commiserated, and, rather than come up with any helpful ideas, told him exactly where he’d gone wrong, going into considerable detail. Gurgeh thanked it with little good grace, and went to bed dispirited, wishing he’d resigned when the priest had asked him.
Flere-Imsaho had gone off exploring the city again. Gurgeh lay in the darkness, the module quiet around him.
He wondered what they’d really sent him here for. What did Contact actually expect him to do? Had he been sent to be humiliated, and so reassure the Empire the Culture was unlikely to be any threat to it? It seemed as likely as anything else. He could imagine Chiark Hub rattling off figures about the colossal amount of energy expended in sending him all this way… and even the Culture, even Contact, would think twice about doing all it had just to provide one citizen with a glorified adventure holiday. The Culture didn’t use money as such, but it also didn’t want to be too conspicuously extravagant with matter and energy, either (so inelegant to be wasteful). But to keep the Empire satisfied that the Culture was just a joke, no threat… how much was that worth?
He turned over in the bed, switched on the floatfield, adjusted its resistance, tried to sleep, turned this way and that, adjusted the field again but still could not get comfortable, and so, eventually, turned it off.
He saw the slight glow from the bracelet Chamlis had given him, shining by the bedside. He picked the thin band up, turning it over in his hands. The tiny Orbital was bright in the darkness, lighting up his fingers and the covers on the bed. He gazed at its daylight surface and the microscopic whorls of weather systems over blue sea and dun-colored land. He really ought to write to Chamlis, say thank you.