Steppe

Uga's jaw tightened. 'Do they think mere Chinese could hold us if we choose to leave?' he snorted. But he made no overt issue of the matter.

More time passed. When the palace attendants became openly insolent, Uga finally had enough. 'Inform the Emperor we shall see him now,' he said, walking toward the throne room.

Guards appeared, swords drawn. Alp and Pei-li, unarmed, moved as one man to flank the chief on right and left and shield him with their bodies. Uga forged straight ahead, pushing through the archway leading to the throne room.

Weapons flashed. This was the pretext the palace guards had been waiting for: a technically aggressive move against the Emperor. Alp, on the right, leaped right, his boot sweeping up to catch the wrist of the attacking guard and kick free the descending sword. Pei-li, on the left, blocked the left-hand guard with a length of wood he seemed to have smuggled in, disarming the man similarly. Suddenly the two Uigurs were armed!

Uga, true to his diplomatic mission, left his own hands open. He pushed through the archway.

Now a dozen more guards converged, blades lifted. But Uga marched on as if oblivious to danger. Alp and Pei-li turned to face the men behind, but had to keep pace with their chief by marching backward.

Two T'ang guards charged. Alp, now defending leftward because of his backwards position, had to parry awkwardly from his right. His sword met that of his attacker—and blue sparks crackled where the two blades came together. Alp yanked his own back, and the band of light re-formed. This was an uncommon variety of swordplay, and he didn't like it! Was it impossible to parry a stroke?

But Pei-li was showing how it was done. When a Chinese sword came at him, he rotated his own so that the flat of it made contact—and the other sword bounced off, its light-edge momentarily disrupted. Then Pei-li struck —and though the light sliced through the guard without visible effect, the man toppled, stunned.

Three more guards charged. This became ticklish, because while two were being fended off, the third could strike Uga down from behind. Alp turned his sword sidewise and put all his force into a sweep that knocked his man's weapon into that of the center man, fouling the thrust of each in a shower of sparks. Pei-li, meanwhile overcoming his own man, then sliced across both guards engaging Alp and dropped them to the floor.

Pei-li might be gruff of speech and sharp of suspicion, but he could indeed fight—and that was the important thing. The man's technique was distinct from Alp's, but by no means inferior. Not all Galactics were decadent!

Still Uga marched on. paying no attention.

With five of their number out of the Game, the remaining guards were more respectful of nomad prowess. They followed closely but for the moment did not attack. Alp appreciated the guards' tactical problem: on a one- to-one basis the Uigurs were supreme; but when the Chinese ganged up they crowded each other and became vulnerable in another way. Yet they had to protect the Emperor—or suffer consequences perhaps less pleasant than elimination by sword.

They were still in an anteroom of this capacious palace. Uga parted the heavy curtains shrouding the entrance to the throne room proper and stepped boldly through as Alp and Pei-li waged another defensive action against the furious lunge of four more guards.

The vast room was empty. The throne was bare.

'Not even here!' Uga said, disgusted. 'Probably carousing with young boys in some other decadent city. Bastard never intended to see us!'

'Might as well go home,' Alp said, glad the scheme had been exposed, so that no more time would be wasted.

'Not without a damned princess!' Uga said.

Pei-li shook his shaggy head. 'I agree with Ko-lo. The Emperor will not give us a princess—especially not after this mischief in his palace. We have dispatched eight—'

'Nine,' Alp said, running another through.

'Who said anything about giving?' Uga demanded, cheerfully grim. 'Are we not Uigurs? The Chinese exist only to provide spoils for the sons of the Turk!'

Alp was getting to like this man, too! He might be imitation-Uigur, but he had the basic spirit. Uga's eyes-front march to the throne room had been an impressive act of nomad bravado. The Chinese would remember that!

But Pei-li counseled caution again, even as his sword dazzled another guard. 'Reinforcements will come soon. We are surely finished in these roles if we delay further before going for our horses.'

'Ko-lo says these roles of ours cannot be terminated here,' Uga said. 'Do you now call him liar?'

Alp knew Pei-li had been observing his technique, just as Alp himself had been observing Pei-li's. Pei-li was more proficient with this particular type of weapon at this time—but Alp's strength and reflexes were faster. Was Uga trying to set them off against each other?

Pei-li stifled an explosive bark of laughter. 'Not while I yet live!'

Alp relaxed. Pei-li had identified the essential conflict: they would have to die to prove Alp wrong. It wasn't worth it!

'You two won't die here,' Alp said, parrying another aggressive guard. 'Unless the Game diverges from history. But I have no such assurance. My own future is blank to me.'

'Still,' Uga said, as if that were a mere quibble, 'we might as well put it to the test.' And he walked forth into the bristling blades of the Emperor's reinforced guard.

Pei-li and Alp, caught by surprise, were not able to protect him immediately. The T'ang troops were astonished. They fell back, daunted by the assurance of the unarmed nomad who stepped so blithely into their midst.

Now Alp was quite curious. The theory was simple enough: the Game Machine would not permit an important character to die unhistorically. But the practice could become complex. What would happen if a guard struck directly at Uga, and no one was there to foil it? Alp had observed no direct intervention, and all characters in this