The Player of Games

larger Cloud a semi-spiral with a long tail leading away from the galaxy, and the smaller Cloud vaguely Y- shaped.

'The Greater and Lesser Clouds,' the drone Worthil said. 'Each about one hundred thousand light years away from where we are now. No doubt you've admired them from Ikroh in the past; they're quite visible, though you're on the under-edge of the main galaxy relative to them, and so looking at them through it. We've found what you might consider a rather interesting game… here.' A green dot appeared near the centre of the smaller Cloud.

Gurgeh looked at the drone. 'Isn't that,' he said, 'rather far away? I take it you're suggesting I go there.'

'It is a long way away, and we do suggest just that. The journey will take nearly two years on the fastest ships, due to the nature of the energy grid; it's more tenuous out there, between the star-clumps. Inside the galaxy such a journey would take less than a year.'

'But that means I'd be away four years,' Gurgeh said, staring at the screen. His mouth had gone dry.

'More like five,' the drone said matter-of-factly.

'That's… a long time.'

'It is, and I'll certainly understand if you decline our invitation. Though we do think you'll find the game itself interesting. First of all, however, I have to explain a little about the setting, which is what makes the game unique.' The green dot expanded, became a rough circle. The screen went suddenly out-holo, filling the room with stars. The rough green circle of suns became an even rougher sphere. Gurgeh experienced the momentary swimming sensation he sometimes felt when surrounded by space or its impression.

'These stars,' Worthil said — the green-coloured stars, at least a couple of thousand suns, flashed once — 'are under the control of what one can only describe as an empire. Now…' The drone turned to look at him. The little machine lay in space like some impossibly large ship, stars in front of it as well as behind it. 'It is unusual for us to discover an imperial power-system in space. As a rule, such archaic forms of authority wither long before the relevant species drags itself off the home planet, let alone cracks the lightspeed problem, which of course one has to do, to rule effectively over any worthwhile volume.

'Every now and again, however, Contact disturbs some particular ball of rock and discovers something nasty underneath. On every occasion, there is a specific and singular reason, some special circumstance which allows the general rule to go by the board. In the case of the conglomerate you see before you — apart from the obvious factors, such as the fact that we didn't get out there until fairly recently, and the lack of any other powerful influence in the Lesser Cloud — that special circumstance is a game.'

It took a while to sink in. Gurgeh looked at the machine. 'A game?' he said to it.

'That game is called «Azad» by the natives. It is important enough for the empire itself to take its name from the game. You are looking at the Empire of Azad.'

Gurgeh did just that. The drone went on. 'The dominant species is humanoid, but, very unusually — and certain analyses claim that this too has been a factor in the survival of the empire as a social system — it is composed of three sexes.' Three figures appeared in the centre of Gurgeh's field of vision, as though standing in the middle of the ragged sphere of stars. They were rather shorter than Gurgeh if the scale was right. Each of them looked odd in different ways, but they shared what looked to Gurgeh to be rather short legs and slightly bloated, flat and very pale faces. 'The one on the left,' Worthil said, 'is a male, carrying the testes and penis. The middle one is equipped with a kind of reversible vagina, and ovaries. The vagina turns inside-out to implant the fertilised egg in the third sex, on the right, which has a womb. The one in the middle is the dominant sex.'

Gurgeh had to think about this. 'The what?' he said.

'The dominant sex,' Worthil repeated. 'Empires are synonymous with centralised — if occasionally schismatised — hierarchical power structures in which influence is restricted to an economically privileged class retaining its advantages through — usually — a judicious use of oppression and skilled manipulation of both the society's information dissemination systems and its lesser — as a rule nominally independent — power systems. In short, it's all about dominance. The intermediate — or apex — sex you see standing in the middle there controls the society and the empire. Generally, the males are used as soldiers and the females as possessions. Of course, it's a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea?'

'Well.' Gurgeh shook his head. 'I don't understand how it works, but if you say it does… all right.' He rubbed his beard. 'I take it this means these people can't change sex.'

'Correct. Genetechnologically, it's been within their grasp for hundreds of years, but it's forbidden. Illegal, if you remember what that means.' Gurgeh nodded. The machine went on. 'It looks perverse and wasteful to us, but then one thing that empires are not about is the efficient use of resources and the spread of happiness; both are typically accomplished despite the economic short-circuiting — corruption and favouritism, mostly — endemic to the system.'

'Okay,' Gurgeh said. 'I'll have a lot of questions to ask later, but go on. What about this game?'

'Indeed. Here is one of the boards.'

'… You're joking,' Gurgeh said eventually. He sat forward, gazing at the holo still picture spread before him.

The starfield and the three humanoids had vanished, and Gurgeh and the drone called Worthil were, seemingly, at one end of a huge room many times larger than the one they in fact occupied. Before them stretched a floor covered with a stunningly complicated and seemingly chaotically abstract and irregular mosaic pattern, which in places rose up like hills and dipped into valleys. Looking closer, it could be seen that the hills were not solid, but rather stacked, tapering levels of the same bewildering meta-pattern, creating linked, multi-layered pyramids over the fantastic landscape, which, on still closer inspection, had what looked like bizarrely sculpted game-pieces standing on its riotously coloured surface. The whole construction must have measured at least twenty metres to a side.

'That,' Gurgeh asked, 'is a board?' He swallowed. He had never seen, never heard about, never had the least hint of a game as complicated as this one must surely be, if those were individual pieces and areas.

'One of them.'

'How many are there?' It couldn't be real. It had to be a joke. They were making fun of him. No human brain could possibly cope with a game on such a scale. It was impossible. It had to be.

'Three. All that size, plus numerous minor ones, played with cards as well. Let me give you some of the background to the game.

'First, the name; «Azad» means «machine», or perhaps «system», in the wide sense which would include any functioning entity, such as an animal or a flower, as well as something like myself, or a waterwheel. The game has been developed over several thousand years, reaching its present form about eight hundred years ago, around the same time as the institutionalisation of the species' still extant religion. Since then the game has altered little. It dates in its finalised form, then, from about the time of the hegemonisation of the empire's home planet, Ea, and the first, relativistic exploration of nearby space.'

Now the view was of a planet, hanging huge in the room in front of Gurgeh; blue-white and brilliant and slowly, slowly, revolving against a background of dark space. 'Ea,' the drone said. 'Now; the game is used as an absolutely integral part of the power-system of the empire. Put in the crudest possible terms, whoever wins the game becomes emperor.'

Gurgeh looked round slowly at the drone, which looked back. 'I kid you not,' it said dryly.

'Are you serious?' Gurgeh said, nonetheless.

'Quite entirely,' the drone said. 'Becoming emperor does constitute a rather unusual… prize,' the machine said, 'and the whole truth, as you might imagine, is much more complicated than that. The game of Azad is used not so much to determine which person will rule, but which tendency within the empire's ruling class will have the upper hand, which branch of economic theory will be followed, which creeds will be recognised within the religious apparat, and which political policies will be followed. The game is also used as an exam for both entry into and promotion within the empire's religious, educational, civil administrational, judicial and military establishments.

'The idea, you see, is that Azad is so complex, so subtle, so flexible and so demanding that it is as precise and comprehensive a model of life as it is possible to construct. Whoever succeeds at the game succeeds in life; the same qualities are required in each to ensure dominance.'

'But…' Gurgeh looked at the drone beside him, and seemed to feel the presence of the planet before them as an almost physical force, something he felt drawn to, pulled towards, 'is that true?'

The planet disappeared and they were back looking at the vast game-board again. The holo was in motion