The Player of Games

guy.'

'I wish I could take such a magnanimous view,' Gurgeh said. 'He was trying to kill me. And with bullets.' Gurgeh found the idea of being hit by a bullet particularly horrible.

'Well,' Za shrugged, 'I'm not sure it makes much difference whether you're killed by a projectile or a CREW; you're just as dead. Anyway, I still feel sorry for those guys. Poor bastards were probably just doing their jobs.'

'Their jobs?' Gurgeh said, mystified.

Za yawned and nodded, stretching out in the folds of the accommodating formseat. 'Yeah; they'll be imperial secret police or Bureau Nine or something like that.' He yawned again. 'Oh, the story'll be they're disaffected civilians… though they might try to hang it on the revs… but that'd be a bit unlikely…' Za grinned, shrugged. 'Na; they might try it anyway; just for a laugh.'

Gurgeh thought. 'No,' he said finally. 'I don't understand. You said these people were police. How—'

'Secret police, Jernau.'

'…. But how can you have a secret policeman? I thought one of the points of having a uniform for the police was so that they could be easily identified and act as a deterrent.'

'Good grief,' Za said, covering his face with his hands. He put them down and gazed at Gurgeh. He took a deep breath. 'Right… well; the secret police are people who go about listening to what people say when they aren't being deterred by the sight of a uniform. Then if the person hasn't actually said anything illegal, but has said something they think is dangerous to the security of the Empire, they kidnap them and interrogate them and — as a rule — kill them. Sometimes they send them to a penal colony but usually they incinerate them or throw them down an old mineshaft; the atmosphere here's rich with revolutionary fervour, Jernau Gurgeh, and there are some rich seams of loose tongues beneath the city streets. They do other things as well, these secret police. What happened to you today was one of those other things.'

Za sat back and made an expansive, shrugging gesture. 'Or, on the other hand, I suppose it isn't impossible they really were revs, or disaffected citizens. Except that they moved all wrong…. But that's what secret police do, take it from me. Ah!'

A tray approached bearing a large bowl in a holder; vapour rose dramatically from the frothing, multi-coloured surface of the liquid. Za took the bowl.

'To the Empire!' he shouted, and drained it in one go. He slammed the bowl back on to the tray. 'Haaa!' he exclaimed, sniffing and coughing and wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his tunic. He blinked at Gurgeh.

'Sorry if I'm being slow,' Gurgeh said, 'but if these people were imperial police, mustn't they have been acting on orders? What's going on? Does the Empire want me dead because I'm winning the game against Ram?'

'Hmm,' Za said, coughing a little. 'You're learning, Jernau Gurgeh. Shit, I thought a game-player would have a bit more… natural deviousness about him… you're a babe amongst the carnivores out here… anyway, yes, somebody in a position of power wants you dead.'

'Think they'll try it again?'

Za shook his head. 'Too obvious; they'd have to be pretty desperate to try something like that again… in the short term at least. I think they'll wait and see what happens in your next ten game, then if they can't ditch you in that they'll get your next single opponent to use the physical option on you and hope you'll scare off. If you get that far.'

'Am I really such a threat to them?'

'Hey, Gurgeh; they realise now they've made a mistake. You didn't see the 'casts before you got here. They were saying you were the best player in the whole Culture and you were some sort of decadent slob, a hedonist who'd never worked a day in your life, that you were arrogant and totally convinced you were going to win the game, that you had all sorts of new glands sewn into your body, that you'd fucked your mother, men… animals for all I know, that you were half computer… then the Bureau saw some of your games you'd been playing on the way here, and announced—'

'What?' Gurgeh said, sitting forward. 'What do you mean they'd seen some of the games I'd been playing?'

'They asked me for some recent games you'd played; I got in touch with the Limiting Factor — isn't that thing a bore? — and had it send me the moves in a couple of your recent games against it. The Bureau said on the strength of those they were more than happy to let you play using your drug- glands and everything else…. I'm sorry; I'd assumed the ship asked your permission first. Didn't it?'

'No,' Gurgeh said.

'Well, anyway, they said you could play without restrictions. I don't think they really wanted to — purity of the game, you know? but the orders must have been handed down. The Empire wanted to prove that even with your unfair advantages you still weren't capable of staying in the Main Series. Your first couple of days' play against that priest and his squad dies must have had them rubbing their little hands with glee, but then that out-of-the-hat stunt-win dropped their chins in their soup. Having you drawn against Ram in the single game probably seemed like a really good wheeze too, but now you're about to kick his latrine boards out from under him and they've panicked. Za hiccuped. 'Hence the bungled splat-job today.'

'So the draw against Ram wasn't really random, either?'

'God's balls, Gurgeh,' Za laughed. 'No, man! Holy shit! Are you really this naive?' He sat shaking his head and looking at the floor and hiccupping every now and again.

Gurgeh stood up and went to the opened module doors. He looked out at the city, shimmering in the late evening haze. Long tower shadows lay on it like widely spaced hairs on some near-bald pelt. Aircraft glinted sunset-red above it.

Gurgeh didn't think he'd ever felt so angry and frustrated in his life. Another uncomfortable feeling to add to those he'd been experiencing lately, feelings he'd put down to the game, and to really playing seriously for the first time.

Everybody seemed to be treating him like a child. They happily decided what he need and need not be told, they kept things back from him that he ought to have been told, and when they did tell him they acted as if he should have known all the time.

He looked back at Za, but the man was sitting rubbing his belly and looking distracted. He belched loudly, then smiled happily and shouted, 'Hey, module! Put up channel ten!.. yeah, on the screen; yo.' He got up and trotted forward to stand right in front of the screen, and stood there, arms folded, whistling tunelessly and grinning vacantly at the moving pictures. Gurgeh watched from the side.

The news showed film of imperial troopers landing on a distant planet. Towns and cities burned, refugee lines snaked, bodies were shown. There were interviews with the tearful families of slain troopers. The just invaded locals — hairy quadrupeds with prehensile lips — were shown lying down tied up in the mud, or on their knees before a portrait of Nicosar. One was shorn, so the people back home could see what they looked like under all that fur. Their lips had become prized trophies.

The following story was about Nicosar demolishing his opponent in the single game. The Emperor was shown walking from one pan of the board to another, signing some documents in an office, then from a distance, standing on the board again while a commentator enthused over the way he'd played.

The attack on Gurgeh was next. He was amazed when he saw the incident on film. It was over in an instant; a sudden leap, him falling, the drone disappearing upwards, some flashes, Za springing forward out of the crowd, confusion and movement, then his face in close-up, a shot of Pequil on the ground, and another of the dead attackers. He was described as being dazed but unharmed, thanks to the prompt action of the police. Pequil was not seriously wounded; he was interviewed in hospital, explaining how he felt. The attackers were described as extremists.

'That means they might decide to call them revs later on,' Za said.

He told the screen to turn off, then turned to Gurgeh. 'Didn't you think I was quick there, though?' he said, grinning widely and throwing his arms wide. 'Did you see the way I moved? It was beautiful!' He laughed and spun round, then half walked, half danced to the foamseat again, and fell into it. 'Shit, I was only there to see what sort of loonies they had out protesting against you, but wow am I glad I went! What speed! Fucking animal grace, maestro!'

Gurgeh agreed Za had moved very quickly.

'Let's see it again, module!' Za shouted. The module-screen obliged, and Shohobohaum Za laughed and