The Player of Games

him, devour and defeat him from inside.

He talked it over with the ship. The Limiting Factor had consulted with the Little Rascal- tens of millennia distant, in the greater Cloud and felt able to guarantee his survival. The old warship would stay outside the Empire but power up to a maximum velocity, minimum radius holding circle as soon as the game started. If Gurgeh was forced to bet against a physical option, and lost, the ship would drive in at full speed for Ea. It was certain it could evade any imperial craft on the way, get to Ea within a few hours and use its heavy duty displacer to snap Gurgeh and Flere-Imsaho off the place without even slowing down.

'What's this?' Gurgeh looked dubiously at the tiny spherical pellet Flere-Imsaho had produced.

'Beacon and one-off communicator,' the drone told him. It dropped the tiny pellet into his hand, where it rolled around. 'You put it under your tongue; it'll implant; you'll never know it's there. The ship homes in on that as it comes in, if it can't find you any other way. When you feel a series of sharp pains under your tongue — four stabs in two seconds — you've got two seconds to assume a foetal position before everything within a three-quarter metre radius of that pellet gets slung aboard the ship; so get your head between knees and don't swing your arms about.'

Gurgeh looked at the pellet. It was about two millimetres across. 'Are you serious, drone?'

'Profoundly. That ship'll probably be on sprint boost; it could be dragging past here at anything up to one- twenty kilolights. At that speed even its heavy duty displacer will only be within range for about a fifth of a millisecond, so we're going to need all the help we can get. This is a very dubious situation you're putting me and yourself in, Gurgeh. I want you to know I'm not very happy about it.'

'Don't worry, drone; I'll make sure they don't include you in the physical bet.'

'No; I mean the possibility of being displaced. It's risky. I wasn't told about this. Displacement fields in hyperspace are singularities, subject to the Uncertainty Principle—'

'Yeah; you might end up getting zapped into another dimension or something—'

'Or smeared over the wrong bit of this one, more to the point.'

'And how often does that happen?'

'Well, about once in eighty-three million displacements, but that's not—'

'So it still compares pretty favourably with the risk you take getting into one of this gang's groundcars, or even an aircraft. Be a rascal, Flere-Imsaho; risk it.'

'That's all very well for you to say, but even if—'

Gurgeh let the machine witter on.

He'd risk it. The ship, if it did have to come in, would take a few hours to make the journey, but death-bets were never carried out until the next dawn, and Gurgeh was perfectly capable of switching off the pain of any tortures involved. The Limiting Factor had full medical facilities; it would be able to patch him up, if the worst happened.

He popped the pellet under his tongue; there was a sensation of numbness for a second, then it was gone, as though dissolved. He could just feel it with his finger, under the floor of his mouth.

He woke on the morning of the first day's play with an almost sexual thrill of anticipation.

Another venue; this time it was a conference-centre near the shuttle-port he'd first arrived at. There he faced Lo Prinest Bermoiya, a judge in the Supreme Court of Ea, and one of the most impressive apices Gurgeh had yet seen. He was tall, silver-haired, and he moved with a grace Gurgeh found oddly, even disturbingly familiar, without at first being able to explain why. Then he realised the elderly judge walked like somebody from the Culture; there was a slow ease about the apex's movements which lately Gurgeh had stopped taking for granted and so, for the first time in a way, seen.

Bermoiya sat very still between moves in the lesser games, staring at the board continually and only ever moving to shift a piece. His card-playing was equally studied and deliberate, and Gurgeh found himself reacting in the opposite manner, becoming nervous and fidgety. He fought back against this with body-drugs, deliberately calming himself, and over the seven full days the lesser games lasted gradually got to grips with the steady, considered pace of the apex's style. The judge finished a little ahead after the games were totalled up. There had been no mention of bets of any sort.

They started play on the Board of Origin, and at first Gurgeh thought the Empire was going to be content to rely on Bermoiya's obvious skill at Azad… but then, an hour into the game, the silver-haired apex raised his hand for the Adjudicator to approach. Together they came to Gurgeh, standing at one comer of the board. Bermoiya bowed. 'Jernow Gurgey,' he said; the voice was deep, and Gurgeh seemed to hear a whole tome of authority within each bass syllable. 'I must request that we engage in a wager of the body. Are you willing to consider this?'

Gurgeh looked into the large, calm eyes. He felt his own gaze falter; he looked down. He was reminded momentarily of the girl at the ball. He looked back up… to the same steady pressure from that wise and learned face.

This was someone used to sentencing his fellow creatures to execution, disfigurement, pain and prison; an apex who dealt in torture and mutilation and the power to command their use and even that of death itself to preserve the Empire and its values.

And I could just say 'No', Gurgeh thought. I've done enough. Nobody would blame me. Why not? Why not accept they're better at this than I am? Why put yourself through the worry and the torment? Psychological torment at least, physical perhaps. You've proved all you had to, all you wanted, more than they expected.

Give in. Don't be a fool. You're not the heroic sort. Apply a bit of game-sense: you've won all you ever needed to. Back out now and show them what you think of their stupid 'physical option', their squalid, bullying threats … show them how little it really means.

But he wasn't going to. He looked levelly into the apex's eyes and he knew he was going to keep playing. He suspected he was going slightly mad, but he wasn't going to give this up. He would take this fabulous, maniacal game by the scruff of the neck, jump up on to it and hold on.

And see how far it would take him before it threw him off, or turned and consumed him.

'I'm willing,' he said, eyes wide.

'I believe you are a male.'

'Yes,' Gurgeh said. His palms started to sweat.

'My bet is castration. Removal of the male member and testes against apicial gelding, on this one game on the Board of Origin. Do you accept?'

'I—' Gurgeh swallowed, but his mouth stayed dry. It was absurd; he was in no real danger. The Limiting Factor would rescue him; or he could just go through with it; he would feel no pain, and genitalia were some of the faster regrowing parts of the body… but still the room seemed to warp and distort in front of him, and he had a sudden, sickening vision of cloying red liquid, slowly staining black, bubbling…. 'Yes!' he blurted, forcing it out. 'Yes,' he said to the Adjudicator.

The two apices bowed and retreated.

'You could call the ship now if you want,' Flere-Imsaho said. Gurgeh stared at the screen. In fact he was going to call the Limiting Factor, but only to discuss his present rather poor position in the game, not to scream for rescue. He ignored the drone.

It was night, and the day had gone badly for him. Bermoiya had played brilliantly and the news-services were full of the game. It was being hailed as a classic, and once again Gurgeh — with Bermoiya — was sharing news- leaders with Nicosar, who was still trampling all over the opposition, good though it was acknowledged to be.

Pequil, his arm still pinned up, approached Gurgeh in a subdued, almost reverent way after the evening session and told him there was a special watch being kept on the module which would last until the game was over. Pequil was sure Gurgeh was an honourable person, but those engaging in physical bets were always discreetly watched, and in Gurgeh's case this was being done by a high-atmosphere AG cruiser, one of a squadron which constantly patrolled the not-quite-space above Groasnachek. The module would not be allowed to move from its position on the hotel roof-garden.

Gurgeh wondered how Bermoiya was feeling now. He had noticed that the apex had said «must» when he stated his intention of using the physical option. Gurgeh had come to respect the apex's style of play, and,