The Player of Games

behind whom the dancers were now arranged, ready to start their performance. 'The drums are made from human skin; you can see why each set is called a family. The horizontal percussion instrument is constructed from finger bones, and… well, there are other instruments, but can you understand now why that music sounds so… precious to those of us who know what has gone into the making of it?'

'Oh, yes,' Gurgeh said. The dancers began. Fluid, practised, they impressed almost immediately. Some must have worn AG units, floating through the air like huge, diaphanously slow birds.

'Good,' Hamin nodded. 'You see, Gurgeh, one can be on either side in the Empire. One can be the player, or one can be… played upon.' Hamin smiled at what was a play on words in Eachic, and to some extent in Marain too.

Gurgeh watched the dancers for a moment. Without looking away from them, he said. 'I'll play, rector; on Echronedal.' He tapped one ring on the rim of his glass, in time to the music.

Hamin sighed. 'Well, I have to tell you, Jernau Gurgeh, that we are worried.' He pulled on the pipe again, studied the glowing bowl. 'Worried about the effect your getting any further in the game would have on the morale of our people. So many of them are just simple folk; it is our duty to shield them from the harsh realities, sometimes. And what harsher reality can there be than the realisation that most of one's kin are gullible, cruel and foolish? They would not understand that a stranger, an alien, can come here and do so well at the holy game. We here — those of us in the court and the colleges — might not be so concerned, but we have to keep the ordinary, decent… I would even go as far as to say innocent people in mind, Mr Gurgeh, and what we have to do in that respect, what we sometimes have to take responsibility for, does not always make us happy. But we know our duty, and we will do it; for them, and for our Emperor.'

Hamin leant forward again. 'We don't intend to kill you, Mr Gurgeh, though I'm told there are factions in the court who'd like nothing better, and — they say — people in the security services easily capable of doing so. No; nothing so gross. But…' The old apex sucked on the thin pipe, producing a gentle papping noise. Gurgeh waited.

Hamin pointed the stem at him again. 'I have to tell you, Gurgeh, that no matter how you do in the first game on Echronedal, it will be announced that you have been defeated. We have unequivocal control of the communications — and news-services on the Fire Planet, and as far as the press and the public will be concerned, you will be knocked out in the first round there. We will do whatever has to be done to make it appear that that is exactly what has in fact happened. You are free to tell people I've told you this, and free to claim whatever you want after the event; you will be ridiculed, though, and what I have described will happen anyway. The truth has already been decided.'

Olos's turn: 'So, you see, Gurgeh; you may go to Echronedal, but to certain defeat; absolutely certain defeat. Go as a high-class tourist if you want, or stay here and enjoy yourself as our guest; but there is no longer any point in playing.'

'Hmm,' Gurgeh said. The dancers were slowly losing their clothes as they stripped each other. Some of them, still dancing, were at the same time contriving to stroke and touch each other in an exaggeratedly sexual way. Gurgeh nodded. 'I'll think about it.' Then he smiled at the two apices. 'I'd like to see your Fire Planet, all the same.'

He drank from the cool glass, and watched the slow build-up of erotic choreography behind the musicians. 'Other than that, though… I can't imagine I'll be trying too terribly hard.'

Hamin was studying his pipe. Olos looked very serious.

Gurgeh held out his hands in a gesture of resigned helplessness. 'What more can I say?'

'Would you be prepared to… cooperate, though?' Olos said.

Gurgeh looked inquisitive. Olos reached slowly over and tapped the rim of Gurgeh's glass. 'Something that would… ring true,' he said softly.

Gurgeh watched the two apices exchange glances. He waited for them to make their play.

'Documentary evidence,' Hamin said after a moment, talking to his pipe. 'Film of you looking worried over a bad board-position. Maybe even an interview. We could arrange these things without your cooperation, naturally, but it would be easier, less fraught for all concerned, with your aid.' The old apex sucked on his pipe. Olos drank, glancing at the romantic antics of the dance troupe.

Gurgeh looked surprised. 'You mean, lie? Participate in the construction of your false reality?'

'Our real reality, Gurgeh,' Olos said quietly. 'The official version; the one that will have documentary evidence to support it… the one that will be believed.'

Gurgeh grinned broadly. 'I'd be delighted to help. Of course; I shall regard it as a challenge to produce a definitively abject interview for popular consumption. I'll even help you work out positions so awful even I can't get out of them.' He raised his glass to them. 'After all; it's the game that matters, is it not?'

Hamin snorted, his shoulders shook. He sucked on the pipe again and through a veil of smoke said, 'No true game-player could say more.' He patted Gurgeh on the shoulder. 'Mr Gurgeh, even if you choose not to avail yourself of the facilities my house has to offer, I hope you'll stay with us for a while. I should enjoy talking with you. Will you stay?'

'Why not?' Gurgeh said, and he and Hamin raised their glasses to each other; Olos sat back, laughing silently. Together the three turned to watch the dancers, who had now formed a copulatorily complicated pattern of bodies in a carnal jigsaw, still keeping, Gurgeh was impressed to note, to the beat of the music.

He stayed at the house for the next fifteen days. He talked, guardedly, with the old rector during that time. He still felt they didn't really know each other when he left, but perhaps they knew a little more of each other's societies.

Hamin obviously found it hard to believe the Culture really did do without money. 'But what if I do want something unreasonable?'

'What?'

'My own planet?' Hamin wheezed with laughter.

'How can you own a planet?' Gurgeh shook his head.

'But supposing I wanted one?'

'I suppose if you found an unoccupied one you could land without anybody becoming annoyed… perhaps that would work. But how would you stop other people landing there too?'

'Could I not buy a fleet of warships?'

'All our ships are sentient. You could certainly try telling a ship what to do… but I don't think you'd get very far.'

'Your ships think they're sentient!' Hamin chuckled.

'A common delusion shared by some of our human citizens.'

Hamin found the Culture's sexual mores even more fascinating. He was at once delighted and outraged that the Culture regarded homosexuality, incest, sex-changing, hermaphrodicy and sexual characteristic alteration as just something else people did, like going on a cruise or changing their hair-style.

Hamin thought this must take all the fun out of things. Didn't the Culture forbid anything?

Gurgeh attempted to explain there were no written laws, but almost no crime anyway. There was the occasional crime of passion (as Hamin chose to call it), but little else. It was difficult to get away with anything anyway, when everybody had a terminal, but there were very few motives left, too.

'But if someone kills somebody else?'

Gurgeh shrugged. 'They're slap-droned.'

'Ah! This sounds more like it. What does this drone do?'

'Follows you around and makes sure you never do it again.'

'Is that all?'

'What more do you want? Social death, Hamin; you don't get invited to too many parties.'

'Ah; but in your Culture, can't you gatecrash?'

'I suppose so,' Gurgeh conceded. 'But nobody'd talk to you.'

As for what Hamin told Gurgeh about the Empire, it only made him appreciate what Shohobohaum Za had said; that it was a gem, however vicious and indiscriminate its cutting edges might be. It was not so difficult to understand the warped view the Azadians had of what they called 'human nature' — the phrase they used