The Player of Games

kilolights and swerved twenty years… just for a five-minute chat with you, it would seem. That is serious energy usage… especially as it's accelerating away just as fast. Look at that kid go… oh, sorry; you can't. Well, take it from us; we're impressed. Care to tell a humble Hub Mind subsection what it was all about?'

'Any chance of contacting the ship?' Gurgeh said, ignoring the question.

'Dragging away like that? Business end pointed straight back at a mere civilian machine like ourselves…?' The Hub Mind sounded amused. 'Yeah… we suppose so.'

'I want a drone on it called Loash Armasco-Iap Wu-Handrahen Xato Koum.'

'Holy shit, Gurgeh, what are you tangling with here? Handrahen? Xato? That's equiv-tech espionage-level SC nomenclature. Heavy messing…. Shit…. We'll try…. Just a moment.'

Gurgeh waited in silence for a few seconds.

'Nothing,' the voice from the terminal said. 'Gurgeh, this is Hub Entire speaking here; not a subsection; all of me. That ship's acknowledging but it's claiming there is no drone of that name or anything like it aboard.'

Gurgeh slumped back in the seat. His neck was stiff. He looked down from the stars, down at the table. 'You don't say,' he said. 'Shall I try again?'

'Think it'll do any good?'

'No.'

'Then don't.'

'Gurgeh. This disturbs me. What is going on?'

'I wish,' Gurgeh said, 'I knew.' He looked up at the stars again. The little drone's ghostly vapour-trail had almost disappeared. 'Get me Chamlis Amalk-ney, will you?'

'On line … Jernau?'

'What, Hub?'

'Be careful.'

'Oh. Thanks. Thanks a lot.'

'You must have annoyed it,' Chamlis said through the terminal.

'Very likely,' Gurgeh said. 'But what do you think?'

'They were sizing you up for something.'

'You think so?'

'Yes. But you just refused the deal.'

'Did I?'

'Yes, and think yourself lucky you did, too.'

'What do you mean? This was your idea.'

'Look, you're out of it. It's over. But obviously my request went further and quicker than I thought it would. We triggered something. But you've put them off. They aren't interested any more.'

'Hmm. I suppose you're right.'

'Gurgeh; I'm sorry.'

'Never mind,' Gurgeh told the old machine. He looked up at the stars. 'Hub?'

'Hey; we're interested. If it had been purely personal we wouldn't have listened to a word, we swear, and besides, it'd be notified on your daily communication statement we were listening.'

'Never mind all that.' Gurgeh smiled, oddly relieved the Orbital's Mind had been eavesdropping. 'Just tell me how far away that ROU is.'

'On the word «is», it was a minute and forty-nine seconds away; a light month distant, already clear of the system, and well out of our jurisdiction, we're very glad to say. Hightailing it in a direction a little up-spin of Galactic Core. Looks like it's heading for the GSV Unfortunate Conflict Of Evidence, unless one of them's trying to fool somebody.'

'Thank you, Hub. Goodnight.'

'To you too. And you're on your own this time, we promise.'

'Thank you, Hub. Chamlis?'

'You might just have missed the chance of a lifetime, Gurgeh… but it was more likely a narrow escape. I'm sorry for suggesting Contact. They came too fast and too hard to be casual.'

'Don't worry so much, Chamlis,' he told the drone. He looked back at the stars again, and sat back, swinging his foot up on to the table. 'I handled it. We managed. Will I see you at Tronze tomorrow?'

'Maybe. I don't know. I'll think about it. Good luck — I mean against this wonderchild, at Stricken — if I don't see you tomorrow.'

He grinned ruefully into the darkness. 'Thanks. Goodnight, Chamlis.'

'Goodnight, Gurgeh.'

The train emerged from the tunnel into bright sunlight. It banked round the remainder of the curve, then set out across the slender bridge. Gurgeh looked over the handrail and saw the lush green pastures and brightly winding river half a kilometre below on the valley floor. Shadows of mountains lay across the narrow meadows; shadows of clouds freckled the tree-covered hills themselves. The wind of the train's slipstream ruffled his hair as he drank in the sweet, scented mountain air and waited for his opponent to return. Birds circled in the distance over the valley, almost level with the bridge. Their cries sounded through the still air, just audible over the windrush sound of the train's passing.

Normally he'd have waited until he was due in Tronze that evening and go there underground, but that morning he'd felt like getting away from Ikroh. He'd put on boots, a pair of conservatively styled pants and a short open jacket, then taken to the hill paths, hiking over the mountain and down the other side.

He'd sat by the side of the old railway line, glanding a mild buzz and amusing himself by chucking little bits of lodestone into the track's magnetic field and watching them bounce out again. He'd thought about Yay's floating islands.

He'd also thought about the mysterious visitation from the Contact drone, on the previous evening, but somehow that just would not come clear; it was as though it had been a dream. He had checked the house communication and systems statement: as far as the house was concerned, there had been no visit; but his conversation with Chiark Hub was logged, timed and witnessed by other subsections of the Hub, and by the Hub Entire for a short while. So it had happened all right.

He'd flagged down the antique train when it appeared, and even as he'd climbed on had been recognised by a middle-aged man called Dreltram, also making his way to Tronze. Mr Dreltram would treasure a defeat at the hands of the great Jernau Gurgeh more than victory over anybody else; would he play? Gurgeh was well used to such flattery — it usually masked an unrealistic but slightly feral ambition — but had suggested they play Possession. It shared enough rule-concepts with Stricken to make it a decent limbering-up exercise. They'd found a Possession set in one of the bars and taken it out on to the roof-deck, sitting behind a windbreak so that the cards wouldn't blow away. They ought to have enough time to complete the game; the train would take most of the day to get to Tronze, a journey an underground car could accomplish in ten minutes.

The train left the bridge and entered a deep, narrow ravine, its slipstream producing an eerie, echoing noise off the natched rocks on either side. Gurgeh looked at the game-board. He was playing straight, without the help of any glanded substances; his opponent was using a potent mixture suggested by Gurgeh himself. In addition, Gurgeh had given Mr Dreltram a seven-piece lead at the start, which was the maximum allowed. The fellow wasn't a bad player, and had come near to overwhelming Gurgeh at the start, when his advantage in pieces had the greatest effect, but Gurgeh had defended well and the man's chance had probably gone, though there was still the possibility he might have a few mines left in awkward places.

Thinking of such unpleasant surprises, Gurgeh realised he hadn't looked at where his own hidden piece was. This had been another, unofficial, way of making the game more even. Possession is played on a forty-square grid; the two players' pieces are distributed in one major group and two minor groups each. Up to three pieces can be hidden on different initially unoccupied intersections. Their locations are dialled — and locked — into three circular cards; thin ceramic wafers which are turned over only when the player wishes to bring those pieces into play. Mr Dreltram had already revealed all three of his hidden pieces (one had happened to be on the intersection Gurgeh had, sportingly, sown all nine of his mines on, which really was bad luck).