The Player of Games (21 page)

The acts went on; sex acts, mostly. Acts which, outside the Hole, Gurgeh was told by Za and two of the Azadian females (Inclate and At-sen, sitting on either side of him), would mean death for both participants; death by radiation or death by chemicals. Gurgeh didn't pay too much attention. This was his night out and the staged obscenities were the least important part of it. He was away from the game; that was what mattered. Living by another set of rules. He knew why Za had had the women come to the table, and it amused him. He felt no particular desire for the two exquisite creatures he sat between - certainly nothing uncontrollable - but they made good company. Za was no fool, and the two charming females Gurgeh knew they would have been males, or even apices had Za discovered Gurgeh's preferences lay in that direction - were both intelligent and witty. They knew a little about the Culture, had heard rumours about the sexual alterations Culture people possessed, and made discreetly roguish jokes about Gurgeh's proclivities and abilities compared to their own, and to both the other Azadian genders. They were flattering, enticing and friendly; they drank from small glasses, they sipped smoke from tiny, slender pipes - Gurgeh had tried a pipe too, but only coughed, much to everyone's amusement - and they both had long, sinuously curling blue-black hair, silkily membraned with near-invisibly fine platinum nets and beaded with minute, glinting AG studs, which made their hair move in slow motion and gave each graceful movement of their delicately structured heads a dizzyingly unreal quality. Inclate's slim dress was the ever-shifting colour of oil on water, speckled with jewels which twinkled like stars; At-sen's was a videodress, glowing fuzzy red with its own concealed power. A choker round her neck acted as a small television monitor, displaying a hazy, distorted image of the view around her - Gurgeh to one side, the stage behind, one of Za's ladies on the other side, the other directly across the table. Gurgeh showed her the Orbital bracelet, but she was not especially impressed. Za, on the other side of the table, was playing small games of forfeit with his two giggling ladies, handling tiny, almost transparent slice jewel-cards and laughing a lot. One of the ladies noted the forfeits down in a little notebook, with much giggling and feigned embarrassment. 'But Jernow!' At-sen said, from Gurgeh's left. 'You must have a scar-portrait! So that we may remember you when you have gone back to the Culture and its decadent, many-orificed ladies!' Inclate, on his right, giggled. 'Certainly not,' Gurgeh said, mock-serious. 'It sounds quite barbaric.' 'Oh yes, yes, it is!' At-sen and Inclate laughed into their glasses. At-sen pulled herself together, put her hand on his wrist. 'Wouldn't you like to think there was some poor person walking around on Eä with your face on their skin?' 'Yes, but on which bit?' Gurgeh asked. They thought this hilariously funny. Za stood; one of his ladies packed the tiny slivers of the game-cards away in a little chain purse. 'Gurgeh,' Za said, knocking back the last of his drink. 'We're off for a more private chat; you three too?' Za grinned wickedly at Inclate and At-sen, producing gales of laughter and small shrieks. At-sen dipped her fingers in her drink and flicked some liquor at Za, who dodged. 'Yes, come, Jernow,' Inclate said, taking hold of Gurgeh's arm with both hands. 'Let's all go; the air is so stuffy here, and the noise so loud.' Gurgeh smiled, shook his head. 'No; I'd only disappoint you.' 'Oh no! No!' Slim fingers tugged at his sleeves, curled round his arms. The politely mocking argument went on for some minutes, while Za stood, grinning, ladies draped on either side, looking on, and Inclate and At-sen tried their hardest either to physically lift Gurgeh to his feet, or, by pouting protestations, persuade him to move. All failed. Za shrugged - his ladies imitated the alien gesture, before dissolving into laughter - and said, 'Okay; just stay there, all right, game-player?' Za looked at Inclate and At-sen, who were temporarily subdued and petulant. 'You two look after him, right?' Za told them. 'Don't let him talk to any strangers.' At-sen sniffed imperiously. 'Your friend declines all; strange or familiar.' Inclate snorted despite herself. 'Or both in one,' she blurted. Whereupon she and At-sen started laughing again and reaching behind Gurgeh to slap and pinch each other's shoulders. Za shook his head. 'Jemau; try and control those two as well as you control yourself.' Gurgeh ducked a few flicked drops of drink while the females squealed on either side of him. 'I'll try,' he told Za. 'Well,' Za said, 'I'll try not to be too long. Sure you won't join in? Could be quite an experience.' 'I'm sure. But I'm fine here.' 'Okay. Don't wander. See you soon.' Za grinned at the giggling girls on either side of him, and then they turned together, walked away. 'Ish!' Za shouted back over his shoulder. 'Soon-
ish
, game-player!' Gurgeh waved goodbye. Inclate and At-sen quietened fractionally and set about telling him what a naughty boy he was for not being more naughty. Gurgeh ordered more drinks and pipes to keep them quiet. They showed him how to play the game of elements, chanting, 'Blade cuts cloth, cloth wraps stone, stone dams water, water quenches fire, fire melts blade…' like serious schoolgirls, and showing him the appropriate hand-shapes, so that he could learn. It was a truncated, two-dimensional version of the elemental die-matching from the Board of Becoming, minus Air and Life. Gurgeh found it amusing that even in the Hole he could not escape the influence of Azad. He played the simple game because the ladies wanted to, and he took care not to win too many hands… something, he realised, he had never done before in his life. Still puzzling over this anomaly, he went to the toilets, of which there were four different types. He used the Aliens, but took some time to find the right piece of equipment. He was still chortling over this when he came out, to find Inclate standing outside the sphincter-like doorway. She looked worried; the oil-film dress rippled dully. 'What's wrong?' he asked her. 'At-sen,' she said, kneading her little hands together. 'Her ex-master came; took her away. He wants to have her again or it will be a tenth-year since they are one, and she will be free.' She looked up at Gurgeh, small face contorted, distressed. The blue-black hair washed round her face like a slow and fluid shadow. 'I know Sho-Za said you must not move, but will you? This is not your concern, but she's my friend…' 'What can I do?' Gurgeh said. 'Come; we two may distract him. I think I know where he's taken her. I shall not endanger you, Jernow.' She took his hand. They half walked, half ran down twisting wooden corridors) past many rooms and doors. He was lost in a maze of sensation; a welter of sounds (music, laughter, screams), sights (servants, erotic pictures, glimpsed galleries of packed, swaying bodies) and smells (food, perfume, alien sweats). Suddenly, Inclate stopped. They were in a deep, bowled room like a theatre, where a naked human male stood on stage, turning slowly, this way and that, in front of a giant screen showing a close-up of his skin. Deep, booming music played. Inclate stood looking round the packed auditorium, still holding Gurgeh's hand. Gurgeh glanced at the man on stage. The lights were bright, sunlight spectraed. The slightly plump, pale-skinned male had several enormous, multi-coloured bruises - like huge prints - on his body. Those on his back and chest were largest, and showed Azadian faces. The mixture of blacks, blues, purples, greens, yellows and reds combined to form portraits of uncanny accuracy and subtlety, which the flexings of the man's muscles seemed to make live, exactly as though those faces took on new expressions with each moment. Gurgeh looked, and felt his breath draw in. 'There!' Inclate shouted over the pulsing music, and tugged at his hand. They set off through the crowding people, towards where At-sen stood, near the front of the stage. She was being held by an apex who was pointing at the man on the stage and shouting at her, shaking her. At-sen's head was down, her shoulders quivered as if she was crying. The video-dress was turned off; it hung on her, grey and drab and lifeless. The apex hit At-sen across the head (the slow black hair twisted languidly), and shouted at her again. She fell to her knees; the beaded hair followed her as if she was sinking slowly under water. Nobody around the couple took any notice. Inclate strode towards them, pulling Gurgeh after her. The apex saw them coming, tried to drag At-sen away. Inclate started to shout at the apex; she held up Gurgeh's hand as they pushed people aside, drew closer. The apex looked suddenly fearful; he stumbled away, dragging At-sen with him to an exit beneath the raised stage. Inclate started forward, but her way was blocked by a cluster of large Azadian males, standing staring open-mouthed at the man on the stage. Inclate beat at their backs with her fists. Gurgeh watched At-sen disappear, dragged through the door beneath the stage. He pulled Inclate to one side and used his greater mass and strength to force a way between two of the protesting males; he and the girl ran to the swinging door. The corridor curved sharply. They followed the sounds of screams, down some narrow stairs, over a step where the broken monitor-collar lay, snapped and dead, down to a quiet corridor where the light was jade and there were many doors. At-sen was lying on the floor, the apex above her, screaming at her. He saw Gurgeh and Inclate, shook his fist at them. Inclate screamed incoherently at him. Gurgeh started forward; the apex took a gun from a pocket. Gurgeh stopped. Inclate went quiet. At-sen whimpered on the floor. The apex started talking, far too fast for Gurgeh to follow; he pointed at the woman on the floor, then gestured at the ceiling. He began to cry, and the gun shook in his hand (and part of Gurgeh, sitting back calmly analysing, thought,
Am I frightened? Is this fear yet? I'm looking death in the face, staring at it through that little black hole, the little twisted tunnel in this alien's hand (like another element the hand can show
),
and I'm waiting to feel fear.
…
and it hasn't happened yet. I'm still waiting. Does this mean that I shan't die now, or that I shall
?
Life or death in a finger's twitch, a single nerve-pulse, just one perhaps not fully willed decision by some jealous irrelevant one-credit sick-head, a hundred millennia from home
…). The apex backed away, gesturing imploringly, pathetically to At-sen, and at Gurgeh and Inclate. He came forward and kicked At-sen, once, in the back, with no great force, making her cry out, then turned and ran, shouting incoherently and throwing the gun down to the floor. Gurgeh ran after him, vaulting over At-sen. The apex disappeared down a dark spiral staircase at the far end of the curved passage. Gurgeh started to follow, then stopped. The sound of clattering footsteps died away. He went back to the jade-lit corridor. A door was open; soft citrine light spilled out. There was a short hall, a bathroom off, then the room. It was small, and mirrored everywhere; even the soft floor rippled with unsteady reflections the colour of honey. He walked in, at the centre of a vanishing army of reflected Gurgehs. At-sen sat on a translucent bed, forlorn in her wrecked grey dress, head down and sobbing while Inclate, kneeling by her, arm round the crying woman's shoulders, whispered gently. Their images proliferated about the shining walls of the room. He hesitated, glanced back at the door. At-sen looked up at him, tears streaming. 'Oh, Jernow!' She held out one shaking hand. He squatted by the bedside, his arm round her as she quivered, while both women cried. He stroked At-sen's back. She put her head on his shoulder, and her lips were warm and strange on his neck; Inclate left the bed, padded to the door and closed it, then joined the man and the woman, dropping the oil-film dress to the mirror-floor in a glistening pool of iridescence.
Shohobohaum Za arrived a minute later, kicking the door in, walking smartly into the middle of the mirrored room (so that an infinitude of Zas repeated and repeated their way across that cheating space), and glared round, ignoring the three people on the bed. Inclate and At-sen froze, hands at Gurgeh's clothing-ties and buttons. Gurgeh was momentarily shocked, then tried to assume an urbane expression. Za looked at the wall behind Gurgeh, who followed his gaze; he found himself looking at his own reflection; face dark, hair mussed, clothes half undone. Za leapt across the bed, kicking into the image. The wall shattered in a chorus of screams; the mirror-glass cascaded to reveal a dark and shallow room behind, and a small machine on a tripod, pointing into the mirror-room. Inclate and At-sen sprang off the bed and raced out; Inclate grabbed her dress on the way. Za took the tiny camera off its tripod and looked at it. 'Record only, thank goodness; no transmitter.' He stuffed the machine into a pocket, then turned and grinned at Gurgeh. 'Put it back in the holster, game-player. We got to run!'

They ran. Down the jade passage towards the same spiral steps At-sen's abductor had taken. Za stooped as he ran, scooping up the gun the apex had dropped and Gurgeh had forgotten about. It was inspected, tried and discarded within a couple of seconds. They got to the spiral steps and leapt up them. Another corridor, darkly russet. Music boomed above. Za skidded to a stop as two large apices ran towards them. 'Oops,' Za said, doing an about-turn. He shoved Gurgeh back to the stairs and they ran up again, coming out in a dark space full of the beating, pulsing music; light blazed to one side. Footsteps hammered up the stairs. Za turned and kicked down into the stairwell with one foot, producing an explosive yelp and a sudden clatter. A thin blue beam freckled the darkness, lancing from the stairwell and bursting yellow flame and orange sparks somewhere overhead. Za dodged away. 'Fucking artillery indeed.' He nodded past Gurgeh towards the light. 'Exit stage centre, maestro.' They ran out on to the stage, flooded with sunlight brilliance. A bulky male in the centre of the stage turned resentfully as they thundered out from the wings; the audience yelled abuse. Then the expression on the near-naked bruise artiste's face switched from vexation to stunned surprise. Gurgeh almost fell; he did stop, dead still. … to gaze, again, at his own face. It was printed, twice life-size, in a bloody rainbow of contusions, on the torso of the dumbstruck performer. Gurgeh stared, expression mirroring the amazement on the tubby artiste's face. 'No time for art now, Jernau.' Za pulled him away, dragged him to the front of the stage and threw him off. He dived after him. They landed on top of a group of protesting Azadian males, tumbling them to the ground. Za hauled Gurgeh to his feet, then nearly fell again as a blow struck the back of his head. He turned and lashed out with one foot, fending off another punch with one arm. Gurgeh felt himself twirled round; he found himself facing a large, angry male with blood on his face. The man drew his arm back, made a fist of his hand (so that Gurgeh thought;
stone!
from the game of elements). The man seemed to move very slowly. Gurgeh had time to think what to do. He brought his knee up into the male's groin and heel-palmed his face. He shook the falling man's grip free, ducked a blow from another male, and saw Za elbow yet another Azadian in the face. Then they were sprinting away again. Za roared and waved his hands as he ran for an exit. Gurgeh fought a strange urge to laugh at this, but the tactic seemed to work; people parted for them like water round the bows of a boat.
They sat in a small, open-ceilinged bar, deep in the maze-like clutter of the main gallery, under a solid sky of chalky pearl. Shohobohaum Za was dismantling the camera he'd discovered behind the false mirror, teasing its delicate components apart with a humming, toothpick-size instrument. Gurgeh dabbed at a graze on his cheek, incurred when Za had thrown him from the stage. 'Na, my fault, game-player. I should have known. Inclate's brother's in Security, and At-sen's got an expensive habit. Nice kids, but a bad combination, and not exactly what I asked for. Damn lucky for your ass one of my sweeties dropped a slice-jewel-card and wouldn't play anything else without it. Ah well; half a fuck's better than none at all.' He prised another piece out of the camera body; there was a crackle and a little flash. Za poked dubiously at the smoking casing. 'How did you know where to find us?' Gurgeh asked. He felt like a fool, but less embarrassed than he'd have expected. 'Knowledge, guesswork and luck, game-player. There are places in that club you go when you want to roll somebody, other places where you can question them, or kill them, or hook them on something… or take their picture. I was just hoping it was lights-action time and not something worse.' He shook his head, peered at the camera. 'I should have known though. Ought to have guessed. Getting too damn trusting.' Gurgeh shrugged, sipped at his hot liquor and studied the guttering candle on the counter in front of them. 'I was the one who was suckered. But who?' He looked at Za. 'Why?' 'The state, Gurgeh,' Za said, prodding at the camera again. 'Because they want to have something on you, just in case.' 'Just in case what?' 'Just in case you keep surprising them and winning games. It's insurance. You heard of that? No? Never mind. It's like gambling in reverse.' Za held the camera with one hand, straining at part of it with the thin instrument. A hatch popped open. Za looked happy, and extracted a coin-sized disk from the guts of the machine. He held it up to the light, where it glinted nacreously. 'Your holiday snaps,' Za told Gurgeh. He adjusted something at the end of the toothpick, so that the little disk stuck to the instrument's point as though glued there, then held the tiny polychromatic coin over the candle flame until it sizzled and smoked and hissed, and finally fell in dull flakes on to the wax. 'Sorry you couldn't have that as a souvenir,' Za said. Gurgeh shook his head. 'Something I'd rather forget.' 'Ah, never mind. I'll get those two bitches though,' Za grinned. 'They owe me one for free. Several, in fact.' Za looked happy at the thought. 'Is that all?' Gurgeh asked. 'Hey; they were just playing their parts. No malice involved. Worth a spanking at most.' Za waggled his eyebrows lasciviously. Gurgeh sighed.
When they went back to the transit gallery to order their car, Za waved at some bulky, severely casual males and apices waiting in the lime-lit tunnel, and tossed one of them what was left of the camera. The apex caught it, and turned away along with the others. The car arrived minutes later.
'And what time do you call this? Do you know how long I've been waiting for you? You've got a game to play tomorrow, you know. Just
look
at the state of your clothes! And
where
did you pick up that graze? What have you-' 'Machine.' Gurgeh yawned, throwing his jacket down on to a seat in the lounge. 'Go fuck yourself.'
The following morning, Flere-Imsaho wasn't talking to him. It joined him in the module lounge just as the call came through that Pequil had arrived with the car, but when Gurgeh said hello, it ignored him, and travelled down in the hotel elevator studiously humming and crackling even louder than usual. It was similarly uncommunicative in the car. Gurgeh decided he could live with this. 'Gurgee, you have hurt yourself.' Pequil looked with concern at the graze over Gurgeh's cheek. 'Yes,' Gurgeh smiled, stroking his beard. 'I cut myself shaving.'
It was attrition time on the Board of Form. Gurgeh was up against the other nine players from the start, until it became too obvious that was what was happening. He'd used the advantage accrued on the previous board to set up a small, dense and almost impregnable enclave; he just sat in there for two days, letting the others beat up against it. Done properly, this would have broken him, but his opponents were trying not to look too concerted in their actions, so attacked a few at a time. They were anyway each fearful of weakening themselves over-much in case they were pounced upon by the others. By the end of those two days, a couple of the news-agencies were saying it was unfair and discourteous to the stranger to gang up on him. Flere-Imsaho - over its huff by then and talking to him again - reckoned this reaction might be genuine and unprompted, but was more likely to be the result of imperial pressure. Certainly it thought the Church - which had doubtless been instructing the priest as well as financing the deals he'd been making with the other players - had been leant on by the Imperial Office. Whatever, on the third day the massed attacks against Gurgeh fell away and the game resumed a more normal course. The game-hall was crowded with people. There were many more paying spectators, numerous invited guests had changed venue to come and see the alien play, and the press-agencies had sent extra reporters and cameras. The club players, under the stewardship of the Adjudicator, succeeded in keeping the crowd quiet, so Gurgeh didn't find the extra people caused any great distraction during the game. It was difficult to move around the hall during the breaks though; people were constantly accosting him, asking him questions, or just wanting to look at him. Pequil was there most of the time, but seemed more taken up with going in front of the cameras himself than shielding Gurgeh from all the people wanting to talk to him. At least he helped to divert the attentions of the news-people and let Gurgeh concentrate on the game. Over the next couple of days, Gurgeh noticed a subtle change in the way the priest was playing, and, to a lesser degree, in the game-style of another two players. Gurgeh had taken three players right out of the game; another three had been taken by the priest, without much of a fight. The remaining two apices had established their own small enclaves on the board and were taking comparatively little part in the wider game. Gurgeh was playing well, if not at quite the pitch he had when he'd won on the Board of Origin. He ought to be defeating the priest and the other two fairly easily. He was, indeed, gradually prevailing, but very slowly. The priest was playing better than he had before, especially at the beginning of each session, which made Gurgeh think that the apex was getting some high-grade help during the breaks. The same applied to the other two players, though they were presumably being less extensively briefed. When the end came, though, on the fifth day of the game, it was sudden, and the priest's play simply collapsed. The other two players resigned. More adulation followed, and the news-agencies began to run editorials worrying that somebody from Outside could do so well. Some of the more sensational releases even carried stories that the alien from the Culture was using some sort of supernatural sense or illegal technical device. They'd found out Flere-Imsaho's name and mentioned it as the possible source of Gurgeh's illicit skill. 'They're calling me a
computer
,' the drone wailed. 'And they're calling me a cheat,' Gurgeh said, thoughtfully. 'Life is cruel, as they keep saying here.'
'Here
they are correct.'
The last game, on the Board of Becoming, the one Gurgeh felt most at home on, was a romp. The priest had filed a special objective plan with the Adjudicator before the game commenced, something he was entitled to do as the player with the second largest number of points. He was effectively playing for second place; although he would be out of the Main Series, he would have a chance to re-enter it if he won his next two games in the second series. Gurgeh suspected this was a ruse, and played very cautiously at first, waiting for either the mass attack or some cunning individual set-piece. But the others seemed to be playing almost aimlessly, and even the priest seemed to be making the sort of slightly mechanical moves he'd been making in the first game. When Gurgeh made a few light, exploratory attacks, he found little opposition. He divided his forces in half and went on a full-scale raid into the territory of the priest, just for the sheer hell of it. The priest panicked and hardly made one good move after that; by the end of the session he was in danger of being wiped out. After the break Gurgeh was attacked by all the others, while the priest struggled, pinned against one edge of the board. Gurgeh took the hint. He gave the priest room to manoeuvre and let him attack two of the weaker players to regain his position on the board. The game finished with Gurgeh established over most of the board and the others either eradicated or confined to small, strategically irrelevant areas. Gurgeh had no particular interest in fighting the game out to the bitter end, and anyway guessed that if he tried to do so the others would form a united opposition, no matter how obvious it was they were working together; Gurgeh was being offered victory, but he would suffer if he tried to be greedy, or vindictive. The status quo was agreed; the game ended. The priest came second on points, just. Pequil congratulated him again, outside the hall. He'd reached the second round of the Main Series; he was one of only twelve hundred First Winners and twice that number of Qualifiers. He would now play against one person in the second round. Again, the apex begged Gurgeh to give a news-conference, and again Gurgeh refused. 'But you must! What are you trying to do? If you don't say something soon you'll turn them against you; this enigmatic stuff won't do for ever you know. You're the underdog at the moment; don't lose that!' 'Pequil,' Gurgeh said, fully aware he was insulting the apex by addressing him so, 'I have no intention of speaking to anybody about my game, and what they choose to say or think about me is irrelevant. I am here to play the game and nothing else.' 'You are our guest,' Pequil said coldly. 'And you are my hosts.' Gurgeh turned and walked away from the official, and the ride back in the car was completed in silence, save for Flere-Imsaho's humming, which occasionally sounded to Gurgeh as if it barely concealed a chuckling laugh.
'Now the trouble starts.' 'Why do you say that, ship?' It was night. The rear doors of the module lay open. Gurgeh could hear the distant buzz of the police hoverplane stationed over the hotel to keep news-agency craft away; the smell of the city, warm and spicy and smoky, drifted in too. Gurgeh was studying a set-piece problem in a single game, and taking notes. This seemed to be the best way of talking to the
Limiting Factor
with the time-delay; talk, then switch off and consider the problem while the HS light flashed to and fro; then, when the reply came, switch back to speech mode; it was almost like having a real conversation. 'Because now you have to show your moral cards. It's the single game, so you have to define your first principles, register your philosophical premises. Therefore you'll have to give them some of the things you believe in. I believe this could prove troublesome.' 'Ship,' Gurgeh said, writing some notes on a scratch tablet as he studied the holo in front of him, 'I'm not sure I have any beliefs.' 'I think you do, Jernau Gurgeh, and the Imperial Game Bureau will want to know what they are, for the record; I'm afraid you'll have to think of something.' 'Why should I? What does it matter? I can't win any posts or ranks, I'm not going to gain any power out of this, so what difference does it make what I believe in? I know they need to find out what people in power think, but I just want to play the game.' 'Yes, but they will need to know for their statistics. Your views may not matter a jot in terms of the elective properties of the game, but they do need to keep a record of what sort of player wins what sort of match… besides which, they will be interested in what sort of extremist politics you give credence to.' Gurgeh looked at the screen camera. 'Extremist politics? What are you talking about?' 'Jernau Gurgeh,' the machine said, making a sighing noise, 'a guilty system recognises no innocents. As with any power apparatus which thinks everybody's either for it or against it, we're against it. You would be too, if you thought about it. The very way you think places you amongst its enemies. This might not be your fault, because every society imposes some of its values on those raised within it, but the point is that some societies try to maximise that effect, and some try to minimise it. You come from one of the latter and you're being asked to explain yourself to one of the former. Prevarication will be more difficult than you might imagine; neutrality is probably impossible. You cannot choose not to have the politics you do; they are not some separate set of entities somehow detachable from the rest of your being; they are a function of your existence. I know that and they know that; you had better accept it.' Gurgeh thought about this. 'Can I lie?' 'I shall take it you mean, would you be advised to register false premises, rather than, are you capable of telling untruths.' (Gurgeh shook his head.) 'This would probably be the wisest course. Though you may find it difficult to come up with something acceptable to them which you didn't find morally repugnant yourself.' Gurgeh looked back to the holo display. 'Oh, you'd be surprised,' he muttered. 'Anyway, if I'm lying about it, how can I find it repugnant?' 'An interesting point; if one assumes that one is not morally opposed to lying in the first place, especially when it is largely or significantly what we term self-interested rather than disinterested or compassionate lying, then-' Gurgeh stopped listening and studied the holo. He really must look up some of his opponent's previous games, once he knew who it would be. He heard the ship stop talking. 'Tell you what, ship,' he said. 'Why don't you think about it? You seem more engrossed in the whole idea than I do, and I'm busy enough anyway, so why don't you work out a compromise between truth and expediency we'll all be happy with, hmm? I'll agree to whatever you suggest, probably.' 'Very well, Jernau Gurgeh. I'll be happy to do that.' Gurgeh bade the ship goodnight. He completed his study of the single-game problem, then switched the screen off. He stood and stretched, yawning. He strolled out of the module, into the orange-brown darkness of the hotel roof-garden. He almost bumped into a large, uniformed male. The guard saluted - a gesture Gurgeh never did know bow to reply to - and handed him a piece of paper. Gurgeh took it and thanked him; the guard went back to his station at the top of the roof-stairs. Gurgeh walked back into the module, trying to read the note. 'Flere-Imsaho?' he called, uncertain whether the little machine was still around or not. It came floating through from another part of the module in its undisguised, quiet form, carrying a large, richly illustrated book on the avian fauna of Eä. 'Yes?' 'What does this say?' Gurgeh flourished the note. The drone floated up to the piece of paper. 'Minus the imperial embroidery, it says they'd like you to go to the palace tomorrow so they can add their congratulations. What it means is, they want to take a look at you.' 'I suppose I have to go?' 'I would say so.' 'Does it mention you?' 'No, but I'll come along anyway; they can only throw me out. What were you talking to the ship about?' 'It's going to register my Premises for me. It was also giving me a lecture on sociological conditioning.' 'It means well,' said the drone. 'It just doesn't want to leave such a delicate task to someone like you.' 'Just going out, were you, drone?' Gurgeh said, switching on the screen again and sitting down to watch it. He brought up the game-player's channel on the imperial waveband and flicked through to the draw for the single games in the second round. Still no decision; the draw was still being decided; expected any minute. 'Well,' Flere-Imsaho said, 'There