War Games (15 page)

I stepped into the liftube and rose up the side of the building. How true that was—needing to talk to other veterans. I had trouble conversing with civilians. We had no common ground. I guess you could never really get away from war—it affected you too deeply, leaving too many demons in your mind. You cherished the rough camaraderie that developed between combrids—the quick anger, the quicker laughter. I looked forward to the afternoons. I was going to miss not coming to the hall. When I became a mindrider, I wouldn’t have time for such diversions.

I reached the top of the liftube and stepped out into a foyer. The hall was divided into several rooms: a café, a lounge, a holo room, a gymnasium, a boudoir for casual liaisons. I chose the lounge, intending to drink my lunch. As I entered it, other veterans looked up from their tables, some nodding to me, some smiling, some inviting me to join them. The invitations I refused. I’d had several brief affairs with other veterans. I suppose I was attractive since I hadn’t been mutilated by my wounds. But I lost interest in sex games. As I became more involved with Jain Maure, other liaisons were almost impossible to maintain. I had no sex partners except her now. My veteran buddies were just good friends. But I wanted to be by myself today. I knew I wouldn’t be coming back. I couldn’t leave cold turkey.

I took a table in a corner and ordered wine. When the barmech returned with my carafe, I sat back in my chair and sipped wine, looking around. A game room opened from the lounge—several of its machines were in use. On another day, I would have played a game or two myself. Today I was content to watch. Laughter came from other tables. Snatches of combrid talk came to me.

As I watched the others, I realized Major Bakr was right: I was not severely enough damaged to qualify for a medical discharge from the Corps. The other veterans in the lounge all had something in common—significant brain damage. They drooled, or staggered, or were deaf, or dumb, or blind, or paralyzed. Each had at least one neurologic deficit. In appearance, they were mostly normal. Cosmetic surgery could do wonders with shattered flesh. Prosthetic parts were available that were better than original equipment. But modern medicine still could not get central-nervous-system tissue to heal. An injury to brain or spinal cord was irreversible. If you were a combrid, it was your ticket out of the Corps. Any other damage could be repaired in Hubbard tanks. But not brain damage. Some ticket out.

Until talking to Major Bakr, I’d assumed my unsteadiness was permanent. He said not. I believed him. So now I had to figure out why I had my medical discharge. I didn’t like the implications at all. I felt uncomfortable knowing I had anonymous friends in high places. Why should anyone want to do me any favors? I’d never taken a tumble with a Lady General.

My brooding was interrupted by someone standing next to my table. I looked up. A combrid stood there, dressed in officer fatigues. He wore a red beret. I didn’t have to see the silver skull on it to know he was from Corps Intelligence. I mean, who ever heard of a combrid officer? He smiled. I didn’t like it one bit. His eyes were the green of old jade. What combrid had those eyes?

“Sergeant Detrs?” he said. It was not really a question.

“Not anymore. Just plain Mr. Detrs will do nicely.”

“Can I join you?” he asked, and sat down anyway.

“Why not?” I loved answering a question with a question. Especially when both were rhetorical. I hoped the spook found it annoying.

He drummed his fingers on the table. His eyes could look in two directions at once. Gave me the creeps.

“Do I know you?” I asked. Not that it mattered. Evidently he knew me.

“I think we’ve met once or twice. My name is Kramr.”” He did not hold out his hand. Just as well. I didn’t want to touch it, anyway. “We have a common acquaintance—Grychn WilIams.”

My blood had chilled when he first said his name, but now it froze solid. I tried to relax. Kramr had nothing on me. I was safe. If I’d deserted from the Corps I would have had his kind after me. But not now. I had a ticket out. He couldn’t touch me as long as Grychn was free. He couldn’t know anything until he questioned her. Then why were my palms sweating?

“As I recall, you were the one who caught her for me. Back when you were Corporal Detrs.” He smiled like a used-gene salesman. A barmech came and Kramr ordered. While he waited for his drink, he trimmed his nails with a clasp knife. All show, of course. He could grow them any length he wanted. “I don’t suppose you know where Grychn is?” he asked finally.

I laughed. “I heard she escaped,” I said, almost snickering. “By now I imagine she’s back with her elf friends.”

He examined the sonic blade of his knife. Blue fire swirled from its edge. “I think not. I think she’s still here, in Chronus. I’m sure she hasn’t made it off the planet. She has no place to go. The elves will think she talked too much before she escaped, or that we let her escape to lead us to them. They won’t take a chance by taking her back.”

“Did she?”

“What?”

“Talk too much?” I tried to keep, my voice even, the tone casual.

“Not nearly enough. Not as much as she will when I get her back. There are several subjects on which she needs to elaborate.” His voice chilled me again. I was glad Grychn was out of his grasp—both for her sake and mine.

The barmech brought his drink—mineral water. He sipped it, peering at me over the top of the glass. “I will catch her again. But my job would be a little easier if somehow I could see into the future.”

My mind had been wandering, but when Kramr said that, bugs started wriggling up my back. I listened closer.

“The Lord Scientists have been working for years to develop a chronotropic crystal. No reason radiacrystal technology shouldn’t be able to manipulate temporal energies. But the best they can come up with is one that will work for a few millisecs. Not enough to be of practical value. Not enough to help us put out all these colonial brushfires.” He suddenly flipped his knife into the air. It tumbled slowly as it came down, then stuck into the table top next to my left hand. My skin tingled with ultrasound. I couldn’t move. I felt numb all over.

Kramr reached over and picked up my hand. “Amazing how flesh can be regenerated,” he said. “How did you lose your hand?” He retrieved his knife from the table.

I shrugged. “In a fight. In my youth.” I didn’t have to tell him. He knew.

He smiled. “That’s right. You were quite a rogue. And a sportsman, as well. I don’t suppose you ever met a sailor named Mikal Gy. He used to do a little gambling. He wore an unusual ring—a platinum setting with a dark blue stone. I wanted that ring. I almost had it twice. Gy’s dead now. So are three of my siblings.”

“No, the name doesn’t sound familiar. Where did he do his gambling?” I almost stammered. I never had known the sailor’s name. But I knew who Kramr meant. And I remembered where I’d heard Kramr’s name before: the sailor had called a croupier that name in a casino. That meant Kramr had been after the ring himself. He knew about me. Or suspected something, anyway. That was just as bad with spooks. But Kramr must not know about Nels and the other timestone. He was on a fishing expedition. Well, he wouldn’t get anything from me. I was discharged. As long as I kept clean, he’d have no excuse to hypno my brain.

Kramr watched me carefully. I tried to look nonchalant. He flipped the knife again. It arced through the air and sunk deep in the table next to my hand, shaving off a thin slice of epidermis.

“If you happen to hear from Grychn, let me know.” He arched his eyebrows. “I think she might have seen the ring I’m looking for. I want to ask her a few more questions about it, anyway.” He laughed, then stood up and left.

I stared at the door for a few minutes, letting my heart slow down. I pulled Kramr’s knife from the table, closed its blade, and put it in my pocket.

He knew something. Certainly more than he’d told me.

I’d half expected him to haul me off for questioning. Maybe he wasn’t sure what part I’d played. I was going to have to be careful from now on. I no longer had the luxury of time. I was going to have to find Nels and get away. The sooner the better.

I gulped my wine.

My furlough was over—it was time to go Underground.

THE UNDERGROUND
of
Chronus was a network of old mine shafts and tunnels in the bedrock beneath the city. Actually bedrock was not the proper term—the matrix was nickel/iron. A million years ago a comet had collided with Titan, fusing its substance with that of the Moon and forming a ten-kilometer lake of molten crust. Before it cooled, volcanic activity had pushed up Mt. Erubus in its center, along with a few smaller hills on the periphery. After the fireworks were over, a ten-kilometer crater with a kilometer-thick floor of nickel/iron was left. That didn’t attract any miners. Nickel/iron was more easily obtained from asteroids. But the heat of the collision and subsequent volcanic eruptions allowed some interesting chemical reactions to occur. The floor of the crater was seamed with veins of radiacrystal seeds. The nickel/iron matrix was porous enough to allow hydrocarbon atmosphere to percolate through, so the seeds could grow into crude radiacrystals. For a hundred years miners had followed these gem veins with their tunnels, until living crystal biotechnology made natural radiacrystals uneconomical. Chronus started out as a mining camp, providing the miners with housing, supplies, and diversions, and continued to grow after the mines had played out. Old Town was all that remained of the original settlement. The old mines had never been capped—they were sealed and pressurized anyway—so they created no problem when Chronus’s dome had been erected. Now the shallower mines housed the city’s utilities and served as storage depots and warehouses. The deeper mines had been put to other uses. Varks never ventured deeper than the first level—they’d been ambushed too many times in the lower regions. Without hindrance from the authorities, business thrived in the Underground.

Jain Maure and I walked toward the portal of the Underground. We were in the middle of Old Town. Her skimmer was parked in a public lot not far away. The portal had once been the main mining shaft and provided access to all levels.

Jain wore a cape of spun gold clasped to jeweled breast cups. A chain-mail skirt was wrapped around her waist. She had on white sandals with satin gaiters wound to below her knees. Copper eyes shone with inner fire. Her tongue was dyed red. When she licked her lips they gleamed as though covered with blood. A diamond vial hung around her neck.

We walked hand in hand, as carefree as young lovers. But I was the only one of us who was young. And our relationship was a bit more complicated than one of lovers.

I wore a formal body stocking. This trip was just to reconnoiter.

Few people were out on the streets. It was still early. Later, throngs would begin the descent to the Underground. Still later, they would stagger back to the surface, filled with real and synthetic euphoria. Or they might not return.

We reached the down portal and stood before it. A hundred-meter-wide shaft dropped straight down. Warm air rose from the shaft, carrying vague scents: mnemone, narcosmin, pheromones.

A vark stood in a glass booth, looking bored. Sometimes he would take pictures of people going down, but varks no longer went themselves. Tonight he just watched.

Jain tugged at my hand. We jumped into the shaft and floated downward, supported in a field of p-grav. I briefly imagined what would happen if the p-grav generators failed—we would fall a kilometer straight down to smash into the bottom of the shaft. I shivered. I always imagined the same scenarios when in a liftube—I couldn’t help it.

Vertical handrails lined the sides of the shaft—we used them to work our way to the other side. Yellow light emanated from the walls. Large chambers opened off the shaft at each separate level—they had been used to store equipment and supplies when miners were still drilling tunnels. Now they served as loitering places for the inhabitants of the Underground.

Voices called to us as we drifted past. The offers were varied: sex, pain, drugs, death. Wares were flashed for our inspection: naked bodies—male, female, hybrid, hermaphroditic; apparatus—whips, chains, shackles, needles, vials, capsules, wires and electricity; fine art—olfactory sculpture, mutable holograms, sonic tapestries, all depicting obscenity. Black-cloaked death-priests meditated with shining daggers. In the tunnels beyond could be found brothels, torture chambers, mnemone dens, peptide parlors, muti-clinics, and temples of the dead. There were a few casinos for ordinary gambling. Slaves could be rented for the evening.

We passed them by, drifting ever deeper. The air became warmer and heavier. Finally we came to the chamber we sought. It was empty of loiterers. Two combrids stood guard. They were out of uniform and their pulsars weren’t standard issue—deserters most likely. They nodded to Jain and let
us pass. The tunnels beyond formed a maze. This deep, the gem veins had been short and convoluted, so the tunnels branched frequently and most of the branches were cul-de-sacs. They weren’t marked. You had to know where you were going. Jain did. She led me down tunnel after tunnel. I soon realized we were doing considerable backtracking—she was trying to get me lost. I smiled to myself. Let her try. Let her play her little game. I still had a combrid’s spatial orientation. Lost troops were dead troops. I could have been blindfolded and still found my way out.

Eventually we went down a tunnel that appeared to be another cul-de-sac. However, a combrid guard stood at the end. The tunnel opened into a chamber. The combrid allowed us passage. The chamber beyond was dimly illuminated. Tiers of seats circled a central dais. Each seat was equipped with a crystal display. A few spectators were already seated. Jain and I sat down in the front row.

Below, “handlers” were preparing their players. Handler was a better word than pimp, though not as descriptive. The players were naked, with shaven heads. They lay on couches, with their heads all pointed toward the center. There, a multifaceted crystal rested on a pedestal. Cables snaked out of the pedestal’s base. At the end of each cable was a standard cerebral helmet. The handlers were fastening the helmets to the heads of their players. Probes went into each ear canal—the bony os allowed precise alignment. Each player had a CNS stud implanted at the bregma of his skull, which completed the alignment triad. That was their only permanent cybernetic hardware. When the helmets were in place, thousands of micro capillary tubes pushed through skin and bone to gently touch cerebral cortex. The tubes were only a few microns in diameter—small enough that blood cells couldn’t even escape through the holes they made. These filaments carried both electricity and neurotransmitters. One by one the handlers completed their work and went to sit in the lowest tier.

Eleven players lay still on their couches. Their bodies were bathed in light flickering from the surface of the central crystal. There were six women and five men. Their bodies had once been good-looking, but now most of them had become haggard with sallow skin and sagging flesh. Their faces were hidden by shadow.

The manager of the mindcasino announced that wagers could be placed and that the game would start in five minutes.

Jain leaned over and whispered in my ear: “Which one do you like?” Her tongue touched my earlobe. “Who shall we bet on?”

“I “don’t know. It doesn’t matter. You’re the handicapper.”

“So I am. That’s why I have you. But this bet is just for fun. Pick the one you like.”

I glanced down. It. really didn’t matter. Tomorrow I would be one of the players. I picked the woman with the best-looking body. That sometimes worked with horses. “Number Five,” I said to Jain.

She laughed after she saw who I had picked. “The body’s not important. It’s all in the mind for the dreamgame. But we’ll try Five.” She pressed her chargering into the console. Numbers flashed across the screen, recording her wager and listing the odds on each player. She leaned back, placing her head on my shoulder.

The dreamgame started. There was not much to see on the dais. Multihued lights swirled within the central crystal. The players lay still on their couches. The only movement was an occasional involuntary twitch of a muscle. All the action was within each display monitor. Numbers flashed along the side, changing continuously. Holographic images moved within the display crystal. They were abstractions—unrecognizable shapes, strange colors, random movements. But they made me feel uncomfortable watching. My penis stiffened. Arousal must be part of it. And there was something vaguely obscene about it all. I looked away. I actually felt embarrassed. Me, the former combrid, Heck, I’d seen lots worse than that in the war

“How do you make sense of it?” I asked Jain, nodding toward the display.

“You wear a C-helmet, if you’re into
that.”
She pointed around the chamber. Some of the spectators were wearing helmets. “The images you see on the display are computer symbols.” She gestured to the monitor. “You need more sensory capability than your eyes alone can provide to make them identifiable. You’re ‘seeing’ tastes, smells, sounds, and feelings displayed on the screen. Visually, the symbols only provoke vague feelings in your mind.” She looked at my groin and smiled. “As you’ve noticed. Do you want to wear a monitor helmet? Devotees consider it vulgar.”

“No.” I’d be wearing the real thing too soon. “What’s happening to
them?”
I nodded toward the players. “How do you play the dreamgame?”

Jain leaned back and closed her eyes. She spoke precisely, as if reciting by rote: “They lay still because they’re paralyzed with endolepsin. That frees their minds from the distraction of having a body. Then endocholine is squirted into their CNS studs—enough to speed up nervous transmission about ten times. You don’t want the game to take too long. Through the combination of electrical stimulation and various neuropeptides, the filaments in their brains can actually extract their minds and engram their personas into that crystal.” She opened her eyes and pointed to the dais. “It’s a cortical crystal—a synthetic brain of moIecular semiconductors arranged within the matrix of a radiacrystal that can transduce thought. That’s where the game takes place, within the crystal.”

“Of what does the game consist?”

“Anything. Everything. It’s different each time. The gestalt mind of eleven players decides the exact nature of their game. The hard wiring of the cortical crystal only dictates that there will be a game, and a winner and a loser. Sometimes anarchy prevails—each man for himself. Sometimes teams form—five against six, seven and four, even ten on one. What apparently happens is perceived differently by each player—each mind translates the symbols into images it understands. The symbols are the same, but their meanings are different. A computer has been programmed to keep track of the game. That was possible because the symbols are the same each game for every player.”

“How do you win?”

“You defeat your opponent or opponents in the game
your
minds have decided to play. The computer awards points based on the complexity of the game and the arrangement of teams. For instance, if it were ten against one, the single player could win, even though he thought he lost, if he did better than his random chance against a team of ten opponents. Scoring can get quite complicated. All kinds of coups are involved. That’s why you need a computer to keep track of it.”

“And what happens when you lose?”

“Your handler loses your entry fee and the money she bet on you.”

“Besides that. What can happen to the player?”

She looked at me and laughed. “Don’t worry. You’re ready to play the game. Your rehab regimen saw to that.”

“Tell me what
can
happen.” I knew the answer. I just wanted her to have to tell me the risks. Since I was the one who’d be taking them.

“Sometimes the players’ minds don’t get back to the right bodies. Particularly if one player
wants
to switch bodies with another. Some players are into that subroutine. Occasionally a mind gets lost entirely, usually during a rather nasty game. But that won’t happen to you. You’re too good. I made sure of that.”

“I hope you’re right.” I liked my own body. I’d gone to considerable inconvenience to get the modifications it had. I wanted to keep it. But I had to take the risk. That was the only way I was going to find Nels. He had something to tell me.

Suddenly, the lights flashing from the cortical crystal dimmed. Likewise, the symbols on my display crystal faded. Numbers began blinking.

Jain put her hand on my leg and squeezed. “Number Five won. With good odds, too. We’re a little over a grand to the good.”

Below, the handlers began disconnecting their players. Eleven new ones would play the next game. Playing more than once a day risked brain damage.

“What number do you like for the next game?” Jain asked. “Your intuition might be hot tonight.”

I didn’t answer. I was watching Number Five being disconnected. She’d had a fine body once. A shame it had been wasted on a mindrider. Her handler removed her C-helmet. She sat up on her couch. My heart palpitated.

She was Grychn!

I was sure of it. The same amber eyes, the same proud nose. Even though her skull was bald, I knew it was Grychn. Even though the skin sagged on her face, I knew it was her. I almost called to her.