The Player of Games (7 page)

twist.
Yes; he would win. Almost certainly. But that was no longer enough. The Full Web beckoned, tantalisingly, seductively, entrancingly… 'Gurgeh?' Boruelal shook him. He looked up. There was a hint of dawn over the mountains. Boruelal's face looked grey and sober. 'Gurgeh; a break. It's been six hours. Do you agree? A break, yes?' He looked through the web at the pale, waxen face of the young girl. He gazed round in a sort of daze. Most of the people had gone. The paper lanterns had disappeared, too; he fell vaguely sorry to have missed the little ritual of throwing the glowing lamps over the terrace edge and watching them drift down to the forest. Boruelal shook him once more. 'Gurgeh?' 'Yes; a break. Yes, of course,' he croaked. He got up, stiff and sore, muscles protesting and joints creaking.
Chamlis had to stay with the game-set, to ensure the adjudication. Grey dawn spread across the sky. Somebody gave him some hot soup, which he sipped while he ate a few crackers and wandered through the quiet arcades for a while, where a few people slept or still sat and talked, or danced to quiet, recorded music. He leant on the balustrade above the kilometre drop, sipping and munching, dazed and vacant from the game, still playing and replaying it somewhere inside his head. The lights of the towns and villages on the mist-strewn plain below, beyond the semi-circle of dark rain forest, looked pale and uncertain. Distant mountain tops shone pink and naked. 'Jernau Gurgeh?' a soft voice said. He looked over the plain. The drone Mawhrin-Skel floated a metre from his face. 'Mawhrin-Skel,' he said quietly. 'Good morning.' 'Good morning.' 'How goes the game?' 'Fine, thank you. I think I'll win now… pretty sure in fact. But there's just a chance I might win…' He felt himself smiling. '… famously.' 'Really?' Mawhrin-Skel continued to float there, over the drop in front of him. It kept its voice soft, though there was nobody near by. Its fields were off. Its surface was an odd, mottled mixture of grey tones. 'Yes,' Gurgeh said, and briefly explained about a Full Web victory. The drone seemed to understand. 'So, you have won, but you could win the Full Web, which no one in the Culture has ever done save for exhibition purposes, to prove its possibility.' 'That's right!' He nodded, looked over the light speckled plain. 'That's right.' He finished the crackers, brushed his hands slowly free of crumbs. He left the soup bowl balanced on the balustrade. 'Does it really,' Mawhrin-Skel said thoughtfully, 'matter who first wins a Full Web?' 'Hmm?' Gurgeh said. Mawhrin-Skel drifted closer. 'Does it really matter who first wins one? Somebody will, but does it count for much who does? It would appear to be a very unlikely eventuality in any given game… has it really much to do with skill?' 'Not beyond a certain point,' Gurgeh admitted. 'It requires a lucky genius.' 'But that could be you.' 'Maybe.' Gurgeh smiled across the gulf of chill morning air. He drew his jacket closer about him. 'It depends entirely on the disposition of certain coloured beads in certain metal spheres.' He laughed. 'A victory that would echo round the game-playing galaxy, and it depends on where a child placed…' his voice trailed off. He looked at the tiny drone again, frowning. 'Sorry; getting a bit melodramatic.' He shrugged, leant on the stone edge. 'It would be… pleasant to win, but it's unlikely, I'm afraid. Somebody else will do it, some time.' 'But it
might as well be you
,' Mawhrin-Skel hissed, floating still closer. Gurgeh had to draw away to focus on the device. 'Well-' 'Why leave it to chance, Jernau Gurgeh?' Mawhrin-Skel said, pulling back a little. 'Why abandon it to mere, stupid luck?' 'What are you talking about?' Gurgeh said slowly, eyes narrowing. The drug-trance was dissipating, the spell breaking. He felt keen, keyed-up; nervous and excited at once. 'I can tell you which beads are in which globes,' Mawhrin-Skel said. Gurgeh laughed gently. 'Nonsense.' The drone floated closer. 'I can. They didn't tear everything out of me when they turned me away from SC. I have more senses than cretins like Amalk-ney have even heard of.' It closed in. 'Let me use them; let me tell you what is where in your bead-game. Let me help you to the Full Web.' Gurgeh stood back from the balustrade, shaking his head. 'You can't. The other drones-' '- are weak simpletons, Gurgeh,' Mawhrin-Skel insisted. 'I have the measure of them, believe me. Trust me. Another SC machine, definitely not; a Contact drone, probably not… but this gang of obsoletes? I could find out where every bead that girl has placed is. Every single one!' 'You wouldn't need them all,' Gurgeh said, looking troubled, waving his hand. 'Well then! Better yet! Let me do it! Just to prove to you! To myself!' [] 'You're talking about
cheating
, Mawhrin-Skel,' Gurgeh said, looking round the plaza. There was nobody near by. The paper lanterns and the stone ribs they hung from were invisible from where he stood. 'You're going to win; what difference does it make?' 'It's still cheating.' 'You said yourself it's all luck. You've won-' 'Not definitely.' 'Almost certainly; a thousand to one you don't.' 'Probably longer odds than that,' Gurgeh conceded. 'So the game is over. The girl can't lose any more than she has already. Let her be part of a game that will go down in history. Give her that!' 'It,' Gurgeh said, slapping his hand on the stonework, 'is,' another slap, 'still,' slap, 'cheating!' 'Keep your voice down,' Mawhrin-Skel murmured. It backed away a little. It spoke so low he had to lean out over the drop to hear it. 'It's luck. All is luck when skill's played out. It was luck left me with a face that didn't fit in Contact, it's luck that's made you a great game-player, it's luck that's put you here tonight. Neither of us were fully planned, Jernau Gurgeh; your genes determined you and your mother's genofixing made certain you would not be a cripple or mentally subnormal. The rest is chance. I was brought into being with the freedom to be myself; if what that general plan and that particular luck produced is something a majority - a
majority
, mark you; not all - of one SC admissions board decides is not what they just happen to want, is it my
fault
? Is it?' 'No,' Gurgeh sighed, looking down. 'Oh, it's all so wonderful in the Culture, isn't it, Gurgeh; nobody starves and nobody dies of disease or natural disasters and nobody and nothing's exploited, but there's still luck and heartache and joy, there's still chance and advantage and disadvantage.' The drone hung above the drop and the waking plain. Gurgeh watched the Orbital dawn come up, swinging from the edge of the world. 'Take hold of your luck, Gurgeh. Accept what I'm offering you. Just this once let's both make our own chances. You already know you're one of the best in the Culture; I'm not trying to flatter you; you know that. But this win would seal that fame for ever.' 'If it's possible…' Gurgeh said, then went silent. His jaw clenched. The drone sensed him trying to control himself the way he had done on the steps up to Hafflis's house, seven hours ago. 'If it isn't, at least have the courage to
know
,' Mawhrin-Skel said, voice pitched at an extremity of pleading. The man raised his eyes to the clear blue-pinks of dawn. The ruffled, misty plain looked like a vast and tousled bed. 'You're crazy, drone. You could never do it.' 'I know what
I
can do, Jernau Gurgeh,' the drone said. It pulled away again, sat in the air, regarding him. He thought of that morning, sitting on the train; the rush of that delicious fear. Like an omen, now. Luck; simple chance. He knew the drone was right. He knew it was wrong; but he knew it was right, too. It all depended on him. He leant against the balustrade. Something in his pocket dug into his chest. He felt in, pulled out the hidden-piece wafer he'd taken as a memento after the disastrous Possession game. He turned the wafer over in his hands a few times. He looked at the drone, and suddenly felt very old and very child-like at the same time. 'If,' he said slowly, 'anything goes wrong, if you're found out - I'm dead. I'll kill myself. Brain death; complete and utter. No remains.' 'Nothing is going to go wrong. For me, it is the simplest thing in the world to find out what's inside those shells.' 'What if you are discovered, though? What if there is an SC drone around here somewhere, or the Hub is watching?' The drone said nothing for a moment. 'They'd have noticed by now. It is already done.' Gurgeh opened his mouth to speak, but the drone quickly floated closer, calmly continuing. 'For my own sake, Gurgeh… for my own peace of mind. I wanted to know, too. I came back long ago; I've been watching for the past five hours, quite fascinated. I couldn't resist finding out if it was possible…. To be honest, I still don't know; the game is beyond me, just over-complicated for the way my poor target tracking mind is configured… but I had to try to find out. I had to. So, you see; the risk is run, Gurgeh; the deed is done. I can tell you what you need to know…. And I ask nothing in return; that's up to you. Maybe you can do something for me some day, but no obligation; believe me, please believe me. No obligation at all. I'm doing this because I want to see you - somebody; anybody - do it.' Gurgeh looked at the drone. His mouth was dry. He could hear somebody shouting in the distance. The terminal button on his jacket shoulder beeped. He drew breath to speak to it, but then heard his own voice say, 'Yes?' 'Ready to resume, Jernau?' Chamlis said from the button. And he heard his own voice say, 'I'm on my way.' He stared at the drone as the terminal beeped off. Mawhrin-Skel floated closer. 'As I said, Jernau Gurgeh; I can fool these adding machines, no problem at all. Quickly now. Do you want to know or not? The Full Web; yes or no?' Gurgeh glanced round in the direction of Hafflis's apartments. He turned back, leant out over the drop, towards the drone. 'All right,' he said, whispering, 'just the five prime points and the four verticals nearest topside centre. No more.'
Mawhrin-Skel told him. It was almost enough. The girl struggled brilliantly to the very end, and deprived him on the final move. The Full Web fell apart, and he won by thirty-one points, two short of the Culture's existing record.
One of Estray Hafftis's house drones was dimly confused to discover, while cleaning up under the great stone table much later that morning, a crushed and shattered ceramic wafer with warped and twisted numbered dials set into its crazed and distorted surface. It wasn't part of the house Possession set. The machine's non-sentient, mechanistic, entirely predictable brain thought about it for a while, then finally decided to junk the mysterious remnant along with the rest of the debris.
When he woke up that afternoon, it was with the memory of defeat. It was some time before he recalled that he had in fact won the Stricken game. Victory had never been so bitter. He breakfasted alone on the terrace, watching a fleet of sailboats cut down the narrow fjord, bright sails in a fresh breeze. His right hand hurt a little as he held his bowl and cup; he'd come close to drawing blood when he'd crushed the Possession wafer at the end of the Stricken game.
He dressed in a long coat, trous and short kilt, and went on a long walk, down to the shore of the fjord and then along it, towards the sea coast and the windswept dunes where Hassease lay, the house he'd been born in, where a few of his extended family still lived. He tramped along the coast path towards the house, through the blasted, twisted shapes of wind-misshapen trees. The grass made sighing noises around him, and seabirds cried. The breeze was cold and freshening under ragged clouds. Out to sea, beyond Hassease village, where the weather was coming from, he could see tall veils of rain under a dark front of storm-clouds. He drew his coat tighter about him and hurried towards the distant silhouette of the sprawling, ramshackle house, thinking he should have taken an underground car. The wind whipped up sand from the distant beach and threw it inland; he blinked, eyes watering. 'Gurgeh.' The voice was quite loud; louder than the sound of sighing grass and wind-troubled tree branches. He shielded his eyes, looked to one side. 'Gurgeh,' the voice said again. He peered into the shade of a stunted, slanting tree. 'Mawhrin-Skel? Is that you?' 'The same,' the small drone said, floating forward over the path. Gurgeh looked out to sea. He started down the path to the house again, but the drone did not follow him. 'Well,' he told it, looking back from a few paces away, 'I must keep going. I'll get wet if I-' 'No,' Mawhrin-Skel said. 'Don't go. I have to talk to you. This is important.' 'Then tell me as I walk,' he said, suddenly annoyed. He strode away. The drone flashed round in front of him, at face level, so that he had to stop or he'd have bumped into it. 'It's about the game; Stricken; last night and this morning.' 'I believe I already said thank you,' he told the machine. He looked beyond it. The leading edge of the squall was hitting the far end of the village harbour beyond Hassease. The dark clouds were almost above him, casting a great shadow. 'And I believe I said you might be able to help me one day.' 'Oh,' Gurgeh said, with an expression more sneer than smile. 'And what am
I
supposed to be able to do for
you
?' 'Help me,' Mawhrin-Skel said quietly, voice almost lost in the noise of the wind. 'Help me to get back into Contact.' 'Don't be absurd,' Gurgeh said, and put out one hand to swipe the machine out of his path. He forced his way past it. The next thing he knew he'd been shoved down into the grass at the path-side, as though shoulder-charged by someone invisible. He stared up in amazement at the tiny machine floating above him, while his hands felt the damp ground under him and the grass hissed on each side. 'You little-' he said, trying to stand up. He was shoved back down again, and sat there incredulous, simply unbelieving. No machine had ever used force on him. It was unheard of. He tried to rise again, a shout of anger and frustration forming in his throat. He went limp. The shout died in his mouth. He felt himself flop back into the grass. He lay there, looking up into the dark clouds overhead. He could move his eyes. Nothing else. He remembered the missile shoot and the immobility the suit had imposed on him when it had been hit once too often. This was worse. This was paralysis. He could do nothing. He worried about his breathing stopping, his heart stopping, his tongue blocking his throat, his bowels relaxing. Mawhrin-Skel floated into his field of view. 'Listen to me, Jernau Gurgeh.' Some cold drops of rain started to patter into the grass and on to his face. 'Listen to me…. You shall help me. I have our entire conversation, your every word and gesture from this morning, recorded. If you don't help me, I'll release that recording. Everyone will know you cheated in the game against Olz Hap.' The machine paused. 'Do you understand, Jernau Gurgeh? Have I made myself clear? Do you realise what I am saying? There is a name - an old name - for what I am doing, in case you haven't already guessed. It is called blackmail.' The machine was mad. Anybody could make up anything they wanted; sound, moving pictures, smell, touch… there were machines that did just that. You could order them from a store and effectively paint whatever pictures - still or moving - you wanted, and with sufficient time and patience you could make it look as realistic as the real thing, recorded with an ordinary camera. You could simply make up any film sequence you wanted. Some people used such machines just for fun or revenge, making up stories where appalling or just funny things happened to their enemies or their friends. Where nothing could be authenticated, blackmail became both pointless and impossible; in a society like the Culture, where next to nothing was forbidden, and both money and individual power had virtually ceased to exist, it was doubly irrelevant. The machine really must be mad. Gurgeh wondered if it intended to kill him. He turned the idea over in his mind, trying to believe it could happen. 'I know what's going through your mind, Gurgeh,' the drone went on. 'You're thinking that I can't prove it; I could have made it up; nobody will believe me. Well, wrong. I had a real-time link with a friend of mine; an SC Mind sympathetic to my cause, who's always known I would have made a perfectly good operative and has worked on my appeal. What passed between us this morning is recorded in perfect detail in a Mind of unimpeachable moral credentials, and at a level of perceived fidelity unapproachable with the sort of facilities generally available. 'What I have on you could not have been falsified, Gurgeh. If you don't believe me, ask your friend Amalk-ney. It'll confirm all I say. It may be stupid, and ignorant too, but it ought to know where to find out the truth.' Rain struck Gurgeh's helpless, relaxed face. His jaw was slack and his mouth open, and he wondered if perhaps he would drown eventually; drowned by the falling rain. The drone's small body splashed and dripped above him as the drops grew larger and fell harder. 'You're wondering what I want from you?' the drone said. He tried to move his eyes to say 'no', just to annoy it, but it didn't seem to notice. 'Help,' it said. 'I need your help; I need you to speak for me. I need you to go to Contact and add your voice to those demanding my return to active duty.' The machine darted down towards his face; he felt his coat collar pulled. His head and upper torso were lifted with a jerk from the damp ground until he stared helplessly at the grey-blue casing of the small machine. Pocket-size, he thought, wishing he could blink, and glad of the rain because he could not. Pocket-size; it would fit into one of the big pockets in this coat. He wanted to laugh. 'Don't you understand what they've done to me,