The Player of Games (8 page)

man
?' the machine said, shaking him. 'I've been castrated, spayed, paralysed! How you feel now; helpless, knowing the limbs are there but unable to make them work! Like that, but knowing that they
aren't
there! Can you understand that? Can you? Did you know that in our history people used to lose whole limbs, for ever? Do you remember your social history, little Jernau Gurgeh? Eh?' It shook him. He felt and heard his teeth rattle. 'Do you remember seeing cripples, from before arms and legs just grew back? Back then, humans lost limbs - blown off or cut off or amputated - but still thought they had them, still thought they could feel them; "ghost limbs" they called them. Those unreal arms and legs could itch and they could ache but they could not be used; can you imagine? Can you imagine
that
, Culture man with your genofixed regrowth and your over-designed heart and your doctored glands and clot-filtered brain and flawless teeth and perfect immune system?
Can you
?' It let him fall back to the ground. His jaw jerked and he felt his teeth nip the end of his tongue. A salt taste filled his mouth. Now he really would drown, he thought; in his own blood. He waited for real fear. The rain filled his eyes but he could not cry. 'Well, imagine that, times eight, times more; imagine what I feel, all set up to be the good soldier fighting for all that we hold dear, to seek out and smite the barbarians around us! Gone, Jernau Gurgeh; razed; gone. My sensory systems, my weapons, my very memory-capacity; all reduced, laid waste: crippled. I peek into shells in a Stricken game, I push you down with an eight-strength field and hold you there with an excuse for an electro-magnetic effector… but this is nothing, Jernau Gurgeh; nothing. An echo; a shadow… nothing…' It floated higher, away from him. It gave him back the use of his body. He struggled off the damp ground, and felt his tongue with one hand; the blood had stopped flowing, closed off. He sat up, a little groggy, feeling the back of his head where it had hit the ground. It was not sore. He looked at the small, dripping body of the machine, floating over the path. 'I have nothing to lose, Gurgeh,' it said. 'Help me or I'll destroy your reputation. Don't think I wouldn't. Whether it would mean almost nothing to you - which I doubt - I'd do it just for the fun of causing you even the smallest amount of embarrassment. And if it means everything, and you really would kill yourself - which I also very much doubt - then I would still. I've never killed a human before. It's possible I might have been given the chance, somewhere, some time, if I'd been allowed to join SC… but I'd settle for causing a suicide.' He held up one hand to it. His coat felt heavy. The trous were soaked. 'I believe you,' he said. 'All right. But what can I do?' 'I've told you,' the drone said, over the noise of the wind howling in the trees and the rain beating against the swaying stalks of grass. 'Speak for me. You have more influence than you realise. Use it.' 'But I
don't
, I-' 'I've seen your mail, Gurgeh,' the drone said tiredly. 'Don't you know what a guest-invitation from a GSV means? It's the closest Contact ever comes to offering a post directly. Didn't anybody ever teach you anything besides games? Contact wants you. Officially Contact never head-hunts; you have to apply, then once you're in it's the other way round; to join SC you have to wait to be invited. But they want you, all right…. Gods, man, can't you take a
hint
?' 'Even if you're right, what am I supposed to do, just go to Contact and say "Take this drone back"? Don't be stupid. I wouldn't even know how to start going about it.' He didn't want to say anything about the visit from the Contact drone the other evening. He didn't have to. 'Haven't they already been in touch with you?' Mawhrin-Skel asked. 'The night before last?' Gurgeh got shakily to his feet. He brushed some sandy earth from his coat. The rain gusted on the wind. The village on the coast and the sprawling house of his childhood were almost invisible under the dark sheets of driving rain. 'Yes, I've been watching you, Jernau Gurgeh,' Mawhrin-Skel said. 'I know Contact are interested in you. I have no idea just what it is Contact might
want
from you, but I suggest that you find out. Even if you don't want to play, you'd better make a damn good plea on my behalf; I'll be watching, so I'll know whether you do or not…. I'll prove it to you. Watch.' A screen unfolded from the front of the drone's body like a strange flat flower, expanding to a square a quarter-metre or so to a side. It lit up in the rainy gloom to show Mawhrin-Skel itself, suddenly glowing a blinding, flashing white, above the stone table at Hafflis's house. The scene was shot from above, probably near one of the stone ribs over the terrace. Gurgeh watched again as the line of coals glowed bright, and the lanterns and flowers fell. He heard Chamlis say, 'Oh dear. Do you think I said something to upset it?' He saw himself smile as he sat down by the Stricken game-set. The scene faded. It was replaced by another dim scene viewed from above; a bed; his bed, in the principal chamber at Ikroh. He recognised the small, ringed hands of Ren Myglan kneading his back from beneath. There was sound, too: '…. ah, Ren, my baby, my child, my love…' '….Jernau…' 'You piece of shit,' he told the drone. The scene faded and the sound cut off. The screen collapsed, sucked back inside the body of the drone. 'Just so, and don't you forget it, Jernau Gurgeh,' Mawhrin-Skel said. 'Those bits were quite fakeable; but you and I know they were real, don't we? Like I said; I'm watching you.' He sucked on the blood in his mouth, spat. 'You can't do this. Nobody's allowed to behave like this. You won't get-' '-away with it? Well, maybe not. But the thing is, if I don't get away with it, I don't care. I'm no worse off. I'm still going to try.' It paused, physically shook itself free of water, then produced a spherical field about itself, clearing the moisture from its casing, leaving it spotless and clean, and sheltering it from the rain. 'Can't you understand what they've done to me, man? Better I had never been brought into being than forced to wander the Culture for ever, knowing what I've lost. They call it compassion to draw my talons and remove my eyes and cast me adrift in a paradise made for others; I call it torture. It's obscene, Gurgeh, it's barbaric,
diabolic;
recognise that old word? I see you do. Well, try to imagine how I might feel, and what I might do…. Think about it, Gurgeh. Think about what you can do for me, and what I can do to you.' The machine drew away from him again, retreating through the pouring rain. The cold drops splashed on top of its invisible globe of fields, and little rivulets of water ran round the transparent surface of that sphere to dribble underneath, falling in a steady stream into the grass. 'I'll be in touch. Goodbye, Gurgeh,' Mawhrin-Skel said. The drone flicked away, tearing over the grass and into the sky in a grey cone of slipstream. Gurgeh lost sight of it within seconds. He stood for a while, brushing sand and bits of grass from his sodden clothes, then turned to walk back in the direction he'd come from, through the falling rain and the beating wind. He looked back, once, to gaze again upon the house where he'd grown up, but the squall, billowing round the low summits of the rolling dunes, had all but obscured the rambling chaotic structure.
'But Gurgeh, what
is
the problem?' 'I can't tell you!' He walked up to the rear wall of the main room of Chamlis's apartment, turned and paced back again, before going to stand by the window. He looked out over the square. People walked, or sat at tables under the awnings and archways of the pale, green-stone galleries which lined the village's main square. Fountains played, birds flew from tree to tree, and on the tiled roof of the square's central bandstand/stage/holoscreen housing, a jet black tzile, almost the size of a full-grown human, lay sprawled, one leg hanging over the edge of the tiles. Its trunk, tail and ears all twitched as it dreamed; its rings and bracelets and earrings glinted in the sunlight. Even as Gurgeh watched, the creature's thin trunk articulated lazily, stretching back over its head to scratch indolently at the back of its neck, near its terminal collar. Then the black proboscis fell back as though exhausted, to swing to and fro for a few seconds. Laughter drifted up through the warm air from some nearby tables. A red-coloured dirigible floated over distant hills, like a vast blob of blood in the blue sky. He turned back into the room again. Something about the square, the whole village, disgusted and angered him. Yay was right; it was all too safe and twee and ordinary. They might as well be on a planet. He walked over to where Chamlis floated, near the long fish-tank. Chamlis's aura was tinged with grey frustration. The old drone gave an exasperated shudder and picked up a little container of fish-food; the tank lid lifted and Chamlis sprinkled some of the food grains on to the top of the water; the glittering mirrorfish moved silkily up to the surface, mouths working rhythmically. 'Gurgeh,' Chamlis said reasonably, 'how can I help you if you won't tell me what's wrong?' 'Just tell me; is there any way you can find out more about what Contact wanted to talk about? Can I get in touch with them again? Without everybody else knowing? Or…' He shook his head, put his hands to his head. 'No; I suppose people will know, but it doesn't matter…' He stopped at the wall, stood looking at the warm sandstone blocks between the paintings. The apartments had been built in an old-fashioned style; the pointing between the sandstone blocks was dark, inlaid with little white pearls. He gazed at the richly beaded lines and tried to think, tried to know what it was he could ask and what there was he could do. 'I can get in touch with the two ships I know,' Chamlis said. 'The ones I contacted originally, I can ask them; they might know what Contact was going to suggest.' Chamlis watched the silvery fish silently feeding. 'I'll do that now, if you like.' 'Please. Yes,' he said, and turned away from the manufactured sandstone and the cultivated pearls. His shoes clacked across the patterned tiles of the room. The sunlit square again. The tzile, still sleeping. He could see its jaws moving, and wondered what alien words the creature was mouthing in its sleep. 'It'll be a few hours before I hear anything,' Chamlis said. The fish-tank lid closed; the drone put the fish-food container into a drawer in a tiny, delicate table near the tank. 'Both ships are fairly distant.' Chamlis tapped the side of the tank with a silvered field; the mirrorfish floated over to investigate. 'But why?' the drone said, looking at him. 'What's changed? What sort of trouble are you…
can
you be in? Gurgeh; please tell me. I want to help.' The machine floated closer to the tall human, who was standing staring down to the square, his hands clasped and unconsciously kneading each other. The old drone had never seen the man so distressed. 'Nothing,' Gurgeh said hopelessly, shaking his head, not looking at the drone. 'Nothing's changed. There's no trouble. I just need to know a few things.'
He had gone straight back to Ikroh the day before. He'd stood in the main room, where the house had lit the fire a couple of hours earlier after hearing the weather forecast, and he'd taken off the wet, dirty clothes and thrown them all on to the fire. He'd had a hot bath and a steam bath, sweating and panting and trying to feel clean. The plunge bath had been so cold there had been a thin covering of ice on it; he'd dived in, half expecting his heart to stop with the shock. He'd sat in the main room, watching the logs burn. He'd tried to pull himself together, and once he'd felt capable of thinking clearly he'd raised Chiark Hub.
'Gurgeh; Makil Stra-bey again, at your service. How's tricks? Not another visitation from Contact, surely?' 'No. But I have a feeling they left something behind when they were here; something to watch me.' 'What… you mean a bug or a microsystem or something?' 'Yes,' he said, sitting back in the broad couch. He wore a simple robe. His skin felt scrubbed and shiny clean after his bathe. Somehow, the friendly, understanding voice of Hub made him feel better; it would be all right, he'd work something out. He was probably frightened over nothing; Mawhrin-Skel was just a demented, insane machine with delusions of power and grandeur; It wouldn't be able to prove anything, and nobody would believe it if it simply made unsubstantiated claims. 'What makes you think you're being bugged?' 'I can't tell you,' Gurgeh said. 'Sorry. But I have seen some evidence. Can you send something - drones or whatever - to Ikroh, to sweep the place? Would you be able to find something if they did leave anything?' 'If it's ordinary tech stuff, yes. But it depends on the soph level. A warship can passive-bug using its electro-magnetic effector; they can watch you under a hundred klicks of rock-cover from the next stellar system and tell you what your last meal was. Hyper-space tech; there are defences against it, but no way of detecting it's going on.' 'Nothing that complicated; just a bug or a camera or something.' 'Should be possible. We'll displace a drone team to you in a minute or so. Want us to harden this comm channel? Can't make it totally eavesdrop-proof, but we can make it difficult.' 'Please.' 'No problem. Detach the terminal speaker pip and shove it in your ear. We'll soundfield the outside.' Gurgeh did just that. He felt better already. The Hub seemed to know what it was doing. 'Thanks, Hub,' he said. 'I appreciate all this.' 'Hey, no thanks required, Gurgeh. That's what we're here for. Besides; this is fun!' Gurgeh smiled. There was a distant thump somewhere above the house as the Hub's drone team arrived. The drones swept the house for sensory equipment and secured the buildings and grounds; they polarised the windows and drew the drapes; they put some sort of special mat under the couch he sat on; they even installed a kind of filter or valve inside the chimney of the fire. Gurgeh felt grateful and cosseted, and both important and foolish, all at once. He set to work. He used his terminal to probe the Hub's information banks. They contained as a matter of course almost every even moderately important or significant or useful piece of information the Culture had ever accumulated; a near infinite ocean of fact and sensation and theory and artwork which the Culture's information net was adding to at a torrential rate every second of the day. You could find out most things, if you knew the right questions to ask. Even if you didn't, you could still find out a lot. The Culture had theoretical total freedom of information; the catch was that consciousness was private, and information held in a Mind - as opposed to an unconscious system, like the Hub's memory-banks - was regarded as part of the Mind's being, and so as sacrosanct as the contents of a human brain; a Mind could hold any set of facts and opinions it wanted without having to tell anybody what it knew or thought, or why. And so, while Hub protected his privacy, Gurgeh found out, without having to ask Chamlis, that what Mawhrin-Skel had said might be true; there were indeed levels of event-recording which could not be easily faked, and which drones of above-average specification were potentially capable of using. Such recordings, especially if they had been witnessed by a Mind in a real-time link, would be accepted as genuine. His mood of renewed optimism started to sink away from him again. Also, there was an SC Mind, that of the Limited Offensive Unit