“Stile will play him by correspondence, one move a day. Here be Stile’s first move.” She handed him a tiny scroll.
So they had known all along that this would happen!
Mach was largely at a loss for words. “Thank you, Lady. For everything.”
“Welcome, Mach. Do thou give my regards to thy mother, when convenient.”
“I will.” He found himself outside the castle, and conjured himself back to the cave of the snow demons. Icebeard looked up from the board. “The filly be a natural player,” he said. “Her could I more readily train than thee.”
Fleta flushed in the human manner, pleased.
“Here is Stile’s first move,” Mach said. “Correspondence.”
“Ha!” the demon exclaimed, immensely gratified.
“Set up a permanent board,” he called to another demon.
He unrolled the scroll and glanced at the notation. “The Lady gave thee this!” he exclaimed.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“It be the Queen’s Gambit, in her hand. She moved for him.”
Mach was dismayed. “I understood that—”
“Nay, an she committed him, Stile will play. Thou has made good thy bargain.” He glanced at the demon setting up the other board. “Pawn to queen four,” he called.
“Which color?” the demon called back.
“Idiot! White, of course!” He returned his attention to Mach. “That will be one interesting game! We see not many such gambits these days.”
“Pawn to queen four, pawn to queen four, pawn to queen’s bishop four, pawn takes pawn,” Mach said. “I’d play either side of that.”
“Thou wouldst lose either side o’ that, too,” Icebeard said. He glanced at Fleta. “Make thy move, filly, while I set up another for the rovot.”
Soon a third board was ready, and while the demon leader instructed Mach, he also instructed Fleta, evidently deriving more satisfaction from her game than from Mach’s. The training had begun.
They played on the console: the screen showed the chessboard and the positions of the pieces. To move, Mach had only to touch his piece, then touch the spot to which he wished to take it.
Mach had White, and he used the Queen’s Gambit. He knew that his trainer opposed this; he could hear Icebeard’s growly voice in his mind. “Stick to the tried and true, rovot! This gambit be dangerous for thee!” But after his session with the Lady Blue, he had to do it.
Bane responded immediately with the standard return, and they both followed through with the next set of moves. Then the real play began. Mach knew that others were reporting the progress of the game to all who were interested; the moves were being magically relayed to the White Mountains, the Purple Mountains, and the various Demesnes, including the Blue. Some were present in person: Translucent and Brown, the latter to see that Mach received no advice now from his trainer. The game between Stile and Icebeard was not yet done, but it was evident that it was a superlative one, and no one could yet judge the advantage. Certainly Icebeard’s advice would be an unfair advantage for him. Bane was similarly limited, in Proton; a Contrary Citizen was standing over him. But Bane would have had the training of Blue, and that made Mach nervous. His father had always beaten him.
The game proceeded quickly to the end-stage. The two seemed evenly matched, which was perhaps no surprise. Bane checked Mach’s king, and Mach used his pole to block it. He consolidated his position, and attacked Bane’s king, but could not penetrate the defense. Finally they ground down to a draw. One of the liabilities of Pole Chess was that it facilitated draws, because the pole made it difficult to keep a king in check. That was one reason the duffers liked it, but in matches where clear-cut decisions were needed, it could be a problem.
The score was even: half a game apiece. The next game would be on the next day. Mach conjured himself and Fleta to the White Mountains to consult Icebeard.
“You were lucky, rovot!” the demon growled. “Had the boy been alert, he could have mated thee by the twentieth move.”
“What? I saw no such opportunity!”
“He be right,” Fleta murmured.
Icebeard set up the board. “You saw it, filly? Damn, I wish thou wast playing that match! Show him the move.”
The board was at the fifteenth move. Fleta moved a black pawn up one space.
“There!” the demon said. “Dost see it now, rovot?”
Mach studied the position. “I see nothing so great about that.”
“Nor did Bane, the dolt! How wouldst thou counter?”
“I wouldn’t. I would attack. He has wasted a move, and given me the initiative.”
“Make thine attack.”
Mach made his move.
“Filly—”
Fleta moved a Black knight.
Mach considered the new position. “Oh, no!” he groaned.
“Next time, be on guard against all potential attacks, rovot,” the demon said gruffly. “Luck strikes naught twice the same. Bane’s mentor be even now chewing his rump to shreds for missing that, e’en as I chew thine for setting it up. He could have been one up on thee!”
He could have, indeed. Mach was mortified. He thought they had played an excellent game. They had not.
“Well, there be two games, yet,” the demon said. “Filly, take him elsewhere and teach ‘him aught. I have a move of mine own to study.” He turned to the game he was playing with Stile, which was of a wholly different level.
Mach and Fleta went to the ice cave they were using for this period, and she made savage love to him. “On the morrow, play thou chess like that,” she admonished him.
“I’ll try,” he agreed contritely.
Next day Mach had Black. He was set to play conservatively, but Bane opened with the Queen’s Gambit, forcing it into more adventurous territory at the outset.
However, Mach kept his eyes open for opportunities, and managed to forge an advantage in the midgame—only to be foiled in the endgame by the pole. It was another draw. Now each player had one point, and the final game would decide it.
He expected Icebeard to bawl him out again, for missing an opportunity, but the demon was grudgingly satisfied. “Thou didst play at thy level, consistency. In a conventional game, the victory would have been thine.”
Mach breathed a silent sigh of relief. He had been almost more concerned about the demon’s critique than about the game itself.
“But on the morrow, it be huffdraw,” Icebeard reminded him sternly. “That be a new game, rovot.”
Mach’s nervousness clamped down again. That was indeed a new game! There would be no draw this time.
The demon turned to Fleta. “Filly, whate’er thou didst do yester, do it twice tonight, to put him in readiness for the morrow.”
Now Fleta quailed. She had done her ultimate yesterday! She could not hope to match it, let alone exceed it.
But she tried.
Mach had White again. This time he started conservatively, with pawn to king four, and played conservatively, trying first to avoid any error that his nonrobot flesh might be heir to, and second to pick up any slight advantage he could. He understood, in retrospect, why Bane had overlooked the winning play in the first game; he was in the robot body, and imagination was hard for that to come by. But he would not overlook it again; he would have been reprogrammed to be alert for anything similar.
Unfortunately, it was Bane who picked up the small advantage. As they ground into the endgame, Bane was ahead by one point, but his position was stronger than that indicated and, for the huffdraw variant, stronger yet.
Huffdraw was a device that had come into play in the last few centuries, because too many tournaments were being stymied by frequent draws. Planetary championship matches had dragged on interminably, draw after draw, as each player settled for even rather than risking worse for the sake of better. This was hard on the players, and worse for the audience. Chess was in danger of fading as a competitive sport because of it. Huffdraw changed that r
adically. The term was borrowed from checkers, and the effect was roughly similar, but the execution differed significantly. There were several applications, depending on the type of draw that threatened. But the basic element was the removal of “dead” pieces: those that hadn’t moved in some time. If that failed, then pieces started to be added back in, until there were enough in action to force a decision.
They came to a draw by perpetual check: Mach prevented Bane from winning by checking his king continually, forcing him to protect the king rather than closing in on Mach’s. Bane used his pole to block each check, but Mach simply moved to a new position for check. This repetitive motion caused the board to assume the same configuration for a third time, by definition a draw.
At that point all chessmen of either color that had not moved during the game were to be huffed, or removed from the board as if taken. There were none, so the huff proceeded to those who had been longest without moving, as traced by the Game Computer in Proton, without regard to color. This proceeded until either the position was freed, or it proved to be impossible to free it in this manner. In this case, it was freed—but it left Mach in a weaker position than before.
Play resumed, but he was in trouble. Bane’s small advantage in pieces was looming more formidably. Mach saw a chance to play for another draw—but saw also that the resultant huffing would make him yet more vulnerable. Only if he could achieve a draw whose breakup would benefit him could he afford to take it. He used his pole increasingly, which meant he was moving his other pieces less often, and that made them vulnerable to huffing. If he could only get Bane to neglect his pieces—
But he could not. Bane had evidently drilled in this, and was playing with machinelike conservatism. He made no errors, simply letting his advantage operate.
Mach tried a desperate strategy that he knew was flawed, hoping that Bane’s machine mind would not perceive the flaw. But the effort failed, and Mach’s position became hopeless.
He had to resign. He had lost the game, and the first match.
Chapter 14
Chase
They played the grid again. This time it did not seem remarkable to Bane that he could match against his other self through the console; the three grueling chess games had made it seem natural. But this time he intended to stay well clear of board games; Mach’s experience in that regard was far greater than his, and it had been mere luck that he had learned chess from his father, Stile, and been able to add that experience to Mach’s stored knowledge and the advice of the Oracle. If he encountered a game in which he was inexperienced, he would not be able to upgrade sufficiently to be competitive. It had been close, as it was.
He had the numbers, so he chose 1. PHYSICAL. That eliminated the major region of danger! He had had a lot of experience with physical games of all types. Mach had too, of course, but Bane now had Mach’s physical body and could match any of his experience by opening the appropriate memory file. He wasn’t sure how they would be able to play a physical game, but the Oracle said it would be arranged. Soon he would discover what the Oracle had in mind.
Mach chose A. NAKED. So it was to be man against man, unadorned. The man in the machine body against the robot in the living body. Bane was ready, if the framework could arrange it. The second grid appeared on the screen:
5. SEPAR 6. INTERAC 7. COMBAT 8. COOPER
E. EARTH F. FIRE G. GAS H. H20
He had the numbers again. He chose 6. INTERACTIVE, becoming more interested in the challenge to the system than in the game itself, for the moment. A separate game would be easy enough: they could race against a common clock, or lift similar weights, or do individual dives for rating on a common scale. But Interactive meant that they had to touch or at least be affected by each other, as with Hide and Seek. How could they do that, physically, across the frames?
Mach chose H. H2O. So it was to be a water sport! Bane had no fear of that; he had swum joyfully since infancy. Were they going to stretch a pool across the frames?
But as it turned out, the H category was more than water; it was a catchall for all the surfaces: Flat, Variable, Discontinuous and Liquid. The list of qualifying games included one as simple as splashing, and one active as water tag, and—
Bane gaped. The magic games were there too! Levitation Tag, Conjuration Dodge—how could these be played in the frame of Proton? If he tried to make himself float magically, he would get nowhere; if he tried to conjure a snowball to hurl at his opponent, none would appear.
But there had to be a way, or the grid would not be showing these choices. This gave him the chance to select a game with which Mach had no experience!
They assembled and played the third grid, and the result was Transformation Chase. Bane had never actually played that one, because of the number of formchanging spells required; a single game would have exhausted his spells for months. But he had always liked the idea of it, and envied the unicorns who could play it with their natural magic, changing forms effortlessly. Human magic was versatile, but limited to one invocation for any given spell; the animals could do their particular magic without limit. In that way they were superior to man. But they could not do any other magic.
The game was set. There would be a month for training. But Bane could hardly wait to talk to the Oracle, and ask: how? How could he transform his body into the several animal forms that would be required for the proper playing of this game? Mach would have no trouble; they could teach him the necessary spells. But this was Proton!
“Mach is in 1A,” the Oracle explained. “You are technically in 2C—Machine-Assisted Mental. He will transform directly; you will transform in emulation.”
“I be in Machine-Assisted Mental? But the grid—”
“This is a special situation. What he can do directly and physically, you cannot. But the emulation will make it equivalent.”
“How can we know that? Mine emulated figure could have powers my physical one has not.”
“The emulation will exactly match the powers of your physical body. There will be no advantage physically. You will have to convey game information to Mach so that the Red Adept can set it up there, but this will be no problem.”
“But magic—transformations—”
“Your consciousness will be attuned to the game setting, and to Bane’s mind. It will be as real to you as your current existence is, and as accurate.”
Bane realized that the Oracle knew more about altered states of reality than he did, but still he argued. “Look, if we are to play this chase game properly, one o’ us must be the Predator and the other the Prey. When the two come together, the Predator be the victor; an we complete the circuit without that happening, the Prey wins. So we can overlap not during the game itself. Therefore there can be ne’er any connection then. So—”
“The connection will be maintained,” the Oracle explained patiently. “The awareness will be displaced. Your body will pace his throughout, but your awareness will be with your representation in the game. Have no concern.”
Bane gave it up. His lifetime in Phaze simply had not prepared him for the peculiar convolutions of science. “If everyone else be satisfied…” He shrugged.
He joined Agape. “I think I have a few hours off before training for the next round starts. What be good for relaxation?”
“Normally it does not require so much effort for you to think of your favorite relaxation,” she said with a smile.
He had to smile back. “Thou’rt so certain we males have but one interest!”
“Not so, Bane. You have but one interest at a time, in the manner of an animal. That’s not quite the same.”
“Let’s go walk in the park.”
They took a conveyor to the park. This was designed to resemble a wooded region of Old Earth, with fair-sized trees spreading their branches overhead, and ferns growing below. It was arranged to seem considerably larger than it was, because of the premium on space within the dome, but the illusion was effective. Stray breezes wafted through, m
aking the leaves quiver, and butterflies flitted randomly about.
That reminded him of his spying missions. He regretted those, now, despite the importance of the information gleaned. Would it have been better not to have done it? That would have meant falling into Tania’s trap, and also he would have avoided the need to be with Fleta, when—
“There be much in this I like not,” he muttered.
Agape did not misunderstand. “But also much to like. I will always be glad for the visit I was able to make to Phaze, and the folks I was able to know there, though I had to borrow Fleta’s body.”
“Aye. But what future have we? An I win, we be soon parted. An I lose, the frames be in peril. What choice be that?”
“It would be easier if your kind was like mine in this respect,” she said. “With no set sexes.”
“And no love between them,” he agreed. “Is that the way you prefer it?”
“No.”
They went on through the park. It had not changed, but his mood had improved.
Next day he overlapped Mach and relayed the information about the arrangements for the game. The Game Computer had worked out the basics and compressed them into a few code words for Mach to tell Trool. They would overlap again in a few days for verification.
Then: I wish we were locked not in this struggle between ourselves. Bane thought.
The issue must be settled, one way or the other, Mach responded. It would have arisen elsewhere, if not with us.
And that was probably true. Dost know that the source of our exchange be the lingering connection between Stile and Blue?
Mach was surprised. It’s not because we are alternate selves?
Nay. Other alternates can do it not, only us—because we relate to our sires.
And our loves relate to us, Mach concluded.
Aye.
That was all. They separated.
Bane reported for the first game of Round Two. “Plug in,” the Oracle directed.
Bane plugged the cable into his ear.
Robot Adept Page 28
