Flere-Imsaho floated up to Gurgeh. "Please," it said, "don't ever do something like that again." Gurgeh ignored the machine.
"At least you could talk, eh?" Pequil said suddenly, taking a glass from a tray with a shaking hand. "At least he could talk, eh, machine?" He was talking almost too fast for Gurgeh to follow. He sank the drink. "Most people freeze. I think I might have. Many people do. What does one knee matter, eh? What does that matter?" Pequil looked round for the male with the drinks tray, then gazed at the throne, where the Emperor was sitting talking to some of his retinue. "What a majestic presence!" Pequil said.
"Why's he "Emperor-Regent"?" Gurgeh asked the sweating apex.
"Their Royal Highness had to take up the Royal Chain after the Emperor Molsce sadly died two years ago. As second-best player during the last games, Our Worship Nicosar was elevated to the throne. But I have no doubt they will remain there!"
Gurgeh, who'd read about Molsce dying but hadn't realised Nicosar wasn't regarded as a full Emperor in his own right, nodded and, looking at the extravagantly accoutred people and beasts surrounding the imperial dais, wondered what additional splendours Nicosar could possibly merit if he did win the games.
"I'd offer to dance with you but they don't approve of men dancing together," Shohobohaum Za said, coming up to where Gurgeh stood by a pillar. Za took a plate of paper-wrapped sweetmeats from a small table and held it out to Gurgeh, who shook his head. Za popped a couple of the little pastries into his mouth while Gurgeh watched the elaborate, patterned dances surge in eddies of flesh and coloured cloth across the ballroom floor. Flere-Imsaho floated near by. There were some bits of paper sticking to its static-charged casing.
"Don't worry," Gurgeh told Za. "I shan't feel insulted."
"Good. Enjoying yourself?" Za leant against the pillar. "Thought you looked a bit lonely standing here. Where's Pequil?"
"He's talking to some imperial officials, trying to arrange a private audience."
"Ho, he'll be lucky," snorted Za. "What d'you think of our wonderful Emperor, anyway?"
"He seems… very imperious," Gurgeh said, and made a frowning gesture at the robes he was wearing, and tapped one ear.
Za looked amused, then mystified, then he laughed. "Oh; the microphone!" He shook his head, unwrapped another couple of pastries and ate them. "Don't worry about that. Just say what you want. You won't be assassinated or anything. They don't mind. Diplomatic protocol. We pretend the robes aren't bugged, and they pretend they haven't heard anything. It's a little game we play."
"If you say so," Gurgeh said, looking over at the imperial dais.
"Not much to look at at the moment, young Nicosar," Za said, following Gurgeh's gaze. "He gets his full regalia after the game; theoretically in mourning for Molsce at the moment. Black's their colour for mourning; something to do with space, I think." He looked at the Emperor for a while. "Odd set-up, don't you think? All that power belonging to one person."
"Seems a rather… potentially unstable way to run a society," Gurgeh agreed.
"Hmm. Of course, it's all relative, isn't it? Really, you know, that old guy the Emp's talking to at the moment probably has more real power than Nicosar himself."
"Really?" Gurgeh looked at Za.
"Yes; that's Hamin, rector of Candsev College. Nicosar's mentor."
"You don't mean he tells the Emperor what to do?"
"Not officially, but" — Za belched — "Nicosar was brought up in the college; spent sixty years, child and apex, learning the game from Hamin. Hamin raised him, groomed him, taught him all he knew, about the game and everything else. So when old Molsce gets his one way ticket to the land of nod — not before time — and Nicosar takes over, who's the first person he's going to turn to for advice?"
"I see," Gurgeh nodded. He was starting to regret not having studied more on Azad the political system rather than just Azad the game. "I thought the colleges just taught people how to play."
"That's all they do in theory, but in fact they're more like surrogate noble families. Where the Empire gains over the usual bloodline set-up is they use the game to recruit the cleverest, most ruthless and manipulative apices from the whole population to run the show, rather than have to marry new blood into some stagnant aristocracy and hope for the best when the genes shake out. Actually quite a neat system; the game solves a lot. I can see it lasting; Contact seems to think it's all going to fall apart at the seams one day, but I doubt it myself. This lot could outlast us. They are impressive, don't you think? Come on; you have to admit you're impressed, aren't you?"
"Unspeakably," Gurgeh said. "But I'd like to see more before I come to any final judgement."
"You'll end up impressed; you'll appreciate its savage beauty. No; I'm serious. You will. You'll probably end up wanting to stay. Oh, and don't pay any attention to that dingbat drone they've sent to nursemaid you. They're all the same those machines; want everything to be like the Culture; peace and love and all that same bland crap. They haven't got the" — Za belched — "the sensuality to appreciate the" — he belched again- "Empire. Believe me. Ignore the machine."
Gurgeh was wondering what to say to that when a brightly dressed group of apices and females came up to surround him and Shohobohaum Za. An apex stepped out of the smiling, shining group, and, with a bow Gurgeh thought looked exaggerated, said to Za, "Would our esteemed envoy amuse our wives with his eyes?"
"I'd be delighted!" Za said. He handed the sweetmeat tray to Gurgeh, and while the women giggled and the apices smirked at each other, he went close to the females and flicked the nictitating membranes in his eyes up and down. "There!" He laughed, dancing back. One of the apices thanked him, then the group of people walked away, talking and laughing.
"They're like big kids," Za told Gurgeh, then patted him on the shoulder and wandered off, a vacant look in his eyes.
Flere-Imsaho floated over, making a noise like rustling paper. "I heard what that asshole said about ignoring machines," it said.
"Hmm?" Gurgeh said.
"I said — oh, it doesn't matter. Not feeling left out because you can't dance, are you?"
"No. I don't enjoy dancing."
"Just as well. It would be socially demeaning for anybody here even to touch you."
"What a way with words you have, machine," Gurgeh said. He put the plate of savouries in front of the drone and then let go and walked off. Flere-Imsaho yelped, and just managed to grab the falling prate before all the paper-wrapped pastries fell off.
Gurgeh wandered around for a while, feeling a little angry and more than a little uncomfortable. He was consumed with the idea that he was surrounded by people who were in some way failed, as though they were all the unpassed components from some high-quality system which would have been polluted by their inclusion. Not only did those around him strike him as foolish and boorish, but he felt also that he was not much different himself. Everybody he met seemed to feel he'd come here just to make a fool of himself.
Contact sent him out here with a geriatric warship hardly worthy of the name, gave him a vain, hopelessly gauche young drone, forgot to tell him things which they ought to have known would make a considerable difference to the way the game was played — the college system, which the Limiting Factor had glossed over, was a good example — and put him at least partly in the charge of a drunken, loudmouthed fool childishly infatuated with a few imperialist tricks and a resourcefully inhumane social system.
During the journey here, the whole adventure had seemed so romantic; a great and brave commitment, a noble thing to do. That sense of the epic had left him now. All he felt at this moment was that he, like Shohobohaum Za or Flere-Imsaho, was just another social misfit and this whole, spectacularly seedy Empire had been thrown to him like a scrap. Somewhere, he was sure, Minds were loafing in hyperspace within the field-fabric of some great ship, laughing.
He looked about the ballroom. Reedy music sounded, the paired apices and luxuriously dressed females moved about the shining marquet
ry floor in pre-set arrangements, their looks of pride and humility equally distasteful, while the servant males moved carefully around like machines, making sure each glass was kept full, each plate covered. He hardly thought it mattered what their social system was; it simply looked so crassly, rigidly over-organised.
"Ah, Gurgee," Pequil said. He came through the space between a large potted plant and a marble pillar, holding a young-looking female by one elbow. "There you are. Gurgee; please meet Trinev Dutleysdaughter." The apex smiled from the girl to the man, and guided her forward. She bowed slowly. "Trinev is a game-player too," Pequil told Gurgeh. "Isn't that interesting?"
"I'm honoured to meet you, young lady," Gurgeh said to the girl, bowing a little too. She stood still in front of him, her gaze directed at the floor. Her dress was less ornate than most of those he'd seen, and the woman inside it looked less glamorous.
"Well, I'll leave you two odd-ones-out to talk, shall I?" Pequil said, taking a step back, hands clasped. "Miss Dutleysdaughter's father is over by the rear bandstand, Gurgee; if you wouldn't mind returning the young lady when you've finished talking…?"
Gurgeh watched Pequil go, then smiled at the top of the young woman's head. He cleared his throat. The girl remained silent. Gurgeh said, "I, ah… I'd thought that only intermediates — apices — played Azad."
The girl looked up as far as his chest. "No, sir. There are some capable female players, of minor rank, of course." She had a soft, tired-sounding voice. She still did not raise her face to him, so he had to address the crown of her head, where he could see the white scalp through the black, tied hair.
"Ah," he said. "I thought it might have been… forbidden. I'm glad it isn't. Do males play too?"
"They do, sir. Nobody is forbidden to play. That is embodied in the Constitution. It is simply made — it is only that it is more difficult for either—" The woman broke off and brought her head up with a sudden, startling look. "- for either of the lesser sexes to learn, because all the great colleges must take only apex scholars." She looked back down again. "Of course, this is to prevent the distraction of those who study."
Gurgeh wasn't sure what to say. "I see," was all he could come up with at first. "Do you… hope to do well in the games?"
"If I can do well — if I can reach the second game in the main series — then I hope to be able to join the civil service, and travel."
"Well, I hope you succeed."
"Thank you. Unfortunately, it is not very likely. The first game, as you know, is played by groups of ten, and to be the only woman playing nine apices is to be regarded as a nuisance. One is usually put out of the game first, to clear the field."
"Hmm. I was warned something similar might happen to me," Gurgeh said, smiling at the woman's head and wishing she would look up at him again.
"Oh no." The woman did look up then, and Gurgeh found the directness of her flat-faced gaze oddly disconcerting. "They won't do that to you; it wouldn't be polite. They don't know how weak or strong you are. They…" She looked down again. "They know that I am, so it is no disrespect to remove me from the board so that they may get on with the game."
Gurgeh looked round the huge, noisy, crowded ballroom, where the people talked and danced and the music sounded loud. "Is there nothing you can do?" he asked. "Wouldn't it be possible to arrange that ten women play each other in the first round?"
She was still looking down, but something about the curve of her cheek told him she might have been smiling. "Indeed, sir. But I believe there has never been an occasion in the great-game series when two lesser-sexes have played in the same group. The draw has never worked out that way, in all these years."
"Ah," Gurgeh said. "And single games, one-against-one?"
"They do not count unless one has gone through the earlier rounds. When I do practise single games, I am told… that I'm very lucky. I suppose I must be. But then, I know I am, for my father has chosen me a fine master and husband, and even if I do not succeed in the game, I shall marry well. What more can a woman ask for, sir?"
Gurgeh didn't know what to say. There was a strange tingling feeling at the back of his neck. He cleared his throat a couple of times. In the end all he could find to say was, "I hope you do win. I really hope you do."
The woman looked briefly up at him, then down again. She shook her head.
After a while, Gurgeh suggested that he take her back to her father, and she assented. She said one more thing.
They were walking down the great hall, threading their way through the clumps of people to where her father waited, and at one point they passed between a great carved pillar and a wall of battle-murals. During the instant they were quite hidden from the rest of the room, the woman reached out one hand and touched him on the top of his wrist; with the other hand she pressed a finger over a particular point on the shoulder of his robe, and with that one finger pressing, and the others lightly brushing his arm, in the same moment whispered, "You win. You win!"
Then they were with her father, and after repeating how welcome he felt, Gurgeh left the family group. The woman didn't look at him again. He had had no time to reply to her.
"Are you all right, Jernau Gurgeh?" Flere-Imsaho said, finding the man leaning against a wall and seemingly just staring into space, as though he was one of the liveried male servants.
Gurgeh looked at the drone. He put his finger to the point on the robe's shoulder the girl had pressed. "Is this where the bug is on this thing?"
"Yes," the machine said. "That's right. Did Shohobohaum Za tell you that?"
"Hmm, thought so," Gurgeh said. He pushed himself away from the wall. "Would it be polite to leave now?"
"Now?" The drone started back a little, humming loudly. "Well, I suppose so… are you sure you're all right?"
"Never felt better. Let's go." Gurgeh walked away.
"You seem agitated. Are you really alright? Aren't you enjoying yourself? What did Za give you to drink? Are you nervous about the game? Has Za said something? Is it because nobody'll touch you?"
Gurgeh walked through the people, ignoring the humming, crackling drone at his shoulder.
As they left the great ballroom, he realised that apart from remembering that she was called somebody's-daughter, he had forgotten the woman's name.
Gurgeh was due to play his first game of Azad two days after the ball. He spent the time working out a few set-piece manoeuvres with the Limiting Factor. He could have used the module's brain, but the old warship had a more interesting game-style. The fact that the Limiting Factor was several decades away by real space light meant there was a significant delay involved — the ship itself always replied instantly to a move — but the effect was still of playing an extraordinarily quick and gifted player.
Gurgeh didn't take up any more invitations to formal functions; he'd told Pequil his digestive system was taking time to adjust to the Empire's rich food, and that appeared to be an acceptable excuse. He even refused the chance to go on a sight-seeing trip of the capital.
He saw nobody during those days except Flere-Imsaho, which spent most of its time, in its disguise, sitting on the hotel parapet, humming quietly and watching birds, which it attracted with crumbs scattered on the roof-garden lawn.
Now and again, Gurgeh would walk out on to the grassed roof and stand looking out over the city.
The streets and the sky were both full of traffic. Groasnachek was like a great, flattened, spiky animal, awash with lights at night and hazy with its own heaped breath during the day. It spoke with a great, garbled choir of voices; an encompassing background roar of engines and machines that never ceased, and the sporadic tearing sounds of passing aircraft. The continual wails, whoops, warbles and screams of sirens and alarms were strewn across the fabric of the city like shrapnel holes.
Architecturally, Gurgeh thought, the place was a hopeless mix of styles, and far too big. Some buildings soared, some sprawled, but each seemed to have been designed without any regard to any other, and the whol
e effect — which might have been interestingly varied — was in fact gruesome. He kept thinking of the Little Rascal, holding ten times as many people as the city in a smaller area, and far more elegantly, even though most of the craft's volume was taken up with ship-building space, engines, and other equipment.
Groasnachek had all the planning of a bird-dropping, Gurgeh thought, and the city was its own maze.
When the day came for the game to start he woke feeling elated, as though he'd just won a game, rather than being about to embark on the first real, serious match of his life. He ate very little for breakfast, and dressed slowly in the ceremonial garments the game required; rather ridiculous gathered-up clothes, with soft slippers and hose beneath a bulky jacket with rolled, gartered sleeves. At least, as a novice, Gurgeh's robes were relatively unornamented, and restrained in colour.
Pequil arrived to take him to the game in an official groundcar. The apex chattered during the journey, enthusing about some recent conquest the Empire had made in a distant region of space; a glorious victory.
The car sped along the broad streets, heading for the outskirts of the city where the public hall Gurgeh would play in had been converted into a game-room.
All over the city that morning, people were going to their first game of the new series; from the most optimistic young player lucky enough to win a place in the games in a state lottery, right up to Nicosar himself, those twelve thousand people faced that day knowing that their lives might change utterly and for ever, for better or worse, starting from right now. The whole city was alive with the game-fever which infected it every six years; Groasnachek was packed with the players, their retinues, advisors, college mentors, relations and friends, the Empire's press and news-services, and visiting delegations from colonies and oominions there to watch the future course of imperial history being decided.
The Player of Games c-2 Page 16
