Za, on the other side of the table, was playing small games of forfeit with his two giggling ladies, handling tiny, almost transparent slice jewel-cards and laughing a lot. One of the ladies noted the forfeits down in a little notebook, with much giggling and feigned embarrassment.
"But Jernow!" At-sen said, from Gurgeh's left. "You must have a scar-portrait! So that we may remember you when you have gone back to the Culture and its decadent, many-orificed ladies!" Inclate, on his right, giggled.
"Certainly not," Gurgeh said, mock-serious. "It sounds quite barbaric."
"Oh yes, yes, it is!" At-sen and Inclate laughed into their glasses. At-sen pulled herself together, put her hand on his wrist. "Wouldn't you like to think there was some poor person walking around on Eä with your face on their skin?"
"Yes, but on which bit?" Gurgeh asked.
They thought this hilariously funny.
Za stood; one of his ladies packed the tiny slivers of the game-cards away in a little chain purse. "Gurgeh," Za said, knocking back the last of his drink. "We're off for a more private chat; you three too?" Za grinned wickedly at Inclate and At-sen, producing gales of laughter and small shrieks. At-sen dipped her fingers in her drink and flicked some liquor at Za, who dodged.
"Yes, come, Jernow," Inclate said, taking hold of Gurgeh's arm with both hands. "Let's all go; the air is so stuffy here, and the noise so loud."
Gurgeh smiled, shook his head. "No; I'd only disappoint you."
"Oh no! No!" Slim fingers tugged at his sleeves, curled round his arms.
The politely mocking argument went on for some minutes, while Za stood, grinning, ladies draped on either side, looking on, and Inclate and At-sen tried their hardest either to physically lift Gurgeh to his feet, or, by pouting protestations, persuade him to move.
All failed. Za shrugged — his ladies imitated the alien gesture, before dissolving into laughter — and said, "Okay; just stay there, all right, game-player?"
Za looked at Inclate and At-sen, who were temporarily subdued and petulant. "You two look after him, right?" Za told them. "Don't let him talk to any strangers."
At-sen sniffed imperiously. "Your friend declines all; strange or familiar."
Inclate snorted despite herself. "Or both in one," she blurted. Whereupon she and At-sen started laughing again and reaching behind Gurgeh to slap and pinch each other's shoulders.
Za shook his head. "Jemau; try and control those two as well as you control yourself."
Gurgeh ducked a few flicked drops of drink while the females squealed on either side of him. "I'll try," he told Za.
"Well," Za said, "I'll try not to be too long. Sure you won't join in? Could be quite an experience."
"I'm sure. But I'm fine here."
"Okay. Don't wander. See you soon." Za grinned at the giggling girls on either side of him, and then they turned together, walked away. "Ish!" Za shouted back over his shoulder. "Soon-ish, game-player!"
Gurgeh waved goodbye. Inclate and At-sen quietened fractionally and set about telling him what a naughty boy he was for not being more naughty. Gurgeh ordered more drinks and pipes to keep them quiet. They showed him how to play the game of elements, chanting, "Blade cuts cloth, cloth wraps stone, stone dams water, water quenches fire, fire melts blade…" like serious schoolgirls, and showing him the appropriate hand-shapes, so that he could learn.
It was a truncated, two-dimensional version of the elemental die-matching from the Board of Becoming, minus Air and Life. Gurgeh found it amusing that even in the Hole he could not escape the influence of Azad. He played the simple game because the ladies wanted to, and he took care not to win too many hands… something, he realised, he had never done before in his life.
Still puzzling over this anomaly, he went to the toilets, of which there were four different types. He used the Aliens, but took some time to find the right piece of equipment. He was still chortling over this when he came out, to find Inclate standing outside the sphincter-like doorway. She looked worried; the oil-film dress rippled dully.
"What's wrong?" he asked her.
"At-sen," she said, kneading her little hands together. "Her ex-master came; took her away. He wants to have her again or it will be a tenth-year since they are one, and she will be free." She looked up at Gurgeh, small face contorted, distressed. The blue-black hair washed round her face like a slow and fluid shadow. "I know Sho-Za said you must not move, but will you? This is not your concern, but she's my friend…"
"What can I do?" Gurgeh said.
"Come; we two may distract him. I think I know where he's taken her. I shall not endanger you, Jernow." She took his hand.
They half walked, half ran down twisting wooden corridors) past many rooms and doors. He was lost in a maze of sensation; a welter of sounds (music, laughter, screams), sights (servants, erotic pictures, glimpsed galleries of packed, swaying bodies) and smells (food, perfume, alien sweats).
Suddenly, Inclate stopped. They were in a deep, bowled room like a theatre, where a naked human male stood on stage, turning slowly, this way and that, in front of a giant screen showing a close-up of his skin. Deep, booming music played. Inclate stood looking round the packed auditorium, still holding Gurgeh's hand.
Gurgeh glanced at the man on stage. The lights were bright, sunlight spectraed. The slightly plump, pale-skinned male had several enormous, multi-coloured bruises — like huge prints — on his body. Those on his back and chest were largest, and showed Azadian faces. The mixture of blacks, blues, purples, greens, yellows and reds combined to form portraits of uncanny accuracy and subtlety, which the flexings of the man's muscles seemed to make live, exactly as though those faces took on new expressions with each moment. Gurgeh looked, and felt his breath draw in.
"There!" Inclate shouted over the pulsing music, and tugged at his hand. They set off through the crowding people, towards where At-sen stood, near the front of the stage. She was being held by an apex who was pointing at the man on the stage and shouting at her, shaking her. At-sen's head was down, her shoulders quivered as if she was crying. The video-dress was turned off; it hung on her, grey and drab and lifeless. The apex hit At-sen across the head (the slow black hair twisted languidly), and shouted at her again. She fell to her knees; the beaded hair followed her as if she was sinking slowly under water. Nobody around the couple took any notice. Inclate strode towards them, pulling Gurgeh after her.
The apex saw them coming, tried to drag At-sen away. Inclate started to shout at the apex; she held up Gurgeh's hand as they pushed people aside, drew closer. The apex looked suddenly fearful; he stumbled away, dragging At-sen with him to an exit beneath the raised stage. Inclate started forward, but her way was blocked by a cluster of large Azadian males, standing staring open-mouthed at the man on the stage. Inclate beat at their backs with her fists. Gurgeh watched At-sen disappear, dragged through the door beneath the stage. He pulled Inclate to one side and used his greater mass and strength to force a way between two of the protesting males; he and the girl ran to the swinging door.
The corridor curved sharply. They followed the sounds of screams, down some narrow stairs, over a step where the broken monitor-collar lay, snapped and dead, down to a quiet corridor where the light was jade and there were many doors. At-sen was lying on the floor, the apex above her, screaming at her. He saw Gurgeh and Inclate, shook his fist at them. Inclate screamed incoherently at him.
Gurgeh started forward; the apex took a gun from a pocket.
Gurgeh stopped. Inclate went quiet. At-sen whimpered on the floor. The apex started talking, far too fast for Gurgeh to follow; he pointed at the woman on the floor, then gestured at the ceiling. He began to cry, and the gun shook in his hand (and part of Gurgeh, sitting back calmly analysing, thought, Am I frightened? Is this fear yet? I'm looking death in the face, staring at it through that little black hole, the little twisted tunnel in this alien's hand (like another element the hand can show), and I'm waiting to feel fear.
… and it hasn't hap
pened yet. I'm still waiting. Does this mean that I shan't die now, or that I shall?
Life or death in a finger's twitch, a single nerve-pulse, just one perhaps not fully willed decision by some jealous irrelevant one-credit sick-head, a hundred millennia from home…).
The apex backed away, gesturing imploringly, pathetically to At-sen, and at Gurgeh and Inclate. He came forward and kicked At-sen, once, in the back, with no great force, making her cry out, then turned and ran, shouting incoherently and throwing the gun down to the floor. Gurgeh ran after him, vaulting over At-sen. The apex disappeared down a dark spiral staircase at the far end of the curved passage. Gurgeh started to follow, then stopped. The sound of clattering footsteps died away. He went back to the jade-lit corridor.
A door was open; soft citrine light spilled out.
There was a short hall, a bathroom off, then the room. It was small, and mirrored everywhere; even the soft floor rippled with unsteady reflections the colour of honey. He walked in, at the centre of a vanishing army of reflected Gurgehs.
At-sen sat on a translucent bed, forlorn in her wrecked grey dress, head down and sobbing while Inclate, kneeling by her, arm round the crying woman's shoulders, whispered gently. Their images proliferated about the shining walls of the room. He hesitated, glanced back at the door. At-sen looked up at him, tears streaming.
"Oh, Jernow!" She held out one shaking hand. He squatted by the bedside, his arm round her as she quivered, while both women cried.
He stroked At-sen's back.
She put her head on his shoulder, and her lips were warm and strange on his neck; Inclate left the bed, padded to the door and closed it, then joined the man and the woman, dropping the oil-film dress to the mirror-floor in a glistening pool of iridescence.
Shohobohaum Za arrived a minute later, kicking the door in, walking smartly into the middle of the mirrored room (so that an infinitude of Zas repeated and repeated their way across that cheating space), and glared round, ignoring the three people on the bed.
Inclate and At-sen froze, hands at Gurgeh's clothing-ties and buttons. Gurgeh was momentarily shocked, then tried to assume an urbane expression. Za looked at the wall behind Gurgeh, who followed his gaze; he found himself looking at his own reflection; face dark, hair mussed, clothes half undone. Za leapt across the bed, kicking into the image.
The wall shattered in a chorus of screams; the mirror-glass cascaded to reveal a dark and shallow room behind, and a small machine on a tripod, pointing into the mirror-room. Inclate and At-sen sprang off the bed and raced out; Inclate grabbed her dress on the way.
Za took the tiny camera off its tripod and looked at it. "Record only, thank goodness; no transmitter." He stuffed the machine into a pocket, then turned and grinned at Gurgeh. "Put it back in the holster, game-player. We got to run!"
They ran. Down the jade passage towards the same spiral steps At-sen's abductor had taken. Za stooped as he ran, scooping up the gun the apex had dropped and Gurgeh had forgotten about. It was inspected, tried and discarded within a couple of seconds. They got to the spiral steps and leapt up them.
Another corridor, darkly russet. Music boomed above. Za skidded to a stop as two large apices ran towards them. "Oops," Za said, doing an about-turn. He shoved Gurgeh back to the stairs and they ran up again, coming out in a dark space full of the beating, pulsing music; light blazed to one side. Footsteps hammered up the stairs. Za turned and kicked down into the stairwell with one foot, producing an explosive yelp and a sudden clatter.
A thin blue beam freckled the darkness, lancing from the stairwell and bursting yellow flame and orange sparks somewhere overhead. Za dodged away. "Fucking artillery indeed." He nodded past Gurgeh towards the light. "Exit stage centre, maestro."
They ran out on to the stage, flooded with sunlight brilliance. A bulky male in the centre of the stage turned resentfully as they thundered out from the wings; the audience yelled abuse. Then the expression on the near-naked bruise artiste's face switched from vexation to stunned surprise.
Gurgeh almost fell; he did stop, dead still.
… to gaze, again, at his own face.
It was printed, twice life-size, in a bloody rainbow of contusions, on the torso of the dumbstruck performer. Gurgeh stared, expression mirroring the amazement on the tubby artiste's face.
"No time for art now, Jernau." Za pulled him away, dragged him to the front of the stage and threw him off. He dived after him.
They landed on top of a group of protesting Azadian males, tumbling them to the ground. Za hauled Gurgeh to his feet, then nearly fell again as a blow struck the back of his head. He turned and lashed out with one foot, fending off another punch with one arm. Gurgeh felt himself twirled round; he found himself facing a large, angry male with blood on his face. The man drew his arm back, made a fist of his hand (so that Gurgeh thought; stone! from the game of elements).
The man seemed to move very slowly.
Gurgeh had time to think what to do.
He brought his knee up into the male's groin and heel-palmed his face. He shook the falling man's grip free, ducked a blow from another male, and saw Za elbow yet another Azadian in the face.
Then they were sprinting away again. Za roared and waved his hands as he ran for an exit. Gurgeh fought a strange urge to laugh at this, but the tactic seemed to work; people parted for them like water round the bows of a boat.
They sat in a small, open-ceilinged bar, deep in the maze-like clutter of the main gallery, under a solid sky of chalky pearl. Shohobohaum Za was dismantling the camera he'd discovered behind the false mirror, teasing its delicate components apart with a humming, toothpick-size instrument. Gurgeh dabbed at a graze on his cheek, incurred when Za had thrown him from the stage.
"Na, my fault, game-player. I should have known. Inclate's brother's in Security, and At-sen's got an expensive habit. Nice kids, but a bad combination, and not exactly what I asked for. Damn lucky for your ass one of my sweeties dropped a slice-jewel-card and wouldn't play anything else without it. Ah well; half a fuck's better than none at all."
He prised another piece out of the camera body; there was a crackle and a little flash. Za poked dubiously at the smoking casing.
"How did you know where to find us?" Gurgeh asked. He felt like a fool, but less embarrassed than he'd have expected.
"Knowledge, guesswork and luck, game-player. There are places in that club you go when you want to roll somebody, other places where you can question them, or kill them, or hook them on something… or take their picture. I was just hoping it was lights-action time and not something worse." He shook his head, peered at the camera. "I should have known though. Ought to have guessed. Getting too damn trusting."
Gurgeh shrugged, sipped at his hot liquor and studied the guttering candle on the counter in front of them. "I was the one who was suckered. But who?" He looked at Za. "Why?"
"The state, Gurgeh," Za said, prodding at the camera again. "Because they want to have something on you, just in case."
"Just in case what?"
"Just in case you keep surprising them and winning games. It's insurance. You heard of that? No? Never mind. It's like gambling in reverse." Za held the camera with one hand, straining at part of it with the thin instrument. A hatch popped open. Za looked happy, and extracted a coin-sized disk from the guts of the machine. He held it up to the light, where it glinted nacreously. "Your holiday snaps," Za told Gurgeh.
He adjusted something at the end of the toothpick, so that the little disk stuck to the instrument's point as though glued there, then held the tiny polychromatic coin over the candle flame until it sizzled and smoked and hissed, and finally fell in dull flakes on to the wax. "Sorry you couldn't have that as a souvenir," Za said.
Gurgeh shook his head. "Something I'd rather forget."
"Ah, never mind. I'll get those two bitches though," Za grinned. "They owe me one for free. Several, in fact." Za looked happy at the thought.
"Is that all?" Gurgeh asked.
"Hey; they were just playing their parts. No malice involved. Worth a spanking at most." Za waggled his eyebrows lasciviously.
Gurgeh sighed.
When they went back to the transit gallery to order their car, Za waved at some bulky, severely casual males and apices waiting in the lime-lit tunnel, and tossed one of them what was left of the camera. The apex caught it, and turned away along with the others.
The car arrived minutes later.
"And what time do you call this? Do you know how long I've been waiting for you? You've got a game to play tomorrow, you know. Just look at the state of your clothes! And where did you pick up that graze? What have you—"
"Machine." Gurgeh yawned, throwing his jacket down on to a seat in the lounge. "Go fuck yourself."
The following morning, Flere-Imsaho wasn't talking to him. It joined him in the module lounge just as the call came through that Pequil had arrived with the car, but when Gurgeh said hello, it ignored him, and travelled down in the hotel elevator studiously humming and crackling even louder than usual. It was similarly uncommunicative in the car. Gurgeh decided he could live with this.
"Gurgee, you have hurt yourself." Pequil looked with concern at the graze over Gurgeh's cheek.
"Yes," Gurgeh smiled, stroking his beard. "I cut myself shaving."
It was attrition time on the Board of Form.
Gurgeh was up against the other nine players from the start, until it became too obvious that was what was happening. He'd used the advantage accrued on the previous board to set up a small, dense and almost impregnable enclave; he just sat in there for two days, letting the others beat up against it. Done properly, this would have broken him, but his opponents were trying not to look too concerted in their actions, so attacked a few at a time. They were anyway each fearful of weakening themselves over-much in case they were pounced upon by the others.
By the end of those two days, a couple of the news-agencies were saying it was unfair and discourteous to the stranger to gang up on him.
The Player of Games c-2 Page 19
