It gave Yomonul an edge. He scraped in ahead of Traff. Gurgeh won the match and the chance to play Nicosar. Hamin tried to talk to him in the corridor outside the game-hall, immediately after his victory, but Gurgeh just smiled and walked past.
Cinderbuds swayed all around them; the light wind made shushing noises in the golden canopy. The court, the game-players and their retinues sat on a high, steeply raked wooden structure itself almost the size of a small castle. Before the stand, in a large clearing in the cinderbud forest, was a long, narrow run; a double fence of stout timbers five metres or more high. This formed the central section of a sort of open corral, shaped like an hourglass and open to the forest at both ends. Nicosar and the higher-placed players sat at the front of the high wooden platform with a good view of the wooden funnel.
At the back of the stand there were awninged areas where food was being prepared. Smells of roasting meat drifted over the stand and out into the forest.
"That'll have them frothing at the mouth," Star Marshal Yomonul said, leaning over to Gurgeh with a whirring of servoes. They were sitting side by side, on the front rank of the platform, a little along from the Emperor. Both held a large projectile rifle, fastened to a supporting tripod in front of them.
"What will?" Gurgeh asked.
"The smell." Yomonul grinned, gesturing behind them to the fires and grills. "Roasted meat. Wind's carrying it their way. It'll drive them crazy."
"Oh, great," muttered Flere-Imsaho from near Gurgeh's feet. It had already tried to persuade Gurgeh not to take part in the hunt.
Gurgeh ignored the machine and nodded. "Of course," he said. He hefted the rifle stock. The ancient weapon was single shot; a sliding bolt had to be operated to reload it. Each gun had slightly different rifling patterns, so that when the bullets were removed from the bodies of the animals, the marks on them would allow a score to be kept and heads and pelts to be allocated.
"You sure you've used one of these before?" Yomonul asked, grinning at him. The apex was in a good mood. In a few tens of days he would be released from the exoskeleton. Meanwhile, the Emperor had allowed the prison regimen to be relaxed; Yomonul could socialise, drink, and eat whatever he liked.
Gurgeh nodded. "I've shot guns," he said. He'd never used a projectile gun, but there had been that day, years ago now, with Yay, in the desert.
"Bet you've never shot anything live before," the drone said.
Yomonul tapped the machine's casing with one carbon-shod foot. "Quiet, thing," he said.
Flere-Imsaho tipped slowly up so that its bevelled brown front pointed up at Gurgeh. ""Thing"?" it said indignantly, in a sort of whispered screech.
Gurgeh winked and put his finger to his lips. He and Yomonul grinned at each other.
The hunt, as it was called, started with a blare of trumpets and the distant howling of the troshae. A line of males appeared from the forest and ran alongside the wooden funnel, beating the timbers with rods. The first troshae appeared, shadows striping along its flanks as it entered the clearing and ran into the wooden funnel. The people around Gurgeh murmured in anticipation.
"A big one," Yomonul said appreciatively as the golden-black striped beast loped six-legged down the run. Clicks all around the platform announced people preparing to fire. Gurgeh lifted the stock of the rifle. Fastened to its tripod, the rifle was easier to handle in the harsh gravity than it would have been otherwise, as well as being limited in its field of fire; something the Emperor's ever watchful guards no doubt found reassuring.
The troshae sprinted down the run, paws blurring on the dusty ground; people fired at it, filling the air with muffled cracking noises and puffs of grey smoke. White wood splinters spun off the run's timbers; puffs of dust burst from the ground. Yomonul sighted and fired; a chorus of shots burst out around Gurgeh. The guns were silenced, but all the same Gurgeh felt his ears close up a little, deadening the racket. He fired. The recoil took him by surprise; his bullet must have gone way over the animal's head.
He looked down into the run. The animal was screaming. It tried to leap up the fence on the far side of the run, but was brought down in a hail of fire. It limped on a little further, dragging three legs and leaving a trail of blood behind it. Gurgeh heard another muffled report by his side, and the carnivore's head jerked suddenly to one side; it collapsed. A great cheer went up. A gate in the run was opened and some males scurried in to drag the body away. Yomonul was on his feet beside Gurgeh, acknowledging the cheers. He sat down again quickly, exoskeleton motors whirring, as the next animal appeared out of the forest and raced between the wooden walls.
After the fourth troshae, several came at once, and in the confusion one scrambled up the timbers of the run and over the top; it started to chase some of the males waiting outside the run. A guard, on the ground at the foot of the stand, brought the animal down with a single laser-shot.
In the mid-morning, when a great pile of the striped bodies had accumulated in the middle of the run and there was a danger some animals would climb out over the bodies of their predecessors, the hunt was stopped while males used hooks and hawsers and a couple of small tractors to clear the warm, blood-spattered debris. Somebody on the far side of the Emperor shot one of the males while they were working. There were some tuts, and a few drunken cheers. The Emperor fined the offender and told them if they did it again they'd find themselves running with the troshae. Everybody laughed.
"You're not firing, Gurgeh," Yomonul said. He reckoned he'd killed another three animals by then. Gurgeh had begun to find the hunt a little pointless, and almost stopped firing. He kept missing, anyway.
"I'm not very good at this," he said.
"Practice!" Yomonul laughed, slapping him on the back. The servo-amplified blow from the elated Star Marshal almost knocked the wind out of Gurgeh.
Yomonul claimed another kill. He gave an excited shout and kicked Flere-Imsaho. "Fetch!" he laughed.
The drone rose slowly and with dignity from the floor. "Jernau Gurgeh," it said. "I'm not putting up with any more of this. I'm going back to the castle. Do you mind?"
"Not at all."
"Thank you. Enjoy your marksmanship." It floated down and to the side, disappearing round the edge of the stand. Yomonul had it in his sights most of the way.
"You just let it go?" he asked Gurgeh, laughing.
"Glad to be rid of it," Gurgeh told him.
They broke for lunch. Nicosar congratulated Yomonul, saying how well he'd shot. Gurgeh sat with Yomonul at lunch, too, and went down on one knee as Nicosar's palanquin was brought up to their part of the table. Yomonul told the Emperor the exoskeleton helped steady his aim. Nicosar said it was the Emperor's pleasure that the device be removed soon, after the formal end of the games. Nicosar glanced at Gurgeh, but said nothing else; the AG palanquin lifted itself; the imperial guards nudged it further down the line of waiting people. After lunch, people returned to their seats and the hunt went on. There were other animals to hunt, and the first part of the short afternoon was spent shooting them, but the troshae came back later on. So far, only seven of the two hundred or so troshae released from the forest pens into the run had made it all the way through the wooden funnel and out the far end to escape into the forest. Even they were wounded, and would anyway be caught by the Incandescence.
The earth in the wooden funnel in front of the shooting platform was dark with auburn blood. Gurgeh shot as the animals pounded down the sodden run, but aimed to just miss them, watching for the spatter of muddy ground in front of their noses as they tore, wounded and howling and panting, in front of him. He found the whole hunt somewhat distasteful but could not deny that the infectious excitement of the Azadians had some effect on him. Yomonul was obviously enjoying himself. The apex leant over as a large female troshae came running out of the forest with two small cubs.
"You need more practice, Gurgey," he said. "Don't you do any hunting at home?" The female and her cubs ran towards the wooden funnel.
"Not much," Gur
geh admitted.
Yomonul grunted, aimed at long range and fired. One of the cubs dropped. The female skidded, stopped, went back to it. The other cub ran on hesitantly. It mewled as bullets hit it.
Yomonul reloaded. "I was surprised to see you here at all," he said. The female, stung by a bullet in a rear leg, swung growling away from the dead cub and charged forward again, roaring, at the tottering, wounded cub.
"I wanted to show I wasn't squeamish," Gurgeh said, watching the second cub's head jerk up and the beast fall at the feet of its mother. "And I have hunted—"
He was going to use the word "Azad', which meant machine and animal; any organism or system, and he turned to Yomonul with a small smile to say this, but when he looked at the apex he could see there was something wrong.
Yomonul was shaking. He sat clutching his gun, turned half towards Gurgeh, face quivering in its dark cage, skin white and covered in sweat, eyes bulging.
Gurgeh went to put his hand on the strut of the Star Marshal's forearm, instinctively offering support.
It was as though something broke inside the apex. Yomonul's gun swung right round, snapping the supporting tripod; the bulky silencer pointed straight at Gurgeh's forehead. Gurgeh had a fleeting, vivid impression of Yomonul's face; jaw clamped shut, blood trickling over his chin, eyes staring, a tic working furiously on the side of his face. Gurgeh ducked; the gun fired somewhere over his head and he heard a scream as he fell out of his seat, rolling past his own gun's tripod.
Before he could get up, Gurgeh was kicked in the back. He turned over to see Yomonul above him, swaying crazily against the background of shocked, pale faces behind him. He was struggling with the rifle bolt, reloading. One foot lashed out again, thudding into Gurgeh's ribs; he jerked back, trying to absorb the blow, and fell over the front of the platform.
He saw wooden slats whirling, cinderbuds revolving, then he struck, crashing into a male animal handler standing just before the run. They each thudded to the ground, winded. Gurgeh looked up and saw Yomonul on the platform, exoskeleton glinting dully in the sunlight, raising the rifle and sighting on him. Two apices came up behind Yomonul, arms out to grasp him. Without even glancing back, Yomonul swung his arms flashing round behind him; a hand smashed into the chest of one apex; the rifle slammed into the face of the other. Both collapsed; the carbon-ribbed arms darted back and Yomonul steadied the gun again, aiming at Gurgeh.
Gurgeh was on his feet, diving away. The shot hit the still winded male lying behind him. Gurgeh stumbled for the wooden doors leading under the high platform; shouts came from the platform as Yomonul jumped down, landing between Gurgeh and the doors; the Star Marshal reloaded the gun as he hit the ground on his feet, the exoskeleton easily absorbing the shock of landing. Gurgeh almost fell as he turned, feet skidding on the blood-spattered earth.
He pushed himself off the ground, to run between the edge of the wooden fence and the platform edge. A uniformed guard with a CREW rifle stood in his way, looking uncertainly up at the platform. Gurgeh went to run past him, ducking as he did so. Still a few metres in front of Gurgeh, the guard started to put one hand out and unhitch the laser from his shoulder. A look of almost comic surprise appeared on his flat face, an instant before one side of his chest burst open and he spun round into Gurgeh's path, knocking him over.
Gurgeh rolled again, clattering over the dead guard. He sat up. Yomonul was ten metres away, running awkwardly towards him, reloading. The guard's rifle was at Gurgeh's feet. He reached out, grabbed it, aimed at Yomonul and fired.
The Star Marshal ducked, but Gurgeh was still allowing for recoil after a morning shooting the projectile rifle. The laser-shot slammed into Yomonul's face; the apex's head blew apart.
Yomonul didn't stop. He didn't even slow down; the running figure, head-cage almost empty, trailing strips of flesh and splintered bone behind it like pennants, neck spouting blood, speeded up; it ran faster towards him, and less awkwardly.
It aimed the rifle straight at Gurgeh's head.
Gurgeh froze, stunned. Too late, he started to sight the CREW gun again, and began struggling to get up. The headless exoskeleton was three metres away; he stared into the silencer's black mouth and he knew he was dead. But the bizarre figure hesitated, empty headshell jerking upwards, and the gun wavered.
Something crashed into Gurgeh — from the back, he realised, surprised, as everything went dark; from the back, not from the front — and then came nothing.
His back hurt. He opened his eyes. A bulky brown drone hummed between him and a white ceiling.
"Gurgeh?" the machine said.
He swallowed, licked his lips. "What?" he said. He didn't know where he was, or who the drone was. He had only a very vague idea who he was.
"Gurgeh. It's me; Flere-Imsaho. How do you feel?"
Flear Imsah-ho. The name meant something. "Back hurts a bit," he said, hoping not to be found out. Gurgi? Gurgey? Must be his name.
"I'm not surprised. A very large troshae hit you in the back."
"A what?"
"Never mind. Go back to sleep."
"…. Sleep."
His eyelids felt very heavy and the drone looked blurred.
His back hurt. He opened his eyes and saw a white ceiling. He looked around for Flere-Imsaho. Dark wooden walls. Window. Flere-Imsaho; there it was. It floated over to him.
"Hello, Gurgeh."
"Hello."
"Do you remember who I am?"
"Still asking stupid questions, Flere-Imsaho. Am I going to be all right?"
"You're bruised, you've got a cracked rib and you're mildly concussed. You ought to be able to get up in a day or two."
"Do I remember you saying a… troshae hit me? Did I dream that?"
"You didn't dream it. I did tell you. That's what happened. How much do you remember?"
"Falling off the stand… platform," he said slowly, trying to think. He was in bed and his back was sore. It was his own room in the castle and the lights were on so it was probably night. His eyes widened. "Yomonul kicked me off!" he said suddenly. "Why?"
"It doesn't matter now. Go back to sleep."
Gurgeh started to say something else, but he felt tired again as the drone buzzed closer, and he closed his eyes for a second just to rest them.
Gurgeh stood by the window, looking down into the courtyard. The male servant took the tray out, glasses clinking.
"Go on," he said to the drone.
"The troshae climbed the fence while everybody was watching you and Yomonul. It came up behind you and sprang. It hit you and then bowled over the exoskeleton before it had time to do much about it. Guards shot the troshae as it tried to gore Yomonul, and by the time they dragged it off the exoskeleton it had deactivated."
Gurgeh shook his head slowly. "All I remember is being kicked off the stand." He sat down in a chair by the window. The far edge of the courtyard was golden in the hazy light of late afternoon. "And where were you while this was happening?"
"Back here, watching the hunt on an imperial broadcast. I'm sorry I left, Jernau Gurgeh, but that appalling apex was kicking me, and the whole obscene spectacle was just too gory and disgusting for words." Gurgeh waved one hand. "It doesn't matter. I'm alive." He put his face in his hands. "You're sure it was I who shot Yomonul?"
"Oh yes! It's all recorded. Do you want to wa—"
"No." Gurgeh held up one hand to the drone, eyes still closed. "No; I don't want to watch."
"I didn't see that bit live," Flere-Imsaho said. "I was on my way back to the hunt as soon as Yomonul fired his first shot and killed the person on the other side of you. But I've watched the recording; yes, you killed him, with the guard's CREW. But of course that just meant whoever had taken control of the exoskeleton didn't have to fight against Yomonul inside it. As soon as Yomonul was dead the thing moved a lot faster and less erratically. He must have been using all his strength to try and stop it."
Gurgeh stared at the floor. "You're certain about all this?"
"Absolutely." The drone drifted over to the wall-screen. "Look, why not watch it on your—"
"No!" Gurgeh shouted, standing, and then swaying.
He sat down again. "No," he said, quieter.
"By the time I got there, whoever was jamming the exoskeleton controls had gone; I got a brief reading on my microwave sensors while I was between here and the hunt, but it switched off before I could get an accurate fix. Some kind of phased-pulse maser. The imperial guards picked up something too; they'd started a search in the forest by the time we took you away. I persuaded them I knew what I was doing and had you brought here. They sent a doctor in to look at you a couple of times, but that's all. Lucky I got there when I did or they might have taken you to the infirmary and started doing all sorts of nasty tests on you…" The drone sounded perplexed. "That's why I have a feeling this wasn't a straight security-service job. They'd have tried other, less public ways to kill you, and they'd have been all set up to get you into the hospital if it hadn't quite worked… all too disorganised. There's something funny going on, I'm sure."
Gurgeh put his hands to his back, carefully tracing the extent of the bruising again. "I wish I could remember everything. I wish I could remember whether I meant to kill Yomonul," he said. His chest ached. He felt sick.
"As you did, and you're such a bad shot, I'd assume the answer is no."
Gurgeh looked at the machine. "Don't you have something else you could be doing, drone?"
"Not really. Oh, by the way; the Emperor wants to see you, when you're feeling well."
"I'll go now," Gurgeh said, standing slowly.
"Are you sure? I don't think you should. You don't look well; I'd lie down if I were you. Please sit down. You're not ready. What if he's angry because you killed Yomonul? Oh, I suppose I'd better come the with you…
Nicosar sat in a small throne in front of a great bank of slanting, multi-coloured windows. The imperial apartments were submerged in the deep, polychromatic light; huge wall tapestries sewn with precious metal threads glittered like treasures in an underwater cave. Guards stood impassively around the walls and behind the throne; courtiers and officials shuffled to and fro with papers and flat-screens. An officer of the Imperial Household brought Gurgeh to the throne, leaving Flere-Imsaho at the other end of the room under the watchful eyes of two guards.
The Player of Games c-2 Page 30
