The Galaxy Game

by Karen Lord

  Besides, I was right. He’s got it. Bitter, bitter irony. The greatest booby in the history of the game projects the warmest, strongest binding ever seen in a non-Ntshune Wallrunner. Then there’s me – all the skills, none of the spark. Splice the two of us together and we’d make one outstanding player. You see – even more irony – another name for booby is nexus. That’s where the term originally came from, from old-style Wallrunning. The nexus links with everyone, keeps them aware of each other, and the team moves as a single body with the nexus as the core. Sometimes the nexus is a good Wallrunner; sometimes they have to be thrown and caught and carried like baggage. It’s a balancing act to decide which is more important: having a skilled nexus to lead the running and call strategy for the team, or having a skilled team with a strong nexus who knows just enough to stay out of the bodycatcher.

  Rafi didn’t know what he was doing, as usual. He was nervous at first when he got on the Wall, but when he started to slip and loosen up and laugh you could see everyone on the Wall . . . buzz. They all woke up and turned to him and looked at him and at each other as if it was the first time they’d noticed there were other people around. Then they began to move like sentient ribbons of fire – weaving, connecting, dispersing. And this was not the team! There were a handful of players and the rest were Wallrunning amateurs out of the crowd, glad for the chance to play around on a half-decent Wall. Most of the crowd didn’t know what they were seeing but they knew they liked it. They started to cheer for them almost as loudly as they did for the team. Baranngaithe realised immediately. He was standing behind the screen watching, and I was watching him. Slowly he sat down; slowly he lay back. I came closer. He was squinting, as if trying to blur out the individuals and see the motion as coming from one entity. What he saw pleased him because he began to grin and then to chuckle.

  ‘Oh, Ntenman,’ he said to me. ‘Well done. Very well done!’

  And that warmed me. You see, Baranngaithe used to be a nexus, in every sense of the word. He began as a Wallrunner, naturally, but then he got into the managing aspect of the game and used his flair for binding to build and lead one of the most efficient corporations in the third tier of the Galactic League.

  This was pure scandal. Some men own individual teams. A smaller number have a few minor strings of teams to their credit. But Baranngaithe was the first man to have a full eight-string corporation in the Galactic League.

  Of course, it couldn’t last. In my opinion, the Punarthai matriarchs and Patronae were secretly proud of him, but the Ntshune dynasties tore the bottom out of the bag with ruthless dispatch. I do not exaggerate. Blood was shed. Baranngaithe survived it somehow and ended up in his third life as an academic, studying the history of the game and its associated traditions. His so-called fieldwork soon outpaced his research and writings. He revived the old Brotherhoods and trained teams for form, skill and beauty rather than competition.

  He used to mock his life and say that he would spend his final years as a solitary to try to remember who he was away from all the push and pull of other people. But he never left. He was as he had been on my last Punartam almost-Year: wandering the Academe green coaching his teams and overseeing their demonstrations with a delight that was personal as well as professional. If only demonstration teams counted for anything, we could have bragged that he had the equivalent of two and a half corporations, but at least no one would be trying to kill him for these.

  ‘I am minded,’ he said, ‘to go back to my research. Here is a worthy subject. I could spend some time on this. I think I will postpone my retirement a little longer. This is very much to your credit, Ntenman. I had not thought my teachings would stick with you, and here you have found me something remarkable from a world away!’

  I could not stop smiling. Ignition was always slow for Baranngaithe, but when he caught fire he was irresistible.

  ‘But his Wallrunning technique is atrocious,’ Baranngaithe continued. ‘We shall have to work on that. He must carry himself, at least. We will have no dead weight here.’

  I regretfully decided it was time to make sure he knew everything. ‘Revered Baranngaithe, you know his nexus lies with Academe Maenevastraya?’

  He tensed immediately but quickly came to terms with the less-than-perfect world. ‘I had heard. Nothing wrong with that. I have some esteemed colleagues in Maenevastraya. They might even be interested in a little collaboration, but I must have him remain here to facilitate training.’

  ‘You also have competitors in Academe Maenevastraya,’ I noted mildly.

  ‘I saw him first; they must respect that.’ He sat up and frowned at me. ‘I told you this was to your credit, Ntenman. I do not speak idly. Remember your allegiances from times past and do not play for the highest bidder like a Zhinuvian trader.’

  I did not have to pretend to be offended. ‘Rafi is my friend. I only want what’s best for him. He has had a hard time.’

  Baranngaithe searched my face and sniffed the edges of my spirit for any hint of insincerity and found, if not truth, at least sufficient self-interest to satisfy him that I would not dabble in that messy combination of Wallrunning and Academe politics.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘let it be. Bring him for training before you sleep and after you wake. Make him always take the emergency chutes. Draw on my credit and get him proper kit. Outfit yourself as well. Nothing fabricated. There’s a craftsman who does some good bespoke work. You can find him on the green most long nights, but his workshop is below, closest to Five Trees Escape. Do you need a guide, or can you find your way below-ground?’

  ‘It has been some time, Revered. I should take a guide,’ I said honestly.

  ‘I will send a guide to your channel. You should go after the next sunrise. We have no time to waste.’

  ‘Revered,’ I acknowledged, in full obedience, just as in times past.

  So Rafi found us when he came down from Wallrunning at last, worn out and happy. I was standing near the edge of the screen and stepped out to greet him, but Baranngaithe stayed sitting in the shadows and only answered Rafi’s curious look with a nod.

  ‘When can we come back, Tinman? This Wall is incredible. I might actually learn something on a Wall like this.’ He was excited and I couldn’t blame him. The Lyceum had been his first and only Wall – serviceable, but not at all inspiring.

  ‘Soon,’ Baranngaithe replied from the shadows like a night-shrouded oracle.

  I saw Rafi react to the timbre of his voice, a string struck invisibly by resonance – that buzz, that sudden tension and added wakefulness. For a moment, a brief moment, my jealousy returned and I wondered what could have been if I’d had a fraction of that sensitivity. I consoled myself. I would never be a nexus, but at least I was learning how to move in their inner circles. It was less than a month and my social credit was already going up. I could work with what I had. This would be my Year.

  *

  The walk back took time, partly because Rafi had pushed himself hard and now could only stumble weakly, bouncing from various shoulders and sides as the growing crowd moved around him with that particularly Punarthai lack of concern about personal space. Ntenman took the slower pace as an opportunity to dawdle and talk to friends and acquaintances, some of whom he introduced to Rafi and some he did not, leaving Rafi to stand awkwardly nearby and pretend to look interested in some other distraction.

  He was hoping to see her. He was expecting to see her. He had looked for her among the spectators at the Wall; he had half-convinced himself that if he went behind the screen she would be there, just like the first time. He leaned against the tower and let his gaze linger on every tall person in the crowd – and on Punartam, there were plenty.

  When the moment finally came, it did not disappoint. A small box rattled near his ear. He looked at it, watched it tip and automatically placed his hand underneath. Five perrenuts were shaken out onto his palm. He carefully selected three and put the remaining two back in the box, feeling very smug as a low laugh ap
proved his actions.

  ‘Ixiaralhaneki,’ he said. She was wearing a long tunic and a broad scarf that draped around her head and shoulders. Separate sleeves and leggings wrapped her limbs in scrunched, wrinkled material. Thanks to his daily lessons with the guides, he was noticing things and understanding them better – for example, the bands and badges on her sleeves told the tale of her family line, her credit level and her work. Two things were absolutely clear to him and neither was news: she was a Haneki, and well-off.

  He glanced quickly behind him. Ntenman was a good way down the green, fully engaged in conversation and half-hidden in the crowd. As he turned back, he wondered to himself why he was glad of that.

  She smiled down at him as she put her snack away into a side pocket. ‘You may call me Ixiaral,’ she told him, sliding down the wall from a lean to a half-sit to bring herself closer to his line of sight.

  ‘And I’m just Rafi.’ He paused, wracked his brain for some courteous nothings to say and found it empty. ‘Are you from Academe Maenevastraya? Are you my nexus?’

  ‘I’m sorry I came too late to see you run the Wall,’ she replied obliquely, unfazed by his outburst. ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’

  ‘Very much,’ said Rafi. ‘But how did you know—’

  ‘I heard,’ was all she said, but immediately Rafi pictured it – a single person speaking into a comm or sending a message, but a few whispered words, repeating from mouth to ear, mouth to ear, sweeping along the green and perhaps even out through the gates to wherever Ixiaral had been previously. ‘We should talk indeed. I’m not formally associated with the Academe but I do some work for them on occasion.’

  ‘You’re a scout,’ Rafi guessed. ‘A talent recruiter.’

  ‘Yes. I go around the Academes and see if there are any amateurs with the will and the skill for the commercial leagues. I negotiate with the teams over who they will take and what the credit exchange will be.’

  ‘And you go beyond the Academes as well. Beyond Punartam.’

  Her face creased up with disapproval. ‘That is not one of the things we are going to talk about.’

  ‘Understood,’ Rafi said, outwardly obliging but inwardly curious.

  She looked as if she was trying not to laugh at him, but in a kindly way. ‘Come. Lose your friend for a little while and follow me.’ She took off her scarf and whipped it around him before he could protest, keeping one end in her fist. ‘Come on!’

  He did not look back. He crammed a perrenut in his mouth, eager for the rush of energy and bliss, and followed her long strides further across the green. It was impossible to get lost on a circular path, impossible to come to harm with so many witnesses, and he was bored and restless after several Cygnian days without sun. She turned off the path and into a doorway that opened for her without challenge. Before he could take time to wonder at her ease of access to the Academe, she pulled him onto a small elevator, spinning him teasingly until the scarf wound around his eyes and nose. By the time he untangled himself, the elevator was moving at speed – down. Not up, to all the places he had mapped and researched and walked through, but below-ground, which he had not yet seen and knew nothing about.

  ‘Wait,’ he began, finally worried. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You wanted to know about your nexus?’ she queried, watching his panic with a lazy curiosity. ‘You should have presented yourself – but you are Terran and you don’t know how things are done here, not yet.’

  ‘Let me go back for Ntenman,’ Rafi said as calmly and firmly as he could manage.

  Ixiaral turned to the elevator doors. ‘But we’re already here.’

  The doors opened. The first thing that Rafi noticed was the heat, and the second was the smell. Above-ground was dry and any scent in the air was generally due to whatever plants were nearby. Here it was a mixture of machinery, movement and humanity into an imperfectly filtered, moist and slightly metallic urban bouquet. There was light, a shy and muted light that radiated from large, long sconces above, but it was contained in pools within the larger ocean of primal dark.

  Ixiaral dropped the end of the scarf and looked back over her shoulder. ‘Are you coming?’

  Rafi hesitated a moment, listening. Beyond the doors of the elevator, and around the corner of the passageway that led from it, he could hear people talking, laughing, moving about. It did not sound like a trap. He nodded warily and ate a second perrenut to fortify himself.

  Ixiaral turned and walked quickly away, leaving him to gather his wits and scramble after her. As he rounded the corner, he almost ran into her heels. She had stopped and was staring out at the panorama. He stopped and stared with her. One of the guides had told him that the underground city went by a number of names: Belowground commonly, the Twilight Metropolis poetically and Sub-Metropolis officially. He privately approved most of Twilight Metropolis. Viewed from a distance, the city showed that light and darkness had found balance and truce. People walked briskly in the darker areas and congregated cheerfully in the oases of light near doorways and crossings at intersections. There was an occasional glimmer from above, almost as if the brightest stars were beginning to take over the sky, but he dismissed it as a trick of light on minerals partially exposed in the cut rock.

  ‘It may appear dim, but full darkness and full light are private things kept within walls for sleep and for work and play,’ Ixiaral explained. ‘We are going to the sun rooms.’

  As she spoke, a small transit bubble drew up beside them, startling Rafi badly with its silent, sudden appearance. Ixiaral bundled him inside the small space and they sat peacefully for a short while until the bubble took to the air without warning. Rafi almost vomited in fear on the transparent floor of their fairy-tale carriage, but eventually he started to orientate himself and realised that the glimmers of interior starlight he had seen earlier were not reflective minerals but the rising and setting of the bubbles that formed the Sub-Metropolis transportation system.

  Ixiaral watched his reactions with mild confusion and pity. ‘I thought the walk would have been too much for you,’ she said in apology. ‘Have you never been below-ground before?’

  ‘No,’ said Rafi, keeping his voice steady – his last hope for a show of dignity. ‘I have not been here for very long at all.’

  She kept a solicitous eye on him for the remainder of the journey and on arrival she lifted him out of the bubble as if he were a fragile bit of cargo. Rafi felt a little embarrassed, but also a little safer. He doubted she would take so much trouble with him if she intended harm.

  ‘What is this place?’ he asked, looking up at the huge entrance before him and the great curving wings of a vast building that appeared to stretch up indefinitely.

  ‘These are the sun rooms in the base levels of Academe Maenevastraya. Are you feeling better? Are you ready?’

  Rafi ate the last perrenut, more as a symbolic action than for any hope that it could revive his flagging spirits. He was drained, anxious and bewildered, and not at all in a position to show any of those weaknesses. He considered his tunic, still tied around his waist after all the excitement on and off the Wall. The knotted arms had pulled so tight that he suspected it would take a lot of time and calm to undo it. He wrapped up in Ixiaral’s scarf instead and straightened his back.

  ‘Lead on,’ he said.

  Chapter Ten

  A little recycled sunlight looked far more impressive in an enclosed area. Rafi winced, his eyes watering at the brightness, the mirrors and the glass. He blinked, and then wished he had kept his vision clouded. Ixiaral held him lightly before her, her hands on his shoulders in a grip that might be meant to comfort, but could also be to ensure that he did not bolt. She spoke over his head to the door attendant.

  ‘The Controller, the Patrona and the Dean are expecting us,’ she told her.

  The attendant stared at Rafi as she gave Ixiaral directions, more curious than disapproving. He tried not to stare back, conscious not merely of her bare torso, but of the massive scar that
carved vertically over her ribs where her left breast had been. Ixiaral nodded in thanks and went on, keeping a hand on Rafi’s shoulder.

  ‘Some soldiers consider it an honour to keep their battle scars and will do so even after retirement,’ she said into his ear as softly and confidentially as any audioplug. ‘But you already know about this – Wallrunners think the same way, don’t they?’

  ‘I thought the players had no choice after the enhancement scandals,’ Rafi whispered back.

  ‘True, but to keep the memory and limitations of injuries long after a sports career has ended speaks of philosophy, not necessity. Now, here we are. Don’t be too nervous.’

  He was about to deny that he was nervous, an automatic verbal reflex from the Cygnian habit of wearing brave, courteous masks, but it was useless to lie.

  ‘But be a little nervous,’ Ixiaral continued. ‘They like it when new boys are nervous. Smile!’ She trilled the last word, clapped him once on the shoulder and pushed him through a doorway into an even brighter room.

  Four pairs of eyes turned in his direction. A fifth pair belonged to a young man dressed in a remarkably stripped-down version of Wallrunning gear, and he kept them dutifully trained on the platter of fruit he was offering around before quietly withdrawing from the room. The remaining occupants, all women, lounged or sat on large cushions around a small central pool with Punarthai water lilies afloat on the surface. They were elegant, with dark Ntshune curls close-cut to frame and flatter their cheekbones and jawlines to full aesthetic advantage. He could tell from their eyes that they were not young, but their skin was smooth and radiant, earth-hues deepening in the ubiquitous sunlight. Even in relaxation there was something in the way they held their tall, strong bodies that gave the air of grace and power combined. He could see how in a few years Ixiaral would follow this template by adding solidity to her height and a certain carelessness to her posture. Not that Ixiaral lacked poise, but compared to these women who exuded effortlessness, Ixiaral had clearly not completed her formation.