Trullion: Alastor 2262

by Jack Vance

  Lord Gensifer and Denzel Warhound came forward. A toss of the coin gave first call to the Gorgons; open transmission for the Gorgons would be signalized by the green light, With the red light for the Gannets.

  “The penalties will be called with rigor,” stated the field judge. “There must be neither kicking nor pulling. No verbal interchanges. I will not tolerate buff clinging. A blow must fall cleanly. The team on defense must utter no distracting sounds. I am experienced in these matters, as are the monitors; we will be vigilant. A player in the foul tank must clasp the hand of his rescuer; a desultory wave or gesture will not be sufficient. Have you any questions? Very good, gentlemen. Dispose your forces and may the glory of your sheirls impel you both to noble feats. The green light to the Gorgons; the red light to the Gannets!”

  The team deployed to their stations; the Trevani orchestra played traditional music as the captains conducted the sheirls to their respective pedestals.

  The music stopped. The captains went out to their hanges and now came that electric moment before the first flash of light. The spectators were silent; the players strained with tension; the sheirls stood eager and palpitant, each willing with all her heart’s intensity that the detested virgin at the other end of the field be the one to be bared and humiliated.

  A gong! The signal lights flashed green. For twenty seconds the Gorgon captain might call plays, while the Gannets must act or react in silence. Lord Gensifer deployed the first phase of the Jet Stream Attack: a wedge-shaped driving tactic of strikes and wings up the middle, with rovers covering the side lanes. Lord Gensifer clearly had ignored Glinnes’ advice. Cursing under his breath, Glinnes moved forward; unopposed, he jumped the moat, as did left strike Savat. The Gannet forwards had all slid aside; now they leapt the moat to attack Sarkado, the Gorgons’ left rover. Glinnes met the Gannet left rover; the two feinted with buffs, prodded and pushed; the Gannet rover gave way. Glinnes’ instincts told him exactly when to turn to meet the rush of the Gannet right rover. Glinnes struck him across the neck while he was still off balance and toppled him into the tank. He struck water with a most satisfactory splash.

  Another splash: a Gannet guard had tanked Chust, the right wing. Lord Gensifer’s voice came sharp: “Ki-yik-yik-yik! Thirteen-thirty! Go then, Glinnes; Lucho, watch the rover! Yik ki-yik!”

  The green light changed to red; now Denzel Warhound called signals and brought his hange to the moat. The middle guards jumped forward, two against Glinnes; he engaged them, hooked and thrust with such effect that they confused each other. Glinnes swung to Way 3, which was open to the pedestal, but the guards recovered; one ran to cover the mouth of Way 3. The center guards meanwhile swung behind Glinnes. He tanked one; Savat tanked the other; both turned to race for the Gannet pedestal, with only two guards left to halt them. The light changed to green; Lord Gensifer bawled desperate orders. A gong! Glinnes looked back to see a Cannet forward on the pedestal with Zuranie’s gold ring in his hand. Play halted; Lord Gensifer grudgingly paid ransom to Denzel Warhound.

  The teams returned to their respective territories. Lord Gensifer spoke in irritation: “Execution: that’s the word! We’re falling over our own feet. They’re actually no match for us; they caught us by a fluke.”

  Glinnes restrained the old maxim: In hussade no flukes. He said, “Let’s advance at them across the field, station by station; don’t let them get back to the guards!” For the Gannets had gained the pedestal by a simple feint and whirl past the inept Ramos.

  Lord Gensifer ignored Glinnes. “The Jet Stream again, and this time let’s do it right! Rovers, guard the side alleys; wings, blast up the center behind the strikes. We won’t let these ninnyboys tank us again!”

  The team deployed; the gong sounded and the green light gave the offensive to the Gorgons.

  “Thirteen-thirty, ki-yik!” cried Lord Gensifer. “Right at ’em all the way to the belly-ring.”

  Again the Gannet forwards slid aside to allow Savat and Glinnes across the moat. This time, however, they swung behind Glinnes and, to his intense annoyance, tripped him. He might still have held his own except for the rover swinging in upon the trapeze to hurl him into the tank.

  Glinnes above all else hated to be tanked; the process was cold and wet and injured his self-esteem. Disconsolately he waded back under the ways and squelched up the ladder to the Gorgons’ base area. He surfaced at an appropriate time, engaging a Gannet wing who already had worked his way almost to the pedestal. In a wet fury, Glinnes dazed him with thrusts and feints and toppled him head over heels into the tank.

  Green light on. “Forty-five-twelve,” cried Lord Gensifer. Glinnes groaned—Lord Gensifer’s most complicated play, the Grenade, or double diagonal. No choice but to run the play; he would do his best. The forwards came together at the moat, and finding no opposition at the center bridge, sprang across in different directions, followed by the rovers. The single faint hope of success, thought Glinnes, was to drive upon the Gannet sheirl before the startled Gannets could reach Sheirl Zuranie. The Gannet guards shifted to hold the end of the way; two rovers were tanked, a Gannet and a Gorgon; and now Lord Gensifer ordered two guards across the moat, just as the light turned red.

  Denzel Warhound stood by his hange, inviolate, grinning in total composure. He called his signals. Both Gorgon guards were intercepted and tanked. Glinnes, Savat, and the wings, recognizing disaster, raced back to guard the pedestal. Glinnes reached base area just in time to drive a Gannet forward back from the pedestal and into the tank; Lucho did the same to another, but almost the whole Gannet team was storming the base area. The tanked guards surfaced, wet and angry, and by dint of fury and superior weight bore the Gannets back.

  Green light. Lord Gensifer’s call: “Forty-five twelve; we’ve got ’em now, lads; the way is clear! Go! go!”

  Glinnes, furious over the call, disengaged and ran Lord Gensifer’s pattern along with the other forwards. The light but agile Gannet guards broke back and kept pace with them… A gong. By some miracle of stealth and agility (more likely by someone’s sheer ineptitude, thought Glinnes) one of the Gannet rovers had gained the pedestal and seized the gold ring at Zuranie’s waist.

  With trembling fingers Lord Gensifer paid another ransom. In conference his voice was hoarse with emotion. “You men aren’t executing. We can’t win if everyone walks around like sleepwalkers! We’ve got to take the game to these fellows! Why, they’re hardly more than boys! This time let’s make the play go. Double diagonal again, and everyone do his duty!”

  The gong, the green light, Lord Gensifer’s encouraging “ki-yik,” and the Gorgons deployed in Lord Gensifer’s double diagonal.

  A double gong, signifying a foul. Lord Gensifer himself had clutched the buff of a Gannet rover and was consigned to the foul tank up at the back of the Gannet base, where he hunched in sullen fury. Glinnes, the right forward, became acting captain.

  The gong sounded, and the light was still green. Glinnes had no need to call a play. He gestured left and right; the wings and forwards advanced to the moat. The light went red. The Gannets, elated by their two-ring score, feinted at the left and sent two forwards across at the right side-way, with a rover leaping the moat. The rover and one of the wards were tanked; the other forward retreated, and Denzel Warhound called back his attack until the tanked man returned to action. Green light. Lord Gensifer, in the foul tank, made urgent gestures appealing for rescue; Glinnes studiously looked the other way. He pointed the rovers to the side-ways, summoned the two middle guards forward. Red light. The Gannets massed on the left but forebore to cross the moat; the crafty Denzel Warhound preferred to bide his time until he could catch the Gorgons in disequilibrium.

  Green light. Glinnes sent the Gorgon forward across the moat and brought the middle guards up to the center bridge—a slow exertion of mass and pressure upon a faster but lighter team. Two Gorgon wings were tanked, and two Gannet strikes. The Gorgons had established a solid line on the Gannet side of the field, and all the wh
ile Lord Gensifer beckoned frantically for rescue. The Gorgons pressed slowly up the ways, using their weight and experience to advantage, compressing the Gannets into their base area. Three Gannets were tanked, one after the other, then two more. Then the gong sounded. Tyran Lucho had gained the pedestal, his hand on the gold ring. Grim and disapproving, Lord Gensifer came up from the foul tank and took ransom from the Gannet captain.

  The teams returned to base deployment. Lord Gensifer, angry from his long confinement in the foul tank, declared, “Rash, too rash tactics! When a team is two rings down, the guards should never move so far past the moat—that’s one of Kalenshenko’s first dictums!”

  “We took their ring,” said Lucho, the most outspoken man on the team. “That’s the important matter.”

  “Regardless,” said Lord Gensifer in a steely voice, we will continue to play a sound basic game. They have the light; we’ll use the Number 4 Feint.”

  Lucho was not to be silenced. “Let’s simply mass on the moat. We don’t need traps or feints or fancy tactics—simply basic play!”

  “This is a hussade game,” declared Lord Gensifer, “not a gang-fight. We’ll show ’em tactics that will make their heads swim.”

  The Gannets charged the moat with reckless verve; Denzel Warhound clearly intended to forestall the Gorgon tactics of the previous period. Gannets leaped the moat all across the field, while Denzel Warhound planted his hange on the center bridge, from which he could be dislodged only by Lord Gensifer. Right wing Cherst tanked the Gannet rover and was tanked in turn; Glinnes was forced to guard the right side-way.

  Green light. “Forty-five-twelve!” cried Lord Gensifer. “This time, lads! Show them class!”

  “I think we’ll be showing them something else,” Glirmes told Wilmer Guff. “Namely, Zuranie.”

  “He’s the captain.”

  “So then—here we go.” Denzel Warhound might have been anticipating this exact play. His forwards returned to trap Glinnes, and again he was tanked by a swinging rover; Lucho met a similar fate on the opposite side. Together they made the best possible haste to the ladder, only to hear the Trevanyi orchestra break into the Ode to Beauty Jubilant.

  “And there we have it,” said Glinnes.

  They surfaced in time to see Denzel Warhound on the pedestal, his hand on the gold ring. Zuranie looked up into the sky with a dazed expression. “Where is your money? Five hundred ozols will save your shierl; five hundred ozols for her pride is this so dear?”

  “I’d pay it,” Glinnes remarked to Wilmer Guff, “except that it would be money thrown away. Lord Gensifer would run me back and forth through his double-diagonal till I drowned.”

  The music surged loud—stately cadences which tickled the hair at the nape of the neck and brought a dryness to the mouth. From the crowd came a soft sound, a fluting of exaltation. Zuranie’s face was frozen in a white mask—impossible to guess her emotions. The music halted. A low-voiced gong sounded—once, twice, three times and the captain pulled the ring. Zuranie’s gown came away; her shrinking flesh was exposed on the pedestal.

  At the opposite end of the field Sheirl Baroba Felice performed an impromptu jig of delight and jumped down into the arms of the Gannets, who now departed the field.

  Lord Gensifer silently brought a black velvet cloak to cover Zuranie; the Gorgons also departed the field.

  In the dressing room Lord Gensifer bravely broke the silence.

  “Well, men, this wasn’t our day-so much is clear. The Gannets are a far better team than is supposed; their speed was a bit too much for us. Everybody out to Gensifer Manor. We won’t call it a victory celebration, but we’ll test the color of some good Sokal wine…”

  At Gensifer Manor, Lord Gensifer regained his composure. He circulated affably among those of his aristocratic friends who had visited the Saurkash Stadium to watch him at his latest fad. Around the loaded buffets, under the glitter of the antique chandeliers, beside the magnificent collection of Rol Star gonfalons, the banter played back and forth.

  “Never expected such speed from you, Thammas, till you went to denude that bouncy little Gannet shierl!”

  “Ha ha! Yes, I’m a real pacer where the ladies are concerned!”

  “We’ve long known Thammas to be a great sportsman, but why oh why did the Gorgons take their only ring while he sat in the tank?”

  “Resting, Jonas, only resting. Why work when you can sit in nice cool water?”

  “Good group, Thammas, good group. Your lads do you credit. Keep them up to snuff.”

  “Oh I will, sir, I will. No fear of that.”

  The Gorgons themselves stood somewhat stiffly to the side, or perched on the delicate jadewood furniture, sipping wines they had never before tasted, giving monosyllabic answers to the questions put by Lord Gensifer’s friends. Lord Gensifer finally came up and spoke to them, by now in a benign mood. “Well then—no recriminations, no reproaches. I’ll state only the obvious: I see room for improvement, and by the stars”—here Lord Gensifer raised his arms to the ceiling in the posture of an outraged Zeus—“we’ll achieve it. From the forwards, I’ll have more snap and dash. From the rovers, decisive buffing, quicker reactions! Did your feet hurt today, rovers? So it seemed. From the guards, more ferocity, more dependability. When the enemy confronts our guards, I want them to think only of home and mother. Any remarks?”

  Glinnes looked off and up into the air and thoughtfully sipped pale-green Sokal wine from his goblet.

  Lord Gensifer continued. “Our next opponents are the Tanchinaros; we meet them in two weeks at Saurkash Stadium. I’m sure that events will go differently. I’ve watched them; they’re slow as Dido’s one-legged grandmother. We’ll simply stroll around them to the pedestal. We’ll take their money and bare their sheirl, and be off and gone like Welshmen.”

  “Speaking of money,” drawled Candolf, “how much is our treasure after today’s fiasco? Also, who is our sheirl?”

  “The treasure will be two thousand ozols,” said Lord Gensifer coldly. “The sheirl might be any of several delightful creatures anxious to share our ascendancy.”

  Lucho said, “The Tanchinaros are slow up front, but with guards like Gilweg, Etzing, Barreu, and Shamoran, the forwards could play in wheel chairs.”

  Lord Gensifer waved the remark aside. “A good team plays it own game and forces the enemy to react. The Tanchinaro guards are only flesh and bone. We’ll tank them so often they’ll think they’re tanchinaros23 in sheer reality!”

  “A toast to this!” called out Chaim, Lord Shadrak. “To eleven dripping-wet Tanchinaros and their bare-bottomed sheirl!”

  Chapter 11

  After Lord Gensifer’s party, Glinnes went to spend the night with Tyran Lucho, who lived on Altramar Island, a few miles east of Five Islands, with the South Ocean a quarter mile south across a lagoon and a line of sand spits. A white beach was the Lucho front yard. Glinnes and Tyran arrived to find a star-watch in progress. Over a pair of soft red fires crabs, crayfish, seabulbs, pentabrachs, sourweed and a mix of smaller sea-stuffs grilled and sizzled. Kegs of beer had been broached; a table supported coarse crusty loaves, fruits and conserves. Thirty folk of all ages ate, drank, sang, played guitars and mouth-calliopes, romped in the sand, addressed themselves to someone they intended to lure up the beach later in the evening. Glinnes felt instantly at ease, in contrast to the restraint he had felt at Lord Gensifer’s party, where the jocularity had been on a more formal level. Here were; those Trills despised by Fanscherade—undisciplined, frivolous, gluttonous, amorous, some unkempt and dirty, others, merely unkempt. Children played erotic games, and adults as well; Glinnes observed several noticeably under the influence of cauch! Each person wore those garments he deemed appropiate; a stranger might have thought himself at a fancy-dress charade. Tyran Lucho, conditioned and disciplined by hussade, used garments and manners less flamboyant; still, like Glinnes, he relaxed gratefully upon the sand with a mug of beer and a chino-leaf of grilled sea-meats. The party was nominal
ly a “star-watch;” the air was soft and the stars hung close like great paper lanterns. But a mood of revelry was on the group and there would be small pondering of the stars this night.

  Tyran Lucho had played with teams of reputation. On the field he was regarded as a taciturn man of great skill and almost alone in his ability to break down the field through an apparently impervious front of opponents-dodging, feinting, swinging from way to way, or swinging out and snapping himself back, a trick which sometimes persuaded opponents to the ludicrous act of tanking themselves. Along with Wild Man Wilmer Guff, Lucho had been represented on Lord Gensifer’s original dream-team. Glinnes settled himself beside Lucho and the two discussed the day’s game. “Essentially,” said Glinnes, “we’re sound forward—with the exception of Clubfoot Chust—and pitifully weak back-field.”

  “True. Savat has excellent potential. Unfortunately, Tammi confuses him and he doesn’t know whether to run forward or back.”

  “Tammi” was the team’s jocular term for Thammas Lord Gennsifer.

  “Agreed,” said Glinnes. “Even Sarkado is at least adequate, though he’s really too indecisive to make a good team.”

  “To win,” said Lucho, “we need a back-field, but even more urgently we need a captain. Tammi doesn’t know which direction he’s going.”

  “Unfortunately it’s his team.”

  “But it’s our time and our profit!” declared Lucho with a vehemence that surprised Glinnes. “Also our reputation. It does a man no good to play with a set of buffoons.”

  “First of all,” said Glinnes, “a man tends to relax his own standards of play.”

  “I’ve been thinking the matter over. I left the Poldan Avengers so that I could live at home, and I thought perhaps Lord Gensifer could field a team. But he’ll never do so if he insists on running the team as if it were his private toy.”