Part 2 (1/2)

”So it seems. I'm sure my encounter with Clef was not coincidental. It was-foreordained. And my dream of his progress-there has to be some reason for that. I suspect he and I are destined to meet again.”

”You could never stay out of mischief,” she agreed.

”Now it's time to get ready for your Tourney match.”

”Did anyone ever tell you you are inhumanly practical? The end of the split infinity may be in the offing, and you pack me off to a Game.”

”Your match is foreordained too,” she said complacently.

CHAPTER 2 - Backgammon.

It was Round Thirteen of the annual Tourney. Only three players remained, two with one loss each. These two had to play each other; the loser would be eliminated from the Tourney, and the winner would meet the single undefeated player.

The two who played were as different as seemed possible. One was a huge, fat, middle-aged man in voluminous and princely robes inset with glittering gems. The other was a tiny naked man, muscular and t, in his thirties. ”Ah, Stile,” the clothed man said affably. ”I was hoping to encounter you.”

”You know of me, sir?”

”I always research my prospective opponents, serf. You have been extremely busy recently. You have been chasing around the landscape, cras.h.i.+ng vehicles, and disappearing between Rounds.”

Stile was noncommittal. ”My time between Rounds is my own, sir.”

”Except for what that girl robot demands. Is it fun making time with a s.e.xy machine?”

Stile knew the Citizen was trying to rattle him, to get him tangled up emotionally so that he could not concentrate properly on the Game. It was a familiar technique. Stile could not return the favor because all Citizens were virtually anonymous to serfs, and in any event a serf could not treat a Citizen with disrespect. So Stile would have to take it-and play his best regardless. He was experienced at this sort of thing; the Citizen would probably rattle himself before he got to Stile.

It was time for the grid. Each man stood on one side of the unit, looking at the screen. There were sixteen boxes facing Stile, labeled across the top: 1. PHYSICAL 2. MENTAL 3. CHANCE 4. ARTS, and down the side: A. NAKED B. TOOL C. MACHINE D. ANIMAL. Stile's panel was lighted by the letters.

”That was a very neat stunt you worked, last Round,” the Citizen remarked. ”Making that Amazon throw away her win. Of course you know you won't be able to trick me that way.”

”Of course not, sir.” Stile touched the TOOL indication.

That was his line of greatest strength. The subgrid showed: 3B, Tool-a.s.sisted Chance. Stile groaned inwardly. The CHANCE column was the bane of good players. It was difficult to make his skill count here. ”You don't like it, huh?” the Citizen taunted. ”Figure it to come up another slot machine, wash you out painlessly, eh?”

This man really had researched Stile's prior Games of the Tourney. The lone Game Stile had lost had been just that way. ”I am not partial to it, sir.” As long as he handled the needling without heat, he was gaining.

”Well, I'm partial to it! Know why? Because I'm lucky. Try me on poker. Stile; I'll come up with a full house and tromp you. Try me on blackjack; I'm all twenty-ones. The breaks always go my way! That scares you, huh?” The Citizen protested too much. That could indicate weakness-or could be a ruse. Stile actually could handle himself in games of chance; often there was more skill than showed. He would try for a suitable variant. ”Luck is impartial, sir.”

”You believe that? You fool! Try me on dice, if you doubt!”

Stile made his selection. The Citizen had already made his. The third grid showed: Board Games of Chance. ”Okay, sucker, try me on Monopoly!” the Citizen urged. But when they played it through, it came up backgammon. ”My favorite!” the Citizen exclaimed. ”Dice and betting! Watch me move!”

Stile thought he was bluffing. That bluff would be called. Stile was expert at backgammon. It was only technically a game of luck; skill was critical.

They adjourned to the boardroom. The table was ready. There was no physical audience; the holograph would take care of that.

”Now you know this game represents a year,” the Citizen said. ”Twenty-four points for the hours of the day, thirty pieces for the days of the month, twelve points in each half-section for the months in the year.”

”And the seven spots on the opposites of a die are the days of the week,” Stile said. ”The two dice are day and night. It hardly matches the symbolism of the ordinary deck of playing cards or the figures of the chess set-sir.” They were playing a variant deriving in part from Acey Deucy, traditionally a navy game. The games of Mother Earth had continued to evolve in the fas.h.i.+on of human society, with some variants prospering and others becoming extinct. In this one, no pieces were placed on the board at the start; all started from the bar. It was not necessary to enter all fifteen pieces on the board before advancing the leaders. Yet it was still backgammon, the ”back game,” with pieces constantly being sent back to the bar while they ran the gauntlet of opposing pieces. People were apt to a.s.sume that a given game had an eternally fixed set of rules, when in fact there were endless variations. Stile had often obtained an advantage by steering a familiar game into an unfamiliar channel.

The Citizen was, as he claimed, lucky. He won the lead, then forged ahead with double sixes, while Stile had to settle for a two-to-one throw of the dice. Doubles were valuable in backgammon, because each die could be used twice. Thus the citizen's throw enabled him to enter four men to the sixth point, while Stile entered only two. This continued fairly steadily; the Citizen soon had all fifteen men entered and well advanced, while Stile was slower. Soon the two forces interacted. The Citizen hit the first blot-in layman's language, he placed one of his men on the spot occupied by one of Stile's men. That sent Stile's man home to the bar, the starting place. ”Sent you home to your s.l.u.t machine, didn't I?” he chortled. ”Oh, let there be no moaning at the bar!” That was a literary allusion to an ancient poem by Tennyson of Earth. Stile was conversant with historical literature, but made no response. The Citizen was showing pseudoerudition; he was not the type to know any but the most fas.h.i.+onable of quotes, and he had gotten this one wrong. The correct line was, ”and may there be no moaning of the bar.” Yet, mentally. Stile filled in the remainder: ”when I put out to sea.” Tennyson had then been late in life, knowing he would die before too long. That poem, Crossing the Bar, had been a kind of personal epitaph. When he put out to sea, in the figurative fas.h.i.+on of the Norse boats for the dead, he hoped to see his Pilot, the Deity, face to face. Those left behind in life should feel no sorrow for him, for he, like the werewolf, had found his ideal resting place. It was generally best to read the full works of past literary figures, and to understand their backgrounds, rather than to memorize quotes out of con text. But it was no use to go into all that with this great boor and bore of a Citizen.

Well, Stile intended to send this obnoxious Citizen out to sea. It was already apparent that the man was not a top player; he depended on his luck too heavily, and on a basic strategy of ”making” points-of setting up two or more men on a point, so that the opponent could neither land there nor hit a blot. Luck and conservative play-a good enough strategy for most occasions. Three out of four times, a winning strategy.

But Stile was not an ordinary player. He depended not on luck but on skill. Luck tended to equalize, especially on an extended series, while skill was constant. That was what gave the superior player the advantage, even in a game of chance. It was necessary to take risks in order to progress most efficiently. There would be some losses because of these risks, but, overall, that efficiency would pay off. Stile was already grasping the weakness of the Citizen's mode of play. Probably the man had an imperfect notion of the strategy of the doubling cube-and that could make all the difference, regardless of his vaunted luck. Soon the Citizen had a number of men in his home board, ready to be borne off. The first player who bore off all fifteen men would win the game, but not necessarily the Round. This modification was scored by points; each man left in play when the opponent finished was one point. One hundred points was the Game. It could take several games to acc.u.mulate the total. The key was to minimize one's losses in a losing game, and maximize one's winnings in a winning game. That was where the doubling cube came in.

Best to test the man's level, however. Stile needed to have a very clear notion of his opponent's vulnerability, because the Citizen was not a complete duffer; he was” just good enough to be dangerous. Luck did play an important part in backgammon, just as muscle did in wrestling; it had to be taken into account. Stile rolled 3-2. As it happened, he was able to enter two men and hit blots on the second and third points. It was a good break, for the Citizen left few blots he could possibly avoid. Thus Stile's 2 and 3 dice canceled the effect of c.u.mulative scores of twenty-one and twenty-two on the Citizen's dice. Stile was making his limited luck match the effect of his opponent's good luck. It was a matter of superior management.

But the Citizen was hardly paying attention to the moves. He was trying to undermine Stile's confidence, convinced that even in a game of chance, a person's certainty counted most. ”A number of people have been wondering where you disappear to between Rounds, little man. You seem to walk down a certain service corridor, and never emerge at the far end. Hours or even days later you emerge, going the opposite direction. It is a food-machine service corridor, yet you show no sign of feasting. Now how can a man disappear from the board, like a piece being sent to the bar? It is a mystery.”

Stile continued playing. ”People enjoy mysteries, sir.” The dice rolled; the men advanced. The Citizen's luck held; he was gaining despite imperfect play.

”Mysteries exist only to be resolved. It is possible that you have discovered something fantastic, like a curtain that separates fact from fantasy? That you pa.s.s through this invisible barrier to a world where you imagine you are important instead of insignificant?”

So the man had done fairly thorough research into Stile's Phaze existence too. Still, Stile refused to be baited.

”No doubt, sir.”

”And can it really be true that in that fantasy you ride a unicorn mare and a.s.sociate with vampires and were wolves?”

”In fantasy, anything is possible,” Stile said.

”Double,” the Citizen said, turning the doubling cube to two.

Now the game drew to a dose. The Citizen finished first; Stile was left with eight men on the board. Doubled, that was sixteen points against him.

They set up for the second game, since they were not yet dose to the one hundred points necessary for the finish. The Citizen was obnoxiously affable; he liked winning. Stile hoped he would get careless as well as overconfident. With luck, the Citizen might even distract himself at a key time by his determined effort to unnerve Stile. Still, the Citizen's luck held. The man played indifferently, even poorly at times, but the fortune of the dice sustained him. When he had a clear advantage, he doubled, and Stile had to accept or forfeit the game. Then Stile had a brief run of luck-actually, skillful exploitation of the game situation-and doubled himself.

”Double!” the Citizen said immediately when his own turn came, determined to have the last word and confident in his fortune. Now the doubling cube stood at eight. ”I understand a little squirt like you can use magic to snare some mighty fine-looking women,” the Citizen said as they played. ”Even if they're taller than you.”

”Many women are,” Stile agreed. References to his height did irritate him, but he had long since learned to conceal this. He was 1.5 meters tall, or an inch shy of five feet, in the archaic nomenclature of Phaze. The Citizen's infernal luck continued. There did seem to be something to his claim about being lucky; he had certainly had far superior throws of the dice, and in this game, supervised by the Game Computer, there could be no question of cheating. He was winning this game too, by a narrower margin than the last, but the eight on the doubling cube gave every piece magnified clout. The Citizen liked to double; maybe it related to his gambling urge.

”I guess there could be one really luscious doll who nevertheless married a dwarf,” the Citizen observed with a smirk. ”I guess she could have been ensorcelled.”

”Must have been.” But despite his refusal to be baited about his recent marriage to the Lady Blue, Stile was losing. If this special ploy did not work, he would wash out of the Tourney. If only the luck would even out!

”Or maybe she has a hangup about midgets. Sort of like miscegenation. Some people get turned on that way.” The Citizen was really trying! But Stile played on calmly. ”Some do, I understand.”

”Or maybe pederasty. She likes to do it with children.” But the effect of that malicious needle was abated by the Citizen's choice of the wrong concept. It was generally applicable to the s.e.xual motive of a male, not a female. Still, Stile would gladly have dumped this oaf down a deep well.

Stile lost this game too, down six men. Forty-eight more points against him, a c.u.mulative total of sixty-four. An other game like this would finish him.

The luck turned at last and he won one. But he had only been able to double it once, and only picked up six points. Then the Citizen won again: eight men, redoubled, for thirty-two points. The score now stood at 96-6. The next game could finish it.

Still the Citizen's amazing luck held. Had he, after all, found some way to cheat, to fix the dice? Stile doubted it; the Tourney precautions were too stringent, and this was an important game, with a large audience. The throws had to be legitimate. Science claimed that luck evened out in the long run; it was difficult to prove that in backgammon. Stile's situation was desperate. Yet there were ways. Stile knew how to play the back game specialty, and now was the time. When his position looked good, he doubled; when the Citizen was clearly ahead, he doubled. But the Citizen retained a general advantage, so Stile's doublings seemed foolish.