Of Death What Dreams

21

There was a surf murmur of chatter as Bailey took the seat offered him before a yard-cube wire construction scattered through with colored glass beads which glowed to sudden brilliance as Dovo activated the board. Each of the nexi, as the beads were called, could be moved according to a complex code of interrelating rules. The object of the game was to achieve a configuration which outranked the opposing one, again in consonance with an elaborate structure of interlocking taboos, prohibitions, and compulsions. With a part of his mind, Bailey stared dazedly at the incomprehensible flash and glitter as Dovo took up his initial grouping; but another part of his brain observed with mild amusement the naïveté of the other’s elementary classroom opening.

“For an M per point, as before?” he inquired innocently.

“Come now, Sir Jannock,” Dovo snapped. “For an aficionado of your attainments, one hundred M should not be excessive.”

“Very well,” Bailey said casually. “Will you open?” He smiled, conceding the prized advantage to his opponent. Dovo nodded shortly and after a moment’s hesitation, made a clumsy approche à droit, technically legal enough, in that each of the forty-one nexi he put into play moved within their statutory limits; but pathetically inept in the aimlessness of the positioning. Bailey felt his hands move almost without volition, moving over the charged plate, shifting the beads en gestalt into a graceful spiral which twined among and around Dovo’s hapless line-up. The latter stared for a long moment at the cage; his hands twitched toward the plate, twitched back. He looked up to meet Bailey’s eyes.

“Why, I… I’m englobed,” he choked. “In one!”

A surprised murmur rose, became a patter of applause. Cries of congratulation rang. Dovo smiled ruefully across at Bailey.

“Neatly done,” he said. “Masterfully played.” He smiled now with genuine warmth. He referred, Bailey/Jannock knew, not only to the smashing victory at the cage, but to the entire finesse, from the moment of Bailey’s entry into the room. Boredom had, for the moment, been dispelled—the greatest service one could perform for the members of the Apollo Club.

Bailey relaxed, grinning in a way appropriate to a successful practical joker. “No more masterfully than you abolished me at Flan, Sir Dovo.”

The latter handed over a gold-edged cred-card, glowing with the full charge of one hundred thousand Q’s. Bailey waved it away. “Add it to the sweepfund,” he said carelessly, a gesture calculated to lay at rest any lingering suspicion of shady motivations on his part.

Smiling in a relaxed way, he listened to the chatter around him, gauging the correct moment for the proposal to which the elaborate farce had been the preliminary…

There was a stir at the outer fringe of the crowd. A square-chinned, clean-cut man appeared, followed by a sleek, round-faced member in baroque robes, his figure as near to corpulent as Crust social pressure would allow.

“Sir Dovo, Sir Jannock—a bit of luck! I found Sir Swithin just passing through the atrium; I mentioned our guest’s clever ploy…”

“Swithin!” Dovo ducked his head. “A stroke of fortune indeed! Perhaps you’re acquainted with our young friend, Sir Jannock… ?”

The new arrival looked Bailey over coolly. Bailey wondered what version of the incident he had heard. “No, I’ve not met this young man. Which surprises me.” Swithin had a buttery, self-indulgent voice. He glanced at the cage where the nexi still glowed in the end-game positions. “I was under the impression I knew the entire cadre of the gaming fraternity,” he said somewhat doubtfully.

“I’m not a ranked Reprisist,” Bailey said. “I play only for my own amusement.”

Swithin nodded, giving the cage a final glance. “Interesting,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll honor me… ?” Without waiting for assent, he plopped himself in the chair Dovo had vacated. With a flick of his hand he returned the nexi to starting line-up and looked at Bailey expectantly.

Bailey hesitated, then sat down. “The honor is mine,” he said. “But one condition… token stakes only.”

Swithin shot him a startled look, his lower lip thrust out. “What’s that? Token stakes? Am I to understand—”

“Having just taken a hundred M from me at one move, Sir Jannock is naturally desirous of not appearing greedy,” Dovo spoke up quickly.

Swithin grunted, brushed the plate with his plump, jeweled fingers, sending the glowing beads darting to positions scattered apparently at random throughout the playing frame. But it was only to the uninitiated, Bailey/Jannock saw at a glance, that the move seemed capricious. Swithin had taken up a well-nigh impregnable stance, each one of the seventy-seven nexi perfectly placed in an optimum relationship to all the others—a complex move of which only a master player would be capable. But a move which carried within it a concomitant weakness. Once broached in the smallest particular, Swithin’s complex structure would collapse into meaningless sub-groupings. It was a win-or-lose gambit; an attempt to smash him at one blow, as he himself had smashed Dovo’s pathetic opening.

Bailey pretended to study the layout gravely, while a murmur passed through the spectators. Swithin sat back, his features as expressionless as a paw-licking cat. Hesitantly, Bailey-Jannock touched his plate. There was a seemingly trivial readjustment of nexi in east dexter chief. Swithin glanced up in surprise, as if about to question whether the minor shift were indeed Bailey’s only reply. Then he checked, looked again at the cage. Slowly, the color drained from his face. He ducked his head stiffly.

“Well played, sir,” he said in a strained tone.

“What is it?” “I don’t understand?” “What are they waiting for?” The remarks died away as Swithin cleared the cage.

Only then did noise burst out as the watchers realized what they had seen. Dovo beamed proudly on his new discovery as Swithin glowered. Reports that the club champion had been beaten in one lightning move were being relayed quite audibly across the room.

“Once again, sir?” the plump man said harshly. “For an adequate stake this time.”

“If you will,” Bailey/Jannock said pleasantly. It was his opening now, a distinct advantage. Swithin drew a sharp breath as it dawned on him how neatly he had been ployed into throwing away his own opening on a flashy but unsound attack. “Would one thousand M seem about right?” Bailey inquired in the same easy tone.

The talk died as if guillotined. A thousand M was high stakes even here.

“Sir, you—” Swithin began, but Bailey cut in smoothly; “But actually, I’d prefer to keep our play on a purely friendly basis. After all, as an unranked dabbler, I’m being most presumptuous in taking a seat against you.”

The challenge was unmistakable—and unrefusable. Swithin, still pale, but calm, nodded jerkily. “Done. Proceed, sir.”

Bailey stroked the plate; the glowing beads leaped through half a dozen graceful configurations to end in starting position. Another apparently careless brush of his fingers, and they snapped into a branched formation of deceptive simplicity. Swithin frowned, drew out his nexi into a demi-rebut, a congruent array, paralleling Bailey’s, a move of caution: Swithin would not be taken again on the same hook. Bailey extended pseudopodia in fess, dexter, and sinister, with a balancing tendril curling away in south nombril, thus forcing his opponent to abandon his echoic stance. Swithin, required to make his move in the same time required by the opener, fell back on an awkward deployment, totally defensive in nature. Bailey made a neutral rearrangement, a feint taking only a fraction of a second, forcing the pace. Swithin returned with a convulsive expansion, recoiling from the center of play. Swift as flickering lightning, Bailey cycled his array through a set of inversions, forcing his opponent to retire into a self-paralyzing fortress stance—

And barely in time, saw the trap the plump champion had set for him. In mid-play, he caught himself, diverted the abortive encirclement he had begun into a flanking pincers. Caught in his own trap, unable to change direction as swiftly as had Bailey, Swithin bluffed with a piercing stab flawed by an almost unnoticeable discontinuity. The watchers sighed as the lightning interchange ceased abruptly. Taking his time now, Bailey shifted a rank of nexi to complete a perfect check position. On the next move, regardless of Swithin’s return, the game was his. The plump man’s face was the color of pipe clay now. With stiff hands, he prodded the plate, shifting his stance in a meaningless shuffle. He looked up, his expression sick. For a long moment Bailey held the other’s gaze. Then, with a touch of his fingers, he made a subtle rearrangement which converted his checkmate into a neutral deadlock. For a moment, Swithin sagged; then his quick eye realized what Bailey had done. Color flooded back into his face.

“A draw,” someone blurted. “By gad, Swithin’s drawn him!” The watchers crowded around, laughing and bantering. As Bailey rose, Swithin came around the table to him.

“Why did you do it?” he whispered hoarsely.

“I need a favor,” Bailey murmured.

Swithin studied him sharply, assessing him. “You’re an adventurer,” he accused.

Bailey smiled crookedly. “I want a crack at the Fornax,” he said softly.

Swithin narrowed his eyes. “You aim high. I have no way of getting you into the Blue Tower.”

“Think of a way.”

Swithin clamped his jaw. “You ask too much.”

“What about another game—to break the tie,” Bailey suggested gently. “For the same stakes, of course.”

Swithin’s head jerked; his peril had not ended yet. At that moment, Dovo spoke up: “Well, sirs, we can’t leave it at that, eh?” He shot a look of idle malice at Swithin. “Another set—unofficial, of course—will show us where the power lies, eh?”

Swithin gave Bailey a look of naked appeal. Bailey smiled genially.

“I’d prefer to rest on my laurels,” he said easily. “I fear Sir Swithin will not be so gentle with me another time.”

“Sir Jannock is too modest,” Swithin said quickly. “He is a player of rare virtuosity. It was all I could do to hold him.” He held up his hands as a chorus of protest started up. “But,” he went on, “I have another proposal—one calculated to afford us better sport than the mere humbling of an old comrade.” He shot a venomous look at Dovo. “I am thinking, gentlemen, of a certain gamester of swollen reputation and not inconsiderable arrogance, to wit: his Excellency, Lord Tace, champion of Club Fornax!”

A yell went up. When it had faded sufficiently for a single voice to be heard, Dovo called: “Are you sure, Swithin? Tace? Can he do it?”

All eyes were on Bailey/Jannock. His purchased memories told him that Tace was a formidable opponent; precisely how formidable he did not know.

“Tace, eh?” he said musingly. “But it’s out of the question, of course. I fear I have no entrée into that exalted circle.”

“Plandot,” someone said. “He’s a member at Fornax!”

“Get Plandot!” the shout went up.

The crowd surged away laughing and babbling like excited schoolboys.

“Well done, sir,” Bailey bowed sardonically to the older man.

“Just what are you after, sir?” Swithin demanded.

“Oh, say ten thousand M’s, eh?” Bailey said in a bantering tone. “You’ll honor me by accepting ten percent,” he added.

“Tace is no amateur,” Swithin snapped.

“Neither am I,” Bailey said. The two eyed each other, Swithin with a trapped look, Bailey-Jannock relaxed and at ease.

A shout went up from across the room.

“Plandot will meet us at the Blue Tower in half an hour! Tace is there, and in a nasty mood!”

“What if you lose?” Swithin persisted. “Can you cover?”

“Don’t concern yourself,” Bailey soothed. “That’s my part of the game.”