The player of games, p.36
The Player of Games, page 36
“All my life,” Gurgeh said quietly, looking past the drone to the dull, dead landscape outside the tall windows. “Sixty years… and how long has the Culture known about the Empire?”
“About—ah! You’re thinking we shaped you somehow. Not so. If we did that sort of thing we wouldn’t need outsider ‘mercenaries’ like Shohobohaum Za to do the really dirty work.”
“Za?” Gurgeh said.
“Not his real name; not Culture-born at all. Yes, he’s what you’d call a ‘mercenary.’ Just as well, too, or the secret police would have shot you outside that tent. Remember timid little me nipping out of the way? I’d just shot one of your assailants with my CREW; on high X-ray so it wouldn’t register on the cameras. Za broke the neck of another one; he’d heard there might be some trouble. He’ll probably be leading a guerrilla army on Eä in a couple of days from now, I imagine.”
The drone gave a little wobble in the air. “Let’s see… what else can I tell you? Oh yes; the Limiting Factor isn’t as innocent as it looks, either. While we were on the Little Rascal we did take out the old effectors, but only so we could put in new ones. Just two, in two of the three nose blisters. We put the empty one on clear and holos of empty blisters in the other two.”
“But I was in all three!” Gurgeh protested.
“No, you were in the same one three times. The ship just rotated the corridors housing, fiddled with the AG and had a couple of drones change things round a bit while you were going from one to the other, or rather down one corridor, up another and back to the same blister. All for nothing, mind you, but if we had needed some heavy weaponry it would have been there. It’s forward planning that makes one feel safe, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yes,” Gurgeh said, sighing. He got to his feet and went back out onto the balcony, where the black soot-snow fell steadily and quietly.
“Talking about the Limiting Factor,” Flere-Imsaho said cheerily, “the old reprobate is overhead now. Module’s on its way. We’ll have you aboard in a minute or two; you can have a nice wash and change out of those dirty clothes. Are you ready to leave?”
Gurgeh looked down at his feet, scuffed some of the soot and ash across the flagstones. “What is there to pack?”
“Not a lot, indeed. I was too busy keeping you from baking to go in search of your belongings. Anyway, the only thing you seem to be fond of is that tatty old jacket. Did you get that bracelet thing? I left it on your chest when I went exploring.”
“Yes, thanks,” Gurgeh said, gazing out at the flat black desolation stretching to the dark horizon. He looked up; the module burst through the deep brown overcast, trailing strands of vapor. “Thanks,” Gurgeh said again, as the module swooped, dropping almost to ground level then racing across the scorched desert toward the castle, drawing a plume of ash and soot off the ground in its wake as it slowed and started to turn and the noise of its supersonic plummet cracked round the forlorn fortress like too-late thunder. “Thanks for everything.”
The craft swung its rear toward the castle, floating up until it was level with the edge of the balcony parapet. Its rear door opened, made a flat ramp. The man walked across the balcony, stepped up onto the parapet, and into the cool interior of the machine.
The drone followed and the door closed.
The module blasted suddenly away, sucking a great swirling fountain of ash and soot after it as it climbed, flashing through the dark clouds above the castle like some solid lightning bolt, while its thunder broke across the plain and the castle and the low hills behind.
Ash settled again; the soot continued its soft and gentle fall.
The module returned a few minutes later, to pick up the ship’s drones and the remains of the alien effector equipment, then left the castle for the last time, and rose again to its waiting ship.
A little while later, the small band of dazed survivors—released by the two ship’s drones, and mostly servants, soldiers, concubines and clerks—stumbled into the daytime night and the soot-like snow, to take stock of their temporary exile in the once great fortress, and claim their vanished land.
4
The Passed Pawn
Lazy-matching, dull-siding, the ship went slowly through one end of a tensor field three million kilometers long, over a wall of monocrystal, then started to float down through the gradually thickening atmosphere of the Plate. From five hundred kilometers up, the two slabs of land and sea, the one beyond them of raw rock under deep cloud, and the one beyond that of still forming land, showed clear in the night air.
Beyond its crystal wall, the farthest Plate was very new; dark and void to normal sight, the ship could see on it the illuminating radars of the landscaping machines as they moved their cargoes of rock in from space. Even as the vessel watched, a huge asteroid was detonated in the darkness, producing a slow fountain of red-glowing molten rock which fell slowly to the new surface, or was caught and held, molded in the vacuum before it was allowed to settle.
The Plate beside it was dark too, and near the bottom of its squared-off funnel a blanket of clouds covered it completely as its rawness was weathered.
The other two Plates were much older, and twinkled with lights. Chiark was at aphelion; Gevant and Osmolon were white on black; islands of snow on dark seas. The old warship slowly submerged itself in the atmosphere, floating down the blade-flat slope of the Plate wall to where the real air began, then set out over the ocean for the land.
A seaship, a liner on that ocean and bright with lights, blasted its horns and set off fireworks as the Limiting Factor went over, a kilometer up. The ship saluted too, using its effectors to produce artificial auroras; roaring, shifting folds of light in the clear, still air above it. Then the two ships sailed on into the night.
It had been an uneventful journey back. The man Gurgeh had wanted to be stored at once, saying he didn’t want to be awake during the journey back; he wanted sleep, rest, a period of oblivion. The ship had insisted he think it over first, even though it had the equipment ready. After ten days it had relented and the man, who’d become increasingly morose during that time, went thankfully into a dreamless, low-metabolism sleep.
He hadn’t played a single game of any description during those ten days, hardly said a word, couldn’t even bother to get dressed, and spent most of his time just sitting staring at walls. The drone had agreed that putting him to sleep for the journey was probably the kindest thing they could do.
They’d crossed the Lesser Cloud and met with the Range class GSV So Much for Subtlety, which was heading back for the main galaxy. The inward journey had taken longer than the outward, but there’d been no hurry. The ship had left the GSV near the higher reaches of a galactic limb and cut down and across, past stars, dustfields and nebulae, where the hydrogen migrated and the suns formed and in the ship’s domain of unreal space the Holes were pillars of energy, from fabric to Grid.
It had woken the man up slowly, two days out from his home.
He still sat and stared at the walls; he didn’t play any games, catch up on any news, or even deal with his mail. At his request, it hadn’t signaled ahead to any of his friends, just sent one permission-to-approach burst to Chiark Hub.
It dropped a few hundred meters and followed the line of the fjord, slipping silently between the snow-covered mountains, its sleek hull reflecting a little blue-gray light as it floated over the dark, still water. A few people on yachts or in nearby houses saw the big craft as it cruised quietly by, and watched it maneuver its bulk delicately between bank and bank, water and patchy cloud.
Ikroh was dark and unlit, caught in the star-shadow of the three-hundred-and-fifty-meter length of silent craft above it.
Gurgeh took a last look round the cabin he’d been sleeping in—fitfully—for the last couple of ship nights, then walked slowly down the corridor to the module blister. Flere-Imsaho followed him with one small bag, wishing the man would change out of that horrible jacket.
It saw him into the module and came down with him. The lawn in front of the dark house was pure white and untouched. The module lowered to within a centimeter of it, then opened its rear door.
Gurgeh stepped out and down. The air was fragrant and sharp; a tangible clarity. His feet made cramping, creaking noises in the snow. He turned back to the lit interior of the module. Flere-Imsaho gave him his bag. He looked at the small machine.
“Goodbye,” he said.
“Goodbye, Jernau Gurgeh. I don’t expect we shall ever meet again.”
“I suppose not.”
He stepped back as the door started to swing closed and the craft began to rise very slowly, then he took a couple of quick steps backward until he could just see the drone over the rising lip of the door, and shouted, “One thing; when Nicosar fired that gun, and the ray came off the mirror-field and hit him; was that coincidence, or did you aim it?”
He thought it wasn’t going to answer him, but just before the door closed and the wedge of light thrown over it disappeared with the rising craft, he heard the drone say:
“I am not going to tell you.”
He stood and watched the module float back to the waiting ship. It was taken inside, the blister closed, and the Limiting Factor went black, its hull a perfect shadow, darker than the night. A pattern of lights came on along its length, spelling “Farewell” in Marain. Then it started to move, rising noiselessly upward.
Gurgeh watched it until the still-shown lights were just a set of moving stars, and fast receding in a sky of ghostly clouds, then he looked down at the faintly blue-gray snow. When he looked up again, the ship had gone.
He stood for a while, as though waiting. After a time he turned and tramped across the white lawn to the house.
He went in through the windows. The house was warm, and he shivered suddenly in his cool clothes for a second, then suddenly the lights went on.
“Boo!” Yay Meristinoux leapt out from behind a couch by the fire.
Chamlis Amalk-ney appeared from the kitchen with a tray. “Hello, Jernau. I hope you don’t mind…”
Gurgeh’s pale, pinched face broke into a smile. He put his bag down and looked at them both: Yay, fresh-faced and grinning, leaping over the couch; and Chamlis, fields orange-red, setting the tray down on the table before the banked fire. Yay thudded into him, arms round him, hugging him, laughing. She drew back.
“Gurgeh!”
“Yay, hello,” he said, dropping his bag and hugging her.
“How are you?” she asked, squeezing him. “Are you all right? We annoyed Hub until it told us you were definitely coming, but you’ve been asleep all this time, haven’t you? You didn’t even read my letters.”
Gurgeh looked away. “No. I’ve got them, but I haven’t…” he shook his head, looked down. “I’m sorry.”
“Never mind.” Yay patted his shoulder. She kept one arm round him and took him to the couch. He sat, looking at them both. Chamlis broke up the damp sawdust banking on the fire, releasing the flames beneath. Yay spread her arms, showing off short skirt and waistcoat.
“Changed, haven’t I?”
Gurgeh nodded. Yay looked as well and handsome as ever, and androgynous.
“Just changing back,” she said. “Another few months and I’ll be back where I started. Ah, Gurgeh, you should have seen me as a man; I was dashing!”
“He was unbearable,” Chamlis said, pouring some mulled wine from a pot-bellied jug. Yay threw herself onto the couch beside Gurgeh, hugging him again and making a growling noise in her throat. Chamlis handed them gently steaming goblets of wine.
Gurgeh drank gratefully. “I didn’t expect to see you,” he told Yay. “I thought you’d gone away.”
“I went away.” Yay nodded, gulping her wine. “I came back. Last summer. Chiark’s getting another Plate-pair; I put in some plans… and now I’m team coordinator for farside.”
“Congratulations. Floating islands?”
Yay looked blank for a second, then laughed into her goblet. “No floating islands, Gurgeh.”
“Plenty of volcanoes, though,” Chamlis said sniffily, sucking a thread of wine from a thimble-sized container.
“Perhaps one little one,” Yay nodded. Her hair was longer than he remembered; blue-black. Still as curly. She punched him gently on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, Gurgeh.”
He squeezed her hand, looked at Chamlis. “Good to be back,” he said, then fell silent, staring at the burning logs in the fireplace.
“We’re all glad you’re back, Gurgeh,” Chamlis said after a while. “But if you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t look too good. We heard you were in storage for the last couple of years, but there’s something else.… What happened out there? We’ve heard all sorts of reports. Do you want to talk about it?”
Gurgeh hesitated, gazing at the leaping flames consuming the jumbled logs in the fire.
He put his glass down and started to explain.
He told them all that happened, from the first few days aboard the Limiting Factor to the last few days, again on the ship, as it powered out of the disintegrating Empire of Azad.
Chamlis was quiet, and its fields changed slowly through many colors. Yay grew slowly more concerned-looking; she shook her head frequently, gasped several times, and looked ill twice. In between, she kept the fire stocked with logs.
Gurgeh sipped his lukewarm wine. “So… I slept, all the way back, until two days out. And now it all seems… I don’t know; deep-frozen. Not fresh, but… not decayed yet. Not gone.” He swilled the wine around in his goblet. His shoulders shook with a half-hearted laugh. “Oh well.” He drained his glass.
Chamlis lifted the jug from the ashes at the front of the fire and refilled Gurgeh’s goblet with the hot wine. “Jernau, I can’t tell you how sorry I am; this was all my fault. If I hadn’t—”
“No,” Gurgeh said. “Not your fault. I got myself into it. You did warn me. Don’t ever say that; don’t ever think it was anybody’s responsibility but mine.” He got up suddenly and walked to the fjord-side windows, looking down the slope of snow-covered lawn to the trees and the black water, and over it to the mountains and the scattered lights of the houses on the far shore.
“You know,” he said, as though talking to his own reflection in the glass, “I asked the ship yesterday exactly what they did do about the Empire in the end; how they went in to sort it out. It said they didn’t even bother. Fell apart all on its own.”
He thought of Hamin and Monenine and Inclate and At-sen and Bermoiya and Za and Olos and Krowo and the girl whose name he’d forgotten…
He shook his head at his image in the glass. “Anyway; it’s over.” He turned back to Yay and Chamlis and the warm room. “What’s the gossip here?”
So they told him about Hafflis’s twins, both talking now, and Boruelal leaving to go GSV-ing for a few years, and Olz Hap—breaker of not a few young hearts—being more or less acclaimed/embarrassed/forced into Boruelal’s old post, and Yay fathering a child a year back—he’d get to meet mother and child next year probably, when they came for an extended visit—and one of Shuro’s pals being killed in a combat game two years back, and Ren Myglan becoming a man, and Chamlis still hard at work on the reference text for its pet planet, and Tronze Festival the year before last ending in disaster and chaos after some fireworks blew up in the lake and swamped half the cliffside terraces; two people dead, brains splattered over lumps of stonework; hundreds injured. Last year’s hadn’t been half so exciting.
Gurgeh was listening to all this as he wandered round the room, reacquainting himself with it. Nothing much seemed to have changed.
“What a lot I’ve miss—” he began, then noticed the little wooden plaque on the wall, and the object mounted on it. He reached out, touched it, took it down from the wall.
“Ah,” Chamlis said, making what was almost a coughing noise. “I hope you don’t mind.… I mean I hope you don’t think that’s too… irreverent, or tasteless. I just thought…”
Gurgeh smiled sadly, touching the lifeless surfaces of the body that had once been Mawhrin-Skel. He turned back to Yay and Chamlis, walking over to the old drone. “Not at all, but I don’t want it. Do you?”
“Yes, please.”
Gurgeh presented the heavy little trophy to Chamlis, who went red with pleasure. “You vindictive old horror,” Yay snorted.
“This means a great deal to me,” Chamlis said primly, holding the plaque close to its casing. Gurgeh put his glass back on the tray.
A log collapsed in the fire, showering sparks up. Gurgeh crouched and poked at the remaining logs. He yawned.
Yay and the drone exchanged looks, then Yay reached out and tapped Gurgeh with one foot. “Come on, Jernau; you’re tired; Chamlis has to head back home and make sure its new fishes haven’t eaten each other. Is it all right if I stay here?”
Gurgeh looked, surprised, at her smiling face, and nodded.
When Chamlis left, Yay put her head on Gurgeh’s shoulder and said she’d missed him a lot, and five years was a long time, and he looked a lot more cuddleable than when he’d gone away, and… if he wanted… if he wasn’t too tired…
She used her mouth, and on her forming body Gurgeh traced slow movements, rediscovering sensations he’d almost forgotten; stroking her gold-dark skin, caressing the odd, almost comic unbuddings of her now concaving genitals, making her laugh, laughing with her, and—in the long moment of climax—with her then too, still one, their every tactile cell surging to a single pulse, as though alight.
Still he didn’t sleep, and in the night got up out of the tousled bed. He went to the windows and opened them. The cold night air spilled in. He shivered, pulled on the trous, jacket and shoes.
