DeVore smiled. In life Tuan Ti Fo had been a man of few words, but as he welcomed intelligent conversation while he was playing, he had made this version somewhat more talkative than the original. Moreover, he had ensured that the interactive element was based on a heuristic core. As it played and talked, so it learned . . . and grew. As a man grew. And sometimes—as now—it seemed almost alive, as if the real Tuan Ti Fo were speaking to him. Yet he knew that could not be. The real Tuan Ti Fo had been an old man when he had last won the title, and that had been over forty years ago. No. The real Tuan Ti Fo was long dead. Only this—this breathless illusion of being— remained.
DeVore leaned closer, studying the shapes on the board. This was the eleventh game between them. Thus far the score was even—five games apiece—yet this had been the hardest and, indeed, the longest of their contests. At present things seemed well balanced. He was dominant in the south and west, Old Tuan in the north and east. Yet much was still to be decided. There was a large space in the very center of the board where things might easily go either way.
Tuan Ti Fo took a white stone from the pot to his left and placed it with a solid-sounding click onto the board—in Chu, the west, strengthening a line he had “ghosted” some twenty moves before. DeVore stared at the stone a moment, assimilating it into the pattern of shapes on the board, trying to see what the old man meant by it, then nodded to himself, pleased by its cleverness. He would have to respond. Have to concede ground and postpone his plans to infiltrate Tuan’s territory in the north.
He looked up at the hologram and saw that the old man was watching him, his hazel eyes clear, expressionless. Once again the illusion of presence was strong.
“And just what were you as a child? Where did you live, for instance? 1 don’t think you’ve ever said.”
It hadn’t. Nor was it programmed with such information. But DeVore was intrigued to learn how it would respond: how it would face that blank internal space, and whether it would attempt to fill the nothingness. “There was no City, back then,” Old Tuan replied. “Just the earth and the heavens, and Man between them.”
Evasions, DeVore thought, disappointed; evasions and cod philosophy. He leaned forward and played the forced defense, two back, one in, from Tuan’s last stone.
Tuan Ti Fo sat back, fanning himself slowly, considering the move, his deeply lined face concentrating fiercely. He seemed so real, so there, at that moment, but in reality a complex program was now running, responding to the light thumb-tip touch DeVore had made against the board’s surface: a program modeled upon a detailed analysis of the Master’s play in that final championship.
DeVore looked away. Outside, far below and some way to the right of their flight path, he could see the softly rounded glow of a pumping station and, arrowing away from it to north and south, the great eastern pipeline, tracker lights revealing its course at half-H intervals. It was almost dawn. Already the darkness seemed less intense. He turned, hearing the click of glass against wood. Tuan Ti Fo had played his stone to the left of his own, the circles of black and white touching at the edge. He stared at it, astonished. It was the kind of move only an absolute novice would make. A novice, or someone wise beyond all years. He looked up, meeting Old Tuan’s eyes.
“Tranquillity is the lord of agitation,” the old man said, his hands tucked deep into his sleeves, his whole form emanating a calm and certainty that seemed unearthly.
DeVore laughed uncomfortably. “You believe all that bullshit?” The hologram’s smile seemed to focus all of the light from within. “It is the Way, Major DeVore. As the great sage says, the Way is like water. It dwells in places that the masses detest.” DeVore snorted, a sudden tiredness and irritability making him take a black stone from the pot and slap it down, shutting the door on Tuan’s last play.
Tuan nodded, then, almost without thought, it seemed, leaned forward, playing a second stone, extending the line. DeVore stared at the board again, disbelievingly. The old man had played inside his territory, like a child wandering in a tiger’s cave. He frowned, looking to see that he had not missed something. But no. It was a poor move. So what was wrong? Was the program acting up? Or was this part of some deeper strategy? Something new and unexpected? He sat back, meeting Tuan’s eyes again.
“The submissive and weak conquer the strong,” Tuan said, passing a hand across the board, as if somehow to illustrate what he had said. “Not in this world,” DeVore answered, slapping another stone down beside Tuan’s last play, shadowing the line. There was no way the Master could make the group live now. He had only to be patient and the stones would be his. He looked up again, smiling now. “The weak and submissive might conquer in your world, but here”—DeVore laughed and pushed his hand deep into the hologram’s chest—“here we do things differently.” The old man looked down, as if he could see where DeVore’s hand had passed through him, then gave the tiniest of shrugs, a fleeting disappointment in his face.
“A game is not won in two moves, Major. Nor are things always what they seem. You might argue that yours is a world of substance, and mine merely a world of Wu—of ‘nonbeing.’ Yet who is to say whether such differences are significant? Are you greater than me for having substance? Are you more real?”
DeVore stared at the hologram, no less surprised by its words than by the moves it had made only moments before. “Shit,” he said softly. “So that’s it. The damn thing’s malfunctioning.”
And yet the image had never been clearer or the illusion of presence stronger.
Old Tuan held his eyes steadily a moment, then leaned across and took a white stone from the pot. Smiling, he clicked it down, switching the play to the far comer of the board—to Ping, the east. DeVore sat there for a long time, studying the board, seeing with a new-formed clarity the inevitability of the plays to come: how stone would follow stone, until. . .
It was a brilliant move. Almost as good as the play which had won Master Tuan the championship that final year. Moreover, Old Tuan had set it up more than twenty moves before. Had set it up and waited, steering the play away from that part of the board, biding his time, containing his opponent’s stones. But why? Why not this, at once? Or was that the point? Was that the reason for those final, stuttering plays? Had the Program finally outgrown him?
He let out a long breath, then looked up, meeting the hologram’s eyes. “Do you wish me to play on, Master Tuan?”
“I. . .” Old Tuan paused, then turned, looking away from the board. “It seems your man is waking, Major. Perhaps we should finish our game another day?”
“My man . . . ?” DeVore turned, following the line of Tuan Ti Fo’s sight, then laughed. Gods, Auden was waking. But how had it known? Had it sensed some change in his breathing? Was its hearing that acute, its interpretation of sound patterns that sophisticated? He leaned across and switched the Program off. At once the facing seat was empty, the board transformed to a single, unbroken square of darkness. Odd, he thought, sitting back, listening to Auden yawn and stretch. Very odd indeed. Yet not impossible. After all, it had been programmed to leam new things. All the same, he’d have someone look at it, just in case someone had been tampering.
He turned, looking across at Auden. The big man yawned and stretched again, then, noticing that DeVore was watching him, drew himself up straight in his seat, smiling.
“Gods. I must have dropped off.”
DeVore smiled. “It’s okay. We’re almost there. Look.” Auden turned and looked. Outside the dawn was coming up, revealing, below them, the vast lowland depression of Hellas and, in the distance, the lights of Tien Men K’ou City, nestled into its own small crater. “There,” DeVore said softly, staring at the tiny circle of lights to the northeast of the dome that marked out the perimeter of the spaceport, imagining the Callisto flight with Jelka Tolonen on board setting down there in three days’ time. “Yes,” he murmured, his eyes widening. “Right there.”