Yet if he had not performed, the Lady Blue’s situation could have become quite difficult. And it could still become so, if Stile did not locate and deal with the murderer of the Blue Adept before that murderer caught up with Stile him-self.
Meanwhile, he wondered whether the Lady was winning her chess game with Pyreforge.
CHAPTER 5 - Riddles
Sheen was pleased. “You’re here for a full week this time?”
“Until the Unolympic,” Stile agreed. “Neysa and the Lady Blue are relaxing after the excursion among the Little People, and I have considerable business here in Proton-frame, as long as my enemy doesn’t strike.” He shrugged. “Of course I’ll be staying longer in Phaze-frame one of these times, to run down my enemy there and look for the Foreordained. If I wash out of the Tourney I’ll spend the rest of my life there.”
“What was it like, being among the Little People?” Sheen asked. They were in their apartment, engaging in their usual occupation. Sheen was an extremely amorous female, and Stile’s frequent absences and uncertainty of future increased her ardor. And, since he had a balked romantic situation in Phaze—
“Strange,” he answered. “I felt like a giant, and I wasn’t used to it. This must be the way Hulk feels. I really am more satisfied with my size than I used to be.” He changed the subject. “Where is Hulk? Did you help him?”
“I believe so. I put him in touch with my friends. I assumed you would not have sent him if he could not be trusted.”
“He can be trusted.”
“I’m sure my friends required him to take the same oath you took, if they revealed themselves to him at all. They may simply have issued him an address. I did not inquire after him, because that would only expose him and them to possible Citizen attention, and we don’t want that.”
“True,” Stile agreed. “If the Citizens knew that some robots are self-willed—“
“You have something against self-willed robots?” she asked archly.
“You know, at times I almost forget that you yourself are a robot. I don’t see how you could be much better in the flesh.”
“All the same, I wish I were in the flesh,” she said sadly. “You can never truly love me. Even if you were to win the Tourney and become a Citizen and stay here the rest of your life, even if you didn’t have the Lady Blue in the other frame, you would never really be mine.”
Stile did not like this line of conjecture. “There is very little chance of my winning the Tourney. I barely survived my first Game.”
“I know. I watched. You were lucky.”
“Luck is a fickle mistress.”
She turned on him abruptly. “Promise me that if you ever give this mistress up permanently, you’ll have me junked, put out of consciousness. I don’t mean just reprogramming or deactivating me; destroy my computer brain. You know how to do it. Don’t let me suffer alone.”
“Sheen,” he protested. “I would never junk you!”
“I like Neysa, and I’m resigned to the Lady Blue. I know you’re sliding into love with her, and in time she’ll love you, and there’s your true romance. But this is a different frame; she and I can never meet. Nothing you do there needs to affect what you do here—“
“I am of both frames now,” Stile said. “What affects me in one, affects me in the other. You know that if the Lady ever gives her love to me, I—we’ll still be friends, you and I, but—“ He halted, hating this, but not constituted to conceal the truth.
“But not lovers,” she finished. “Even that I can accept. Neysa accepted it. But if you ever find you can dispense with that remaining friendship—“
“Never!”
“Then you will junk me cleanly. Promise.”
Stile suffered a vision of himself hacking apart the living Worm. That had been unclean dispatching. How much better it would have been if he could have banished that Worm to nonexistence with a single, painless spell. Sheen deserved at least that much. “I promise,” he said. “But that time will never—“
“Now it’s time to get you back to the Tourney,” she said briskly.
Stile had been near the head of the line for matching-up before; this time he was near the end. That meant he could play this time, and have another Game soon. The later Rounds would suffer less delay, as the number of remaining contestants declined. The double-elimination system did not eliminate half the contestants each Round, but by Round Four it would approximate fifty percent attrition, and by Round Eight it would be down to about sixty-four survivors, and the prizes would begin. That was his mini-mum objective, to reach Round Eight. Because that meant he would get another chance, even if he washed out of the Tourney thereafter. In that sense these first few Games were the most critical. Since they were also likely to be against the least competent players—with certain notable exceptions!—this was the time to avoid making any foolish errors. There was absolutely no sense in throwing away a Game that could be easily won by being careful. His second Game was against an older woman, a serf. She was unlikely to be any match for him. She would probably go for CHANCE; it was the obvious ploy against a superior player.
The grid gave her the opportunity; she had the numbered facet. Well, there were ways to reduce the pseudo-equality of chance, and Stile played for them. He selected TOOL.
Sure enough, it came up 3B, TOOL-assisted CHANCE. The subgrid appeared. Stile played to avoid the pure-chance complexes like Dice or Roulette, in favor of the semi-chance ones like Cards. It came up Dominoes. All right. Stile managed to steer it into the 91 piece, 12 spot domino variation, while the woman put it into the conventional “Draw” game. Stile, familiar with all variants, had wanted one unfamiliar to his opponent to confuse her; he was halfway there.
They adjourned to a Gamesroom and played. They laid all the dominoes facedown, shuffled, and each drew one from the boneyard. Stile drew the 6:7; the woman the 4:5. He had first turn. Good; that was an advantage. Each drew seven dominoes and Stile was pleased to note that his hand had a run of Fours: the 4:0, 4:2, 4:8 and 4:11. He played the 4:8. As he had hoped, his opponent was unable to play, being short of Fours; she had to draw three times before she could make a match. Stile played one of his other Fours.
So it went. Confused by the vastly extended range of the dominoes, and lacking the wit to eliminate the highest ones from her hand, the woman lost and delivered a goodly score to him. They played another hand, and a third, and he passed 200 points and won. She had never scored at all. Stile had made it to Round Three without even a scare.
The woman just sat there, after the Game, her face set. Stile realized, belatedly, that she must have lost her first match; with this second loss she would be out of the Tourney, doomed to immediate and permanent exile. Some serfs suicided rather than leave Proton. They were the lowest class of people, here, destined only to serve the arrogant Citizens, yet it was all they craved in life. Stile understood this attitude, for he had until recently shared it. Only the opening of the miraculous horizons of Phaze had given him a better alternative.
He was sorry for the woman. Yet what could he do? She had no chance to win the Tourney anyway. It was best that she be put out of her misery promptly.
Like Sheen? No, of course not like that! Yet the thought lingered, a shadow that could not quite be erased. He left the woman there. He did not feel good. As Stile and Sheen reentered the apartment, the communication screen lighted. “Report to your Employer for an update,” a serf-functionary said crisply, showing the identification of the Lady Citizen for whom Stile worked. “At this time, in this place.” And a card emerged from the letter-slot.