As a result of all this assistance and attention by the several ladies of the frames. Stile was free of immediate threats to his welfare and was able to play the Game—but he really intended to stay out of the PHYSICAL column. Sheen was taking good care of him, but she could not help him there.
His opponent this time was a man of his own ladder: nicknamed Track, age 35, the running champion of the over-30 category, and no slouch at other track events. Stile could not have beaten him at running, jumping or swimming even when in shape, and in his present condition it would have been hopeless. But Track was comparatively weak in MENTAL and had virtually no artistic awareness. So this should be an easy win for Stile—if he kept it out of PHYSICAL and CHANCE.
As luck would have it. Stile got the letters. He could not eliminate the physical column.
He considered rapidly. NAKED was absolutely out. TOOL was not good; Track was excellent at bicycle racing, tennis, billiards and other such sports. MACHINE was a little better; Track was less secure in things like motorcycle racing, while Stile was expert, and his thigh would interfere only minimally. ANIMAL—Stile was of course the champion horse racer. He could no longer flex his knees properly for best effect, but his basic skill and experience and rapport with horses remained. This was his obvious choice. Therefore he did not take it. He went for TOOL instead, hoping to catch Track sneaking in MENTAL. 2D would have put them into animal training, and Track had an excellent touch with the circus whip.
It didn’t work. It came up IB. Tool-Assisted Physical Games.
But Stile outmaneuvered him in the subgrid, and the Game came up Bubbles. This was about as delicate as a physical game could get.
They blew soap bubbles with straws, and wafted them across a measured alley. Scoring was by volume, distance and time—to get the greatest volume of bubble across a set distance within the time limit. Stile had the fine touch here; his bubbles were only of medium size, but were durable, while Track’s larger ones tended to pop before completing the distance.
Stile won the Game. It had been his gridding skill, once more, that had done it. They shook hands and parted, and the crowd of spectators applauded. This had hardly been a bruising or dramatic Game, but the stakes were high enough to make it interesting to all. With five more years of tenure to look forward to. Track was not hurting badly.
Stile managed six more hours accelerated healing in Phaze before reporting for Round Eleven. Now the total number of contestants was down to eleven, with only one remaining undefeated. The losers of this Round would re3ceive a prize of ten years tenure. One thousand and thirteen had now been eliminated from the Tourney. Stile’s opponent was another Citizen, this time a young one—about fifteen years old. Stile was pretty sure he could prevail on most games of skill, but still did not want to risk the physical ones. This time he had the numbers, so put it into MENTAL; there he would have no disadvantage. The Citizen, surprisingly, selected ANIMAL. So it was 2D, the one Stile had played to avoid last time. When they gridded it down to the specific, they settled on Mixed-Species Communication.
Each player had three untrained animals: a dog, a cat and a rat. Each player had all-purpose animal snack treats and an electronic goad: positive and negative inducements. The task was to get all three animals to traverse a set maze without touching any of them. The first player to succeed would be the winner.
The animals, of course, were at first more interested in pursuing or escaping each other than in doing intellectual tricks. Careful management was required. The goad was adjustable, creating pain in the systems of whatever animal it was tuned to, ranging from mild to paralyzing; the cats learned very quickly not to attempt to pounce on the rats, because of the mysterious agony that balked them. But the inducement of a positive act was more difficult than the suppression of a negative one. The snacks could not be used to lead the animals; they could only be presented as rewards for proper behavior. This was confusing to the creatures.
There was a series of “locks” in which, by the design of the layout, two animals were necessarily together briefly before passing into the next stage of the maze; that was what really put it into the MENTAL column. The reward of food could lure the animals into the first lock, and the goad could prevent them from attacking one another, since they tended to repeat what had been positive before and avoid what had been negative. But the overall strategy of placement and movement and incentive was what counted in causing the animals to respond most positively. Again, Stile’s experience and rapport with animals paid off. He completed the course while the young Citizen was still trying to get his cat to join his growling dog in the lock, instead of pouncing on the rat. Had he brought the rat to the lock first he would have been more successful; either of the other animals would have joined it willingly. Stile had brought rat, cat and dog through in that order, and by the time they finished all three were eager to continue moving forward. The Round was Stile’s. Funny, how these important later Games seemed to be getting less consequential in actual play. Stile’s first Round Game, Football, had been his toughest; this last one his easiest. But the luck of the grid often produced such anomalies.
Again he returned to Phaze for a night’s healing and rest. It was the Yellow Adept who tended him, in her natural old-woman form. She had the potions and experience to handle it, and she represented no temptation for him to abridge his Oracular guarantee, as might have been the case with the Lady Blue.
Why was Yellow doing this? He was in hock to her again, and was getting to like her quite well as a person. It was as if his need brought out her better traits. Maybe she liked being part of a team, doing something worthwhile, earning the appreciation of others. It was something that few Adepts experienced.
The child Brown Adept also paid him a visit to wish him well. It seemed she felt a certain retroactive guilt for the use of a golem in the prior murder of Blue, and wanted to make an amend. Things were looking up.
But until he eliminated the Red Adept, nothing was settled. She must have been busy setting up new traps during the period of his convalescence. Then Sheen re-ported that Red had shown up in the Tourney. She too had made it to the rarefied Rounds, with a single loss. If both Red and Stile continued winning, they would eventually come up against each other there.
It happened in Round Twelve. This was hardly coincidence, at this point. Only six contestants remained, one of them undefeated. The bonus to the loser this time was twenty years tenure—a full extra term.
Stile’s thigh was now almost healed, and he had the incentive of his oath of vengeance. He was ready for Red. This was one situation she could neither escape nor cheat. By beating her here he would not only deny her Citizenship, he would wash her out of the Tourney—and since her murders of Hulk and Bluette had now come to Citizen attention, thanks to the investigation of Bluette’s Employer, she would be denied the bonus tenure. She would be exiled.
Stile pondered the meaning of this. He had wanted to kill her—yet his oath was merely to “make an end” of her. The Oracle had not predicted killing either; it had said Blue would destroy Red. Did exile constitute destruction? Perhaps. The Citizens had fairly sophisticated mechanisms to ensure that no exiled person ever returned to Proton; no worry about that aspect. At any rate, the more Stile contemplated the prospect of coldly killing another human being, the less he liked it. He simply was not a murderer. So if this was the meaning of oath and Oracle, he would accept it with a certain relief.