The woman facing him picked up the blue crayon and carefully printed eight dots on the counter in a rough heart-outline:
Ivo glanced at this in perplexity, not knowing what was expected of him. He looked sidelong at the couple’s paper to the left — and caught on.
They were playing sprouts!
He had, with typical perspicacity, missed the obvious. Groton had even mentioned the game as he dragged him to the common room.
He reached for the other crayon, but the woman set her hand on his, preventing him from lifting it. Apparently she had selected the color as well as the number of dots. He let go, and she handed him the blue.
It was his opening move, then. He had to play the eight-spot game of sprouts with this woman — was she South American? He’d know if she spoke — and defeat her. Groton said so.
He concentrated, trying to figure the forced win, but could not be certain. There were too many complex interrelationships, and too much depended upon the confluence of opposing lines of strategy.
He decided to keep it simple until the outcome was fathomable. The probability was that he would see the correct strategy before she could. He connected the southward-pointing dots, bisecting the heart, and placed the new spot in the center.
She recovered the crayon and made a butterfly-shape looping from the top, encircling the two highest dots. She placed the new one in the crevice.
Idle play, or artistry? Did it matter? Ivo decided that it did not, and proceeded with an asymmetric offshoot.
The woman continued without objection, and he knew that it was all right. These games were not being judged on esthetics. Soon he was able to determine the win, and played through to it without difficulty.
The others finished about the time he did, and again there was the shuffle as all stood up, wiped away the evidence, and moved one step around the table. The travel was clockwise; the woman he had defeated went out to the supernumerary chair and sat there, while the spare man came to occupy Ivo’s last seat. Now this was clear, too: with five facing five and one to carry, each rotation brought about new combinations that would not repeat until each person had played every other.
It was indeed a tourney.
His next opponent was a venerable gentleman bearing the emblem of Nove-Congo. Ivo judged him to be of Bantu stock with a strong Alpine admixture; the skin was an intermediate brown, the body stocky but lacking the Caucasoid hairiness. The turbulent history of his country was reflected in his genetic heritage, and Ivo felt sympathy. Ivo was himself a controlled conglomeration of Mongoloid, Negroid and Caucasoid, as had been every member of the project, and he felt that the purebreds were lacking in something. But he had obtained his chromosomes the easy way, and had lived protected and pampered. This man could have been conceived only in misfortune, amidst violent antipathies against miscegenation; perhaps he was the child of rape. Yet he had won his way to the foremost circle of modern technology, and that too spoke eloquently about him.
The NoCon picked up the blue crayon and planted nine dots upon the board — and to Ivo it seemed as though they formed a crude map of his nation. Conscious, unconscious, or strictly in the eye of the beholder?
Irrelevant. Ivo played, this time observing that the players on the opposite side of the table invariably selected color and dot-pattern. Those on his side had choice of moves — and sometimes declined to make the opening one. As in footbalclass="underline" one side chose the field, the other had the initiative. He would get to set up the spots once he progressed to the proper side.
He noted also that no game began with less than six spots; these people were aware of the extent of the advantage accruing to the person with the choice of moves, in the lower ranges. In the higher numbers, skill really did become the dominant factor, since nobody could anticipate or execute the forced win.
He won again without undue difficulty. These people, skilled as they might be in other types of endeavor, and practiced as they might be at sprouts, nevertheless lacked his own intuitive analytic faculty. Probably any of them could outperform him in almost any field — except this one. A billiards tournament, or table-tennis… but this happened to be sprouts, a game of semimathematical analysis. He was able to determine the winning strategy several moves before they could, and to have the victory in hand before they were aware. The real test of his skill was in determining the win, rather than in the play.
Groton had known of his power in this respect; that he had, in effect, an unfair advantage. Why had Groton chosen to send him into this contest? What was there to be won, that had to be won this way?
Should he arrange to lose?
No. It was not in him to throw a contest, any contest, for any reason. He could decline the prize, but he had to do his best in the competition.
The third encounter was with the Russian. The man picked up the red crayon and made seven dots.
Ivo strained, but could not quite pin down the automatic win. Seven was just beyond his intuitive competence. The opening move seemed wrong, however, so he declined it, brushing away the proffered crayon as though it were a tip refused.
The Russian nodded and accepted the onus. They played, and very shortly Ivo lined it up and established his winning mode.
The Russian paused instead of playing, after the key move, hairy brow wrinkled. “Misère?” he inquired. It was the first word spoken since the games had begun.
Ivo shrugged, wondering why the man did not make his play. Was he conceding already?
The Russian touched the shoulder of the woman next to him. She was, Ivo perceived, a younger person, perhaps no more than thirty-five, and the pride of her femininity was still about her. She was classic Mongoloid: stocky, flattish face, almond eyes, coarse straight hair and very small hands. She probably had come from Fringe-China, and was in her way as definitive a specimen as Afra was in hers. He was as closely related to this woman as to Afra: about one-third overlap of race.
The Russian asked Ivo something, when the woman’s attention had been gained. Then, again: “Misère.”
“He inquires whether you understand that it is misère,” she said softly to Ivo. “The red — to avoid the last move.”
To play to lose! That was the significance of the color. Red, naturally, for the deficit game. He had missed — yet again! — the obvious, while concentrating upon the subtle. And he had already forced the win — for the Russian, unless the man should make a mistake. That, in view of this interchange, seemed unlikely.
He had made an error — in not acquainting himself with the complete rules of play. He should have questioned the purpose of the second color. It was as valid a mistake as a misplay on the board.
“I understand,” he said.
That was it. They finished the play, and he lost.
Fred Blank was next, also picking up the red crayon. Ivo defeated him.
No one kept official score. Apparently it was up to the individual. By the time Ivo completed the circuit, he had nine victories, one defeat.
The group dispersed, the entertainment over. There was no celebration, no awarding of any prize. He could not believe that what he observed was all of it, but hoped to learn the truth from Groton very shortly.
Ivo headed for the door, wondering whether Afra could still be sleeping — there. This entire “night” had a surrealistic flavor; nothing was quite as he expected, though he had thought he had no expectations.
Once more there was a hand at his shoulder. He paused to look down at the woman who had translated for him. “You — you are one loss only,” she said.
He nodded.
“And so with Dr. Kovonov.” She gestured, and he observed the Russian still seated at the table. Everyone else was gone.