“Looks simple enough,” he said.
“Do you think so?” a bland voice spoke almost at his elbow. A man of middle age—perhaps over a hundred, being a Cruster, Bailey guessed—smiled gently at him.
“Sir Dovo,” Wilf introduced the newcomer. “Sir Jannock, guest of Lord Encino.”
Bailey inclined his head to precisely the correct angle. “Enchanted, indeed, Sir Dovo. And indeed I do think so.”
“You’ve played Flan before, Sir Jannock?”
Bailey/Jannock smiled indulgently. “Never. My taste has been for games of a more challenging character.”
“So? Perhaps Flan would prove more diverting than you suspect?”
“I could hardly refuse so intriguing an invitation,” Bailey said with apparent casualness and waited tensely for the response.
“Excellent,” Dovo said with hardly perceptible hesitation. “May I explain the play?” He turned to the machine, quickly outlined the method of controlling the strength of the electrostatic field, the scoring of the hits on the coded areas of the slowly spinning disk. He called for a croupier, keyed the machine into action, made a few demonstration runs, then watched with a slight smile as Bailey took his practice shots, with obvious lack of skill.
“Suppose we set the stakes at a token amount,” Dovo suggested in a tone which might have been either patronizing or cynical. Bailey nodded.
“An M per point?”
“Oh, let’s say ten M, shall we?” Dovo smiled indulgently. Bailey, remembering his credit balance, managed to keep his expression bland.
“Under the circumstances, this being my first visit, I should prefer that the stakes be purely symbolic,” he said. Dovo inclined his head in a way that almost—but not quite—suggested a touch of contempt.
“Perhaps your confidence has lost its initial fervor,” he said with an apparently frank smile.
“As a stranger to you, Sir Dovo, I should dislike to take any considerable sum from you,” Bailey replied tartly.
“As you wish; shall we begin?”
Bailey played first, managed to lodge the ball in a chartreuse pocket marked zan. Dovo, with apparent ease, dislodged the marker, sending it to a white cup marked nolo, while his own came to rest in the gold-lined rey. Bailey missed the disk completely, occasioning some good-humored banter, and necessitating the opening of the locked case by a steward, and manual return of the ball to the play area. The double penalty thus incurred left him with four and a half M.
Playing first again, he managed to score a yellow nex, only to see Dovo casually drop his marker into the adjacent slot, thus scoring a triple bonus. Bailey made a disgusted sound.
“This is no exercise for a man of wit,” he complained in a manner which fell just short of boorishness.
“I fail in my duty as host,” Dovo said in a smooth tone. “Perhaps some other game to while away the time until the arrival of your, ah”—he smiled thinly—“of Lord Encino.”
“No need to bother,” Bailey said shortly.
“The Zoop tower? A set or two of Whirl? Or perhaps you’d find Slam more suited to your mood…”
“Candidly, Sir Dovo, I find these toys tedious.” Bailey dismissed the entire roomful of gambling machines with an airy wave of his hand, turning away as if to leave the room. At once, Dovo’s voice reached after him.
“Surely, Sir Jannock, you’ll allow me the opportunity to reinstate the club in your good graces by offering you play suitable to a gentleman of your undoubted talents?” There was an unmistakable trace of sarcasm in his tone.
Bailey turned. “My esteem for your delightful club remains as high as ever,” he said acidly. “I’m grateful for your concern, but—”
“If it’s intellectual exercise you crave, possibly a quarter or two of shan-shan with Sir Drace, our club master, might serve.” Dovo’s tone was plainly badgering now. There were knowing smiles on the smooth, handsomely chiseled faces around him. Wilf hovered at Bailey’s elbow, making small, distressed sounds.
“I dislike shan-shan intensely,” Bailey said disdainfully, starting on. “Superficial.”
“A round of Tri-chess, then. Our membership includes a former grand champion who might offer some slight challenge. Or perhaps a set of Parallel. Or a flutter of Ten-deck.” Other voices chimed in with suggestions. “What about a heptet of Reprise?” someone called. Bailey halted, turned slowly, as if brought to bay. Maliciously smiling faces gazed comfortably at him, enjoying the moment’s diversion, waiting to savor whatever parting shot he might muster.
“Reprise?” he said.
“Why, yes,” Dovo bobbed his head. “Have I succeeded in intriguing you? Or is it, too, numbered among these disciplines not favored with your approval?”
Bailey let the silence lengthen. Reprise, the knowledge came into his mind, was a game for the select few who had devoted a lifetime to its mastery. Even to learn the basic moves of the seventy-seven pieces required a year of intensive study. The recording and encephalotape transmission of such a skill was a serious crime. But he, thanks to the deft fingers of a tapelegger, had it all…
“I find Reprise a most delightful pastime,” he said loftily. “I should very much enjoy a set.”
Dovo looked blank. With an effort, he hitched a smile of sorts back in place. “Excellent,” he said in a strained voice, turning to the man beside him. “Barlin, perhaps you’d be so good as to oblige Sir Jannock—”
“I had assumed, Sir Dovo, that you yourself would honor me,” Bailey said. “Or perhaps you have a previous engagement at the Zoop tower.” It was his turn to smile knowingly.
“Very well,” Dovo said shortly. “I’ll oblige you.”
21
There was a surf murmur of chatter as Bailey took the seat offered him before a yard-cube wire construction scattered through with colored glass beads which glowed to sudden brilliance as Dovo activated the board. Each of the nexi, as the beads were called, could be moved according to a complex code of interrelating rules. The object of the game was to achieve a configuration which outranked the opposing one, again in consonance with an elaborate structure of interlocking taboos, prohibitions, and compulsions. With a part of his mind, Bailey stared dazedly at the incomprehensible flash and glitter as Dovo took up his initial grouping; but another part of his brain observed with mild amusement the naïveté of the other’s elementary classroom opening.
“For an M per point, as before?” he inquired innocently.
“Come now, Sir Jannock,” Dovo snapped. “For an aficionado of your attainments, one hundred M should not be excessive.”
“Very well,” Bailey said casually. “Will you open?” He smiled, conceding the prized advantage to his opponent. Dovo nodded shortly and after a moment’s hesitation, made a clumsy approche à droit, technically legal enough, in that each of the forty-one nexi he put into play moved within their statutory limits; but pathetically inept in the aimlessness of the positioning. Bailey felt his hands move almost without volition, moving over the charged plate, shifting the beads en gestalt into a graceful spiral which twined among and around Dovo’s hapless line-up. The latter stared for a long moment at the cage; his hands twitched toward the plate, twitched back. He looked up to meet Bailey’s eyes.