"Unspeakably," Gurgeh said. "But I'd like to see more before I come to any final judgement."
"You'll end up impressed; you'll appreciate its savage beauty. No; I'm serious. You will. You'll probably end up wanting to stay. Oh, and don't pay any attention to that dingbat drone they've sent to nursemaid you. They're all the same those machines; want everything to be like the Culture; peace and love and all that same bland crap. They haven't got the" — Za belched — "the sensuality to appreciate the" — he belched again- "Empire. Believe me. Ignore the machine."
Gurgeh was wondering what to say to that when a brightly dressed group of apices and females came up to surround him and Shohobohaum Za. An apex stepped out of the smiling, shining group, and, with a bow Gurgeh thought looked exaggerated, said to Za, "Would our esteemed envoy amuse our wives with his eyes?"
"I'd be delighted!" Za said. He handed the sweetmeat tray to Gurgeh, and while the women giggled and the apices smirked at each other, he went close to the females and flicked the nictitating membranes in his eyes up and down. "There!" He laughed, dancing back. One of the apices thanked him, then the group of people walked away, talking and laughing.
"They're like big kids," Za told Gurgeh, then patted him on the shoulder and wandered off, a vacant look in his eyes.
Flere-Imsaho floated over, making a noise like rustling paper. "I heard what that asshole said about ignoring machines," it said.
"Hmm?" Gurgeh said.
"I said — oh, it doesn't matter. Not feeling left out because you can't dance, are you?"
"No. I don't enjoy dancing."
"Just as well. It would be socially demeaning for anybody here even to touch you."
"What a way with words you have, machine," Gurgeh said. He put the plate of savouries in front of the drone and then let go and walked off. Flere-Imsaho yelped, and just managed to grab the falling prate before all the paper-wrapped pastries fell off.
Gurgeh wandered around for a while, feeling a little angry and more than a little uncomfortable. He was consumed with the idea that he was surrounded by people who were in some way failed, as though they were all the unpassed components from some high-quality system which would have been polluted by their inclusion. Not only did those around him strike him as foolish and boorish, but he felt also that he was not much different himself. Everybody he met seemed to feel he'd come here just to make a fool of himself.
Contact sent him out here with a geriatric warship hardly worthy of the name, gave him a vain, hopelessly gauche young drone, forgot to tell him things which they ought to have known would make a considerable difference to the way the game was played — the college system, which the Limiting Factor had glossed over, was a good example — and put him at least partly in the charge of a drunken, loudmouthed fool childishly infatuated with a few imperialist tricks and a resourcefully inhumane social system.
During the journey here, the whole adventure had seemed so romantic; a great and brave commitment, a noble thing to do. That sense of the epic had left him now. All he felt at this moment was that he, like Shohobohaum Za or Flere-Imsaho, was just another social misfit and this whole, spectacularly seedy Empire had been thrown to him like a scrap. Somewhere, he was sure, Minds were loafing in hyperspace within the field-fabric of some great ship, laughing.
He looked about the ballroom. Reedy music sounded, the paired apices and luxuriously dressed females moved about the shining marquetry floor in pre-set arrangements, their looks of pride and humility equally distasteful, while the servant males moved carefully around like machines, making sure each glass was kept full, each plate covered. He hardly thought it mattered what their social system was; it simply looked so crassly, rigidly over-organised.
"Ah, Gurgee," Pequil said. He came through the space between a large potted plant and a marble pillar, holding a young-looking female by one elbow. "There you are. Gurgee; please meet Trinev Dutleysdaughter." The apex smiled from the girl to the man, and guided her forward. She bowed slowly. "Trinev is a game-player too," Pequil told Gurgeh. "Isn't that interesting?"
"I'm honoured to meet you, young lady," Gurgeh said to the girl, bowing a little too. She stood still in front of him, her gaze directed at the floor. Her dress was less ornate than most of those he'd seen, and the woman inside it looked less glamorous.
"Well, I'll leave you two odd-ones-out to talk, shall I?" Pequil said, taking a step back, hands clasped. "Miss Dutleysdaughter's father is over by the rear bandstand, Gurgee; if you wouldn't mind returning the young lady when you've finished talking…?"
Gurgeh watched Pequil go, then smiled at the top of the young woman's head. He cleared his throat. The girl remained silent. Gurgeh said, "I, ah… I'd thought that only intermediates — apices — played Azad."
The girl looked up as far as his chest. "No, sir. There are some capable female players, of minor rank, of course." She had a soft, tired-sounding voice. She still did not raise her face to him, so he had to address the crown of her head, where he could see the white scalp through the black, tied hair.
"Ah," he said. "I thought it might have been… forbidden. I'm glad it isn't. Do males play too?"
"They do, sir. Nobody is forbidden to play. That is embodied in the Constitution. It is simply made — it is only that it is more difficult for either—" The woman broke off and brought her head up with a sudden, startling look. "- for either of the lesser sexes to learn, because all the great colleges must take only apex scholars." She looked back down again. "Of course, this is to prevent the distraction of those who study."
Gurgeh wasn't sure what to say. "I see," was all he could come up with at first. "Do you… hope to do well in the games?"
"If I can do well — if I can reach the second game in the main series — then I hope to be able to join the civil service, and travel."
"Well, I hope you succeed."
"Thank you. Unfortunately, it is not very likely. The first game, as you know, is played by groups of ten, and to be the only woman playing nine apices is to be regarded as a nuisance. One is usually put out of the game first, to clear the field."
"Hmm. I was warned something similar might happen to me," Gurgeh said, smiling at the woman's head and wishing she would look up at him again.
"Oh no." The woman did look up then, and Gurgeh found the directness of her flat-faced gaze oddly disconcerting. "They won't do that to you; it wouldn't be polite. They don't know how weak or strong you are. They…" She looked down again. "They know that I am, so it is no disrespect to remove me from the board so that they may get on with the game."
Gurgeh looked round the huge, noisy, crowded ballroom, where the people talked and danced and the music sounded loud. "Is there nothing you can do?" he asked. "Wouldn't it be possible to arrange that ten women play each other in the first round?"
She was still looking down, but something about the curve of her cheek told him she might have been smiling. "Indeed, sir. But I believe there has never been an occasion in the great-game series when two lesser-sexes have played in the same group. The draw has never worked out that way, in all these years."
"Ah," Gurgeh said. "And single games, one-against-one?"
"They do not count unless one has gone through the earlier rounds. When I do practise single games, I am told… that I'm very lucky. I suppose I must be. But then, I know I am, for my father has chosen me a fine master and husband, and even if I do not succeed in the game, I shall marry well. What more can a woman ask for, sir?"