"If you say so," the machine said grumpily. "I don't get to see much, stuck in the out-house with the jolly soldier boys."
"Well, take it from me; it's looking all right."
"Early days yet, Jernau Gurgeh. You won't catch them that easily again."
"I knew I could rely on your support."
In the afternoon they played on a couple of the smaller boards in a series of single games to decide order of precedence. Gurgeh knew he was good at both these games, and easily beat the others. Only the priest seemed upset by this. There was another break, for dinner, during which Pequil arrived unofficially, on his way home from the office. He expressed his pleased surprise at how well Gurgeh was doing, and even patted him on the arm before he left.
The early-evening session was a formality; all that happened was that they were told by the game-officials — amateurs from a local club, with one imperial official in charge — the exact configuration and order of play for the following day, on the Board of Origin. As had now become obvious, Gurgeh was going to start with a considerable advantage.
Sitting in the back of the car with only Flere-Imsaho for company, and feeling quite pleased with himself, Gurgeh watched the city go by in the violet light of dusk.
"Not too bad, I suppose," the drone said, humming only a little as it lay on the seat by Gurgeh. "I'd contact the ship tonight if I were you, to discuss what you're going to do tomorrow."
"Would you really?"
"Yes. You're going to need all the help you can get. They'll gang up on you tomorrow; bound to. This is where you lose out, of course; if any of them were in this situation they'd be getting in touch with one or more of the less well-placed players and doing a deal with them to go for—"
"Yes, but as you never seem to tire of telling me, they would all demean themselves doing anything of the sort with me. On the other hand though, with your encouragement and the Limiting Factor's help, how can I lose?"
The drone was silent.
Gurgeh got in touch with the ship that night. Flere-Imsaho had declared itself bored; it had discarded its casing, gone black-body, and floated off unseen into the night to visit a city park where there were some nocturnal birds.
Gurgeh talked over his plans with the Limiting Factor, but the time delay of almost a minute made the conversation with the distant warship a slow business. The ship had some good suggestions, though. Gurgeh was certain that at this level at least he must be getting far better advice from the ship than any of his immediate opponents were receiving from their advisors, aides and mentors. Probably only the top hundred or so players, those directly sponsored and supported by the leading colleges, would have access to such informed help. This thought cheered him further, and he went to bed happy.
Three days later, just as play was closing after the early-evening session, Gurgeh looked at the Board of Origin and realised he was going to be put out of the game.
Everything had gone well at first. He'd been pleased with his handling of the pieces, and sure he'd had a more subtle appreciation of the game's strategic balance. With his superiority in position and forces resulting from his successes during the early stages, he'd been confident he was going to win, and so stay in the Main Series to play in the second round, of single games.
Then, on the third morning, he realised he had been overconfident, and his concentration had lapsed. What had looked like a series of unconnected moves by most of the other players suddenly became a coordinated mass attack, with the priest at its head. He'd panicked and they'd trounced him. Now he was a dead man.
The priest came up to Gurgeh when the session's play was over and Gurgeh was still sitting in his high stoolseat, looking down at the shambles on the board and wondering what had gone wrong. The apex asked the man if he was willing to concede; it was the conventional course when somebody was so far behind in pieces and territory, and there was less shame attached to an honourable admission of defeat than to a stubborn refusal to face reality which only dragged the game out longer for one's opponents. Gurgeh looked at the priest, then at Flere-Imsaho, who'd been allowed into the hall once the play had ended. The machine wobbled a little in front of him, humming mightily and fairly buzzing with static.
"What do you think, drone?" he said tiredly.
"I think the sooner you get out of those ridiculous clothes, the better," the machine said. The priest, whose own robes were a more gaudy version of Gurgeh's, glanced angrily at the humming machine, but said nothing.
Gurgeh looked at the board again, then at the priest. He took a long, sighing breath and opened his mouth, but before he could speak Flere-Imsaho said, "So I think you should go back to the hotel and get changed and relax and give yourself an opportunity to think."
Gurgeh nodded his head slowly, rubbing his beard and looking at the mess of tangled fortunes on the Board of Origin. He told the priest he'd see him tomorrow.
"There's nothing I can do; they've won," he told the drone once they were back in the module.
"If you say so. Why not ask the ship?"
Gurgeh contacted the Limiting Factor to give it the bad news. It commiserated, and, rather than come up with any helpful ideas, told him exactly where he'd gone wrong, going into considerable detail. Gurgeh thanked it with little good grace, and went to bed dispirited, wishing he'd resigned when the priest had asked him.
Flere-Imsaho had gone off exploring the city again. Gurgeh lay in the darkness, the module quiet around him.
He wondered what they'd really sent him here for. What did Contact actually expect him to do? Had he been sent to be humiliated, and so reassure the Empire the Culture was unlikely to be any threat to it? It seemed as likely as anything else. He could imagine Chiark Hub rattling off figures about the colossal amount of energy expended in sending him all this way… and even the Culture, even Contact, would think twice about doing all it had just to provide one citizen with a glorified adventure holiday. The Culture didn't use money as such, but it also didn't want to be too conspicuously extravagant with matter and energy, either (so inelegant to be wasteful). But to keep the Empire satisfied that the Culture was just a joke, no threat… how much was that worth?
He turned over in the bed, switched on the floatfield, adjusted its resistance, tried to sleep, turned this way and that, adjusted the field again but still could not get comfortable, and so, eventually, turned it off.
He saw the slight glow from the bracelet Chamlis had given him, shining by the bedside. He picked the thin band up, turning it over in his hands. The tiny Orbital was bright in the darkness, lighting up his fingers and the covers on the bed. He gazed at its daylight surface and the microscopic whorls of weather systems over blue sea and duncoloured land. He really ought to write to Chamlis, say thank you.
It was only then he realised quite how clever the little piece of jewellery was. He'd assumed it was just an illuminated still picture, but it wasn't; he could remember how it had looked when he'd first seen it, and now the scene was different; the island continents on the daylight side were mostly different shapes to those he remembered, though he recognised a couple of them, near the dawn terminator. The bracelet was a moving representation of an Orbital; possibly even a crude clock.
He smiled in the darkness, turned away.
They all expected him to lose. Only he knew — or had known — he was a better player than they thought. But now he'd thrown away the chance of proving he was right and they were wrong.
"Fool, fool," he whispered to himself in the darkness.
He couldn't sleep. He got up, switched on the module-screen and told the machine to display his game. The Board of Origin appeared, thru-holoed in front of him. He sat there and stared at it, then he told the module to contact the ship.