The winner, a fat bald once-fair man in a faded pink singlet, complained to anybody who cared to listen, “But he didn’t have to be such a sore loser, did he? I mean did he?” Appealing to Kate, who smiled and shook her head.
“And I can spare at least another hour before I have to go, and—Hey, would either of you care to take over? I noticed you were watching.”
The tone and manner were unmistakable. Here was a full-timer, counterpart of those chess hustlers who used to sit around anonymously pretending to be no good until someone was fool enough to stake money on a game.
Well, it’s a way in. …
“Sure I’ll play you, and be glad to. This is Kate, by the way, and I’m—” He hoped the hesitation would go unremarked; one could convert to Alexander and since Kate was accustomed … “I’m Sandy.”
“I’m Hank. Sit down. Want to think about odds? I’m kind of competent, as you may have gathered.” The bald man tailed the words with a toothy grin.
“Let’s play level, argue about odds when we have grounds for debate.”
“Fine, fine! Would you care to let—uh—a little cash ride on the outcome?” A glint of greed lighted Hank’s eyes.
“Cash? Uh … Well, we’re fresh into town, so you’d have to take scrip, but if that’s okay—? Good. Shall we say a hundred?”
“By all means,” Hank purred, and rubbed his hands under the table. “And I think we ought to play the first one or two games blitz-tempo.”
The first game aborted almost at once, a not uncommon happening. Attempting on successive turns to triangulate, both found it was impossible, and according to custom rather than rule agreed to try again. The second game was close and Hank lost. The third was even closer and he still lost, and the expiry of his hour gave him an excuse to depart in annoyance, two hundred the poorer. By then many more customers had arrived, some to play—a dozen games were now in progress—and some preferring to kibitz and assess a stranger’s form. One of the newcomers, a plump girl carrying a baby, challenged the victor and went down in twelve turns. Two of the other watchers, a thin young black and a thin elderly white, whistled loudly, and the latter promptly took the girl’s place.
What is it that feels so weird about this evening … ? Got it. I’ll be damned. I’m not playing Lazarus’s game, or even Sandy Locke’s; I’m playing mine, and I’m far better than I ever dreamed!
The sensation was giddying. He seemed to be walking up steps inside his head until he reached a place where there was nothing but pure white light, and it showed him as plainly as though he were telepathic what his opponent was planning. Potential triangles outlined themselves on the board as though their sides were neon bars. The elderly man succumbed in twenty-eight turns, not beaten but content to resign on a margin of fifty points he was unlikely to make up, and ceded his place to the thin young black saying, “Morris, I think we finally found someone who can give you a hard time.”
Faint warning bells began to sound at that stage, but he was having too much fun to pay attention.
The newcomer was good. He obtained a margin of twenty on the first triangulation and concentrated on preserving it. He did so for another six turns, growing more and more smug. But on the fifteenth turn his smugness vanished. He had tried another triangulation, and when the concealed points were entered there was nothing valid, and he had to post his own concealed list, and on the next turn found himself cut out of an entire corner worth ninety points. His face turned sour and he scowled at the score machine as though suspecting it of lying. Then he gathered his resources in an effort to regain the lost lead.
He failed. The game went to its bitter end and left him fourteen down. Whereupon he thrust his way through the bystanders—by now a couple of dozen strong—and stormed off, slamming fist into palm in impotent fury.
“I’ll be damned,” said the elderly man. “Well, well! Look—uh—Sandy, I didn’t make too good a showing against you, but believe it or not I’m the area secretary of the Fencing Association, and if you can use a light-pen and screen as well as you use a manual board …!” Beaming, he made an all-embracing gesture. “I take it you have club qualifications where you come from? If you intend to shift your residential commitment to Lap-of-the-Gods, I can predict who’ll win the winter championships. You and Morris together would make an unstoppable—”
“You mean that was Morris Fagin?”
All around the group of onlookers there were puzzled reactions: this poker claims he didn’t know?
“Sandy,” Kate murmured in the nick of time, “it’s getting late. Even later for us than it is for these nice people.”
“I—uh … Yes, you’re right. Excuse us, friends; we came a long way today.” He rose, collecting the grimy unfamiliar bills which had accumulated on the corner of the table. It had been years since he handled this much of the generalized scrip known as paper money; at the church in Toledo it had been collected and counted automatically. For most people cash payments stopped at the number of dollar coins you would drop in a pocket without noticing their weight.
“I’m flattered,” he said to the elderly man. “But you’ll have to let me think about it. We may be only passing through. We have no plans to settle here.”
He seized Kate’s arm and hurried her away, terribly aware of the sensation he had caused. He could hear his feat being recounted already along the mouth-to-mouth circuit.
As they were undressing he said miserably, “I sabotaged that one, didn’t I?”
Admitting the blunder was novel to him. The experience was just as unpleasant as he had imagined it would be. But in memory echoed Kate’s description of the graduates from Tarnover: convinced they were incapable of error.
That’s not human. That’s mechanical. It’s machines whose view of the world is so circumscribed they go right on doing the only thing they can although it’s wrong.
“I’m afraid so.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, devoid of criticism. “Not that you could help it. But to be spotted by an area secretary of the Fencing Association and then to beat the incumbent West Coast champion—yes, that is apt to provoke comment. I’m sorry; I didn’t realize you hadn’t recognized Fagin.”
“You knew who he was?” In the middle of shedding his pants he stood ridiculous, one leg in and the other out. “So why the hell didn’t you warn me?”
“Do me a favor? Before you pick your first quarrel with me, get a little better acquainted. Then you can do it with justification.”
He had been on the verge of anger. The inclination vanished. He completed undressing, as did she, and then took her in his arms.
“I like you very much as a person,” he said, and bestowed a grave kiss on her forehead. “I think I’m going to like you just as much as a woman.”
“I hope so,” she answered with equal formality. “We may have to go a lot of places together.”
He drew back to full stretch, hands on her shoulders.
“Where next? What next?”
As rare in his life as admitting mistakes was asking for advice. It too was disturbing. But it would have to become a habit if he was to stay afloat.
She shook her head. “Think about that in the morning. It has to be somewhere else, that’s definite. But this town is already halfway right … No, too much has happened today. Let’s overload it and sleep it out and worry about decisions afterwards.”
With abrupt tigerish violence, as though she had borrowed from Bagheera, she clamped her arms around him and sank her sharp tongue—sharp as her gaze—between his lips.
A LOAD OF CRYSTAL BALLS
In the twentieth century one did not have to be a pontificating pundit to predict that success would breed success and the nations that first were lucky enough to combine massive material resources with advanced knowhow would be those where social change would accelerate until it approximated the limit of what human beings can endure. By 2010, in the wealthiest countries, a classic category of mental patient was composed of boys and girls in their late teens who had come back for a first vacation from college to discover that “home” was unrecognizable, either because the parents had moved into a new framework, changed jobs and cities, or simply because—as they’d done a dozen times before—they had refurnished and redecorated … without realizing they were opening a door to what came to be termed the “final straw syndrome.”