“You mean,” Bron had countered, “here at Serpent’s House we’re too tied up in ourselves to care what goes on in the rest of the universe?”
“You think so?” Sam asked, and considered: “I always thought we had a pretty good bunch of guys here.” And then, very wisely, Sam had excused himself from the argument—even Bron had to admit it was getting silly. And two hours later, Sam—in a way that didn’t seem wise or winning or ingratiating or anything unpleasant that Bron could put his finger on—stuck his head in Bron’s room, laughing, and said: “Have you seen that thing that Lawrence has down in the commons room?” (Which Bron, indeed, had already seen.) “You better get down there before it explodes or takes off or something!” Sam laughed again, and went off somewhere else. On his way back to the commons, Bron had wondered, uncomfortably, if one of the reasons he disliked Sam so much wasn’t simply because Lawrence thought Sam was the Universe’s gift to humanity. (Am I really jealous of a seventy-four-year-old homosexual who, once a month, gets falling-down drunk and tries to put the make on me? he asked himself at the commons room door. No, it was easier to be friendly to Sam three days every two weeks than to entertain that idea seriously.)
What Lawrence had laid out on the green baize table was the vlet game.
Sam said: “Can you play this one with the grid—” And lowered an eyebrow at Bron—“or are you beyond that now?”
Bron said: “Well, I don’t know if—”
But Lawrence reached for one of the toggles in the card drawer. Across the landscape, pin-points of light picked out a squared pattern, thirty-three by thirty-three. “Bron could do with a few more gridded games I expect—” For advanced players (Lawrence had explained two weeks ago when Sam was last in) the grid was only used for the final scoring, to decide who had taken exactly what territory. In the actual play, however, elementary players found it helpful in judging those all-important 0’s. Bron had been contemplating suggesting that they omit it this game. But there it was; and the cities had been placed, the encampments had been deployed. The plastic Sea Serpent had been put, bobbing, into the sea. The Beast leered from its lair; Lawrence’s soldiers were set up along the river bank, his peasants in their fields, his royalty gathered behind the lines, his magicians in their caves.
Bron said: “Sam, why don’t you play this one. I mean I’ve had the last two weeks to practice ...”
“No,” Sam said. “No, I want to watch. I’ve forgotten half the moves since Lawrence explained them to me anyway. Go on.” He took a meditative step backward and moved around to view the board from Bron’s side.
“Bron has been fretting over a new-found friend,” Lawrence said. “That’s why he’s being so sullen.”
“That’s just it.” Bron was annoyed at having his preoccupation labeled sullenness. “She didn’t seem very friendly to me at all.” He picked up the deck and shuffled, thinking: If that black bastard stands there staring over my shoulder the whole damn game—And resolved not to look up.
The hand Bron dealt himself was good. Carefully, he arranged the cards.
Lawrence rolled the dice out over the desert to begin play, bid five-royal, melded the Juggler with the Poet, discarded the three of Jewels and moved two of his cargo vessels out of the harbor into open waters.
Bron’s own throw yielded him a double six, a diamond three, with the three-eyed visage of Yildrith showing on the icosahedron. He covered Lawrence’s meld with the seven, eight, and nine of Storms, set the tiny mirrored screen, with the grinning face of Yildrith etched on it, four spaces ahead of Lawrence’s lead cargo ship, bid seven-common to cover Lawrence’s six-royal, discarded the Page of Dawn and took Lawrence’s three of Jewels with the Ace of Flames; his own caravan began the trek upriver toward the mountain pass at the Vale of K’hiri, where, due to the presence of a green Witch, all points scored there would be doubled.
Twenty minutes into the play, the red Courier was trapped between two mirrored screens (with the horned head of Zamtyl, and the many-tongued Arkrol, reflected back and forth to infinity); the scarlet Hero offered some help but was, basically, blocked with a transparent screen. On the dice a diamond two glittered amidst black ones and fives, and Lawrence was a point away from his bid; which meant an astral battle.
As they turned their attention to the three-dimensional board which dominated higher decisions (and each of the seven markers which they played there bore the frowning face of a goddess). Bron decided it was silly to sit there fuming at Sam’s standing behind him. He turned, to make some comment—
Sam was not at his shoulder.
Bron looked around.
Sam sat at one of the readers, in the niche with Freddie and Flossie, sorting through some microfiche cards. Bron sucked his teeth in disgust and turned back to Lawrence with a, “Really—”
—when the common room lamps dropped to quarter-brightness. (Lawrence’s wrinkled chin, the tips of his fingers, and the base of the green Magician he was about to place, glowed above the vlet board’s light.) A roaring grew overhead.
The lamps flickered once, then went out completely.
Everyone looked up. Bron heard several men stand. Across the domed skylight, dark as the room, a light streaked.
Sam was standing too, now. The room lights were still out and the lights on all the room’s readers were flickering in unison.
“What in the world—” someone who had the room next to Bron (and whose name, after six months, Bron still did not know) said.
“We’re not in the world—” Lawrence said, sharply even for Lawrence.
As the room lights went on again, Bron realized with horror, excitement, or anticipation (he wasn’t sure which), the skylight was still black. Outside, the sensory shield was off!
“You know,” Sam said jovially—and loud enough for the others in the room to hear—“while you guys sit around playing war games, there is a war going on out there, that Triton is pretty close to getting involved in.” The joviality fell away; he turned from his reader and spoke out across the commons: “There’s nothing to worry about. But we’ve had to employ major, nonbelligerent defensive action. The blackout was a powercut while energy was diverted to our major force. Those streaks across the sky were ionized vapor trails from low-flying scouting equipment—”
“Ours or theirs?” someone asked.
A few people laughed. But not many.
“Could be either,” Sam said. “The flickering here was our domestic emergency power coming in; and not quite making it—the generators need a couple of seconds to warm up. I would guess ...” Sam glanced up—“that the sensory shield will be off over the city for another three or four minutes. If anyone wants to go out and see what the sky really looks like from Tethys, now’s your chance. Probably not too many people will be out—”
Everyone (except three people in the corner), including Bron, rose and herded toward the double doors. Bron looked back among the voices growing around them. The three in the corner had changed their minds and were coming.
Coming out onto the dark roof, Bron saw that the roof beside theirs was already crowded. So was the roof across the way. As he glanced back, the service door on the roof behind them opened; dozens of women hurried out, heads back, eyes up.