In a moment Sheen’s face appeared on the screen. “Yes, sir?” she inquired. In the privacy of their suite she treated him with familiar deference; in public, the familiarity was absent.
“I become bored,” he said. “Let me play with you.” A smile very like his own crossed her face.
“Shall I come to you, sir, or will you come to me?”
“Remain where you are, for now. Address your console.”
“Yes, sir.” Her face faded out.
The primary grid appeared. He had the numbers, and chose 2. MENTAL. It would be tricky to play a physical game without her presence. In a moment the secondary grid appeared: TOOL-ASSISTED MENTAL. 2B. “Two Bee or not Two Bee,” he murmured, frowning at it. He had the numbers again, so had to choose be tween 5. SEPARATE 6. INTERACTING 7. PUZZLE and 8. COOPERATIVE. He touched 6.
Her choices were E. BOARD F. CARDS G. PAPER H. GENERAL: all tools for mental games. She had chosen G, for the new box was INTERACTIVE PAPER GAMES. They filled in the third grid with games from the proffered list: tic-tac-toe, sprouts, lines-and-boxes, life, magic squares and word games. When they made their selections, the result was CROSSWORD. They would play an interactive cross word game. Victory would go to the one who forced the other into an impossible word.
Of course the watching Citizens would be sure that this was a pre-arranged game—and they would be correct. Blue and Sheen had played exactly as they had agreed to play, before he left the suite. They were playing “long-distance” to ensure that the Citizens could tap into the game. The crossword grid was eighty-one squares: nine on a side. Blue had the first move, and represented the horizontal, so he wrote in the word ASTERISKS across the top. Sheen started with the first S and filled in SNOW, verti cally, setting a solid end-block below. Blue pondered, then put in VOID, the 0 overlapping hers. He had to build on her word, because he was allowed no vertical words himself. Thus it was truly interactive. She countered with VOICES, extending down from his V. The words seemed to come naturally, but they were also sug gestive. What message would a cryptography expert see in them? How could a child of four interpret such a sequence? What would he be trying to tell her, that was so important for her to know? Surely there were some very nice headaches being sown here!
He took off from her 0 and made OWED.
She formed KING descending from his K in ASTERISKS.
He filled in FUN, to her new N.
She made FORMS descending from his F.
He made MORE crossing her R.
She called out a pre-existing word by marking in a + above it: I. E. The game was getting tight.
He filled in NO below the ER in ASTERISKS.
U
E
A S T E R I
+ N + N 0 +
V 0 I D + F
0 w E D + 0
I + + M 0 R
c M
E S
S +
+
Sheen was abruptly left with an impossible word: the RO did not count against her, because he had formed it complete, giving her no chance to improve on it. But how could she make anything legitimate from the vertical letters ENDDM? “End DM,” she said, appearing on the screen, behind the grid, so that the letters crossed her face.
“What does DM stand for?”
“Dumb Machine.”
Blue laughed. “Sorry, I don’t know any dumb machines, certainly not you. You lose.”
She sighed. “I think the game was fixed.”
“You have a suspicious inanimate mind.”
“What is the penalty?”
“You have to ask, woman? The usual, of course.”
“Oh, no sir, not the usual!” she protested with mock affright. They had played this charade before, and always enjoyed it.
“The usual,” he repeated grimly. “Get your torso over here.”
“There? In public?” she asked, appalled.
“The very best place. What good is a victory if not publicly savored?”
“You are a monster, sir.”
“To be sure. Do not keep me waiting, or it will go hard with you, serf.”
“I hear and obey with alacrity, sir,” she said, fading.
Blue touched the screen again.
WHAT IS YOUR WILL, CITIZEN BLUE?
‘ ‘This game was but a prelude to another. Reserve a jelly vat for my use.”
DONE, CITIZEN BLUE.
“Audience is permitted for this game.”
VERIFY: AUDIENCE PERMITTED? That was as close as the Game Machine ever came to astonishment.
“Yes.” Normally Citizens conducted their affairs with paranoid privacy unless they had reason to chastise a serf in public; Blue’s wife was a serf, but he was not given to doing that to her. His permission for an audience was of course a requirement for one; serfs would be rounded up for the event. Actually this would be no punishment for the serfs; Blue knew himself to be by far the most popular Citizen of Proton, because of his steadfast efforts to mitigate the lot of serfs and his open marriage to a machine. Every group supported him, except the Contrary Citizens. That one exception, of course, more than counterbalanced the rest; had he not been set up with the dominant wealth of the planet by his other self, his tenure would have been brief. Wealth governed Proton, literally, and this was a power he had exercised ruthlessly against the other Citizens, maintaining his position. Only the sophisticated financial instruments devised by the Oracle from the input of the Book of Magic could wrest that power from him—and now he had a pretext to cut off that source of in formation from his enemy.
He walked slowly to the bath region of the Game Annex, giving Sheen time to get there. Yes, wealth was the key—and the Oracle and Book of Magic were the ultimate keys to wealth, and he and Stile controlled both. They had monitored the progress of the enemy, and acted when necessary: just before the balance of wealth shifted. Nepe had kept him informed, and he had trained her, with the invaluable expertise of Agnes. Now her absence froze things as they were. If she remained hidden, Blue and Stile would retain power; if she were found, they would lose it. It was that simple. He reached the bath region. Sheen was there, having found swift transport. She took his arm, and they went to the reserved vat. They could have found their way simply by zeroing in on the clamor, for as they entered the chamber they spied the audience: about a hundred naked men, women, children, androids, humanoid robots and humanoid cyborgs. They had been clamoring with excitement, for the privilege of watching a living Citizen in an event like this was rare indeed. There was a sudden hush as they saw Blue and Sheen. In the center of the chamber was the vat, its sides dropping sharply away from the floor. It was round, about four meters in diameter, and was filled with whipped pseudo-gelatin, lime flavored. This differed from the real thing mainly in being harmless to living flesh even when it got in the eyes, and in being two point three times as slimy.
Sheen released his arm, stepping ahead of him to gaze in to the quivering green mess. “Permission to speak frankly, sir,” she said with-evident distaste.
“Denied,” he said, setting his cupped hand on her buttock and boosting her forward. She screamed and flailed wildly as she fell into the vat. The male members of the audience applauded. A Citizen, of course, could do no wrong. Some of the females looked as if they might have another opinion, but were not bold enough to express it.
Blue beckoned to the nearest serf. The young man scram bled up and came to him. “Sir?”
“Remove my garment and hold it clean until I emerge.” The serf did not answer, as no answer was required. He set his hands carefully at Blue’s shoulders and lifted the voluminous blue cloak. In a moment it was off, and Blue stood naked. He stepped out of his blue sandals while the serf folded the cloak and held it reverently. That serf would be famous for a day: he had Held Citizen Blue’s Cloak! The other serfs tried not to stare, but were obviously fascinated by the sight of a naked Citizen in public. Many of them would have seen naked Citizens before, but only in the privacy of personal services. The average serf was so far beneath the notice of the average Citizen that clothing counted merely as a matter of status. A Citizen could of course do anything he wanted, including parade naked in public, but it was rare for this to happen.