She was stricken. “If I be not with thee, and they two together, how can we exchange?”
“I think we cannot. Therefore we must be sure that all four are together. If not, we must not exchange.”
“We cannot search for them, as we did in Phaze,” she said. “Needs must I remain in the Annex.”
“Yes, they must come to us. But when Bane contacts me, I will make this clear.”
“Aye.” She pondered a moment more. “Meanwhile, methinks I had best stay here until then. I must win my games.”
“Fleta, you are not trained in the games! You were lucky, and your opponents were selected, for the qualifying ladder. The Tourney is different; you will be up against experienced players, each of whom is desperate to win.”
“And I lose thee, and Phaze, if I lose. I too be desperate to win,” she said quietly.
“I’d better drill you in strategy.”
“Aye.”
So for most of their waking time, he indoctrinated her in the ways of the Tourney, trying to prepare her for a competent performance. The object was not to win the Tourney and become a Citizen, but to remain uneliminated long enough for Bane and Agape to come and make the exchange.
The details of the Tourney varied from year to year. Sometimes only the top five or six on each ladder qualified; this year it was ten, making it a large one. That meant that the authorities had concluded that there were too many serfs, and so were using the Tourney as a device to prune them back voluntarily. There were other ways, but this was considered to be the gentlest.
On the other hand, this was single-elimination. Normally it was double-elimination, which meant that each contestant had two chances. This year, one loss was all, and that made players nervous, though their chances for final victory were unchanged.
One thousand and twenty-four contestants would start the Tourney: ten males and ten females from every age ladder from Age Twenty-one through Age Sixty: eight hundred in all, plus two hundred from the Junior and Senior ladders (those below and above the normal range) and the Leftover Ladder, and a dozen or so slumming Citizens, aliens and such. Each round would cut the number in half, until the tenth round produced the single winner. Because the number of consoles and the extent of the game facilities were limited, Round One would require four days for completion, and Round Two two days; thereafter single days would suffice. Thus the complete Tourney was scheduled for fourteen days, and that schedule would be kept. Any player who failed to show up promptly for his match would lose by default. Audiences were permitted, but no interference would be tolerated.
Fleta had already seen enough of the game system to appreciate how intolerant the Game Computer was of interference. That reassured her.
“Of course that doesn’t apply to Citizens,” Mach said. “They set their own schedules. But most who have the interest to play, also have the pride to do it properly.”
“But if the prize be Citizenship, and the cost of loss be exile, why do Citizens play?” Fleta asked.
“Mere entertainment. Victory gains them nothing, and loss costs them nothing. They are immune. But those they play against are bound. If you come up against a Citizen, call him sir and play to win. He cannot hurt you, here, except by beating you.”
“Not e’en Citizen Tan?”
“Not even he,” he reassured her.
Then, seemingly suddenly, the Tourney started, and she was summoned to her first game. “I am not allowed to help you, here,” Mach said. “But I will try to tune in on Bane. If I can find him, I can tell him what we need.”
“Do thou do that,” she said, kissing him.
She followed the line to the console. She was the first there, which made her feel better, though she knew it made no difference.
She looked at the screen.
TOURNEY ROUND ONE: FLETA VS JIMBO
She hoped Jimbo was a duffer.
He turned out to be a man in his fifties. There were no ladders in the Tourney; they were for qualification only. He nodded at her, then took his stance at the console.
Her numbers lighted. That meant she could not select ANIMAL. But she had discussed this with Mach, and knew her best route. Without hesitation she touched 4. ARTS.
It settled on 4A: Naked Arts. The choices were Poetry, Stories, Singing, Dancing, Pantomime and Drama, with distinctions between recitative and creative. They assembled the nine-square subgrid and chose, and came up with Original Story telling.
JUDGING: the screen printed. COMPUTER PANEL AUDIENCE.
This was new to Fleta. Should she touch one of the words? But there was no grid.
“We can do it by agreement if we want,” Jimbo said. “Me, I don’t like a machine deciding how I rate, or a panel of experts either.”
“A living audience,” Fleta agreed, relieved. She touched that choice, and evidently he did too, for that one highlighted.
SUBJECT: the screen continued. SELECTED BY COMPUTER RANDOM AUDIENCE.
Fleta hadn’t realized that a subject had to be chosen; she had assumed that any story would do. She wasn’t certain how she would do if she got a bad subject. Since she could not choose it herself, and shared her opponent’s distrust of impersonal decisions, she asked “Audience?”
“Agreed,” Jimbo said immediately.
ADJOURN TO STAGE. And a line appeared, showing the way.
They followed it to the stage. There was a small dais and an audience section with seats for about twenty-five.
Now they had to wait for the audience to arrive. It seemed that a number of Tourney spectators had registered for audience purposes, and were on tap awaiting assignment. The Computer was making a random selection and notifying the selectees of this assignment. They were now following their lines to this chamber.
In a few minutes exactly twenty-five people arrived. They were all serfs, male and female, ranging from young to old. They took their seats in silence.
A note sounded at the large screen set in the wall behind the stage. All eyes fixed on it.
AUDIENCE WILL SELECT SUBJECT FOR STORYTELLING. THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS ARE AVAILABLE; TOUCH