PAWN TO INFINITY

by Edited by Fred

  "I doubt it."

  "Do you? Well, did you know that he's been trying to get me into bed for the past two days?"

  She said it tauntingly, throwing it at him. Peter felt as if he had been struck. "What?"

  "Sit down," she snapped, "and listen."

  Numbly, he did as she bid him. "Did you?" he asked, staring at her silhouette in the darkness, the vaguely ominous shape that was his wife.

  "Did I? Sleep with him, you mean? Jesus, Peter, how can you ask that? Do you loathe me that much? I'd sooner sleep with a roach. That's what he reminds me of anyway." She gave a rueful chuckle. "He isn't exactly a sophisticated seducer, either. He actually offered me money."

  "Why are you telling me this?"

  "To knock some goddamned sense into you! Can't you see that Bunnish is trying to destroy you, all of you, any way he can? He didn't want me. He just wanted to get at you. And you, you and your moron teammates, are playing right into his hands. You're becoming as obsessed with that idiot chess game as he is." She leaned forward. Dimly, Peter could make out the lines of her face. "Peter," she said almost imploringly, "don't play him. He's going to beat you, love, just like he beat the others."

  "I don't think so, love," Peter said from between clenched teeth. The endearment became an epithet as he hurled it back to her. "Why the hell are you always so ready to predict defeat for me, huh? Can't you ever be supportive, not even for a goddamned minute? If you won't help, why don't you just bug off? I've had all I can stand of you, damn it. Always belittling me, mocking. You've never believed in me. I don't know why the hell you married me, if all you wanted to do was make my life a hell. Just leave me alone!"

  For a long moment after Peter's outburst there was silence. Sitting there in the darkned room, he could almost feel her rage building—any instant now he expected to hear her start screaming. Then he would scream back, and she would get up and break something, and he would grab her, and then the knives would come out in earnest. He closed his eyes, trembling, feeling close to tears. He didn't want this, he thought. He really didn't.

  But Kathy fooled him. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly gentle. "Oh, Peter," she said. "I never meant to hurt you. Please. I love you."

  He was stunned. "Love me?" he said wonderingly.

  "Please listen. If there is anything at all left between us, please just listen to me for a few minutes. Please."

  "All right," he said.

  "Peter, I did believe in you once. Surely you must remember how good things were in the beginning? I was supportive then, wasn't I? The first few years, when you were writing your novel? I worked, I kept food on the table, I gave you the time to write."

  "Oh, yes," he said, anger creeping back into his tone. Kathy had thrown that at him before, had reminded him forcefully of how she'd supported them for two years while he wrote a book that turned out to be so much waste paper. "Spare me your reproaches, huh? It wasn't my fault I couldn't sell the book. You heard what Bunnish said."

  "I wasn't reproaching you, damn it!" she snapped. "Why are you always so ready to read criticism into every word I say?" She shook her head, and got her voice back under control. "Please, Peter, don't make this harder than it is. We have so many years of pain to overcome, so many wounds to bind up. Just hear me out.

  "I was trying to say that I did believe in you. Even after the book, after you burned it… even then. You made it hard, though. I didn't think you were a failure, but you did, and it changed you, Peter. You let it get to you. You gave up writing, instead of just gritting your teeth and doing another book."

  "I wasn't tough enough, I know," he said. "The loser. The weakling."

  "Shut up!" she said in exasperation. "I didn't say that, you did. Then you went into journalism. I still believed. But everything kept going wrong. You got fired, you got sued, you became a disgrace. Our friends started drifting away. And all the time you insisted that none of it was your fault. You lost all the rest of your self-confidence. You didn't dream any more. You whined, bitterly and incessantly, about your bad luck."

  "You never helped."

  "Maybe not," Kathy admitted. "I tried to, at the start, but it just got worse and worse and I couldn't deal with it. You weren't the dreamer I'd married. It was hard to remember how I'd admired you, how I'd respected you. Peter, you loathed yourself so much that there was no way to keep the loathing from rubbing off on me."

  "So?" Peter said. "What's the point, Kathy?"

  "I never left you, Peter," she said. "I could have, you know. I wanted to. I stayed, through all of it, all the failures and all the self-pity. Doesn't that say anything to you?"

  "It says you're a masochist," he snapped. "Or maybe a sadist."

  That was too much for her. She started to reply, and her voice broke, and she began to weep. Peter sat where he was and listened to her cry. Finally the tears ran out, and she said, quietly, "Damn you. Damn you. I hate you."

  "I thought you loved me. Make up your mind."

  "You ass. You insensitive creep. Don't you understand, Peter?"

  "Understand what?" he said impatiently. "You said listen, so I've been listening, and all you've been doing is rehashing all the same old stuff, recounting all my inadequacies. I heard it all before."

  "Peter, can't you see that this week has changed everything? If you'd only stop hating, stop loathing me and yourself, maybe you could see it. We have a chance again, Peter. If we try. Please."

  "I don't see that anything has changed. I'm going to play a big chess game tomorrow, and you know how much it means to me and my self respect, and you don't care. You don't care if I win or lose. You keep telling me I'm going to lose. You're helping me to lose by making me argue when I should be sleeping. What the hell has changed? You're the same damn bitch you've been for years."

  "I will tell you what has changed," she said. "Peter, up until a few days ago, both of us thought you were a failure. But you aren't! It hasn't been your fault. None of it. Not bad luck, like you kept saying, and not personal inadequacy either, like you really thought. Bunnish has done it all. Can't you see what a difference that makes? You've never had a chance, Peter, but you have one now. There's no reason you shouldn't believe in yourself. We know you can do great things! Bunnish admitted it. We can leave here, you and I, and start all over again. You could write another book, write plays, do anything you want. You have the talent. You've never lacked it. We can dream again, believe again, love each other again. Don't you see? Bunnish had to gloat to complete his revenge, but by gloating he's freed you!"

  Peter sat very still in the dark room, his hand clenching and unclenching on the arm of the chair as Kathy's words sunk in. He had been so wrapped up in the chess game, so obsessed with Bunnish's obsession, that he had never seen it, never considered it. It wasn't me, he thought wonderingly. All those years, it was never me. "It's true," he said in a small voice.

  "Peter?" she said, concerned.

  He heard the concern, heard more than that, heard love in her voice. So many people, he thought, make such grand promises, promise better or worse, promise rich or poorer, and bail out as soon as things turn the least bit sour in a relationship. But she had stayed, through all of it, the failures, the disgrace, the cruel words and the poisonous thoughts, the weekly fights, the poverty. She had stayed.

  "Kathy," he said. The next words were very hard. "I love you, too." He started to get up and move toward her, and began to cry.

  They arrived late the next morning. They showered together, and Peter dressed with unusual care. For some reason, he felt it was important to look his best. It was a new beginning, after all. Kathy came with him. They entered the living room holding hands. Bunnish was already behind the board, and Peter's clock was ticking. The others were there too. E.C. was seated patiently in a chair. Delmario was pacing. "Hurry up," he said when Peter came down the stairs. "You've lost five minutes already."

  Peter smiled. "Easy, Steve," he said. He went over and took his seat behind the White pieces. Kath
y stood behind him. She looked gorgeous this morning, Peter thought.

  "It's your move, captain," Bunnish said, with an unpleasant smile.

  "I know," Peter said. He made no effort to move, scarcely even looked at the board. "Bruce, why do you hate me? I've been thinking about that, and I'd like to know the answer. I can understand about Steve and E.C. Steve had the presumption to win when you lost, and he rubbed your nose in that defeat afterwards. E.C. made you the butt of his jokes. But why me? What did I ever do to you?"

  Bunnish looked briefly confused. Then his face grew hard. "You. You were the worst of them all."

  Peter was startled. "I never…"

  "The big captain," Bunnish said sarcastically. "That day ten years ago, you never even tried. You took a quick grandmaster draw with your old friend Hal Winslow. You could have tried for a win, played on, but you didn't. Oh, no. You never cared how much more pressure you put on the rest of us. And when we lost, you didn't take any of the blame, not a bit of it, even though you gave up half a point. It was all my fault. And that wasn't all of it, either. Why was I on first board, Norten? All of us on the B team had approximately the same rating. How did I get the honor of being board one?"

  Peter thought for a minute, trying to recall the strategies that had motivated him ten years before. Finally he nodded. "You always lost the big games, Bruce. It made sense to put you up on board one, where you'd face the other teams' big guns, the ones who'd probably beat whoever we played there. That way the lower boards would be manned by more reliable players, the ones we could count on in the clutch."

  "In other words," Bunnish said, "I was a write-off. You expected me to lose, while you won matches on the lower boards."

  "Yes," Peter admitted. "I'm sorry."

  "Sorry," mocked Bunnish. "You made me lose, expected me to lose, and then tormented me for losing, and now you're sorry. You didn't play chess that day. You never played chess. You were playing a bigger game, a game that lasted for years, between you and Winslow of U.C. And the team members were your pieces and your pawns. Me, I was a sac. A gambit. That was all. And it didn't work anyway. Winslow beat you. You lost."

  "You're right," Peter admitted. "I lost. I think I understand now. Why you did all the things you've done."

  "You're going to lose again now," Bunnish said. "Move, before your clock runs out." He nodded down at the checkered wasteland that lay between them, at the complex jumble of Black and White pieces.

  Peter glanced at the board with disinterest. "We analyzed until three in the morning last night, the three of us. I had a new variation all set. A single sacrifice, instead of the double sac. I play knight takes pawn, but I hold back from the bishop sac, swing my queen over instead. That was the idea. It looked pretty good. But it's unsound, isn't it?"

  Bunnish stared at him. "Play it, and we'll find out!"

  "No," said Peter. "I don't want to play."

  "Pete!" Steve Delmario said in consternation. "You got to, what are you saying, beat this damn bastard."

  Peter looked at him. "It's no good, Steve."

  There was a silence. Finally Bunnish said, "You're a coward, Norten. A coward and a failure and a weakling. Play the game out."

  "I'm not interested in the game, Bruce. Just tell me. The variation is unsound."

  Bunnish made a disgusted noise. "Yes, yes," he snapped. "It's unsound. There's a countersac, I give up a rook to break up your mating threats, but I win a piece back a few moves later."

  "All the variations are unsound, aren't they?" Peter said.

  Bunnish smiled thinly.

  "White doesn't have a won game at all," Peter said. "We were wrong, all those years. You never blew the win. You never had a win. Just a position that looked good superficially, but led nowhere."

  "Wisdom, at last," Bunnish said. "I've had computers print out every possible variant. They take forever, but I've had lifetimes. When I flashed back—you have no idea how many times I have flashed back, trying one new idea after another—that is always my target point, that day in Evanston, the game with Vesselere. I've tried every move there is to be tried in that position, every wild idea. It makes no difference. Vesselere always beats me. All the variations are unsound."

  "But," Delmario protested, looking bewildered. "Vesselere said he was lost. He said so!"

  Bunnish looked at him with contempt. "I had made him sweat a lot in a game he should have won easily. He was just getting back. He was a vindictive man, and he knew that by saying that he'd make the loss that much more painful." He smirked. "I've taken care of him too, you know."

  E.C. Stuart rose-up from his chair and straightened his vest. "If we're done now, Brucie, maybe you would be so kind as to let us out of Bunnishland?"

  "You can go," Bunnish said. "And that drunk, too. But not Peter.'' He showed his dimples. ''Why, Peter has almost won, in a sense. So I'm going to be generous. You know what I'm going to do for you, captain? I'm going to let you use my flashback device."

  "No thank you," Peter said.

  Bunnish stared, befuddled. "What do you mean, no? Don't you understand what I'm giving you? You can wipe out all your failures, try again, make some different moves. Be a success in another timeline."

  "I know. Of course, that would leave Kathy with a dead body in this timeline, wouldn't it? And you with the satisfaction of driving me to something that uncannily resembles suicide. No. I'll take my chances with the future instead of the past. With Kathy."

  Bunnish let his mouth droop open. "What do you care about her? She hates you anyway. She'll be better off with you dead. She'll get the insurance money and you'll get somebody better, somebody who cares about you."

  "But I do care about him," Kathy said. She put a hand on Peter's shoulder. He reached up and touched it, and smiled.

  "Then you're a fool, too," Bunnish cried. "He's nothing, he'll never be anything. I'll see to that."

  Peter stood up. "I don't think so, somehow. I don't think you can hurt us anymore. Any of us." He looked at the others. "What do you think, guys?"

  E.C. cocked his head thoughtfully, and ran a finger along the underside of his mustache. "You know," he said, "I think you're right."

  Delmario just seemed baffled, until all of a sudden the light broke across his face, and he grinned. "You can't steal ideas I haven't come up with yet, can you?" he said to Bunnish. "Not in this timeline, anyhow." He made a loud whooping sound and stepped up to the chessboard. Reaching down, he stopped the clock. "Checkmate," he said. "Checkmate, checkmate, checkmate!"

  Less than two weeks later, Kathy knocked softly on the door of his study. "Wait a sec!" Peter shouted. He typed out another sentence, then flicked off the typewriter and swiveled in his chair. "C'mon in."

  She opened the door and smiled at him. "I made some tuna salad, if you want to take a break for lunch. How's the book coming?"

  "Good," Peter said. "I should finish the second chapter today, if I keep at it." She was holding a newspaper, he noticed. "What's that?"

  "I thought you ought to see this," she replied, handing it over.

  She'd folded it open to the obits. Peter took it and read. Millionaire electronics genius Bruce Bunnish had been found dead in his Colorado home, hooked up to a strange device that had seemingly electrocuted him. Peter sighed.

  "He's going to try again, isn't he?" Kathy said.

  Peter put down the newspaper. "The poor bastard. He can't see it."

  "See what?"

  Peter took her hand and squeezed it. "All the variations are unsound," he said. It made him sad. But after lunch, he soon forgot about it, and went back to work.

  A GAME OF VLET

  Joanna Russ

  In Ourdh, near the sea, on a summer's night so hot and still that the marble blocks of the Governor's mansion sweated as if the earth itself were respiring through the stone—which is exactly what certain wise men maintain to be the case—the Governor's palace guard caught an assassin trying to enter the Governor's palace through a secret passage too many
unfortunates have thought they alone knew. This one, his arm caught and twisted by the Captain, beads of sweat starting out on his pale, black-bearded face, was a thin young man in aristocratic robes, followed by the oddest company one could possibly meet—even in Ourdh—a cook, a servant-girl, a couple of waterfront beggars, a battered hulk of a man who looked like a professional bodyguard fallen on evil days, and five peasants. These persons remained timidly silent while the Captain tightened his grip on the young man's arm; the young man made an inarticulate sound between his teeth but did not cry out; the Captain shook him, causing him to fall to his knees; then the Captain said, "Who are you, scum!" and the young man answered, '"I am Rav." His followers all nodded in concert, like mechanical mice.

  "He is," said one of the guard; "he's a magician. I seen him at the banquet a year ago," and the Captain let go, allowing the young man to get to his feet. Perhaps they were a little afraid of magicians, or perhaps they felt a rudimentary shame at harming someone known to the Governor—though the magician had been out of favor for the last eleven zodiacal signs of the year—but this seems unlikely. Humanity, of course, they did not have. The Captain motioned his men back and stepped back himself, silent in the main hall of the Governor's villa, waiting to hear what the young nobleman had to say. What he said was most surprising. He said (with difficulty):

  "I am a champion player of Vlet."

  It was then that the Lady appeared. She appeared quite silently, unseen by anybody, between two of the Governor's imported marble pillars which were tapered toward the base and set in wreaths of carved and tinted anemones and lilies. She stood a little behind one of the nearby torches which had been set into a bracket decorated with a group of stylized young women known to aristocratic Ourdh as The Female Virtues: Modesty, Chastity, Fecundity and Tolerance, a common motif in art, and from this vantage point she watched the scene before her. She heard Rav declare his intention of having come only to play a game of Vlet with the Governor, which was not believed, to say the least; she saw the servant-girl blurt out a flurry of signs made by the deaf-and-dumb; she both saw and heard the guards laugh until they cried, hush each other for fear of waking the Governor, laugh themselves sick again, and finally decide to begin by flaying the peasants in order to relieve the tedium of the night watch.