by John M. Ford
“Data base is small, Manager Akten.”
“Coarse data, then.”
“Coarse data indicate twenty-two percent success. I cannot correlate for Grand Masters versus Masters of Force Leader Mabli’s rating.”
“Double and that’s all, then,” Akten said, giving the tharavul a side-long look. “Sometimes, Atro, you want to cut more out of their skulls than just their mind-snoop….”
Sovin, of course, did not react. Operator Sudok said, “Starting positions are chosen. Goals are being placed.” He pushed two slides forward.
General Margon stroked his consort’s arm, watched her claws involuntarily extend, and smiled.
Vrenn stood in a triangular cell of metal and light. The floor was a sheet of heavy clear stuff with darkness below, bounded by black metal strips, each with a slot along its length.
He knew he was in the right front space of the starting position. It was a bad place for a Lancer in flat-board klin zha, backed against an edge, but perhaps not in this game. They must follow the Grand Master’s lead, he thought. And be worthy of his play, as Khidri had said.
Voloh, the Vanguard, was to Vrenn’s left, and Graade Vanguard was behind Vrenn. A very unusual starting position. Just beyond Voloh stood Ragga, still tensing against his Blockader armor. In the center of the position was Zharn; that made sense at least. Vrenn could not see any of the others, nor any of the Gold Team.
There was a flicker of light in Zharn’s space. A disk, half a meter across and a handbreadth thick, materialized in midair. Zharn caught it nimbly. The Goal was of polished green metal, heavy by the way Zharn held it. Vrenn hoped he would not have to find out. Zharn put the Goal gently on the floor of his space, put a boot up on it and stood tensed and ready.
The slots in the floor strips lit yellow. At once Vrenn leaned forward, shifting his balance for action; he dropped his Lance from parade to ready position, and moved fingers on the controls. The Lance hummed through his fingers, and the Active tip went from blue to green.
There was a movement before him. A large shape, golden: the enemy Blockader, passing through an unClouded space. Vrenn watched the yellow strip in front of him, waiting for it to change, but it did not.
Ragga’s did, yellow to blue, and the Blockader moved, watching to all sides, and even above, though of course no pieces could yet be on the higher levels.
But that was not a bad caution. In non-combat klin zha, a Blockader could not be killed at all; but it was different in klin zha kinta, and Blocks who forgot that it was different learned again in hard fashion. Another strip turned blue, and Ragga moved on; he disappeared as he crossed the line, which went yellow again after him.
Segon Vanguard walked from a mist into Ragga’s empty space. He did it too hastily, Vrenn thought, went through the Cloud panel too sure the space beyond would be empty. Segon turned slightly, to wave to Zharn Fencer.
The Gold Vanguard emerged from Cloud and slammed his fist into Segon’s chest, all in one motion.
Segon staggered, sank down almost to kneeling—then brought the heels of both hands up hard into the Gold player’s chin. The Gold’s head went back, and Segon’s left gauntlet chopped into her throat. Almost too fast to see, the enemy kicked to the side of Segon’s knee; they fell together. The bodies locked, and tensed for a long, long moment, and then there was the liquid-metal sound of a joint failing.
Segon stood up, shoulders pumping as he breathed. He took an unsteady step away from the fallen Vanguard. The Gold’s body shimmered, vanished, transported away.
The panel beneath Vrenn’s boots trembled, then began to rise, riding on the rails of the game grid. Vrenn returned Zharn’s salute, gave one to Segon, who raised a shaking hand to acknowledge.
The panel stopped on the next level above. Vrenn was completely surrounded by Cloud panels. The Elevation move had been toward the grid center, so there was still a board edge to his right—safe to ignore that panel—but he was not in a corner. Two directions to cover—no, four. He looked up.
Spurs flashed by Vrenn’s face. Vrenn swung the Null end of his Lance, caught the Flier in the thigh; the swooping Gold rolled in midair and landed on his back, spurred boots pointed at Vrenn. Vrenn reversed the Lance, touched the controls; the Active tip glowed yellow. The Flier twisted his control-gloved hand and was off the floor instantly; his bootheels struck the Lance’s deflector shield, and the Gold spun in midair. His shoulder grazed a side panel of the cell, above a yellow floor strip; there was a blue flare and the Flier’s jacket smoked, but the player made no sound. “Kai,” Vrenn said under his breath, at the same time dropping the shield and checking the Lance’s charge counter. It was down by almost a sixth.
The Gold somersaulted forward. Vrenn raised his Lance horizontally, catching the gilded steel spurs against it. The Flier continued his roll. Before the enemy could vault over and land behind him, Vrenn fell forward, twisting to fall on his backside. The Flier whirled, just short of striking the far wall; swooped down again.
Vrenn touched his weapon controls. The crystal tip pulsed green.
The Flier was struck in the left ribs, knocked off course. Vrenn spun the Lance end-for-end, smashing the Null end at the Flier’s control gauntlet. He connected. Small bones crunched, and wires. As if swept by an invisible hand, the Gold’s harness flung him into the wall of the cell, and pressed him there, outlined in blue fire. The harness spent its charge. The Gold Flier hit the floor, moved just a little, then sparkled and vanished without a sound.
A floor strip turned blue. Vrenn walked through the holo into the space beyond.
Some of the Naval officers, and even one of the Marines, were slapping their thighs in approval. “Good play! Good play!”
Admiral Kezhke said, “Who’s the Green Lancer?”
Operator Sudok pressed keys, and the close-up image was printed over with red letters.
“Vrenn,” Kezhke read, “Gensa, good House…Rustazh?” Kezhke knocked aside the fruit one of his consorts was feeding him. There was a silence in the gallery.
General Maida had a just-lit incense stick in his fingers; he stopped halfway to the holder on his shoulder. “I thought the Rustazh line was extinct.”
“So did I,” Kezhke said. “I wonder if Kethas knows.”
“Can such things be?” Margon said amiably, and gestured to remind Maida of his smoldering incense.
Kezhke said, “Sudok—”
“The Admiral Grand Master inspected his players’complete records some days ago.”
Margon said, “You can hardly assume a Grand Master’s play would be affected by his interest in one of the pieces.”
“No,” Kezhke said levelly, “not Kethas. But it’s been…seven years since all the Rustazh died—”
“All but one, it would seem.”
“It would seem.” Kezhke stroked his stomach, turned to the cubicle at the end of the room.
Within it, Thought Admiral Kethas again moved his Lancer.
Vrenn had reached the sixth level of the grid, four cells to an edge. There were only a few Clouds here; about half the level was visible, and several spaces on the level above. Vrenn wondered briefly if the other Gold Flier was still in play, and almost without thinking checked his Lance. The indicator read four-tenths charge. The Fliers could not carry Goals, but surely that did not matter yet; surely they were not so close to endgame.
Behind Vrenn, a player was rising from below. He turned; it was Gelly, bouncing from toe to toe as if she were weightless. There was a film of blood on her metal gloves. She was smiling, like a shining light in her face. Vrenn nodded to her, and she spun round on the ball of one foot.
The other enemy Flier shot upward, through a space two away from Vrenn’s, and was lost in the Clouds above.
Huge green-armored shoulders appeared near the far point of Vrenn’s level: Ragga was coming up. There were creases now in his heavy leather, and a few rips. Vrenn wondered if he was happier now. He stood as if nothing had ever, could ever, touch him.
The Golden Lancer stepped out of Cloud, faced Ragga directly. Vrenn leaned forward slightly, eager to see.
The enemy’s Lance flashed green. Ragga made no attempt to dodge the bolt; he did not even grunt as it struck him. Then he swung.
The Lancer was at least smart enough not to bother with his shields. He reversed his weapon to the Null end. Vrenn smacked a hand on his thigh; it was a bold move. Not that it would save him, not against Ragga.
The Green Blocker’s fist smashed at the Lance butt, knocking it down, almost out of the Gold’s hands. The enemy staggered.
So did Ragga.
Vrenn stared as the best Blocker of all the Houses sank to his knees. The Lancer stepped back to recover. Ragga barely moved. The Null end struck him, and struck again, and again.
On the third stroke Vrenn heard the pop of a spark, and then he understood: the Lance butt was not Null. There was something hidden in it; a contact stunner, or an agonizer.
It must, he thought, it must be a rule he did not know—some handicap against a Grand Master, perhaps—Vrenn checked his controls, touched a finger to the Null of his own Lance; only the grip of training kept him from banging the blunt end against the floor or into one of the wall barriers. Vrenn looked up, toward the window where he had seen the players, but it was blocked now from his view.
An edge of Gelly’s space went from yellow to blue. Vrenn turned, saw the path of blue lines leading to the Gold Lancer. Ragga was gone. Vrenn opened his mouth, to warn her. His jaw was tense enough to hurt, and before he could strain out any words Gelly Swift was across the spaces at warp speed.
The Gold brought up his weapon. Gelly danced around it, kicked the Lancer. He stumbled, started to turn. She kicked him again, punched him in the lower back. He seemed about to fall; she tumbled, did a handstand and struck his helmet with her bootheel.
The Lancer fell.
Gelly cartwheeled upright.
The Lancer stood and sent a bolt into her body.
Gelly doubled over. The Lancer hit her with the blunt non-Null steel, hit her twice. There was blood. Gelly’s blood was a very dark color.
A snarl came up in Vrenn’s throat; he swallowed it back.
Vrenn was Elevated again. When he reached the seventh level, the Goal disk was just being transported into his space; he caught it as it fell. The metal Goal was indeed quite heavy.
The space was opaque on two sides, above, and below; the clear side showed nothing. Where, Vrenn wanted to know, was Zharn? Moving the Fencer away from the Goal was the most dangerous gambit in klin zha.
He wanted to know as well if the Gold players were cheating, and if so how they expected to succeed; and if Ragga and Gelly had been transported alive; and he wanted a Gold player, to kill for his own.
“About those odds…” Manager Atro said.
Akten, without looking away from the windows, said, “Wagers cancelled, of course. No fault.”
Atro waved a hand.
Kezhke had retrieved the fruit from his consort and was chewing furiously. “I don’t know about that Lancer,” he said, juice running down his chin.
“The Thought Admiral might then be distracted?” General Margon said calmly, reaching for a glass of brandy.
“Not the Green Lancer, the Gold,” Kezhke said at once, then turned to face Margon. “I am not a Thought Admiral, and I do not pretend to understand Fleet strategy; but even you, General, know epetai-Khemara’s record.”
“Oh, yes,” Margon said lightly, and made a gesture with fingertips to forehead, indicating mild insanity. The Marine officers laughed. So did some of the Navals. “Does anyone know what sort of fusion that Green Swift was? She was rather interesting, in a skinny sort of way.” Margon’s consort threw a grape at him.
“The Green Goal’s unprotected,” General Maida said. “He’s sent his Fencer off…”
“Operator,” Kezhke said slowly, “replay of the last kill by Gold Fencer.”
Sudok touched a key, and a small holo was thrown on the glass.
“Lancer Elevated to Seven, covering Goal,” one of the Managers said. “Gold Lancer to Seven.”
Kezhke said, “Operator, stop replay, and enlarge…. General Margon, will you look at this?”
“When I mentioned the Swift, I only had the epetai-Khemara in mind…he likes skinny. And green.”
“Green Lancer, carrying Goal, up to Eight.”
As Vrenn set the Goal disc down, the enemy Lancer rose into view. Now, Vrenn thought, and waited for the yellow space barrier to change. Instead, the floor began rising again. Vrenn put a foot up on the Goal, fingers tight on his Lance; the ache in his jaw was radiating to the side of his head.
From the Eighth level, only two spaces on an edge, he could see downward, see Zharn on the Seventh; now he thought he understood. Zharn would move from Cloud, on the Lancer.
Zharn did. He swung his thin staff in the widest possible arc; the tip struck the Gold Lancer’s right arm and wrapped around it. Zharn twisted the polarizing grip and the metal went rigid. Vrenn had seen Zharn execute this kill a hundred times: as the enemy was pulled around, he would be carried directly into Zharn’s knifing left hand, and the Gold’s own body energy would help to drop him.
Then, impossibly, Zharn stumbled. The Fencer’s hand twitched, depolarizing his staff; the Lancer spun in the wrong direction, and shoved the Active Lance-point into Zharn’s throat. Green light flashed on green armor.
Zharn’s head went back, far back, too far back. His eyes, very wide, looked up into Vrenn’s, and his lips moved, spasming—
No, not just a spasm. Vrenn read them, very clearly.
Get this one, Zharn said, and flickered silently out of existence.
“Do you see that flare?” Kezhke said. “Between the Lance and the Swift’s body?”
“That’s just a lens flare,” someone said, without force.
“Assuming that it isn’t,” Margon said, interested, “what is it?”
Kezhke said, “You know more of personal weapons than I, General. You are an authority on them.”
Margon sniffed his brandy. His other hand rested, relaxed, on the grip of his dress weapon. “Are you proposing, oh, anything, Admiral?”
A few of the others stepped quietly aside.
Kezhke waved both his consorts away. He had no weapon visible, but of course no Klingon of rank would be unarmed in public. “Perhaps that you should examine this image, General, and a few others.”
“Operator Sudok,” Margon said, “did you examine the equipment for this game?”
“I did, General,” the Vulcan said.
“And there were no irregularities?”
“None.”
Kezhke said nothing. No one would appear so foolish as to doubt a Vulcan’s word.
Margon took his hand away from his sidearm, gestured toward Thought Admiral Kethas’s cubicle. “If the Naval champion wishes to stop the game, we will naturally accept a draw.”
“Kethas,” one of the Administrators said, distracted and puzzled, “has never been drawn in tournament.”
“There is that.” Margon went back to the viewing window. “And certainly never by a Marine Force Leader. All that, and the son of the Thought Admiral’s good dead friend playing, and the invincible Gold opposing him…I do so enjoy klin zha; nothing short of living war is so stimulating.”
“Gold Lancer Elevated, to Eight.”
“There is always,” Manager Akten said, “the komerex zha.”
“I do not acknowledge the existence of the Perpetual Game,” Margon said without turning. “Society is society, war is war. If they are games at all, surely they are not all the same game. I deny it.”
“That is a favored tactic,” Akten said.
“Green Lancer to Level Nine.”
There was no Cloud at the highest level. Vrenn stood in a four-sided pyramid of clear, shimmering panels edged in black steel, and waited for the last move of the Game.
There could only be one move now. Vrenn had ca
rried the Goal to the Ninth Level: the enemy had his next move only to capture the disc. And only the Lancer could reach this space in one. The other Gold Flier might, of course, if she were on an edge space and still alive…but Vrenn knew it would not be the Flier. The move would be too easy, not bold enough for a game between Masters.
He was right. A spindle of light, dazzling, soundless, appeared in a point of the space, and the Golden Lancer materialized.
Vrenn smashed his Lance against the Gold’s almost before the transport was complete; he felt the displacement field push him back as it did the air. Then the effect died, and Vrenn shoved the enemy back, so that both the Gold’s shoulders struck wall panels. Vrenn cursed; he had been expecting shock fields, but here there was only plain matter.
The Gold pushed back, and tried to turn his Lance crosswise to Vrenn’s, get freedom to use the Active or false-Null tips. The two Lancers struggled for a dozen heartbeats; then Vrenn was pushed back, by incredible strength. Lances cracked against each other, and against yellow energy shields. Vrenn read his charge counter: one-fourth. He dropped the shield and used the Lance as if it were a plain metal fighting stick, striking sparks, connecting with blows to the enemy’s limbs that seemed to have no effect at all. He would have howled, but there was no breath to spare.
He looked into the enemy’s face. Their eyes met. The Gold was clearly full Klingon, as much Imperial Race as was Vrenn; the broad dark face was scarred heavily, and there was a strange high tension in the look, like electricity in the yellow eyes.
Vrenn knew that it was desperation that he saw, and thought the Gold must see the same. They were images in a mirror, only the colors of their clothing different.
No, not only. The Gold had his dishonest Lance. And with his desperation, Vrenn Gensa Green had his rage.
Vrenn struck downward to disengage, then spun full circle on the ball of his foot, extending his Lance as Zharn had swung his slender staff. The startled enemy had blocked high, and the crystal tip of Vrenn’s Lance caught him just below the right armpit.