The Player Of Games by Iain Banks

Author:Iain Banks [Banks, Iain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-08-06T15:36:25.247000+00:00

The acts went on; sex acts, mostly. Acts which, outside the Hole, Gurgeh was

told by Za and two of the Azadian females (Inclate and At-sen, sitting on either

side of him), would mean death for both participants; death by radiation or

death by chemicals.

Gurgeh didn't pay too much attention. This was his night out and the staged

obscenities were the least important part of it. He was away from the game;

that was what mattered. Living by another set of rules. He knew why Za had had

the women come to the table, and it amused him. He felt no particular desire

for the two exquisite creatures he sat between - certainly nothing

uncontrollable - but they made good company. Za was no fool, and the two

charming females Gurgeh knew they would have been males, or even apices had Za

discovered Gurgeh's preferences lay in that direction - were both intelligent

and witty.

They knew a little about the Culture, had heard rumours about the sexual

alterations Culture people possessed, and made discreetly roguish jokes about

Gurgeh's proclivities and abilities compared to their own, and to both the other

Azadian genders. They were flattering, enticing and friendly; they drank from

small glasses, they sipped smoke from tiny, slender pipes - Gurgeh had tried a

pipe too, but only coughed, much to everyone's amusement - and they both had

long, sinuously curling blue-black hair, silkily membraned with near-invisibly

fine platinum nets and beaded with minute, glinting AG studs, which made their

hair move in slow motion and gave each graceful movement of their delicately

structured heads a dizzyingly unreal quality.

Inclate's slim dress was the ever-shifting colour of oil on water, speckled with

jewels which twinkled like stars; At-sen's was a videodress, glowing fuzzy red

with its own concealed power. A choker round her neck acted as a small

television monitor, displaying a hazy, distorted image of the view around her -

Gurgeh to one side, the stage behind, one of Za's ladies on the other side, the

other directly across the table. Gurgeh showed her the Orbital bracelet, but

she was not especially impressed.

Za, on the other side of the table, was playing small games of forfeit with his

two giggling ladies, handling tiny, almost transparent slice jewel-cards and

laughing a lot. One of the ladies noted the forfeits down in a little notebook,

with much giggling and feigned embarrassment.

'But Jernow!' At-sen said, from Gurgeh's left. 'You must have a scar-portrait!

So that we may remember you when you have gone back to the Culture and its

decadent, many-orificed ladies!' Inclate, on his right, giggled.

'Certainly not,' Gurgeh said, mock-serious. 'It sounds quite barbaric.'

'Oh yes, yes, it is!' At-sen and Inclate laughed into their glasses. At-sen

pulled herself together, put her hand on his wrist. 'Wouldn't you like to think

there was some poor person walking around on Eä with your face on their skin?'

'Yes, but on which bit?' Gurgeh asked.

They thought this hilariously funny.

Za stood; one of his ladies packed the tiny slivers of the game-cards away in a

little chain purse. 'Gurgeh,' Za said, knocking back the last of his drink.

'We're off for a more private chat; you three too?' Za grinned wickedly at

Inclate and At-sen, producing gales of laughter and small shrieks.

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