The Player Of Games by Iain M. Banks

Author:Iain M. Banks [Banks, Iain M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781857231465
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2008-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

The following morning, Flere-Imsaho wasn’t talking to him. It joined him in the module lounge just as the call came through that Pequil had arrived with the car, but when Gurgeh said hello, it ignored him, and travelled down in the hotel elevator studiously humming and crackling even louder than usual. It was similarly uncommunicative in the car. Gurgeh decided he could live with this.

‘Gurgee, you have hurt yourself.’ Pequil looked with concern at the graze over Gurgeh’s cheek.

‘Yes,’ Gurgeh smiled, stroking his beard. ‘I cut myself shaving.’

It was attrition time on the Board of Form.

Gurgeh was up against the other nine players from the start, until it became too obvious that was what was happening. He’d used the advantage accrued on the previous board to set up a small, dense and almost impregnable enclave; he just sat in there for two days, letting the others beat up against it. Done properly, this would have broken him, but his opponents were trying not to look too concerted in their actions, so attacked a few at a time. They were anyway each fearful of weakening themselves over-much in case they were pounced upon by the others.

By the end of those two days, a couple of the news-agencies were saying it was unfair and discourteous to the stranger to gang up on him.

Flere-Imsaho—over its huff by then and talking to him again—reckoned this reaction might be genuine and unprompted, but was more likely to be the result of imperial pressure. Certainly it thought the Church—which had doubtless been instructing the priest as well as financing the deals he’d been making with the other players—had been leant on by the Imperial Office. Whatever, on the third day the massed attacks against Gurgeh fell away and the game resumed a more normal course.

The game-hall was crowded with people. There were many more paying spectators, numerous invited guests had changed venue to come and see the alien play, and the press-agencies had sent extra reporters and cameras. The club players, under the stewardship of the Adjudicator, succeeded in keeping the crowd quiet, so Gurgeh didn’t find the extra people caused any great distraction during the game. It was difficult to move around the hall during the breaks though; people were constantly accosting him, asking him questions, or just wanting to look at him.

Pequil was there most of the time, but seemed more taken up with going in front of the cameras himself than shielding Gurgeh from all the people wanting to talk to him. At least he helped to divert the attentions of the news-people and let Gurgeh concentrate on the game.

Over the next couple of days, Gurgeh noticed a subtle change in the way the priest was playing, and, to a lesser degree, in the game-style of another two players.

Gurgeh had taken three players right out of the game; another three had been taken by the priest, without much of a fight. The remaining two apices had established their own small enclaves on the board and were taking comparatively little part in the wider game.

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