Maurice laughed in agreement. “Or having someone discreetly replace your drink with nonalcoholic lager,” he added. “You’ll never manage it, though. Social Care will be in later on. Rebecca, or one of the Stephanies.”
“Hah! I’ll be too far gone by then. Aren’t you going to join me?”
“Yeah.” Maurice smiled. “I think I might.”
Armstrong gulped down beer and gave a yeasty belch. “I don’t see why not, anyway,” he said, pressing his hand to his stomach. “You won’t get the chance when your tour here is done. Once you’re back on a regular planet, SC’ll be monitoring you day and night. I tell you, what the Watcher is doing on Earth at the moment will soon be the norm on all the other planets. Soon we won’t be able to even think unhealthy thoughts.”
Maurice laughed and gulped down more beer.
“Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing you.”
For a moment, Maurice thought that the stranger who had unobtrusively joined them at their table was one of the nineteen million embryos. Tired of waiting for its long-delayed birth, it had ripped itself from the ground and made its way into the land of light and warmth. The newcomer was exquisite, gorgeous in an otherworldly way. His skin was the color of lacquered wood; he wore a loose raw-silk shirt and three-quarter–length trousers the color of yellow cream; his hair was braided and beaded and tied back to accentuate his high cheekbones and deep brown eyes. He wore a handwoven bracelet on his left wrist; the straps on his sandals were woven in the same way. He looked cool and relaxed in the warm, beer-scented air of the bar.
Armstrong had no imagination, however. He saw the stranger for what he was: just another man and a potential challenger. He leaned back in his chair, allowing his combat jacket to fall open, displaying his oiled chest and flat stomach. He gave the stranger a cold stare.
“You Social Care?”
“No.” The stranger smiled. “I’m the complete opposite. My name is Claude. I wondered if you would be interested in joining us?” He pointed to a group of people sitting at a table at the far end of the bar. “We’re playing the n-string game. Have you heard of it?”
“No.” Armstrong took a gulp of beer.
Claude’s smile widened. “You may enjoy it. It might just change your life.”
Maurice was recovering from his first surprise at seeing Claude. Now, for some reason, he longed to reach out and touch the dappled cream silk of the man’s shirt, it looked so cool. There was something about Claude that fascinated him.
“Why don’t we go over?” he asked. “It could be interesting.”
“You go if you like,” Armstrong said sullenly. He pulled out a tiny template of a knife and a block of carbon. “I’ve got things to do.”
“No, you’re right,” Maurice said. “Let’s just get drunk.” He took a swig of beer.
Claude shrugged. “Well, if your friend is too afraid of what he might find…”
Maurice felt deflated as Claude gave him a wink and turned to go.
“Hold on,” said Armstrong. “I never said that. How long does this game take?”
“It varies. Why don’t you come along and take a look? If you don’t like it, you can always go back to getting drunk.”
He moved with an easy grace across the bar, dancing to the rhythm of the waves. The legs of Armstrong’s chair squeaked as he pushed it back across the stone floor.
“Come on, Maurice,” he said, “we’ll take a look.”
Maurice and Armstrong took the last two available seats around the table. He recognized some of the people already seated. Michel, his team co-ordinator, was there, along with Craig and Joanne. There was another man he recognized but whose name he didn’t know. Apparently his wife had left him a few weeks previously: got on a ship and headed back to Earth, abandoning the kids. There had been a bit of a crisis over that one, since the two Stephanies from Social Care hadn’t managed to avoid the breakup. The rumors were flying that one of the Stephanies in particular was in big trouble over that.
“People!” said Claude, raising his hand for attention and smiling around the table. The gentle susurration of chatter ceased as all eyes fixed on the beautiful man who sat in their midst. He had an air about him: he didn’t appear to wait for people’s attention. He simply spoke when he was ready, and everyone listened.
“Now, has anyone here played the n-strings game before?” he asked. “No? Good! Good!” He clapped his hands together in delight. Maurice saw Michel give a puzzled smile at this. Joanne, sitting next to him, narrowed her green eyes thoughtfully.
“Are we all sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.”
Claude unfastened the handwoven bracelet from his wrist and held it out in front of him. A heavy silver ring glinted on his little finger.
“This bracelet is made using the basic six plait,” he said. He twisted the bracelet into a complicated pattern and then pulled it apart. Now there were two bracelets. He held the two bracelets together and repeated the twisting movement to make four bracelets. Maurice joined in with the growing round of applause as he repeated the movement once more, to make eight.
“Ah, but it wasn’t a trick,” said Claude, tying one of the bracelets back around his wrist. “These bracelets are formed of cosmic strings. Each strand on the bracelet is a loop of thread pulled from the very weave of the universe itself. They are unbreakable.”
Now Maurice laughed.
“You find that amusing, my friend?”
“I find that impossible,” said Maurice, grinning at Armstrong, who was too busy trying to outstare Claude to notice.
“Really?” said Claude, in tones of polite surprise. “I have been told that it is the same principle as that of the Black Velvet Bands.”
At that a shadow passed across the table, as all those assembled thought of what was happening on Earth. Black Velvet Bands dropped from Dark Plants. They formed silent nooses on unobserved places, and then just shrank away to oblivion. The people of Earth were strangled in their sleep by Black Velvet Bands….
“But we were playing the n-strings game,” said Claude, quickly pulling apart the seven remaining bracelets into their six constituent strands. “Everyone begins with six strands each.”
Maurice watched as the strands were passed around the table to reach where he was sitting. Armstrong took the last six. Maurice put up his hand.
“I don’t have any strands.”
“Then you can’t play. This is the first lesson of the n-strings game. Life is unfair.”
Claude said it with a delightful grin that brought a ripple of laughter from around the table.
“You can share mine,” said Armstrong.
“Your generosity has just earned you ten points,” said Claude. Armstrong beamed. “Not that points mean anything in this game,” added Claude, and this time the table erupted in laughter. After a moment’s hesitation, Armstrong joined in.
“Now,” continued Claude, leaning forward and spreading a wide hand on the table, “I shall show you the basic six plait. Arrange three strands in a line. Cross them with three strands in a perpendicular direction, like so.” The seven other people seated around the table followed the deft movements of his fingers as he began the six plait. Maurice watched over Armstrong’s shoulder as he gamely twisted the n-strings over each other, the tip of his tongue sticking from the corner of his mouth.
Around the table, other people worked good-naturedly on their six plaits.
“Not like that, Michel.” Joanne took Michel’s half-formed plait from him and laid it out on the table before her. “Hold these two strands between your third and fourth fingers to keep them out of the way. Like this, see?”
Claude touched her hand.
“You are very good at this,” he said. “A natural, in fact. Tell you what, why don’t I help Michel? It will save you being distracted.”
Joanne gave a little smile of triumph and went back to her work. Next to her, Claude whispered something in Michel’s ear. The latter frowned as he tried to understand what he was being told, then comprehension dawned and he made a gulping noise as he picked up his strands again.
The six plait really was quite simple, thought Maurice. It was just a case of repeating one pattern over and over again to form a spiraling twist from the oddly moving strings. The thing was, Armstrong didn’t seem to quite grasp this. He kept getting the third movement in the sequence the wrong way round.
“Here, why don’t you let me have a go?” suggested Maurice, getting impatient and suddenly gripped by a desire to touch the strange plasticlike material of the strings.
“Hold on a moment,” said Armstrong, turning away from him. “I nearly got it there…”
All around the table heads bent forward as the group twisted and turned the strands. The occasional curse or giggle could be heard as a strand slipped loose or a pattern collapsed. The work was hypnotic, yet strangely satisfying. Outside of the bar, the descending night ran silkily down the spider web of the bridge, swallowing up its long white spans, gradually engulfing also the soft splashing of the waves on the beach. Inside, Joanne came to the end of her plait.
“Finished!” she said, proudly setting her bracelet down before her and looking around the table.
“Very good,” said Claude, but Joanne didn’t hear. She had just noticed Michel’s plait.
“How are you doing that?” she asked. Michel’s plait did not rise up in a spiral, like those of all the others seated at the table; instead it was a flat ribbon, a neatly symmetric pattern seemingly ruled upon it.
“Claude told me how,” explained Michel in tones of quiet satisfaction. “You simply reverse the sequence on alternate goes.”
“Oh,” Joanne sniffed.
“That’s clever,” said Craig from across the table, watching Michel’s fingers closely. “I think I’ll give that a go.”
They worked on for a few more minutes until everyone was sitting breathlessly, waiting for Maurice to finish. Maurice had finally got the bracelet away from Armstrong. Now he quickly twisted the last strands of his plait into place, feeling the strangely pliable material of the n-strings beneath his fingers.
“All done,” he said to the waiting table.
“Well done, everybody.” Claude gave them all a one-man round of applause. “You have completed the first part of the game.”
“How have we done?” asked Joanne, casting a look at Michel’s plait.
“You’ve all done very well,” said Claude. “Now for the second round. Here we can change the rules. In the second round you are not given your strands for free. You have to buy them.”
“How much do they cost?”
“I will give each of you eighteen strands in exchange for one of your completed bracelets. This will mean you can make three more bracelets. Do you still wish to play?”
Maurice looked at Armstrong. Maurice was enjoying this.
“I do,” said Armstrong, who always wanted to win.
“We can make a bracelet each this time,” said Maurice.
“Hang on,” said Craig, “that’s not fair. That means Maurice and Armstrong are at a disadvantage.”
“Why?” asked Claude innocently.
“Because they can only make three bracelets between them. We can make three each.”
Claude nodded, and Maurice had the impression that he had been waiting for someone to point that out.
“Okay,” said Claude, “are you saying in this game we should all start equally? Well, why not? Whoever said that any game should reflect life?”
He laughed at his own joke. This time the rest of the table did not join in.
“Now, who wishes to buy some more strands?”
The people seated around the table each handed Claude their bracelets, who handed them back eighteen strands each that he had taken from who-knew-where.
“Ah, not you, Michel. You get thirty strands, to reflect the greater amount of work that went into your bracelet.”
Michel beamed as he collected his strands.
“But that’s not fair!” called Joanne.
“Yes, it is,” said Claude. “It is harder remembering where you are when you are making two movements. Also there is some effort involved in learning the opposite pattern. Michel worked harder; therefore he deserves a greater reward.”
“So why didn’t you tell any of us what you told Michel?”
“Why should I?”
“Because it’s not fair that one of us gets extra help.”
“So you are saying that extra knowledge is unfair? It wouldn’t be right if one of you were to use an AI, say, to advise you on how to make your bracelets.”
“Yes,” said Joanne.
“Does everyone else agree?”
The rest of the table nodded. Claude put a finger to his lips.
“Okay,” he said, thoughtfully, “we said that for round two the rules could change. So we are agreed that, from now on, extra help is not allowed?”
“Agreed.”
Maurice raised a hand.
“Yes, Maurice?”
“Are you sure you don’t work for Social Care?” he asked.
Everyone laughed at that. The night was pleasantly cool and a party atmosphere was taking hold.
“Okay,” said Claude, “I will now teach you the eight-fold path. Take four strings in your hand like this…”
Claude taught them the eight-fold path and the reversing right fold. The bar they sat in cast a circle of light into a darkness filled with the sound of nothing more than the splash of the waves. Douglas took a break to fetch some more beers from the crate at the back, and Claude downed one before showing them the double impasse and the one-strand weave. The alcohol began to take its effect on all of them. Claude was giggling as he forgot the pattern for the eighteen plait for the third time and the rest of the group gradually joined in until they were a shaking mass, gasping weakly at nothing in particular. They drank more beer and counted the growing piles of strands and bracelets that they were accumulating before themselves. Maurice and Armstrong passed strands between themselves, trying to form a Schrödinger’s Cat’s Cradle.
“Now take the middle bit here and twist it around itself like this,” said Claude. “Whoops!” He laughed as the half-seen threads collapsed in on themselves to form a tangled mess. “I always get that bit wrong.”
Claude’s sheen of mysterious untouchability was evaporating in the alcohol haze. Maurice was coming to the realization that this was just another person, albeit one who had played the n-strings game many times before. Claude was losing the air of a sage and becoming more like a salesman: some of his comments seemed to be alluding to a deal in the offing.