The Peace War (14 page)

It was late afternoon when they heard it: a whistling scream that grew abruptly to a
roar.

"Aircraft!"
Allison struggled to her feet.

Angus shook himself, and looked into the sky. Then he was standing too, all but
dancing from one foot to the other.

Something dark and arrow-shaped swept over them. "An A511, by God," exulted
Angus. "Somehow you were right, Allison!" He hugged her.

There were at least three jets. The air was filled with their sound. And it was a joint
operation. They glimpsed the third coming to a hover just three hundred meters away. It
was one of the new Sikorsky troop carriers. Only the Marines flew those.

They started down the narrow path toward the nearest of the ships, Allison's gait a
limping jog. Suddenly Angus' hand closed on her arm. She spun around, off balance. The
pilot was pointing through a large gap in the branches, at the hovering Sikorsky.
"
Paisley?"
was all he said.

"
What?"
Then she saw it. The outer third of the wings were covered with an
extravagant paisley pattern. In the middle was set a green
phi
or
theta
symbol. It was
utterly unlike any military insignia she had ever seen.

The atmosphere of an open chess tournament hasn't changed much in the last hundred
years. A visitor from 1948 might wonder at the plush, handmade clothing and the strange
haircuts. But the important things-the informality mixed with intense concentration, the
wide range of ages, the silence on the floor, the long tables and the rows of players-all
would have been instantly recognizable.

Only one important thing had changed, and that might take the hypothetical time-traveler
a while to notice: The contestants did not play alone. Teams were not allowed, but
virtually all serious players had assistance, usually in the form of a gray box sitting by the
board or on the floor near their feet. The more conservative players used small keyboards
to communicate with their programs. Others seemed unconnected to any aid but every so
often would look off into the distance, lost in concentration. A few of these were players
in the old sense, disdaining all programmatic magic. Wili was the most successful of
these atavists. His eyes flickered down the row of boards, trying to decide who were the
truly human players and who were the fakes. Beyond the end of the table, the Pacific
Ocean was a blue band shining through the open windows of the pavilion.

Wili pulled his attention back to his own game, trying to ignore the crowd of spectators
and trying even less successfully to ignore his opponent. Though barely out of a Ruy
Lopez opening — that's what Jeremy had called it the other night, anyway — Wili had a
good feeling about the game. A strong kingside attack should now be possible, unless his
opponent had a complete surprise up her sleeve. This would be his fifth straight win. That
accounted for the crowd. He was the only purely human player still undefeated. Wili
smiled to himself. This was a totally unexpected by-product of the expedition, but a very
pleasant one. He had never been admired for anything (unless his reputation within the
Ndelante counted as admirable). It would be a pleasure to show these people how useless
their machines really were. For the moment he forgot that every added attention would
make it harder for him to fade away when the time came.

Wili considered the board a second longer, then pushed his bishop pawn, starting a
sequence of events that ought to be unstoppable. He punched his clock, and finally raised
his eyes to look at his opponent:

Dark brown eyes looked back at him. The girl — woman; she must be in her twenties —
smiled at Wili as she acknowledged his move. She leaned forward, and raised an
input/output band to her temple. Soft black hair spilled across that hand.

Almost ten minutes passed. Some of the spectators began drifting off. Wili just sat and
tried to pretend he was not looking at the girl. She was just over one meter fifty, scarcely
taller than he. And she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He could sit this
close to her and not have to say anything, not have to make conversation... Wili rather
wished the game might last forever.

When she finally moved, it was another pawn push. Very strange, very risky. She was
definitely a soft player: In the last three days, Wili had played more chess than in the last
three months. Almost all of it had been against assisted players. Some were mere
servants to their machines. You could trust them never to make a simple mistake, and to
take advantage of any you made. Playing them was like fighting a bull, impossible if you
attack head on, easy once you identify the weak points. Other players, like Jeremy, were
soft, more fallible, but full of intricate surprises. Jeremy said his program interacted with
his own creativity. He claimed it made him better than either machine or human alone.
Wili would only agree that it was better than being the slave of a processor.

This Della Lu, her play was as soft as her skin. Her last move was full of risk and — he
saw now — full of potential. A machine alone could never have proposed it.

Rosas and Jeremy drifted into view behind her. Rosas was not entered in the
tournament. Jeremy and his Red Arrow special were doing well, but he had a bye on this
round. Jeremy caught his eye; they wanted him outside. Wili felt a flash of irritation.

Finally he decided on the best attack. His knight came out from the third rank, brazen
ahead of the pawns. He pushed the clock; several minutes passed. The girl reached for
her king... and turned it over! She stood, extended her hand across the table to Wili. "A
nice game. Thank you very much." She spoke in English, with a faint Bay Area twang.

Wili tried to cover his surprise. She had lost, he was sure of that. But for her to see it
this early... She must be almost as clever as he. Wili held her cool hand a moment, then
remembered to shake it. He stood and gargled something unintelligible, but it was too
late. The spectators closed in with their congratulations. Wili found himself shaking
hands all around, and some of those hands were jeweled, belonged to Jonque aristocrats.
This was, he was told, the first time in five years an unaided player had made it to the
final
rounds. Some thought he had a chance of winning it all, and how long had it been
since a plain human had been North American champion?

By the time he was out of his circle of admirers, Della Lu had retired in graceful
defeat. Anyway, Miguel Rosas and Jeremy Sergeivich were waiting to grab him. "A good
win," Mike said, setting his arm across the boy's shoulder. "I'll bet you'd like to get some
fresh air after all that concentration."

Wili agreed ungraciously and allowed himself to be guided out. At least they managed
to avoid the two Peace reporters who were covering the event.

The Fonda la Jolla pavilions were built over one of the most beautiful beaches in
Aztlán. Across the bay, two thousand meters away, gray-green vineyards topped the tan-and-orange cliffs. Wili could follow those cliffs and the surf north and north till they
vanished in the haze somewhere near Los Angeles.

They started up the lawn toward the resort's restaurant. Beyond it were the ruins of old
La Jolla: There was more stonework than in Pasadena. It was dry and pale, without the
hidden life of the Basin. No wonder the Jonque lords had chosen La Jolla for their resort.
The place was far from both slums and estates. The lords could meet here in truce, their
rivalries ignored. Wili wondered what the Authority had done to persuade them to allow
the tournament here, though it was possible that the popularity of the game alone
explained it.

"I found Paul's friends, Wili," said Rosas.

"Huh?" He came back to their real problems with an unpleasant lurch. "When do we
go?"

"This evening. After your next game. You've got to lose it."

"
What?
Why?"

"Look," Mike spoke intensely, "we're risking a lot for you. Give us an excuse to drop
this project and
we will."

Wili bit his lip. Jeremy followed in silence, and Wili realized that Rosas was right for
once. Both of them had put their freedom, maybe even their lives, on the line for him — or
was it really for Paul? No matter. Next to bobble research, bioscience was the blackest
crime in the Authority's book. And they were mixing in it to get him cured.

Rosas took Wili's silence for the acquiescence it was. "Okay. I said you'll have to lose
the next one. Make a big scene about it, something that will give us the excuse to get you
outside and away from everyone else." He gave the boy a sidelong chance. "You won't
find it too hard to do that, will you?"

"Where is... it... anyway?" asked Jeremy.

But Rosas just shook his head, and once inside the restaurant there was no chance for
further conversation.

Roberto Richardson, the tournament roster said. That was his next opponent, the one he
must lose to.
This is going to be even harder than I thought.
Wili watched his fat
opponent walk across the pavilion toward the game table. Richardson was the most
obnoxious of Jonque types, the Anglo. And worse, the pattern of his jacket showed he
was from the estates above Pasadena. There were very few Anglos in the nobility of
Aztlán. Richardson was as pale as Jeremy Sergeivich, and Wili shuddered to think of the
compensating nastiness the man must contain. He probably had the worst-treated labor
gangs in Pasadena. His type always took it out on the serfs, trying to convince his peers
that he was just as much a lord as they.

Most Jonques kept only a single bodyguard in the pavilion. Richardson was surrounded
by four.

The big man smiled down at Wili as he put his equipment on the table and attached a
scalp connector. He extended a fat white hand, and Wili shook it. "I am told you are a
former countryman of mine, from Pasadena, no less." He used the formal "you."

Wili nodded. There was nothing but good fellowship on the other's face, as though
their social differences were some historical oddity. "But now I live in Middle
California."

"Ah, yes. Well, you could scarcely have developed your talents in Los Angeles, could
you, son?" He sat down, and the clock was started. Appropriately, Richardson had white.

The game went fast at first, but Wili felt badgered by the other's chatter. The Jonque
was all quite friendly, asking him if he liked Middle California, saying how nice it must
be to get away from his "disadvantaged condition" in the Basin. Under other
circumstances, Wili would have told the Jonque off — there was probably no danger doing
so in the truce area. But Rosas had told him to let the game go at least an hour before
making an argument.

It was ten moves into the game before Wili realized how far astray his anger was
taking him. He looked at Richardson's queen-side opening and saw that the advantage of
position was firmly in his fat opponent's hands. The conversation had not distracted
Richardson in the least.

Wili looked over his opponent's shoulder at the pale ocean. On the horizon, undisturbed
and far away, an Authority tanker moved slowly north. Nearer, two Aztlán sail freighters
headed the other way. He concentrated on their silent, peaceful motion till Richardson's
comments were reduced to unintelligible mumbling. Then he looked down at the board
and put all his concentration into recovery.

Richardson's talk continued for several moments, then faded away completely. The
pale aristocrat eyed Wili with a faintly nonplussed expression but did not become angry.
Wili did not notice. For him, the only evidence of his opponent was in the moves of the
game. Even when Mike and Jeremy came in, even when his previous opponent, Delia Lu,
stopped by the table, Wili did not notice.

For Wili was in trouble. This was his weakest opening of the tournament, and —
psychological warfare aside — this was his strongest opponent. Richardson's play was both
hard and soft: He didn't make mistakes and there was imagination in everything he did.
Jeremy had said something about Richardson's being a strong opponent, one who had a
fast machine, superb interactive programs, and the intelligence to use them. That had
been several days ago, and Wili had forgotten. He was finding out first-hand now.

The attack matured over the next five moves, a tightening noose about Wili's playing
space. The enemy — Wili no longer thought of him by name, or even as a person — could
see many moves into the future, could pursue broad strategy even beyond that. Wili had
almost met his match.

Each move took longer and longer as the players lapsed into catatonic evaluation of
their fate. Finally, with the endgame in sight, Wili pulled the sharpest finesse of his short
career. His enemy was left with two rooks — against Wili's knight, bishop, and three well-placed pawns. To win he needed some combinatoric jewel, something as clever as his
invention of the previous winter. Only now he had twenty minutes, not twenty weeks.

With every move, the pressure in his head increased. He felt like a runner racing an
automobile, or like the John Henry of Naismith's story disks. His naked intelligence was
fighting an artificial monster, a machine that analyzed a million combinations in the time
he could look at one.

The pain shifted from his temples to his nose and eyes. It was a stinging sensation that
brought him out of the depths, into the real world.

Smoke! Richardson had lit an enormous cigar. The tarry smoke drifted across the table
into Wili's face.

"Put that out."
Wili's voice was flat, the rage barely controlled.

Richardson's eyes widened in innocent surprise. He stubbed out his expensive light.
"I'm sorry. I knew Northerners might not be comfortable with this, but you blacks get
enough smoke in your eyes." He smiled. Wili half rose, his hands making fists. Someone
pushed him back into his chair. Richardson eyed him with tolerant contempt, as if to say
"race will out."