Again, the Bureau's supposedly random scheduling gave him as little time as possible between matches, but Gurgeh was secretly pleased at this; it meant he could keep the same high pitch of concentration going from day to day, and it gave him no time to worry or stop too long to think. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, a part of him was sitting back as stunned and amazed as anybody else was at how well he was doing. If that part ever came forward, ever took centre-stage and was allowed to say, 'Now wait a minute here…' he suspected his nerve would fail, the spell would break, and the walk that was a fall would become a plunge into defeat. As the adage said; falling never killed anybody; it was when you stopped… Anyway, he was awash with a bitter-sweet flood of new and enhanced emotions; the terror of risk and possible defeat, the sheer exultation of the gamble that paid off and the campaign which triumphed; the horror of suddenly seeing a weakness in his position which could lose him the game; the surge of relief when nobody else noticed and there was time to plug the gap; the pulse of furious, gloating glee when he saw such a weakness in another's game; and the sheer unbridled joy of victory. And outside, the additional satisfaction of knowing that he was doing so much better than anybody had expected. All their predictions - the Culture's, the Empire's, the ship's, the drone's - had been wrong; apparently strong fortifications which had fallen to him. Even his own expectations had been exceeded, and if he worried at all, he worried that some subconscious mechanism would now let him relax a little, having proved so much, come so far, defeated so many. He didn't want that; he wanted to keep going; he was enjoying all this. He wanted to find the measure of himself through this infinitely exploitable, indefinitely demanding game, and he didn't want some weak, frightened part of himself to let him down. He didn't want the Empire to use some unfair way of getting rid of him, either. But even that was only half a worry. Let them try to kill him; he had a reckless feeling of invincibility now. Just don't let them try to disqualify him on some technicality. That would hurt. But there was another way they might try to stop him. He knew that in the single game they would be likely to use the physical option. It was how they'd think; this Culture man would not accept the bet, he'd be too frightened. Even if he did accept, and fought on, the terror of knowing what might happen to him would paralyse him, devour and defeat him from inside. He talked it over with the ship. The
Limiting Factor
had consulted with the
Little Rascal-
tens of millennia distant, in the greater Cloud and felt able to guarantee his survival. The old warship would stay outside the Empire but power up to a maximum velocity, minimum radius holding circle as soon as the game started. If Gurgeh was forced to bet against a physical option, and lost, the ship would drive in at full speed for Eä. It was certain it could evade any imperial craft on the way, get to Eä within a few hours and use its heavy duty displacer to snap Gurgeh and Flere-Imsaho off the place without even slowing down. 'What's this?' Gurgeh looked dubiously at the tiny spherical pellet Flere-Imsaho had produced. 'Beacon and one-off communicator,' the drone told him. It dropped the tiny pellet into his hand, where it rolled around. 'You put it under your tongue; it'll implant; you'll never know it's there. The ship homes in on that as it comes in, if it can't find you any other way. When you feel a series of sharp pains under your tongue - four stabs in two seconds - you've got two seconds to assume a foetal position before everything within a three-quarter metre radius of that pellet gets slung aboard the ship; so get your head between knees and don't swing your arms about.' Gurgeh looked at the pellet. It was about two millimetres across. 'Are you serious, drone?' 'Profoundly. That ship'll probably be on sprint boost; it could be dragging past here at anything up to one-twenty kilolights. At that speed even its heavy duty displacer will only be within range for about a fifth of a millisecond, so we're going to need all the help we can get. This is a very dubious situation you're putting me and yourself in, Gurgeh. I want you to know I'm not very happy about it.' 'Don't worry, drone; I'll make sure they don't include you in the physical bet.' 'No; I mean the possibility of being displaced. It's risky. I wasn't told about this. Displacement fields in hyperspace are singularities, subject to the Uncertainty Principle-' 'Yeah; you might end up getting zapped into another dimension or something-' 'Or smeared over the wrong bit of this one, more to the point.' 'And how often does that happen?' 'Well, about once in eighty-three million displacements, but that's not-' 'So it still compares pretty favourably with the risk you take getting into one of this gang's groundcars, or even an aircraft. Be a rascal, Flere-Imsaho; risk it.' 'That's all very well for you to say, but even if-' Gurgeh let the machine witter on. He'd risk it. The ship, if it did have to come in, would take a few hours to make the journey, but death-bets were never carried out until the next dawn, and Gurgeh was perfectly capable of switching off the pain of any tortures involved. The
Limiting Factor
had full medical facilities; it would be able to patch him up, if the worst happened. He popped the pellet under his tongue; there was a sensation of numbness for a second, then it was gone, as though dissolved. He could just feel it with his finger, under the floor of his mouth. He woke on the morning of the first day's play with an almost sexual thrill of anticipation.
Another venue; this time it was a conference-centre near the shuttle-port he'd first arrived at. There he faced Lo Prinest Bermoiya, a judge in the Supreme Court of Eä, and one of the most impressive apices Gurgeh had yet seen. He was tall, silver-haired, and he moved with a grace Gurgeh found oddly, even disturbingly familiar, without at first being able to explain why. Then he realised the elderly judge walked like somebody from the Culture; there was a slow ease about the apex's movements which lately Gurgeh had stopped taking for granted and so, for the first time in a way, seen. Bermoiya sat very still between moves in the lesser games, staring at the board continually and only ever moving to shift a piece. His card-playing was equally studied and deliberate, and Gurgeh found himself reacting in the opposite manner, becoming nervous and fidgety. He fought back against this with body-drugs, deliberately calming himself, and over the seven full days the lesser games lasted gradually got to grips with the steady, considered pace of the apex's style. The judge finished a little ahead after the games were totalled up. There had been no mention of bets of any sort. They started play on the Board of Origin, and at first Gurgeh thought the Empire was going to be content to rely on Bermoiya's obvious skill at Azad… but then, an hour into the game, the silver-haired apex raised his hand for the Adjudicator to approach. Together they came to Gurgeh, standing at one comer of the board. Bermoiya bowed. 'Jernow Gurgey,' he said; the voice was deep, and Gurgeh seemed to hear a whole tome of authority within each bass syllable. 'I must request that we engage in a wager of the body. Are you willing to consider this?' Gurgeh looked into the large, calm eyes. He felt his own gaze falter; he looked down. He was reminded momentarily of the girl at the ball. He looked back up… to the same steady pressure from that wise and learned face. This was someone used to sentencing his fellow creatures to execution, disfigurement, pain and prison; an apex who dealt in torture and mutilation and the power to command their use and even that of death itself to preserve the Empire and its values.
And I could just say 'No'
, Gurgeh thought.
I've done enough. Nobody would blame me. Why not? Why not accept they're better at this than I am? Why put yourself through the worry and the torment? Psychological torment at least, physical perhaps. You've proved all you had to, all you wanted, more than they expected.
Give in. Don't be a fool. You're not the heroic sort. Apply a bit of game-sense: you've won all you ever needed to. Back out now and show them what you think of their stupid 'physical option', their squalid, bullying threats
…
show them how little it really means.
But he wasn't going to. He looked levelly into the apex's eyes and he knew he was going to keep playing. He suspected he was going slightly mad, but he wasn't going to give this up. He would take this fabulous, maniacal game by the scruff of the neck, jump up on to it and hold on. And see how far it would take him before it threw him off, or turned and consumed him. 'I'm willing,' he said, eyes wide. 'I believe you are a male.' 'Yes,' Gurgeh said. His palms started to sweat. 'My bet is castration. Removal of the male member and testes against apicial gelding, on this one game on the Board of Origin. Do you accept?' 'I-' Gurgeh swallowed, but his mouth stayed dry. It was absurd; he was in no real danger. The
Limiting Factor
would rescue him; or he could just go through with it; he would feel no pain, and genitalia were some of the faster regrowing parts of the body… but still the room seemed to warp and distort in front of him, and he had a sudden, sickening vision of cloying red liquid, slowly staining black, bubbling…. 'Yes!' he blurted, forcing it out. 'Yes,' he said to the Adjudicator. The two apices bowed and retreated.
'You could call the ship now if you want,' Flere-Imsaho said. Gurgeh stared at the screen. In fact he was going to call the
Limiting Factor
, but only to discuss his present rather poor position in the game, not to scream for rescue. He ignored the drone. It was night, and the day had gone badly for him. Bermoiya had played brilliantly and the news-services were full of the game. It was being hailed as a classic, and once again Gurgeh - with Bermoiya - was sharing news-leaders with Nicosar, who was still trampling all over the opposition, good though it was acknowledged to be. Pequil, his arm still pinned up, approached Gurgeh in a subdued, almost reverent way after the evening session and told him there was a special watch being kept on the module which would last until the game was over. Pequil was sure Gurgeh was an honourable person, but those engaging in physical bets were always discreetly watched, and in Gurgeh's case this was being done by a high-atmosphere AG cruiser, one of a squadron which constantly patrolled the not-quite-space above Groasnachek. The module would not be allowed to move from its position on the hotel roof-garden. Gurgeh wondered how Bermoiya was feeling now. He had noticed that the apex had said 'must' when he stated his intention of using the physical option. Gurgeh had come to respect the apex's style of play, and, therefore, Bermoiya himself. He doubted the judge had any great desire to use the option, but the situation had grown serious for the Empire; it had assumed he'd be beaten by now, and based its strategy of exaggerating the threat he posed to them on that assumption. This supposedly winning play was turning into a small disaster. Rumours were that heads had already rolled in the Imperial Office over the affair. Bermoiya would have been given his orders; Gurgeh had to be stopped. Gurgeh had checked on the fate the apex would suffer in the now unlikely event it was he and not Gurgeh who lost. Apicial gelding meant the full and permanent removal of the reversible apex vagina and ovaries. Thinking about that, considering what would be done to the steady, stately judge if he lost, Gurgeh realised he hadn't properly thought through the implications of the physical option. Even if he did win, how could he let another being be mutilated? If Bermoiya lost, it would be the end of him; career, family, everything. The Empire did not allow the regeneration or replacement of any wager lost body parts; the judge's loss would be permanent and possibly fatal; suicide was not unknown in such cases. Perhaps it would be best if Gurgeh did lose.
The trouble was he didn't
want
to. He didn't feel any personal animosity towards Bermoiya, but he desperately wanted to win this game, and the next one, and the one after that. He hadn't realised how seductive Azad was when played in its home environment. While it was technically the same game he'd played on the
Limiting Factor
, the whole feeling he had about it, playing it where it was meant to be played, was utterly different; now he realised… now he
knew
why the Empire had survived because of the game; Azad itself simply produced an insatiable desire for more victories, more power, more territory, more dominance… Flere-Imsaho stayed in the module that evening. Gurgeh contacted the ship and discussed his forlorn position in the game; the ship could, as usual, see some unlikely ways out, but they were ways he'd already seen for himself. Recognising they were there was one thing though; following them through on the board itself in the midst of play was another matter. So the ship was no great help there. Gurgeh gave up analysing the game and asked the
Limiting Factor
what he could do about ameliorating the bet he had with Bermoiya if unlikely though it was - he won, and it was the judge who had to face the surgeon. The answer was nothing. The bet was on and that was it. Neither of them could do anything; they had to play to a finish. If they both refused to play then they would both suffer the bet-penalties. 'Jernau Gurgeh,' the ship said, sounding hesitant. 'I need to know what you would like me to do, if things go badly tomorrow.' Gurgeh looked down. He'd been waiting for this. 'You mean, do I want you to come in and snatch me off here, or go through with it and be picked up later, with my tail but not much else between my legs, and wait for everything to regrow? But of course having kept the Culture sweet with the Empire in the process.' He didn't try to disguise the sarcasm in his voice. 'More or less,' the ship said, after the delay. 'The problem is, while it would cause less of a fuss if you did go through with it, I'll have to displace or destroy your genitals anyway, if they are removed; the Empire would have access to rather too much information about us, if they did a full analysis.' Gurgeh almost laughed. 'You're saying my balls are some sort of state secret?' 'Effectively. So we're going to annoy the Empire anyway, even if you do let them operate on you.' Gurgeh was still thinking, even after the delayed signal arrived. He curled his tongue in his mouth, feeling the tiny lump under the soft tissue. 'Ah, fuck it,' he said, eventually. 'Watch the game; if I've definitely lost, I'll try and hold out for as long as possible; somewhere, anywhere. When I'm obviously doing that, come in; zap us off here and make my apologies to Contact. If I just cave in… let it happen. I'll see how I feel tomorrow.' 'Very well,' the ship said, while Gurgeh sat stroking his beard, thinking that, if nothing else, he'd been given the choice. But if they hadn't been going to remove the evidence and possibly cause a diplomatic incident anyway, would Contact have been so accommodating? It didn't matter. But he knew in his heart, after that conversation, he'd lost the will to win. The ship had more news. It had just received a signal from Chamlis Amalk-ney, promising a longer message soon, but for the mean time just letting him know that Olz Hap had finally done it; she'd achieved a Full Web. A Culture player had - at last - produced the ultimate Stricken result. The young lady was the toast of Chiark and the Culture game-players. Chamlis had already congratulated her on Gurgeh's behalf, but expected he'd want to send her a signal of his own. It wished him well. Gurgeh switched the screen off and sat back. He sat and stared at the blank space for a while, unsure what to know, or think, or remember, or even be. A sad smile touched one side of his face, for a while. Flere-Imsaho floated over to his shoulder. 'Jernau Gurgeh. Are you tired?' He turned to it eventually. 'What? Yes; a little.' He stood up, stretched. 'Doubt I'll sleep much, though.' 'I thought that might be the case. I wondered if you would like to come with me.' 'What, to look at birds? I don't think so, drone. Thanks anyway.' 'I wasn't thinking of our feathered friends, actually. I have not always gone to watch them when I've gone out at nights. Sometimes I went to different parts of the city; to look for whatever species of birds might be there, at first, but later because… well; because.' Gurgeh frowned. 'Why do you want me to come with you?' 'Because we might be leaving here rather quickly tomorrow, and it occurred to me that you've seen very little of the city.' Gurgeh waved one hand. 'Za showed me quite enough of that.' 'I doubt he showed you what I'm thinking of. There are many different things to see.' 'I'm not interested in seeing the sights, drone.' 'The sights I'm thinking of will interest you.' 'Would they now?' 'I believe so. I think I know you well enough to tell. Please come, Jernau Gurgeh. You'll be glad, I swear. Please come. You did say you wouldn't sleep, didn't you? Well then, what do you have to lose?' The drone's fields were their normal green-yellow colour, quiet and controlled. Its voice was low, serious. The man's eyes narrowed. 'What are you up to, drone?' 'Please, please come with me, Gurgeh.' The drone floated off towards the nose of the module. Gurgeh stood, watching it. It stopped by the door from the lounge. 'Please, Jernau Gurgeh. I swear you won't regret this.' Gurgeh shrugged. 'Yeah, yeah, all right.' He shook his head. 'Let's go out to play,' he muttered to himself. He followed the drone as it moved towards the module nose. There was a compartment there with a couple of AG bikes, a few floater harnesses and some other pieces of equipment. 'Put on a harness, please. I won't be a moment.' The drone left Gurgeh to fasten the AG harness on over his shorts and shirt. It reappeared shortly afterwards holding a long, black, hooded cloak. 'Now put this on, please.' Gurgeh put the cloak on over the harness. Flere-Imsaho shoved the hood up over his head and tied it so that Gurgeh's face was hidden from the sides and in deep shadow from the front. The harness didn't show beneath the thick material. The lights in the compartment dimmed and went out, and Gurgeh heard something move overhead. He looked up to see a square of dim stars directly above him. 'I'll control your harness, if that's all right with you,' the drone whispered. Gurgeh nodded. He was lifted quickly into the darkness. He did not dip again as he'd expected, but kept going up into the fragrant warmth of the city night. The cloak fluttered quietly around him; the city was a swirl of lights, a seemingly never-ending plain of scattered radiance. The drone was a small, still shadow by his shoulder. They set out over the city. They overflew roads and rivers and great buildings and domes, ribbons and clumps and towers of light, areas of vapour drifting over darkness and fire, rearing towers where reflections burned and lights soared, quivering stretches of dark water and broad dark parks of grass and trees. Finally they started to drop. They landed in an area where there were relatively few lights, dropping between two darkened, windowless buildings. His feet touched down in the dirt of an alley. 'Excuse me,' the drone said, and nudged its way into the hood until it was floating up-ended by Gurgeh's left ear. 'Walk down here,' it whispered. Gurgeh walked down the alley. He tripped over something soft, and knew before he turned it was a body. He looked closer at the bundle of rags, which moved a little. The person was curled up under tattered blankets, head on a filthy sack. He couldn't tell what sex it was; the rags offered no clue. 'Ssh,' the drone said as he opened his mouth to speak. 'That is just one of the loafers Pequil was talking about; somebody shifted off the land. He's been drinking; that's part of the smell. The rest is him.' It was only then that Gurgeh caught the stench rising from the still sleeping male. He almost gagged. 'Leave him,' Flere-Imsaho said. They left the alley. Gurgeh had to step over another two sleeping people. The street they found themselves on was dim and stank of something Gurgeh suspected was supposed to be food. A few people were walking about. 'Stoop a little,' the drone said. 'You'll pass for a Minan disciple dressed like this, but don't let the hood fall, and don't stand upright.' Gurgeh did as he was told. As he walked up the street, under the dim, grainy, flickering light of sporadic, monochrome streetlamps, he passed what looked like another drunk, lying against a wall. There was blood between the apex's less, and a dark, dried stream of it leading from his head. Gurgeh stopped. 'Don't bother,' came the little voice. 'He's dying. Probably been in a fight. The police don't come here too often. And nobody's likely to call for medical aid; he's obviously been robbed, so they'd have to pay for the treatment themselves.' Gurgeh looked round, but there was nobody else near by. The apex's eyelids fluttered briefly, as though he was trying to open them. The fluttering stopped. 'There,' Flere-Imsaho said quietly. Gurgeh continued up the street. Screams came from high up in a grimy housing block on the far side of the street. 'Just some apex beating up his woman. You know for millennia females were thought to have no effect on the heredity of the children they bore? They've known for five hundred years that they do; a viral DNA analogue which alters the genes a woman's impregnated with. Nevertheless, under the law females are simply possessions. The penalty for murdering a woman is a year's hard labour, for an apex. A female who kills an apex is tortured to death over a period of days. Death by Chemicals. Said to be one of the worst. Keep walking.' They came to an intersection with a busier street. A male stood on the corner, shouting in a dialect Gurgeh didn't understand. 'He's selling tickets for an execution,' the drone said. Gurgeh raised his eyebrows, turned his head fractionally. 'I'm serious,' Flere-Imsaho said. Gurgeh shook his head all the same. Filling the middle of the street was a crowd of people. The traffic - only about half of it powered, the rest human-driven - was forced to mount the pavements. Gurgeh went to the back of the crowd, thinking that with his greater height he would be able to see what was happening, but he found people making way for him anyway, drawing him closer to the centre of the crowd. Several young apices were attacking an old male lying on the ground. The apices wore some sort of strange uniform, though somehow Gurgeh knew it was not an official uniform. They kicked the old male with a sort of poised savagery, as though the attack was some kind of competitive ballet of pain, and they were being evaluated on artistic impression as well as the raw torment and physical injury inflicted. 'In case you think this is staged in any way,' Flere-Imsaho whispered, 'it isn't. These people aren't paying anything to watch this, either. This is simply an old guy getting beaten up, probably just for the sake of it, and these people would rather watch than do anything to stop it.' As the drone spoke, Gurgeh realised he was at the front of the crowd. Two of the young apices looked up at him. In a detached way, Gurgeh wondered what would happen now. The two apices shouted at him, then they turned and pointed him out to the others. There were six of them. They all stood - ignoring the whimpering male on the ground behind them - and looked steadily at Gurgeh. One of them, the tallest, undid something in the tight, metallically decorated trousers he wore and hooked out the half-flaccid vagina in its turned-out position, and, with a wide smile, first held it out to Gurgeh, then turned round waving it at the others in the crowd. Nothing more. The young, identically clad apices grinned at the people for a while, then just walked away; each stepped, as though accidentally, on the head of the crumpled old male on the ground. The crowd started to drift off. The old man lay on the roadway, covered in blood. A sliver of grey bone poked through the arm of the tattered coat he wore, and there were teeth scattered on the road surface near his head. One leg lay oddly, the foot turned outwards, slack looking. He moaned. Gurgeh started forward and began to stoop. 'Do