“No need to bother,” Bailey said shortly.
“The Zoop tower? A set or two of Whirl? Or perhaps you’d find Slam more suited to your mood . . .”
“Candidly, Sir Dovo, I find these toys tedious.” Bailey dismissed the entire roomful of gambling machines with an airy wave of his hand, turning away as if to leave the room. At once, Dovo’s voice reached after him.
“Surely, Sir Jannock, you’ll allow me the opportunity to reinstate the club in your good graces by offering you play suitable to a gentleman of your undoubted talents?” There was an unmistakable trace of sarcasm in his tone.
Bailey turned. “My esteem for your delightful club remains as high as ever,” he said acidly. “I’m grateful for your concern, but—”
“If it’s intellectual exercise you crave, possibly a quarter or two of shan-shan with Sir Drace, our club master, might serve.” Dovo’s tone was plainly badgering now. There were knowing smiles on the smooth, handsomely chiseled faces around him. Wilf hovered at Bailey’s elbow, making small, distressed sounds.
“I dislike shan-shan intensely,” Bailey said disdainfully, starting on. “Superficial.”
“A round of Tri-chess, then. Our membership includes a former grand champion who might offer some slight challenge. Or perhaps a set of Parallel. Or a flutter of Ten-deck.” Other voices chimed in with suggestions. “What about a heptet of Reprise?” someone called. Bailey halted, turned slowly, as if brought to bay. Maliciously smiling faces gazed comfortably at him, enjoying the moment’s diversion, waiting to savor whatever parting shot he might muster.
“Reprise?” he said.
“Why, yes,” Dovo bobbed his head. “Have I succeeded in intriguing you? Or is it, too, numbered among these disciplines not favored with your approval?”
Bailey let the silence lengthen. Reprise, the knowledge came into his mind, was a game for the select few who had devoted a lifetime to its mastery. Even to learn the basic moves of the seventy-seven pieces required a year of intensive study. The recording and encephalotape transmission of such a skill was a serious crime. But he, thanks to the deft fingers of a tapelegger, had it all . . .
“I find Reprise a most delightful pastime,” he said loftily. “I should very much enjoy a set.”
Dovo looked blank. With an effort, he hitched a smile of sorts back in place. “Excellent,” he said in a strained voice, turning to the man beside him. “Barlin, perhaps you’d be so good as to oblige Sir Jannock—”
“I had assumed, Sir Dovo, that you yourself would honor me,” Bailey said. “Or perhaps you have a previous engagement at the Zoop tower.” It was his turn to smile knowingly.
“Very well,” Dovo said shortly. “I’ll oblige you.”
21
There was a surf murmur of chatter as Bailey took the seat offered him before a yard-cube wire construction scattered through with colored glass beads which glowed to sudden brilliance as Dovo activated the board. Each of the nexi, as the beads were called, could be moved according to a complex code of interrelating rules. The object of the game was to achieve a configuration which outranked the opposing one, again in consonance with an elaborate structure of interlocking taboos, prohibitions, and compulsions. With a part of his mind, Bailey stared dazedly at the incomprehensible flash and glitter as Dovo took up his initial grouping; but another part of his brain observed with mild amusement the naïveté of the other’s elementary classroom opening.
“For an M per point, as before?” he inquired innocently.
“Come now, Sir Jannock,” Dovo snapped. “For an aficionado of your attainments, one hundred M should not be excessive.”
“Very well,” Bailey said casually. “Will you open?” He smiled, conceding the prized advantage to his opponent. Dovo nodded shortly and after a moment’s hesitation, made a clumsy approche à droit, technically legal enough, in that each of the forty-one nexi he put into play moved within their statutory limits; but pathetically inept in the aimlessness of the positioning. Bailey felt his hands move almost without volition, moving over the charged plate, shifting the beads en gestalt into a graceful spiral which twined among and around Dovo’s hapless line-up. The latter stared for a long moment at the cage; his hands twitched toward the plate, twitched back. He looked up to meet Bailey’s eyes.
“Why, I . . . I’m englobed,” he choked. “In one!”
A surprised murmur rose, became a patter of applause. Cries of congratulation rang. Dovo smiled ruefully across at Bailey.
“Neatly done,” he said. “Masterfully played.” He smiled now with genuine warmth. He referred, Bailey/Jannock knew, not only to the smashing victory at the cage, but to the entire finesse, from the moment of Bailey’s entry into the room. Boredom had, for the moment, been dispelled—the greatest service one could perform for the members of the Apollo Club.
Bailey relaxed, grinning in a way appropriate to a successful practical joker. “No more masterfully than you abolished me at Flan, Sir Dovo.”
The latter handed over a gold-edged cred-card, glowing with the full charge of one hundred thousand Q’s. Bailey waved it away. “Add it to the sweepfund,” he said carelessly, a gesture calculated to lay at rest any lingering suspicion of shady motivations on his part.
Smiling in a relaxed way, he listened to the chatter around him, gauging the correct moment for the proposal to which the elaborate farce had been the preliminary . . .
There was a stir at the outer fringe of the crowd. A square-chinned, clean-cut man appeared, followed by a sleek, round-faced member in baroque robes, his figure as near to corpulent as Crust social pressure would allow.
“Sir Dovo, Sir Jannock—a bit of luck! I found Sir Swithin just passing through the atrium; I mentioned our guest’s clever ploy . . .”
“Swithin!” Dovo ducked his head. “A stroke of fortune indeed! Perhaps you’re acquainted with our young friend, Sir Jannock . . . ?”
The new arrival looked Bailey over coolly. Bailey wondered what version of the incident he had heard. “No, I’ve not met this young man. Which surprises me.” Swithin had a buttery, self-indulgent voice. He glanced at the cage where the nexi still glowed in the end-game positions. “I was under the impression I knew the entire cadre of the gaming fraternity,” he said somewhat doubtfully.
“I’m not a ranked Reprisist,” Bailey said. “I play only for my own amusement.”
Swithin nodded, giving the cage a final glance. “Interesting,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll honor me . . . ?” Without waiting for assent, he plopped himself in the chair Dovo had vacated. With a flick of his hand he returned the nexi to starting line-up and looked at Bailey expectantly.
Bailey hesitated, then sat down. “The honor is mine,” he said. “But one condition . . . token stakes only.”
Swithin shot him a startled look, his lower lip thrust out. “What’s that? Token stakes? Am I to understand—”
“Having just taken a hundred M from me at one move, Sir Jannock is naturally desirous of not appearing greedy,” Dovo spoke up quickly.
Swithin grunted, brushed the plate with his plump, jeweled fingers, sending the glowing beads darting to positions scattered apparently at random throughout the playing frame. But it was only to the uninitiated, Bailey/Jannock saw at a glance, that the move seemed capricious. Swithin had taken up a well-nigh impregnable stance, each one of the seventy-seven nexi perfectly placed in an optimum relationship to all the others—a complex move of which only a master player would be capable. But a move which carried within it a concomitant weakness. Once broached in the smallest particular, Swithin’s complex structure would collapse into meaningless sub-groupings. It was a win-or-lose gambit; an attempt to smash him at one blow, as he himself had smashed Dovo’s pathetic opening.
Bailey pretended to study the layout gravely, while a murmur passed through the spectators. Swithin sat back, his features as expressionless as a paw-licking cat. Hesitantly, Bailey-Jannock touched his plate. There was a seemingly trivial readjustment of nexi in east dexter chief. Swithin glanced up in surprise, as if about to question whether the minor shift were indeed Bailey’s only reply. Then he checked, looked again at the cage. Slowly, the color drained from his face. He ducked his head stiffly.
“Well played, sir,” he said in a strained tone.
“What is it?” “I don’t understand?” “What are they waiting for?” The remarks died away as Swithin cleared the cage.
Only then did noise burst out as the watchers realized what they had seen. Dovo beamed proudly on his new discovery as Swithin glowered. Reports that the club champion had been beaten in one lightning move were being relayed quite audibly across the room.
“Once again, sir?” the plump man said harshly. “For an adequate stake this time.”
“If you will,” Bailey/Jannock said pleasantly. It was his opening now, a distinct advantage. Swithin drew a sharp breath as it dawned on him how neatly he had been ployed into throwing away his own opening on a flashy but unsound attack. “Would one thousand M seem about right?” Bailey inquired in the same easy tone.