It was time for his next Game. Round Five—the number of entrants was shrinking now, as more players lost their second match and were washed out, so things would move along faster. But there remained a long way to go. This time he was paired with a child, an eleven-year-old boy, not one of the good ones. “Your tenure can’t be up!” Stile said.
“My folks’ tenure is up,” the boy explained. “I’m leaving with them anyway, so why not go out in style?” So he had nothing to lose. Just in it for fun, to see how far he could go. And he had gotten to Round Five, perhaps helping to eliminate three or four entrants to whom this was a matter verging on life and death. It was the irony of the Tourney that many of those who had no need should win, while those who had to win—lost.
Their turn came, and they went to the grid. Stile got the letters, and was afraid the boy would go for CHANCE—and was correct. It came up 3C, Machine-Assisted CHANCE. Any CHANCE was bad; Stile had tried to mitigate it, but ultimately it remained potential disaster. If he could steer it into one of the more complex mechanical variants, a pinball machine—for a person like him, with experience and a fine touch, one of those became a game of skill.
But it came out wrong, again. The lad played with luck and the uncanny insight of the young, making mischief. It settled on an ancient-type slot machine, a one-armed bandit. One hundred percent chance. Each player pulled the handle, and the kid came up with the higher configuration. “I won! I won! I won!” he shrieked. “Hee-hee-hee!” Stile had lost. Just like that. A nothing-Game, against a dilettante child who had nothing to gain—and Stile was suddenly half washed out. His nightmare had happened.
Sheen found him and got him home. Stile was numbed with the unfairness of it. It was a demeaning loss, so point-less, so random. All his considerable Game-skills had been useless. Where did his chances of winning the Tourney stand now? One in a hundred?
“I know it hurts you,” Sheen said solicitously. “I would suffer for you if I could, but I am not programmed for that. I am programmed only for you, yourself, your person and your physical welfare.”
“It’s foolish,” Stile said, forcing himself to snap out of it. “I comprehend the luck of the Game. I have won randomly many times. This is why the Tourney is double-elimination—so that a top contender shall not be eliminated by a single encounter with a duffer in CHANCE. I simply have to take my loss and go on.”
“Yes.”
“But dammit it hurts!”
“Of course.”
“How can you understand?” he snapped.
“I love you.”
Which was about as effective a rebuttal as she could have made. “Your whole existence is like a lost Game, isn’t it,” he said, squeezing her hand.
“Yes.”
“It seems as though luck is turning against me. My Games have been running too close, and in Phaze I lost a contest to a unicorn, and now this—“
They were home. “There is a message,” Sheen said as they entered. She went to the receptacle and drew it out. “A holo-tape.”
“Who would send me a tape?” Stile asked, perplexed.
“Another trap?”
“Not with my friends watching.” She set it in the play-slot.
The holograph formed. The Rifleman stood before them. “I pondered before relaying this edited report to you, Stile,” the Citizen said. “But a wager is a wager, and I felt this was relevant. I suspect this tape reveals the general nature of the information you would have given me, had you lost our ballgame, so I hardly feel cheated. I was not able to ascertain who has tried to hurt you, but it seems likely that you were the intended victim of this sequence, and there-fore this does provide a hint.” He frowned. “I apologize for acquitting my debt in this manner. Yet it is best you have the detail. I hope that this at least forwards your quest. Adieu.” The Citizen faded out with a little wave.
“Why is he so diffident?” Stile asked. “That’s not the way of a Citizen.”
“He uses the term ‘victim,’” Sheen pointed out. “This will not be pretty.”
“Hulk! Something’s happened—“
The holograph formed a new image: Hulk, talking to Sheen herself. The man seemed even larger than normal, in the confines of the apartment. His head barely cleared the doorway. “Thank you, Sheen,” Hulk said, smiling down at her. Sheen was lovely, looking absolutely human, but of course Hulk knew the truth.
“I never knew this was being recorded!” the actual Sheen exclaimed, looking at her holo-image.
“Citizens can have anything recorded,” Stile reminded her. “All the holo-pickups spread throughout the domes of Proton are at their service.”
“I know that. I just didn’t realize I was the subject, in your absence.”
“You may be the subject right now.”
“Oh, shut up and watch the show.”
They watched the holo-Hulk depart, the image sliding in and out of the scene to simulate his motion. He stopped at a communication screen, called Information, and received a slip of paper, evidently an address. The self-willed machines had provided it, of course; Stile hoped the Rifleman had not pursued that ramification.
Hulk read the address and started walking again. Suddenly he was entering a jetporter—and as suddenly emerging at a far dome. The edited tape, of course, skipping across the nonessentials. It was easy to follow, since standard entertainment-holos were done the same way. Hulk arrived at an isolated dome, similar to so many favored by Citizens. This one was accessible by monorail across the sand, so that any visitors were visible well before arrival. Hulk stepped down as the carriage halted, and stood on the lawn, looking at the main building.
It was an almost perfect replica of the Blue Demesnes.
Stile could well understand the amazement of the big man. Who would have thought that such a castle existed in the frame of Proton? It was probably on the same geographic site, too, conforming perfectly to the alternate frame. The frames did tend to align, as Stile had discovered the hard way; when a person died in one, he was likely to die in the other too. Stile had narrowly escaped death in Proton at the time the Blue Adept was murdered in Phaze. Then, in what was apparently another way for the frames to equalize, he had discovered the curtain and crossed over. Thus each frame had Stile, again—in turn. This suggested that the use of the curtain was not coincidental, but in-evitable—when an imbalance existed between the frames. But now here was Hulk—seemingly back where he had started from. And surely the Lady Blue was here, for this was where Sheen had sent him to find her, based on the information her machine friends had provided. But the Lady could not hold the position here that she did in Phaze...
Hulk, evidently having completed a similar mental sequence, strode forward toward the castle. There was one way to find out!
There was a guard at the gate. He stood up straight as Hulk approached, but there was no way he could match Hulk’s height. “What is your business here, serf?”
“I am Hulk, on leave from employment pending the expiration of my tenure. I wish to meet Bluette.”
The guard turned to a communication pickup. “Serf with message for Bluette.”
“Thank you; I will be down.” It was the Lady Blue’s voice. Stile felt a prickle at his spine, though he knew this was merely the Lady’s alternate self. Of course she sounded the same; she was the same, in everything except situation. “I’m not sure I should watch this,” Stile muttered. “It doesn’t relate to my situation.”