Even before the game’s conclusion, it was obvious that Stile had it. Snack, shaken, resigned without going through the scoring procedure. Rung Seven was Stile’s.
Stile eased up on the glare—and Snack shook his head, feeling foolish. He understood how poorly he had played in the ambience of that malevolence—now that the pressure was off. At his top form he might reason-ably have beaten Stile, but he had been far below his standard. Stile himself was sorry, but he was above all a competitor, and he had needed this Rung. All his ma-lignance, the product of a lifetime’s reaction to the slight of his size, came out in concentrated form during competition of this nature, and it was a major key to his success. Stile was more highly motivated than most people, inherently, and he drove harder, and he never showed mercy in the Game.
The holder of Rung Six was a contrast. His name was Hulk, after an obscure comic character of a prior century he was thought to resemble, and he was a huge, powerful man. Hulk was not only ready but eager to meet the challenge. He was a specialist in the physical games, but was not stupid. This was his last year of tenure, so he was trying to move into qualifying position; unfortunately his last challenge to Rung Five had been turned back on a Game of chance, and he could not rechallenge until the rung-order shifted, or until he had successfully answered a challenge to his own Rung. Stile was that challenge. The audience, aware of this, had swelled to respectable size; both Stile and Hulk were popular Gamesmen, and they represented the extremes of physical appearance, adding to that novelty. The giant and the midget, locked in combat!
Stile got the numbered face of the prime grid, this time. For once he had the opening break! He could steer the selection away from Hulk’s specialty of the physical.
But Stile hesitated. Two things influenced him. First, the element of surprise: why should he do what his opponent expected, which was to choose the MENTAL column? Hulk was pretty canny, though he tried to conceal this, just as Stile tried to obscure his physical abilities. Any mistake an opponent might make in estimating the capacities of a player was good news for that player. Hulk would choose the NAKED row, putting it into the box of straight mental games, where surely he had some specialties in reserve. Second, it would be a prime challenge and an exhilarating experience to take Hulk in his region of strength—a considerable show for the watching masses.
No, Stile told himself. This was merely his foolishness, a reaction to the countless times he had been disparagingly called a pygmy. He had a thing about large men, a need to put them down, to prove he was better than they, and to do it physically. He knew this was fatuous; large men were no more responsible for their size than Stile was for his own. Yet it was an incubus, a constant imperative that would never yield to logic. He wanted to humble this giant, to grind him down ignominiously before the world. He had to.
Thus it came up 1A—PHYSICAL NAKED. The audience made a soft “oooh” of surprise and expectation.
In the muted distance came someone’s calclass="underline" “Stile’s going after Hulk in 1A!” and a responding cry of amazement.
Hulk looked up, and they exchanged a fleeting smile over the unit; both of them liked a good audience. In fact, Stile realized, he was more like Hulk than unlike him, in certain fundamental respects. It was push-pull; Stile both liked and disliked, envied and resented the other man, wanting to be like him while wanting to prove he didn’t need to be like him.
But had he, in his silly imperative, thrown away any advantage he might have had? Hulk’s physical prowess was no empty reputation. Stile had made the grand play—and might now pay the consequence. Loss—and termination of employment, when he most needed the support of an understanding employer. Stile began to feel the weakness of uncertainty.
They played the next grid. This, he realized suddenly, was the same one he had come to with Sheen, when he met her in her guise of a woman. Of a living woman. That Dust Slide—he remembered that with a certain fondness. So much had happened since then! He had suffered knee injury, threats against his life, dis-overed the frame of Phaze, befriended a lady unicorn and gentleman werewolf, and was now making his move to enter the Tourney—two years before his time. A life-time of experience in about ten days!
The subgrid’s top facet listed SEPARATE—INACTIVE—COMBAT—COOPERATIVE, and this was the one Stile had. He was tempted to go for COMBAT, but his internal need to prove himself did not extend to such idiocy. He could hold his own in most martial arts—but he remembered the problem he had had trying to throw the goon, in the fantasy frame, and Hulk was the wrestling champion of the over-age-thirty men. A good big man could indeed beat a good small man, other things being equal. Stile selected SEPARATE.
Hulk’s options were for the surfaces: FLAT—VARIABLE—DISCONTINUITY—LIQUID. Hulk was a powerful swimmer—but Stile was an expert diver, and these were in the same section. Stile’s gymnastic abilities gave him the advantage on discontinuous surfaces too; he could do tricks on the trapeze or parallel bars the larger man could never match. Hulk’s best bet was to opt for VARIABLE, which included mountain climbing and sliding. A speed-hike up a mountain slope with a twenty-kilogram pack could finish Stile, since there were no allowances for sex or size in the Game. Of course Stile would never allow himself to be trapped like that, but Hulk could make him sweat to avoid it.
But Hulk selected FLAT. There was a murmur of surprise from the audience. Had Hulk expected Stile to go for another combination, or had he simply miscalculated? Probably the latter; Stile had a special touch with the grid. This, too, was part of his Game expertise.
Now they assembled the final grid. They were in the category of races, jumps, tumbling and calisthenics. Stile placed Marathon in the center of the nine-square grid, trying to jar his opponent. Excessive development of muscle in the upper section was a liability in an endurance run, because it had to be carried along uselessly while the legs and heart did most of the work. Hulk, in effect, was carrying that twenty-kilo pack.
Hulk, undaunted, came back with the standing broad jump, another specialty of his. He had a lot of mass, but once he got it aloft it carried a long way. They filled in the other boxes with trampoline flips, pushups, twenty-kilometer run, hundred-meter dash, precision backflips, running broad jump, and handstand race.
They had formed the grid artfully to prevent any vertical or horizontal three-in-a-row lines, so there was no obvious advantage to be obtained here. Since Stile had made the extra placement. Hulk had choice of facets. They made their selections, and it came up 2B, dead center: Marathon.
Stile relaxed. Victory! But Hulk did not seem discouraged. Strange.
“Concede?” Stile inquired, per protocol.
“Declined.”
So Hulk actually intended to race. He was simply not a distance runner; Stile was. What gave the man his confidence? There was no way he could fake Stile out; this was a clear mismatch. As far as Stile knew. Hulk had never completed a marathon race. The audience, too, was marveling. Hulk should have conceded. Did he know something others didn’t, or was he bluffing?
Well, what would be, would be. Hulk would keep the pace for a while, then inevitably fall behind, and when Stile got a certain distance ahead there would be a mandatory concession. Maybe Hulk preferred to go down that way—or maybe he hoped Stile would suffer a cramp or pull a muscle on the way. Accidents did happen on occasion, so the outcome of a Game was never quite certain until actually played through. Stile’s knee injury was now generally known; perhaps Hulk overestimated its effect.