"No. . ." Ebert chose the next few words more carefully. "I simply remember how harmful you were subsequently. How dangerous. Even to meet you like this, it's—"
"Fraught with danger?" DeVore laughed again, a hearty, sincere laughter that strangely irritated the younger man.
DeVore looked across the room. In one comer a wei chi board had been set up, seven black stones forming an H on the otherwise empty grid.
"I see you've thought of everything," he said, smiling again. "Do you want to play while we talk?"
Ebert hesitated, then gave a nod. DeVore seemed somehow too bright, too at ease, for his liking.
The two men stood and went to the table in the corner.
"Where shall I sit? Here?"
Ebert smiled. "If you like." It was exactly where he wanted DeVore. At that point he was covered by all three of the marksmen concealed overhead. If he tried anything. . .
DeVore sat, perfectly at ease, lifting the lid from the pot, then placed the first of his stones in tsu, the north. Ebert sat, facing him, studying him a moment, then lifted the lid from his pot and took one of the black stones between his fingers. He had prepared his men beforehand. If he played in one particular place—in the middle of the board, on the edge of shang, the south, on the intersection beside his own central stone—then they were to open fire, killing DeVore. Otherwise they were to fire only if Ebert's life was endangered.
Ebert reached across, playing at the top of shang, two places out from his own comer stone, two lines down from the edge.
"Well?" he said, looking at DeVore across the board. "You're not here to ask after my health. What do you want?"
DeVore was studying the board as if he could see the game to come—the patterns of black stones and white, their shape and interaction. "Me? I don't want anything. At least, nothing from you, Hans. That's not why I'm here." He set down a white stone, close by Ebert's last, then looked up, smiling again. "I'm here because there's something you might want."
Ebert stared at him, astonished, then laughed. "What could I possibly want from you?" He slapped a stone down almost carelessly, three spaces out from the first.
DeVore studied the move, then shook his head. He took a stone from his pot and set it down midway between the comer and the center, as if to divide some future formation of Ebert's stones.
"You have everything you need, then, Hans?"
Ebert narrowed his eyes and slapped down another stone irritably. It was two spaces out from the center, between DeVore's and his own, so that the five stones now formed a broken diagonal line from the comer to the center—two black, one white, then two more black. 3
DeVore smiled broadly. "That's an interesting shape, don't you think? But it's weak, like the Seven. Black might outnumber white, but white isn't surrounded." Ebert sat back. "Meaning what?"
DeVore set down another stone, pushing out toward ch'u, the west. A triangle of three white stones now sat to the right of a triangle of black stones. Ebert stared at the position a moment, then looked up into DeVore's face again.
DeVore was watching him closely, his eyes suddenly sharp, alert, the smile gone from his lips.
"Meaning that you serve a master you despise. Accordingly, you play badly. Winning or losing has no meaning for you. No interest."
Ebert touched his upper teeth with his tongue, then took another stone and placed it, eight down, six out in shang. It was a necessary move; a strengthening move. It prevented DeVore from breaking his line while expanding the territory he now surrounded. The game was going well for him.
"You read my mind then, Shih DeVore? You know how I think?"
"I know that you're a man of considerable talent, Hans. And I know that you're bored. I can see it in the things you do, the decisions you make. I can see how you hold the greater part of yourself back constantly. Am I wrong, then? Is what I see really the best you can do?"
DeVore set down another stone. Unexpectedly it cut across the shape Ebert had just made, pushing into the territory he had mapped out. It seemed an absurd move, a weak move, but Ebert knew that DeVore was a master at this game. He would not make such a move without good reason.
"It seems you want me to cut you. But if I do, it means you infiltrate this area here." He sketched it out.
"And if you don't?"
"Well, it's obvious. You cut me. You separate my groups." DeVore smiled. "So. A dilemma. What to choose?"
Ebert looked up again, meeting his eyes. He knew that DeVore was saying something to him through the game. But what? Was DeVore asking him to make a choice? The Seven or himself? Was he asking him to come out in the open and declare himself?
He put down his stone, cutting DeVore, keeping his own lines open. "You say the Seven are weak, but you—are you any stronger?" "At present, no. Look at me, I'm like these five white stones here on the board. I'm cut and scattered and outnumbered. But I'm a good player and the odds are better than when I started. Then they were seven to one. Now"—he placed his sixth stone, six down, four out in shang, threatening the corner—"it's only two to one. And every move improves my chances. I'll win. Eventually."
Ebert placed another black stone in the diagonal line, preventing DeVore from linking with his other stones, but again it allowed DeVore space within his own territory and he sensed that DeVore would make a living group there.
"You know, I've always admired you, Howard. You would have been Marshal eventually. You would have run things for the Seven."
"That's so . . ." DeVore smiled openly, showing his small but perfect teeth. "But it was never enough for me to serve another. Nor you. We find it hard to bow to lesser men."
Ebert laughed, then realized how far DeVore had brought him. But it was true. Everything he said was true. He watched DeVore set another stone down, shadowing his own line, sketching out territory inside his own, robbing him of what he'd thought was safely his.
"I see." he said, meaning two things. For a time, then, they simply played. Forty moves later he could see that it was lost. DeVore had taken five of his stones from the board and had formed a living group of half of shang. Worse, he had pushed out toward ch'u and down into p'ing. Now a small group of four of his stones was threatened at the center and there was only one way to save it—to play in the space in shang beside the central stone, the signal for his men to open fire on DeVore. Ebert sat back, holding the black stone between his fingers, then laughed.
"It seems you've forced me to a decision."
DeVore smiled back at him. "I was wondering what you would do."
Ebert eyed him sharply. "Wondering?"
"Yes. I wasn't sure at first. But now I know. You won't play that space. You'll play here instead." He leaned across and touched the intersection with his fingertip. It was the move that gave only temporary respite. It did not save the group.
"Why should I do that?"
"Because you don't want to kill me. And because you're seriously interested in my proposition."
Ebert laughed, astonished. "You knew!"
"Oh, I know you've three of your best stormtroopers here, Hans. I've been conscious of the risks I've been taking. But how about you?"
"I think I know," Ebert said, even more cautiously. Then, with a small laugh of admiration he set the stone down where DeVore had indicated.
"Good." DeVore leaned across and set a white stone in the special space, on the edge of shang, beside Ebert's central stone, then leaned back again. "I'm certain you'll have assessed the potential rewards, too." He smiled, looking down at his hands. "King of the world, Hans. That's what you could be. T'ang of all Chung Kuo."
Ebert stared back at him, his mouth open but set.