Around him formed the hollowness of a chamber, a vast enclosure of some nebulous sort, and across from him, facing him across a table, were vugs. He counted twenty of them and then gave up; the vugs were everywhere in front of him, silent and motionless but somehow doing something. They were ceaselessly busy and at first he could not imagine what they were doing. And then, all at once, he understood.
Play, the vugs thought-propagated.
The board was so enormous that it petrified him. Its sides, its two ends, faded, disappeared into the understructure of the reality in which he sat. And yet, directly before him, he made out cards, clear-cut and separable. The vugs waited; he was supposed to draw a card.
It was his turn.
Thank god, Joe Schilling said to himself, that I'm able to play, that I know how. It would not matter to them if I didn't; this Game has been going on too long for that to matter. How long? Not knowing. Perhaps the vugs themselves did not know. Or remember.
The card he drew read twelve.
And now, he thought, the sequence which is the heart of The Game. The moment in which I bluff or do not bluff, in which I advance my piece either twelve or null-twelve. But they can read my thoughts, he realized. How can I play The Game with them, then? It's not fair!
And yet he had to play anyhow.
That's the situation we're in, he said to himself. And we can't extricate ourselves, any of us. And even great Game-
players, such as Jerome Luckman, can die at it. Die trying to succeed.
We have been waiting a long time for you, a vug thought-propagated to him. Please don't keep us waiting any longer.
He did not know what to do. And what was the stake? What deed had he put up? He looked around but he saw nothing, no pot or hopper.
A bluffing game in which telepaths participate for stakes which do not exist, Joe Schilling realized. What a travesty. How can I get out of this? Is there a way out? He did not even know that much.
This, the Platonic ultimate template of The Game, a reproduction of which had been impressed on Terra for Terrans to play; he understood. And yet it did not help him to understand because he still could not get out of it. He picked up his piece and began to advance it, square by square. Twelve squares ahead. He read the inscription. Gold rush on your land! You win $50,000,000 in royalties from two producing mines!
No need to bluff, Joe Schilling said to himself. What a square; the best he had ever heard of. No such square existed on the boards of Earth.
He placed his piece on that square and sat back.
Would anyone challenge him? Accuse him of bluffing?
He waited. There was no motion, no indication of life from the near-infinite row of vugs. Well? he thought. I'm ready. Go ahead.
It is a bluff, a voice declared.
He could not make out which vug had challenged him; they seemed to have expressed themselves in unison. Had their telepathic ability become faulty at this critical moment? he wondered. Or had the talent been deliberately suspended for the purposes of playing The Game? "You're wrong," he said, and turned over his card. "Here it is." He glanced down.
It was no longer a twelve.
It was an eleven.
You are a bad bluffer, Mr. Schilling, the corporate group of vugs thought. Is this how you generally play?
"I'm under tension," Joe Schilling said. "I misread the
card." He was furious and badly frightened. "There's some kind of cheating going on," he said. "Anyhow, what's the stakes in this?"
The vugs answered, In this Game, Detroit.
"I don't see the deed," Joe Schilling said, looking up and down the table.
Look again, the vugs said.
In the center of the table he saw what appeared to be a glass ball, the size of a paperweight. Something complex and shiny and alive flickered within the globe and he bent to scrutinize it. A city, in miniature. Buildings and streets, houses, factories...
it was Detroit.
We want that next, the vugs told him.
Reaching out, Joe Schilling moved his piece back one square. "I really landed on that," he said.
The Game exploded.
"I cheated," Joe Schilling said. "Now it's impossible to play. Do you grant that? I've wrecked The Game."
Something hit him over the head and he fell, dropped instantly, into the engulfing grayness of unconsciousness.
XIV
THE NEXT HE knew Joseph Schilling stood on a desert, and feeling the reassuring tug of Terra's gravity once more. The sun, blinding him, spilled down in gold-hot familiar torrents and he squinted, trying to see, holding up his hand to ward off its rays.
"Don't stop," a voice said.
He opened his eyes and saw, walking beside him across the uneven sand, Doctor Philipson; the elderly, sprightly little doctor was smiling.
"Keep moving," Doctor Philipson said in a pleasant, conventional tone of voice, "or we'll die out here. And you wouldn't like that."
"Explain it to me," Joe Schilling said. But he kept on
walking. Doctor Philipson remained beside him, walking with easy, long strides.
"You certainly broke up The Game." Doctor Philipson chuckled. "It never occurred to them that you'd cheat."
"They cheated first. They changed the value of the card!"
"To them, that's legitimate, a basic move in The Game. It's a favorite play by the Titanian Game-players to exert their extra-sensory faculties on the card; it's supposed to be a contest between the sides; the one who's drawn the card struggles to keep its value constant, you see? By yielding to the altered value you lost, but by moving your piece in conformity to it you thwarted them."
"What happened to the stake?"
"Detroit?" Doctor Philipson laughed. "It remains a stake, unclaimed. You see, the Titanian Game-players believe in following the rules. You may not believe that but it's true. Their rules, yes; but rules nonetheless. Now I, don't know what they'll do; they've been waiting to play against you in particular for a long time, but I'm sure they won't try again after what just happened. It must have been psychically unnerving for them; it'll be a great while before they recover."
"What faction do they represent? The extremists?"
"Oh no; the Titanian Game-players are exceptionally moderate in their political thinking."
"What about you?" Schilling said.
Doctor Philipson said, "I admit to being an extremist. That's why I'm here on Terra." In the blinding mid-day sunlight his heat-needle sparkled as it rose and fell with his long strides. "We're almost there, Mr. Schilling. One more hill and you'll see it. It's built low to the ground, attracts little attention."
"Are all the vugs here on Earth extremists?"
"No," Doctor Philipson said.
"What about E. B. Black, the detective?"
Doctor Philipson said nothing.
"Not of your party," Schilling decided.
There was no answer; Philipson was not going to say.
"I should have trusted it when I had the chance," Schilling said.
"Perhaps so," Doctor Philipson said, nodding.
Ahead, Schilling saw a Spanish-style building with tile roof and pale adobe walls, contained by an ornamental railing of black iron. The Dig Inn Motel, the neon sign-turned off and inert—read.
"Is Laird Sharp here?" Schilling asked.
"Sharp is on Titan," Doctor Philipson said. "Perhaps I will bring him back, but certainly not at this time." Doctor Philipson, briefly, scowled. "An agile-brained creature, that Sharp. I must admit I don't care for him." With a white linen handkerchief he mopped his red and perspiring fore-head, slowing down a little now, as they came up onto the flagstone path of the motel. "And as for your cheating, I didn't much care for that either." He seemed tense and irritable, now. Schilling wondered why.