Tolonen shook his head. "Not possible, I'm afraid."
"I'm sorry, General, but what do you mean?"
Tblonen leaned forward and held the top of one of Karr's huge arms. "I need you at once, that's why. I want you training for this operation from this evening. So that we can put the scheme into operation at a moment's notice."
"Is there no one else?"
Tblonen shook his head. "No. There is only one man in the whole of Chung Kuo who could carry out this scheme, and that's you, Karr. Chen will be all right. I'll see he has full backup. But I can't spare you. Not this time."
Karr considered a moment, then looked up again, smiling. "Then I'd best get busy, eh, General?"
OVERSEER BERGSON looked up as Chen entered. The room was dark but for a tight circle of light surrounding where he sat at a table in the center. He was bareheaded, his dark hair slicked back wetly, and he was wearing a simple silk pau, but Chen thought he recognized him at once. It was DeVore. He was almost certain it was. On the low table in front of him a wei chi board had been set up, seven rounded black stones placed on the handicap points, forming the outline of a huge letter H in the center of the grid. On either side of the board was a tray, one filled with white stones, the other with black. "Do you play, Tong Chou?"
Chen met DeVote's eyes, wondering for a moment if it was possible he, too, would see through the disguise, then dismissed the thought, remembering how DeVore had killed the man he, Chen, had hired to play himself that day five years ago when Kao Jyan had died. No, he thought, to you I am long Chou, the new worker. A bright man. Obedient. Quick to learn. But nothing more.
"My father played, Shih Bergson. I learned a little from him."
DeVore looked past Chen at the two henchmen and made a small gesture of dismissal with his chin. They went at once.
"Sit down, Tong Chou. Facing me. We'll talk as we play."
Chen moved into the circle of light and sat. DeVore watched him a moment, relaxed, his hands resting lightly on his knees,
then smiled.
"Those two whoVe just gone. They're useful men, but when it comes to this game they've shit in their heads instead of brains. Have you got shit in your head, Tong Chou? Are you a useful man?"
"I'm useful, Shih Bergson."
DeVore stared back at him a moment, then looked down.
"We'll see."
He took a white stone from the tray and set it down, two lines in, six down at the top left-hand corner of the board from where Chen sat—in shang, the south. Chen noticed how firmly yet delicately DeVore had held the stone between thumb and forefinger; how sharp the click of stone against wood had been as he placed it; how crisp and definite that movement had seemed. He studied the board awhile, conscious of his seven black stones, like fortresses marking out territory on the uncluttered battleground of the board. His seven and DeVore's one. That one so white it seemed to eclipse the dull power of his own.
Chen took a black stone from the tray and held it in his hand a moment, turning it between his fingers, experiencing the smooth coolness of it, the perfect roundness of its edges, the satisfying oblate feel of it. He shivered. He had never felt anything like it before; had never played with stones and board. It had always been machines. Machines, like the one in Kao Jyan's room.
He set the stone down smartly, taking his lead from DeVore, hearing once more that sharp, satisfying click of stone against wood. Then he sat back.
DeVore answered his move at once. Another white stone in the top left corner. An aggressive, attacking move. Unexpected. Pushing directly for the corner. Chen countered almost instinctively, his black stone placed between the two whites, cutting them. But at once DeVore clicked down another stone, forming a tiger's mouth about Chen's last black stone, surrounding it on three sides and threatening to take it unless . . .
Chen connected, forming an elbow of three black stones—a weak formation, though not disastrous, but already he was losing the initiative; letting DeVore's aggressive play force him back on the defensive. Already he had lost the comer. Six plays in and he had lost the first comer.
"Would you like ch'a, Tong Chou?"
He looked up from the board and met DeVore's eyes. Nothing. No trace of what he was thinking. Chen bowed. "I would be honored, Shih Bergson."
DeVore clapped his hands and, when a face appeared around the door, simply raised his right hand, two fingers extended. At the same time his left hand placed another stone. Two down, two in, strengthening his line and securing the corner. Only a fool would lose it now, and DeVore was no fool.
DeVore leaned back, watching him again. "How often did you play your father, Tong Chou?"
"Often enough when I was a child, Shih Bergson. But then he went away. When I was eight. I only saw him again last year. After his funeral."
Chen placed another stone, then looked back at DeVore. Nothing. No response at all. And yet DeVore, like the fictional Tong Chou, had "lost" his father as an eight-year-old.
"Unfortunate. And you've not played since?"
Chen took a breath, then studied DeVore's answer. He played so swiftly, almost as if he weren't thinking, just reacting. But Cheng knew better than to believe that. Every move DeVore made was carefully considered; all the possibilities worked out in advance. To play him one had to be as well prepared as he. And to beat him . . . ?
Chen smiled and placed another stone. "Occasionally. But mainly with machines. It's been some years since I've sat and played a game like this, Shih Bergson. I am honored that you find me worthy."
He studied the board again. The corner lost, almost certainly now, but his own position was much stronger and there was a good possibility of making territory on the top edge, in shang and dm, the west. Not only that, but DeVore's next move was forced. He had to play on the top edge, two in. To protect his line. He watched, then smiled inwardly as DeVore set down the next white stone exactly where he had known he would.
Behind him he heard the door open quietly. "There," said DeVore, indicating a space beside the play table. At once a second, smaller table was set down and covered with a thin cloth. A moment later a serving girl brought the kettle and two bowls, then knelt there, to Chen's right, wiping out the bowls.
"Wei chi is a fascinating game, don't you think, Tong Chou? Its rules are simple—there are only seven things to know—and yet mastery of the game is the work of a lifetime." Unexpectedly he laughed. "Tell me, Tong Chou, do you know the history of the game?"
Chen shook his head. Someone had once told him it had been developed at the same time as the computers, five hundred years ago, but the man who had told him that had been a know-nothing; a shit-brains, as DeVore would have called him. He had a sense that the game was much younger. A recent thing.
DeVore smiled. "How old do you think the game is, Tong Chou? A hundred years? Five hundred?"
Again Chen shook his head. "A hundred, Shih Bergson? Two hundred, possibly?"
DeVore laughed and then watched as the girl poured the ch'a and offered him the first bowl. He lowered his head politely, refusing, and she turned, offering the bowl to Chen. Chen also lowered his head slightly, refusing, and the girl turned back to DeVore. This time DeVore took the bowl in two hands and held it to his mouth to sip, clearly pleased by Chen's manners.
"Would it surprise you, Tong Chou, if I told you that the game we're playing is more than four and a half thousand years old? That it was invented by the Emperor Yao in approximately 2350 B.C.?"
Chen hesitated, then laughed as if surprised, realizing that DeVore must be mocking him. Chung Kuo was not that old, surely? He took the bowl the girl was now offering him and, with a bow to DeVore, sipped noisily.