“Correct. Genetechnologically, it’s been within their grasp for hundreds of years, but it’s forbidden. Illegal, if you remember what that means.” Gurgeh nodded. The machine went on. “It looks perverse and wasteful to us, but then one thing that empires are not about is the efficient use of resources and the spread of happiness; both are typically accomplished despite the economic short-circuiting — corruption and favouritism, mostly — endemic to the system.”
“Okay,” Gurgeh said. “I’ll have a lot of questions to ask later, but go on. What about this game?”
“Indeed. Here is one of the boards.”
“… You’re joking,” Gurgeh said eventually. He sat forward, gazing at the holo still picture spread before him.
The starfield and the three humanoids had vanished, and Gurgeh and the drone called Worthil were, seemingly, at one end of a huge room many times larger than the one they in fact occupied. Before them stretched a floor covered with a stunningly complicated and seemingly chaotically abstract and irregular mosaic pattern, which in places rose up like hills and dipped into valleys. Looking closer, it could be seen that the hills were not solid, but rather stacked, tapering levels of the same bewildering meta-pattern, creating linked, multi-layered pyramids over the fantastic landscape, which, on still closer inspection, had what looked like bizarrely sculpted game-pieces standing on its riotously coloured surface. The whole construction must have measured at least twenty metres to a side.
“That,” Gurgeh asked, “is a board?” He swallowed. He had never seen, never heard about, never had the least hint of a game as complicated as this one must surely be, if those were individual pieces and areas.
“One of them.”
“How many are there?” It couldn’t be real. It had to be a joke. They were making fun of him. No human brain could possibly cope with a game on such a scale. It was impossible. It had to be.
“Three. All that size, plus numerous minor ones, played with cards as well. Let me give you some of the background to the game.
“First, the name; ‘Azad’ means ‘machine’, or perhaps ‘system’, in the wide sense which would include any functioning entity, such as an animal or a flower, as well as something like myself, or a waterwheel. The game has been developed over several thousand years, reaching its present form about eight hundred years ago, around the same time as the institutionalisation of the species’ still extant religion. Since then the game has altered little. It dates in its finalised form, then, from about the time of the hegemonisation of the empire’s home planet, Eä, and the first, relativistic exploration of nearby space.”
Now the view was of a planet, hanging huge in the room in front of Gurgeh; blue-white and brilliant and slowly, slowly, revolving against a background of dark space. “Eä,” the drone said. “Now; the game is used as an absolutely integral part of the power-system of the empire. Put in the crudest possible terms, whoever wins the game becomes emperor.”
Gurgeh looked round slowly at the drone, which looked back. “I kid you not,” it said dryly.
“Are you serious?” Gurgeh said, nonetheless.
“Quite entirely,” the drone said. “Becoming emperor does constitute a rather unusual… prize,” the machine said, “and the whole truth, as you might imagine, is much more complicated than that. The game of Azad is used not so much to determine which person will rule, but which tendency within the empire’s ruling class will have the upper hand, which branch of economic theory will be followed, which creeds will be recognised within the religious apparat, and which political policies will be followed. The game is also used as an exam for both entry into and promotion within the empire’s religious, educational, civil administrational, judicial and military establishments.
“The idea, you see, is that Azad is so complex, so subtle, so flexible and so demanding that it is as precise and comprehensive a model of life as it is possible to construct. Whoever succeeds at the game succeeds in life; the same qualities are required in each to ensure dominance.”
“But…” Gurgeh looked at the drone beside him, and seemed to feel the presence of the planet before them as an almost physical force, something he felt drawn to, pulled towards, “is that true?”
The planet disappeared and they were back looking at the vast game-board again. The holo was in motion now, though silently, and he could see the alien people moving around, shifting pieces and standing around the edges of the board.
“It doesn’t have to be totally true,” the drone said, “but cause and effect are not perfectly polarised here; the set-up assumes that the game and life are the same thing, and such is the pervasive nature of the idea of the game within the society that just by believing that, they make it so. It becomes true; it is willed into actuality. Anyway; they can’t be too far wrong, or the empire would not exist at all. It is by definition a volatile and unstable system; Azad — the game — would appear to be the force that holds it together.”
“Wait a moment now,” Gurgeh said, looking at the machine. “We both know Contact’s got a reputation for being devious; you wouldn’t be expecting me to go out there and become emperor or anything, would you?”
For the first time, the drone showed an aura, flashing briefly red. There was a laugh in its voice, too. “I wouldn’t expect you’d get very far trying that. No; the empire falls under the general definition of a ‘state’, and the one thing states always try to do is to ensure their own existence in perpetuity. The idea of anybody from outside coming in and trying to take the empire over would fill them with horror. If you decide you want to go, and if you are able to learn the game sufficiently well during the voyage, then there might be a chance, we think, going on your past performance as a game-player, of you qualifying as a clerk in the civil service, or as an army lieutenant. Don’t forget; these people are surrounded by this game from birth. They have anti-agatic drugs, and the best players are about twice your own age. Even they, of course, are still learning.
“The point is not what you would be able to achieve in terms of the semi-barbarous social conditions the game is set up to support, but whether you can master the theory and practice of the game at all. Opinions in Contact differ over whether it is possible for even a game-player of your stature to compete successfully, just on general game-playing principles and a crash-course in the rules and practice.”
Gurgeh watched the silent, alien figures move across the artificial landscape of the huge board. He couldn’t do this. Five years? That was insane. He might as well let Mawhrin-Skel broadcast his shame; in five years he might have made a new life, leaving Chiark, finding something else to interest him besides games, changing his appearance… maybe changing his name; he had never heard of anybody doing that, but it must be possible.
Certainly, the game of Azad, if it really existed, was quite fascinating. But why had he heard nothing of it until now? How could Contact keep something like this secret; and why? He rubbed his beard, still watching the silent aliens as they stalked the broad board, stopping to move pieces or have others move them for them.
They were alien, but they were people; humanoid. They had mastered this bizarre, outrageous game. “They’re not super-intelligent, are they?” he asked the drone.
“Hardly, retaining such a social system at this stage of technological development, game or no game. On average, the intermediate or apex sex is probably a little less bright than the average Culture human.”
Gurgeh was mystified. “That implies there’s a difference between the sexes.”
“There is now,” Worthil said.