“Flipside, itza regular run for outgeek to peep game without digging rules and not make nohow knowing noway of what the players doing at all.
“Boildown, shows why we geeks to Charos, and show they would noway nohow capiche humyn beans,—if Charo rools let em notice wewas here to hear.”
“What Hoyle’s Law says to a game theorist working in simulation is that a discussion of a complex system or situation—a ‘game’ in the parlance—requires a shared vocabulary of terms, a mutual comprehension of goals not clear from the outside, a concept of the limits on action set by assumed and thus normally unstated rules, and an understanding of the system’s environment. Only after a person absorbs all that data will an explanation of the game itself be comprehensible—but the background data is so complex, and contains so much contextual and implied information about the game, that by the time one absorbs it, the explanation is no longer needed. This phenomenon holds true in everything from political theory to nuclear engineering, from the etiquette of poker or the rules of baseball, to the pecking order at a High Purple Compulsory Volunteers’ Celibate Orgy.
“It can be demonstrated mathematically that the ultimate goal of complex action is generally the most difficult thing to ascertain. An outsider will not be aware of obstacles or of subsidiary goals, and will not at first be able to discern between action taken to avoid or resolve problems, and action taken to move toward the goal. The observer will not, perhaps, even be able to comprehend what the goal is.
“To state the converse, it is possible—indeed quite normal—for an outsider to watch actions guided by an unstated rule set and not be able to make heads or tails of what seem to be utterly inexplicable actions.
“This is why we don’t understand the Charonians, and why it is doubtful they would understand us—if their rule set even allowed them to be aware of us.”
She had taken the pills at last, let the drugs take her under, give her rest—but there was more to her unconsciousness than mere sleeping pills could explain.
Sianna slept, slept hard, with a fierce intensity, the exhausted, unrestful sleep of fever and exhaustion, slept as if some dark, denying corner of her mind were determined to keep her under as long as possible, take her as deep as it could, down away from her fears and her circumstances, as if her subconscious were determined to hide from the grueling, mind-snapping reality of the permod for as long as possible.
And yet, her dreams were as harsh as any reality might have been—death, whirling darkness, the demons of fear and loneliness and loss made palpable, real, in the looming blackness that surrounded her. There were no true places, or events, or people in her dreams, but only distorted sensations, confused externals, threatening entities that seemed to fade away as they drew close and then remake themselves, over and over again.
She slept as her cargo craft fired its engines, maneuvered, guided itself in toward NaPurHab. Slept as the ship docked itself, and the hab’s cargo handlers grappled the cargo modules into the hab and stacked the modules any way they could, helter-skelter, along Boredway on the long axis of the ship. Slept deeply, fitfully, as all of those things pushed and prodded and bounced at her, rattling her like a pea in a pod, and her mind wove the bouncing and jouncing into her dark, unknowable dreams.
And slept as she came to rest, in the microgravity of the Boredway, her personnel module stacked under one module full of emergency rations, and two others packed to bursting with ten thousand changes of underwear.
Inside the permod, nothing mattered.
She slept.
Canpopper Notworthit got to the bottom of the stack, looked at the funny-looking mod at the bottom, and realized whatthehell it was. DamnNation! He glared at the permod, durn good and angry at the thing—and the offhabber inside—for having the bad grace to show up on his shift and in his section.
He hadn’t popped a permod can for years, since wayback before the Charos did the snatch, but he knew they were bad news. Remembered one bad time especial, tin can with a hellsmeller whacked-off offhabber of a Purple wannabe inside, bumping and thumping and banging and yelling from inside the permod. The fellow had been truly freaked-and-a-half long before the mod got to the hab. Had the gallopsing claustras, that fellow did. Upwoofed his lunch everywhere into everything. Had to strap down and dose him with heavy feel-goods to de-fruitcake him bigtime before anyone could deal with him.
Not blinked his rheumy brown eyes, stroked his scraggly, greying beard as he thought back to that nasty day. He shook his head sadly at the memory—and instantly knew to call the headshake mistake as his head tried to snap itself off.
Double dose of damitol, the one time this year the head honcho declared a compulsory bender, and Notworthit hadda be on duty next A.M. No justice. And just no ice for the drinks last night, either. Nor now not much he could do about the headbanging throb in his noggin nohow. No one was getting any breaks. The hole car come-go team had been slogging twenty-four-hours-plus everydamn day, humping all this freight, trying to get it packed into anywhichwhere.
Irony slap, this permod wuz. Only reazon, wayback, that he had took thiz job wuz so’s he woodn’t hafta deal with people alltime. Also course cuz Earth never sent no freight nohow, so the workload didn’t make ya explode. Till now. More freight in last three daze than in the five years since the Charos did the Earthsnatch.
Never wooda signuped if heed knowed it half meant having to crack open cans with people in ’em. The smell alone was enough to drive a soul bendround. Plus besides—three daze inna can? Can’t be good. Would be enough to flip Notworthit’s brain, and even Not knew Not didn’t have all that much to flip in the first place. Stood to reazon big brain would git more scrambled than a leetle one.
Plain fact wuz he not much wanted to deal with whooever whazzin the permod. Unpurple flipped-out bigbrain offhabber who wuz gonna smell like last year’s recycle bin? Nohow.
Cept a job wuz a job, and Not knew the honcho would land like tunnabricks if he caught Not not doing.
Totally no justice putting him on thiz gig. No justice—just ice. Whatever that meant. Yeah. It sounded good, and that was all that really mattered.
Vaguely mollified by this sentiment for some reason, Not set to work opening up the permod. He checked the exterior read-outs. All scanned as cool on the inward side. He checked the seals, poppled the safeties, and braced himself for the smell as he undid the final latches.
The lid popped open and swung up about a centimeter or so, and the permod’s air whooshed out into the OpCent. The smell warn’t no better than Not’d figured it’d be, and then some. But that didn’t even register fullways on him. Something else was dawning on him, the thing what weren’t thar—noise. No hullbanging or muffle-shouts before he popped the hatch, and still no noiz now. Chick inside shoulda been cheering to get out, or cursing Not’s head for taking so slow, or some such. Somewhat alarmed, he got his hands under the lid and pulled it open. It swung away easily, up and over.