Tactics of Conquest (14 page)

And now, quickly, I have put the game on the verge of its denouement.

What I have done by moving this Knight is to threaten the Bishop, launching a direct attack against that piece which is now
en prise
; and at the same time I have cleared out the Queen-side for a terrible attack. Louis has put himself in this position, and now I will yield no mercy whatsoever. I do not expect that the game will go more than five more moves before the inevitable outcome is clear. Louis pales. He groans and tears at his head. His eyes blink. He stares at the board as if the board itself will yield to him its answer.

But it will not. There are no answers on the board; this is the message that I could have given Louis a long time ago if only he had asked. I know this now; that within the mad and terrible confines of the red and the black, the irreducible sixty-four squares, lies nothing to be applied to reality. Answers found upon the board will remain there; combinations are their own reply. Chess is, for all of its manifold wonders, indeed an infinitely trivial undertaking, and oddly it is Louis now who does
not know this. His knuckles crack, his hands tremble as he studies the board. The man is in extremis, I will let him suffer.

Punching out my clock with an easy motion of the hand, I stand. My legs and arms feel curiously light, loose and limber as I stride from the stage; I feel more sure and in control of myself at this moment than I have felt in a long time. Indeed, the staggering form who quivered behind these curtains only a few moments ago is hardly that assured, strutting David who now takes himself directly to the massive trays bearing delights and with an easy gesture takes in his hand one of the fairest of them, his very favorite Jovian lice, and crams them, gulping, into his mouth. Hook around and find that the area is mine, mine alone. Louis will use up a lot of time on his clock. I help myself to another handful of lice.

Then, quite suddenly, there is a motion to the side and when I concentrate upon it, blinking, an Overlord strides into the room. He is an unfamiliar Overlord, this one; I do not believe that I have seen him before, although differentiation of course is difficult with these creatures. Still, as best as I can make out through my rather bedraggled sense of perspective, he is a new and more imposing Overlord, not less imposing because he has somehow contrived his scales and tentacles into legs which enable him to achieve a walking posture. Most of them, as I have surely pointed out in ample detail, simply
crawl
. His expression, to the degree that I can read the expression of these creatures, is quite threatening and something approaching fear rattles around within me; I have never responded well to the concept of physical menace, being, I am quite free to admit, something of a coward in that direction. Throughout
this deplorable set of instances one thing at least has been clear: The Overlords have never harmed me physically, nor given indication that they would. This one, however, seems to carry around a different species of menace with him; not psychological (with which I can cope, being geared to conundrums and cryptograms by virtue of my training), but physical. Behind him, in a lumbering, uneven gait, comes Louis himself, escorted, I note, by my own old friend, Five. Louis’ expression is a magnification of terror; peering at him over the food that I have brought to my mouth, now stopped in mid-air (I am nauseated again), it occurs to me that I have never seen an expression of such rank terror on a human face. Really, it is disgraceful to see the extreme of cowardice pasted across Louis’ distorted features, but then on the other hand his expression may merely be an extension or reflection of my own. It is hard to say. Certainly the circumstances are difficult enough. The new Overlord says to me in a flat tone, “We have been made aware of certain rumors. Are they from him?”

Louis raises his palms in a defensive gesture. “Don’t say anything,” he mumbles. He shakes his head desperately. The new Overlord turns and apparently gives Louis a threatening glance. Louis subsides. His arms are shaking from fingertips to shoulderblades.

“What rumors?” I say.

The Overlord turns back to me. “Don’t dissemble,” he says. “It’s too late for that now.”

“Tell him the truth,” Five says. “It’s better that way.” Although I have difficulty in deducing alien expressions it seems that Five may be as unreasonably terrified as Louis. Perhaps not.

“Reports that this match is of no consequence,”
the alien says thunderously. “Reports that it is merely an exhibition.”

I shrug. For some reason, a certain winsome dissemblance seems to be the proper attitude with which to meet this difficult situation. “I don’t know a thing about that,” I say, “I merely—”

“Be responsive!” the Overlord says, the tones even richer than before. “If you are not respondant we will have to take the most dreadful actions—”

“It really would be better if you were cooperative,” Five says mildly. “This is a difficult and embarrassing situation for all of us, perhaps if you could simply resolve—”

“I don’t know anything about it,” I say and then fling the handful of food to the floor. There are limits to the humiliation which I will undergo, after all, and everything considered I have had more than my share of intimidation. “It isn’t my fault,” I say. “I heard it from him.”

I point rather dramatically toward Louis who flinches in his posture, and retreats into a corner. It may not be nice for me to have turned the focus of aggression to my old enemy and fellow-competitor but then I have my own position to consider. There is more than one way of looking at any problem. “He reported it,” I said, “and I simply turned it over to my second—”

“Enough,” the angry Overlord says. The knowledge seems to have calmed him, rather than the reverse. He turns toward Louis slowly, his scales glinting. “Where did you get this information?” he says to Louis.

“I never liked him,” Louis babbles, pointing to me. “I never liked him at all; he’s always been a cowardly fellow without any sense of decency and furthermore—”

“Where did you get it?” the alien says again. “I want you to tell me.”

“His game is stolid, unimaginative, completely without point,” Louis says. “He’s gotten where he has by stealing ideas from everyone, by misusing, misapplying their ideas, he’s had nothing of his own whatsoever to contribute to the literature of chess—”

“For the last time,” the Overlord says, closing in upon Louis in a gait so rapid and threatening that Five himself seems driven to interpose himself between that stride and my helpless antagonist. “I want to know where you got that information, information that this game is not consequential, that—”

A little froth comes from Louis’ lips; he indeed seems to be in extremis. “I’ve got to get back to the game,” he says plaintively. “He’s just moved, it’s on my clock-time, I’ve got to plot out—”

“For the last time,” the Overlord says, “for the last time tell me where you’ve gotten this heinous information from, this maliciousness, these lies—”

“You really should tell him,” Five counsels. “I don’t think that you understand the situation; he comes from a higher level of bureaucracy, he’s entirely beyond me and I really can’t help you with this at all—” He gives me an anguished, piercing little glance, Five does, but I avoid his eyes, working my way with an elaborate show of disinterest to the trays of food, taking another small palmful of lice. It does not seem to be my problem. “If you’ll excuse me,” I murmur, tossing the lice in my hand, “I believe I’ll get back to the board myself; it’s a very tricky, difficult game, as you know, and I’d like to concentrate—”

The Overlord turns toward me and makes a
motion simultaneously so threatening and dismissive that there is little that I can do other than to stand shocked in place. Five is quite right. We are dealing here with a creature of another level entirely. “You keep quiet,” the creature says, “and just stay here. Let me deal with this.”

Louis is winking and shrugging, his face having uncovered tics much as a rock turned over on a seashore might uncover insects. “All right,” he says, “I admit it; I made it up myself.”

“Made it up yourself?” the Overlord says quietly. “Made it up yourself? What does that mean? I am not as familiar with your vernacular,” and here he gives Five a loathing glance, “as some of the other creatures here.”

“I mean that I invented it I” Louis shrieks. “I didn’t know anything about it myself, I just thought that it would be a good story to tell him! I thought that it might discourage him, might sap his will to win—”

“But that’s ridiculous,” Five says, “you’re leading nine games to five, why would you seek an advantage?”

“I couldn’t be sure!” Louis shrieks. “Don’t you understand that? Master chess is a very difficult game, you’re always functioning under a terrific level of tension, and I was looking for any advantage that I could get! It isn’t my fault, it’s standard in master play—or don’t you know anything about chess?”

“That’s heinous,” the inquisitorial Overlord says. “That’s absolutely heinous. I’ve never heard of conduct like that before.”

“Well, you ought to know something about chess!” Louis screams. He is winking and blinking and nodding away, his head trembling like a petal on the stalk of a long, decayed flower. “If
you knew something about chess you’d know that any tactics are fair! Lasker used to smoke cigars and blow smoke in their faces—”

“But you’re leading nine games to five,” Five says again in that puzzled way. “I could understand why you might engage in tactics of this sort if the match were not in your favor or even if it were very close, but you’ve established a clear advantage, surely—”

“The only reason he’s leading,” I say, “is that I haven’t played up to my best standard yet. I’ve deliberately held the level of my play back.” It seems important to reassert my own position at a time when my ability seems to be coming into question. “I’m a much better player than he is,” I say, “and I intend to prove it now. After three moves, I’ve got him on the run. He knows perfectly well that he can’t beat me if I don’t want to be beaten; he was just trying a desperate trick.”

“You fool,” Louis says, “I can beat
you
at will. We simply play two different kinds of chess. Do you think that I have anything to fear from you?”

“Of course you have something to fear from me,” I say coolly and with magnificent poise. “Otherwise, why would you have tried such a cheap trick? You know that I’ve got the advantage, and furthermore—”

“You’re a, lousy player!” Louis says. His face contorts; he is whining like the thirteen-year-old that I remember him as having been. “You can’t handle the minor pieces and you fall into the same stupid patterns time and time again.” His eyes take on a fierce intensity, refracting some mad light. “Don’t you know what position you’ve gotten yourself into?” he says. “Haven’t you looked over the board, haven’t you—”

“Of course I know what position I’ve gotten
into! I’ve completely blocked your attack, I’ve posted my Knight at a threatening square, I’ve virtually pinned your Bishop and forced you into a premature retreat of the Queen, which you had no business developing in the first place. What kind of idiot do you think I am? You’re going to lose this game, Louis, and you’re going to lose the next sixteen games in a row, and then where are your forces of evil going to be? I’ll tell you—”

“You ass,” Louis says. Saliva moistens his lips. I have never seen him as discombobulated as now (and indeed I have seen him in many postures). “You don’t understand. You don’t understand the game or what’s going on here.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” I say. “Yes, I do. You’d better get back to that board and think over your next move, Louis, because I calculate that at the very best you’ve got four or five left before this game is in hand.”

“Quiet,” the authoritarian Overlord says. “The two of you keep quiet, I want to think this over now.” Indeed, the creature does assume a cogitative posture, resting one of its tentacles within another, retreating into some peculiar position in which Five seems also to be removed from the confrontation. Intricacies of which I have never been previously aware seem to assert themselves; it is obvious that there is a whole hierarchy of purpose here which has evaded me. I was wrong in assuming the ultimate authority of Five and his cohorts. “All right,” the Overlord says, unbending, emerging from its posture. “The offense is very serious. Nevertheless, the match must go on.”

“Of course it’s got to go on,” Five ventures, “we’re on a tight schedule—”

“Shut up. Just keep quiet. When I want you to talk, I’ll let you know.”

“All right,” Five says mildly. “I was just trying to make a contribution of some sort; after all, the match is being run under our own aegis and we’ve got certain rights—”

“The match has been severely compromised,” the Overlord says, running right over Five’s protestations. “The very integrity of the match itself has been menaced. Nevertheless, it is too late now. This is the sixteenth match of forty-one; it would be much too laborious to go back to the start and begin again. So it will have to go on.”

“Why has it been compromised?” Louis says. He has rolled himself into a little ball against the wall, shrinking inconspicuously, and his voice is quite thin, but curiosity has yanked him forward. “It’s perfectly legitimate to use psychological tricks on an opponent; it’s an ancient and honorable facet of the game, in fact—”

“You keep quiet as well,” the Overlord says harshly. It pedals itself over to Louis and quite casually uses a tentacle to strike him on the face.

I cannot see the blow but only Louis’ eyes, and from this aspect the contact has been stunning; it has broken my old antagonist. His eyes widen in panic, his nostrils flare. The blow comes again. “That will teach you to tell lies about us,” the Overlord says. “Lie about our purposes, mock us, misuse the truth in devious ways.” It turns, comes over then to me. “I could say the same about you.”

“Why me?” I show my palms. My calm, under the difficult circumstances, is superb. If I were a detached observer I would admire the way in which I can come to grips. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”