Players of Gor (40 page)

"Builder to Ubar's Builder Nine," he said.

I regarded the board.

"Capture of Home Stone," he said.

"Yes," I said.

My Home Stone had been maneuvered to Ubar's Initiate Two. There he had used my own men to trap it and hold it helplessly in position. Then he had swept down the opened file with his Builder, to Ubar's Builder Nine, to effect its capture.

"Every one of your moved was forced," he said. "You never had an alternative."

"True," I said.

"An elementary Ubara sacrifice," he remarked.

"Elementary?" I asked.

"Of course," he said.

"I did not see it," I said, "at least until it was too late."

"I gathered that," he said. "Otherwise you might have resigned several moves ago, thereby perhaps saving yourself a bit of embarrassment."

"I thought I was winning," I said.

"I think you were under a grave misapprehension as to just who was attacking," he said.

"Apparently," I said.

"Undoubtedly," he agreed, unnecessarily, in my opinion.

"Are you sure the Ubara sacrifice was 'elementary,'" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"I thought it was brilliant," I said.

"Those such as you," he said, "particularly when they find themselves their victims, commonly salute as brilliancies even the most obvious trivialities."

"I see," I said.

"Do not be despondent," he said. "Among those who cannot play the game, you play very well."

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome," he said. "Would you care to play again?"

"No," I said. "Not now."

"Very well," he said. He began to put the pieces back in a large leather wallet.

"Would you care to wrestle?" I asked.

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"No," he said, pleasantly enough.

"That Ubara sacrifice was not really all that bad, was it?" I asked.

"No," he said, "it was actually not all that bad. In fact, it was rather good."

"I thought so," I said.

I watched the player replacing the pieces in the leather wallet. He was in a good mood. Just as I had thought, that Ubara sacrifice had not been all that straightforward, or elementary. That, at least, gave me some satisfaction. This moment, it then seemed to me, might be a good time to speak to him. I had been wanting to speak to him for several days. I had been awaiting only a judicious opportunity, one in which the topic might seem to be broached naturally, in such a way as to avoid arousing his curiosity or suspicion. He drew the strings on the wallet, closing it. Yes, this seemed like an excellent time to take action. I would arrange the whole business in such a way that it would seem quite natural. It would be easy. Yes, I thought, I could manage this quite nicely.

"I wish that I had recorded the game," I said.

"I can reiterate the moves for you, if you wish," he said.

"From memory?" I asked.

"Of course," he said. "It is not difficult."

I drew forth from my wallet some papers and a marking stick. Among some of these papers, which I would apparently use as a backing surface for the sheet on which I intended to record the moves, were the papers I had taken, long ago, from the Lady Yanina near the fair of En'Kara.

"Ah," said the player. "I see."

"What?" I asked.

"Am I not, now, supposed to say, 'What have you there?' or is that to come later?"

"I do not understand," I said.

"We must have played a hundred games," he said. "Never before have you seemed interested in recording one. Now you seem interested. Why, I wonder. Now you draw forth papers from your wallet. Some of these are papers obviously covered with the notation of Kaissa. Am I not to express curiosity? And are you not then, almost inadvertently, to ask me some question, or questions, in which you are interested?"

"Perhaps," I said, hesitantly.

"Are you really interested in the game?" he asked.

"I am interested in it, as a matter of fact," I said, "but, to be

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sure, as you seem to have detected, it is possible I have an ulterior motive in mind."

"The moves of the game were as follows," he said. He then repeated them for me, even, occasionally, adding in some useful annotational remarks. There were forty-three moves in the game.

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome," he said. "Now what are those other papers?"

I handed them to him.

He looked at them, briefly, flipping through them. They appeared to be covered with the notation of Kaissa, as though various games, or fragments of games had been recorded on them.

"Do you have some question, some specific questions, about these?" he asked.

"I am wondering about them," I said.

"I thought you were giving me these in connection with some specific question having to do with Kaissa," he said, "perhaps with respect to the analysis of a position or a suggested variation on a lesser-known opening. I thought perhaps they might be Kaissa puzzles, in which a forced capture of Home Stone in some specified number of moves must be detected."

I said nothing. I was eager to see what he would say.

"What do you make of them?" he asked.

"I am interested in your opinion," I said.

"I see," he said.

"Are they games," I asked. "Parts of games?"

"They might appear to be so," he said, "if not looked at closely."

"yes," I said.

"Doubtless you have reconstructed the positions, or some of them," he said.

"Yes," I admitted.

"And what do you think?" he asked.

"I think," I said, "that it is highly unlikely that they are games, or parts of games."

"I agree," he said. "They do not seem to be games, or parts of games.
 
Indeed, it seems unlikely that that is even what they are supposed to be. Not only would the general level of play be inferior but much of it is outright gibberish."

"I see," I said.

"I am sorry," he said. "I can be of no help to you."

"That is all right," I said.

"Where did you get them?" he asked.

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"I came on them," I said.

"I see," he said.

"You do not know what they are, then?" I said.

"What they are," he said, "seems to be clear."

"What do you think they are?" I asked.

"Kaissa ciphers," he said.

"What are Kaissa ciphers?" I asked. I did not doubt that the papers contained enciphered messages. That conjecture seemed obvious, if not inevitable, given the importance attached to them by the Lady Yanina, she of Brundisium, and her colleague, Flaminius, perhaps also of Brundisium. I had hoped, of course, that the player might be able to help me with this sort of thing, that he, ideally, might be familiar with the ciphers, or their keys.

"There are many varieties of Kaissa ciphers," he said. "They are often used by the caste of players for the transmission of private messages, by they may, of course, be used by anyone. Originally they were probably invented by the caste of players. They are often extremely difficult to decipher because of the use of multiples and nulls, and the multiplicity of boards."

"What is the multiplicity of boards," I asked.

"Do you see these numbers?" he asked.

He indicated small numbers in the left margins of several of the papers. These tiny numbers, in effect, seemed to divide the moves into divisions. In originally looking at the papers I had interpreted them simply as a device for identifying or listing the games or game fragments.

"Yes," I said.

"Those presumably indicate the 'boards'," he said. "Begin for example, with a Kaissa board, with its one hundred squares, arranged in ten ranks and ten files. Are you literate?"

"Yes," I said. Torm, my old friend, the Scribe, might have expressed skepticism at the unqualified promptness and boldness of my asseveration, as I had always remained somewhat imperfect in writing the alternate lines of Gorean script, which are written from the right to the left, but, clearly, I could both read and, though admittedly with some difficulty, write Gorean. Gorean is written, as it is said, as the ox plows. The first line is written left to right, the second, right to left, the third, left to right again, and so on. I had once been informed by my friend, Torm, that the whole business was quite simple, the alternate lines, in his opinion, at least, also being written forward, "only in the other direction."

"Begin then, on the first square," said the player, "with the first letter of a word, or of a sentence, or even of a set of letters

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randomly selected. Proceed then as in normal writing, utilizing all available squares. when you come to the end of the initial entry, list all unused letters remaining in the alphabet, in order, again utilizing all available squares. When you have managed that, then begin with the first letter of the alphabet, Al-Ka, and continue writing the alphabet in order, over and over, once more on all available squares, until you arrive at the last square on the board. When you have done this, one board, in effect, has been completed."

I think I understand," I said. "If, in a given message, for example, the notation 'Ubar to Ubara's Tarnsman Two' occurs, that could mean that, on the board in question, say, Board 7, the square Ubara's Tarnsman Two was significant. On that board, then, we might suppose, given its arrangement, that the square Ubara's Tarnsman Two might stand for, say, the letter 'Eta'. Both the sender and receiver, of course, can easily determine this, as they both have the keys to construct the appropriate boards."

"Yes," said the player.

"The listing of the moves in an orderly sequence, of course, gives the order of the letters in the message," I said.

"Correct," said the player.

"I see how the multiples are effective," I said. "For example, the letter 'Eta', the most commonly occurring letter, would actually, on any given board, be capable of being represented by any of a number of appropriate squares, each different, yet each corresponding to an 'Eta'. Similarly, of course, one might skip about on the board, retreating on it, and so on, to utilize 'Eta Squares' in any fashion one chose. This would produce no confusion between the sender and the receiver as long as the enciphered notation was in orderly sequence."

"Precisely," said the player.

"But where do the nulls come in?" I asked.

"In my exposition," the player reminded me, "I mentioned 'available squares'. A board key will commonly consist of a given word and a list of null squares. The nulls may frequently occur in the enciphered message but they are, of course, immediately disregarded by the receiver."

"I see," I said. The presence of nulls and multiples in a message, of course, makes it much more difficult to decipher, if one lacks the key.

"The true power of the ciphers come in, in my opinion," said the player, "not so much with the multiples and nulls but with the multiplicity of boards. Short messages, even in elementary

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ciphers, are often impossible to decipher without the key. There is often just not enough material to work with. Accordingly it is often difficult or impossible to test one's deciphering hypotheses, eliminating some and perhaps confirming others. Often, in such a message, one might theoretically work out numerous, and often conflicting analyses. The multiplicity of boards thus permits the shifting of the cipher several times within the context of one message. This obviously contributes to the security of the communication."

"These ciphers seem simple and beautiful," I said, "as well as powerful."

"Too, if one wishes," he said, "one need not, in filling out the boards, do so as in the fashion of normal writing. One might writ all one's lines left to right, for example, or right to left, or write them vertically, beginning at one side or the other, and beginning at the top or bottom, or diagonally, beginning at any corner. One might use alternate lines, or left or right spirals from given points, and so on. Similarly, after the initial entry the remainder of the alphabet could be written backwards, or beginning at a given point, or reversing alternate letters, and so on. These variations require only a brief informative addition to the key and the list of null squares, if any."

"I see," I said.

"I think you can see now," he said, "why I cannot be of nay help to you. I am sorry."

"But you have been of help," I said. "You have made it a great deal clearer to me what may be involved here. I am deeply appreciative."

"Such ciphers are, for most practical purposes, impossible to decipher without the appropriate keys, null-square listing, and so on."

"I understand," I said. It seemed, as I had feared, that it might be difficult or impossible to decipher the messages without pertinent keying materials. These materials, presumably, would exist in Brundisium, and of course, in Ar, if indeed that were the intended destination of the messages. I was now prepared to believe that it was likely they were not messages intended for Priest-Kings.