The Deadliest Game Part 1

The Deadliest Game.

by Tom Clancy.

PROLOGUE.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., MARCH 2025.

It was the kind of windowless room found in any one of a thousand office buildings nowadays, since the world had become truly virtual and any wall could become a window at the will of the inhabitants. However, the inhabitants of this particular room seemed unwilling to indulge in even the illusion of windowing; or perhaps what they disliked was the basic implication of a window, that someone might be able to see in as well as out. The walls were blind and bare, though they glowed softly white, shedding a cool, even light over the large, s.h.i.+ny black table in the middle of the room, and over the five men sitting at one end of it.

They were Suits. Some of their lapels or ties were marginally more slender than others, or wider, but only those slight clues to their ages or preferences in fas.h.i.+on made them look at all different from one another. Otherwise, their ties were all subdued, and their s.h.i.+rts were plain white or pale colors, no prints. In nearly all ways they were unremarkable-looking men, and wore that unremarkableness like a disguise.

It was one.

"So when will it be ready?" said the one who sat at the center of the group.

"It's ready now," said the man sitting furthest from him on his left, a youngish-looking man with iron-colored hair and iron-gray eyes. "The controls have been in place for eighteen months now, consolidating their positions and getting ready to go into maximal intervention mode."

"And no one suspects?"

"No one. We've had zero tolerance for leaks...not that it would have been that much of a problem had had there been one. The environment is so intrinsically chaotic that you could drop a tactical nuke in it and get a lot of hair-tearing and recriminations, but absolutely no profitable a.n.a.lysis." The youngish man laughed a scornful one-breath laugh. "No one there is interested in a.n.a.lysis anyway. The context is completely devoted to raw sensation and 'experience.' Even when the program starts running, no one will have the slightest idea what's going on until everything's over and it's much too late." there been one. The environment is so intrinsically chaotic that you could drop a tactical nuke in it and get a lot of hair-tearing and recriminations, but absolutely no profitable a.n.a.lysis." The youngish man laughed a scornful one-breath laugh. "No one there is interested in a.n.a.lysis anyway. The context is completely devoted to raw sensation and 'experience.' Even when the program starts running, no one will have the slightest idea what's going on until everything's over and it's much too late."

The man in the center turned to one of the two on his right, an older man with a deeply lined face and s.h.a.ggy blond hair going silver. "What about the people at Ecs? Are they set?"

The man with the silver-gilt hair nodded. "They had the point of maximum economic result picked several months ago. All the projections have matched real-world outcomes...if 'real' is the word we're looking for. We can move the world, all right. The lever's ready. All we need to do now is pick the place to stand."

The man in the center nodded. "All right. Your two sections will need to work very closely together on this, but you have been anyway. Make sure you pick the right 'spot'...and when you start to push, don't spare the effort. I want the whole thing overturned. A lot of people are watching this demonstration, and they'll expect to see something spectacular for all the funds they've diverted. Excuse me. I mean 'laterally invested'"-the others smiled-"toward setting up the best possible result. Make absolutely certain the endgame position matches the modeling. I don't want any bull afterwards about 'equivocal results.'"

The two men to whom he had spoken nodded.

"All right," said the man in the center. "Lunch with the people from Tokagawa is at one-thirty. Don't be late. We want to make a unified presentation, and you know what a stickler that miserable little old man is for manners."

"If this works out," said one of the men to whom he had not spoken, "we won't need to mind our manners much longer. He'll He'll be the one who'll have to be looking over his shoulder." be the one who'll have to be looking over his shoulder."

The man in the center looked at him: a slow, deliberate turn of the head, like a targeting mechanism turning on gimbals and locking on.

"If?" he said.

The other man went slightly pale, and glanced down at the table.

The man in the center held the look for a few seconds more, then stood. The others stood with him. "The car will be here at five after one," he said. "Let's get on with it."

The man who had gone pale was first out of the room, closely followed by the only one who had not spoken. The young iron-haired man glanced at the man in the center, then followed the others out. The door shut.

Then the man in the middle chuckled softly. "A nuke, huh?" he said. "It might be funny."

The man with the silver-gilt hair produced a slightly sardonic expression, and turned to follow in the wake of the others. "Well," he said, "frankly, I don't know if I'd bother. They'd probably just think it was magic...."

1.

FORDS OF ARTEL, TALAIRN, VIRTUAL.

DOMINION OF SARXOS: GREENMONTH 13,.

YEAR OF THE DRAGON-IN-THE-RAIN.

The place smelled like a breakdown at a sewage treatment facility. That was what Shel noticed most as he pushed aside the tent's door-flap and gazed out into the fading sunset light.

He looked out wearily over the russet-lit, shadow-streaked vista of pine woods and sloping fields and river-banks that had become, at about noon today, a battlefield. Then, for a few magic minutes, it had been exactly what one's dreams of such a place would be at their best: the armies drawn up in their serried ranks, spears glinting and banners snapping bright in the brisk wind and the sun, and the trumpets shouting brazen defiance across the river that had been the boundary between their two forces, his and Delmond's. Delmond had come marching down the road to the river with his two thousand horse and three thousand foot, and had sent his herald Azure Alaunt over the water with the usual defiance, or rather the defiance that had become typical of Delmond as he pushed his way across Sarxos's lesser kingdoms. There were none of the courtesies that one opposing commander usually paid the other-no offer of single combat to spare the armies the bloodshed that must follow; not even the commonplace and pragmatic suggestion that the two armies' quartermasters meet to investigate the possibility of one side buying out the contracts of the other army's mercenaries, a move that would often render a battle unnecessary if, as a result, the strength of one side suddenly doubled and the other's was halved. No, Delmond wanted to take Shel's little land of Telairn on the other side of the Artel; and more, he wanted a fight-wanted the smell of blood in the afternoon, and the sound of trumpets.

So Shel let him have it.

There was no use pretending it hadn't been satisfying. Delmond's tactics had been positively insulting-no scouts, no attempt to reconnoiter or secure the battle site ahead of time. He'd simply marched right up the North Road to the River Artel as if there had been nothing to fear, and after that brief pause to issue formal defiance to the troops drawn up on the other side, Delmond had forded the Artel at the head of his forces, heading straight up the gentle gra.s.sy rise on the far side of the river as if there was absolutely no cause to be concerned about attacking uphill, and into cavalry already emplaced.

Delmond was heading for Minsar, the little city about two miles up the road from the fords of the Artel. He had apparently decided that the mixed force of five hundred cavalry and two thousand foot that Shel had positioned between the river and the road to Minsar was an obstacle easily to be swept aside; more so because, to judge by the lack of command pennons on the great-banner of the Telairn forces, Shel was apparently not with them.

But the Artel was an old river, winding and deeply oxbowed among the gentle pine-clad hills through which it meandered. Those hills held many secrets for the knowledgeable wanderer. Many little tracks and hidden roads, hunter's paths and game paths, wound among and over them as the river wound around...and the paths and tracks were all quite hidden under the thick boughs of the towering pines and firs. The ground under those big old trees was cus.h.i.+oned deep with old dry needles that would m.u.f.fle the sound of anything that moved.

So it was that, when Delmond's forces were halfway across the river-the cavalry first, the foot following, and the cavalry beginning almost casually to engage the Talairn cavalry uphill-they had been taken completely by surprise as Shel and eight hundred of his picked hors.e.m.e.n came plunging down from the surrounding hills on both sides of the river and hit both Delmond's horse and foot in their flanks.

Delmond's cavalry, boxed in on the Minsar side of the river or still trying to flounder their way out of the water, was driven down into the mud and reeds and sedges to either side of the ford, and slaughtered there by Shel's halberd-armed foot. Delmond's infantry, predictably and sensibly, tried to run away, but there wasn't much of anywhere for them to run to to. The Talairn cavalry, with Shel leading one of the four forces that had come plunging down from the shelter of the pines, surrounded them and began chopping them down like some b.l.o.o.d.y harvest. Within a very short time, the battle was over.

Put like that, it sounded simple, but there had been nothing simple about it. Any true account of the battle would have to include the hours and hours, starting before dawn that morning, that Shel had spent getting his mounted troops in place up on the hills, every move being made in strictly enforced silence while he prayed that the early mist off the river would not lift until all his people were under cover. Mention would have to be made of the dead chill under the pines, early on, in which breath smoked and teeth chattered-followed in only a couple of hours by the stifling heat of an unseasonably warm, breathless spring day: the bug bites, the maddening itch of pine needles down Shel's tunic and under his chain mail as he crept from position to position, making sure his people were where they needed to be, cheering them up with a well-placed word of encouragement here and there, when it was he he who needed the encouragement, but dared not show it. who needed the encouragement, but dared not show it.

The description would have to include the lance of pure fear that struck straight through him as he heard the sa.s.sy bra.s.s challenge of Delmond's trumpets coming down the road on the far side of the river, approaching the ford. Antic.i.p.ation mixed with utter dread that even now Delmond might think to send some scouts up into the pines-but then came the flush of combined relief and absolute rage as Delmond did no such thing. Thank Rod for small favors Thank Rod for small favors, Shel thought, and a second later, furious; What the h.e.l.l kind of general does he take me for? I'll show the sonofa- What the h.e.l.l kind of general does he take me for? I'll show the sonofa- And then one last dreadful thrill of fear as Delmond's forces forded the river, still playing their blasted trumpets-What do they think this is, a Memorial Day parade?...We'll see who needs a memorial in a couple of hours!-and made their way up the far side of the ford, toward his troops, waiting there: his troops, under his eager young lieutenant Alla, who had no orders except, "Don't let them past! Hang on!"

They hung on. It was very close. They'd had to stay there without relief and fight on their own, long enough to make sure that Delmond's whole cavalry force took the bait and crossed the river to the unfavorable uphill ground. If any of them had lingered on the far bank of the river, all Shel's carefully planned tactics would have gone straight to h.e.l.l. But his enemy's fighting psychology was all too plain at this point. A few victories against careless or unlucky adversaries had convinced Delmond of his skill as a strategist and tactician, though Shel knew Delmond had little real skill in either art. All it needed now was the obvious opening, for a seemingly easy win, to tempt Delmond into the obvious move. Delmond took it...and even then Shel had had to suffer through many minutes of torment and uncertainty yet while his little force on the far side of the river stood their ground and met Delmond's first charge- Then, along with his picked hors.e.m.e.n, then then Shel had been able to vault into the saddle and blow his horn for the signal to charge, and had led his riders whooping down the hillsides in a crash of hooves and dislodged stones, taking Delmond's infantry at open s.h.i.+elds from left and right, and his split cavalry force from behind and both sides. The cry of "To Shel! To Shel!" had gone up from his forces on the Minsar side of the river, their desperation turned to rage and triumph in a moment, and they began cutting their way toward him as he and his hors.e.m.e.n cut toward them. Shel had been able to vault into the saddle and blow his horn for the signal to charge, and had led his riders whooping down the hillsides in a crash of hooves and dislodged stones, taking Delmond's infantry at open s.h.i.+elds from left and right, and his split cavalry force from behind and both sides. The cry of "To Shel! To Shel!" had gone up from his forces on the Minsar side of the river, their desperation turned to rage and triumph in a moment, and they began cutting their way toward him as he and his hors.e.m.e.n cut toward them.

The worst of it had really been over about half an hour later, though the cleanup, as usual, took until sunset...not that anything was much cleaner at the end of it all. Survivors were herded together and disarmed, as many of them as could be found. Wounded fighters had to be picked up and brought in; the ransomable, those of them who could be located after attempting to make themselves unrecognizable, had to be separated out, their worth determined, sureties taken from them and parole given. Shel had had to supervise it all, getting tireder and tireder by the moment.

And now it was all finished, except for the most important part, the reason the whole battle had happened in the first place: dealing with Delmond. Shel had truly not thought this far ahead, and he was still surprised that Delmond had fallen for his tactics at all. But then the Swiss had been surprised, too, when the Austrians had fallen for a variation on this theme at Morgarten. Delmond had never been much of a reader, though, and was therefore condemned to repeat the great military mistakes of earlier centuries. Shel, for his own part, thought it served Delmond right.

Outside, the trumpets were blowing a tired version of the recheat recheat, signaling that pickup had been made on all the wounded, and it was now safe for noncombatants, the husbands and wives of the fallen who might have been following either force, to reclaim the bodies of their relatives. Shel took one last look at the battlefield, which was becoming more and more deeply drowned in rose-tinged, foggy shadow as the mist rose off the River Artel and crept over the ground, mercifully hiding what still lay there. After a moment he let the tent-flap fall, and went to sit down in the camp chair by his map table, letting out a long weary breath.

When he had fought his first battle in Sarxos, a few years ago, Shel had come equipped with the usual images of how the aftermath of a mighty battle ought to look: his standard flying bravely over the stricken field, and the standard of his enemy thrown down in the dust. Now, with a little more experience behind him, numerous battles lost and won, he knew that there was precious little dust to be found on one of these these battlefields. This morning, in the suns.h.i.+ne, the slight slope leading up from the fords had been a great sheep-cropped expanse of green gra.s.s, all speckled with white daisies and the small yellow blossoms of nevermind. Now, after the trampling of twenty thousand hooves and ten thousand feet, it was mud. battlefields. This morning, in the suns.h.i.+ne, the slight slope leading up from the fords had been a great sheep-cropped expanse of green gra.s.s, all speckled with white daisies and the small yellow blossoms of nevermind. Now, after the trampling of twenty thousand hooves and ten thousand feet, it was mud. Red Red mud-it stuck to your boots with horrible tenacity. His enemy's standard, trampled well into it, would now be just one more sodden rag, indistinguishable from anybody's collapsed tent, or from some petty n.o.ble's surcoat flung off to keep its owner from being captured and held for a fat ransom. mud-it stuck to your boots with horrible tenacity. His enemy's standard, trampled well into it, would now be just one more sodden rag, indistinguishable from anybody's collapsed tent, or from some petty n.o.ble's surcoat flung off to keep its owner from being captured and held for a fat ransom.

As for the stricken field, it was Shel who always felt stricken, the next morning, at the smell. Nor was it any wonder that the husbands and wives and other relatives of the fallen always showed up as soon as the battle was over, or anytime well before dawn, to ask permission to search for the bodies of their loved ones. They knew, from too much painful experience, what the place would smell like once the sun was up and had had a chance to warm things.

Shel intended to be well away from here by then. His tent was already unable to keep out the battlefield stink of stamped-out guts-or of guts not lost, but just loose, the results of many a brave young warrior's first encounter with the battlefield. War is h.e.l.l War is h.e.l.l, went the saying. But at the moment, Shel felt more inclined to subst.i.tute another four-letter word for "h.e.l.l." Certainly he would have preferred the smell of brimstone to the aroma most prevalent just now.

"It's only a game," he told himself...and then made a face. The game's creator, a careful and thorough craftsman, had done his job too well for such bland a.s.surances to make a difference. No action was permitted to evade its consequences. The air should have been sweet with the oncoming evening, and wasn't. There would of course be a great celebration of Shel's victory later, when he got back to Minsar, a mighty meeting to congratulate the heroes who had contributed to the win, and there the banners would fly and the trumpets would sing, and the bards would chant their praises...but not here. This place could be cleaned up by no lesser force than Nature, and even she would take some months about it. Even after the gra.s.s was green again and the daisies bloomed, the sheep that grazed these pastures would be working around swords and arrowheads and the stained bones of skulls for quite a few years.

At least the gra.s.s would be of high quality, and lush, come the later summer. Blood was an extraordinary fertilizer....

The tent-flap lifted. One of Shel's guardsmen looked in, an old companion called Talch. Shel glanced up at him.

"When do you want to see him, sir?" said Talch. He was a big man, cavalry, still all spattered from today's work, with mud and blood and Rod knows what else. He stank, but then so did Shel, and so did everyone else for a mile around.

"Twenty minutes or so," said Shel, reaching across the map table for a pitcher of honeydraft. "Let me do something about my blood sugar first. Has he said anything?"

"Not a word."

Shel raised his eyebrows, encouraged. Delmond was known for his tendency to brag even when he had lost, as long as he thought he had a chance of getting out of a situation. "Good. Have you had anything to eat?"

"Not yet. Nick's been out hunting. Got a deer-they're butchering it. But no one wants to eat here really...."

"Why would they? And we won't either. Send someone up toward Minsar to start some cooking fires outside the walls. We'll encamp there tonight. And tell Alla I'll hear her report now."

Talch nodded, and let the tent-flap fall. Shel looked at it and wondered, as he sometimes did, whether Talch was a player or a construct, one of many "extra" personnel whom the game itself contained. There were plenty of them, since most people preferred to play more interesting characters than guards and camp-followers; though you never could tell. One of the greatest generals of the twenty-two-year-run of Sarxos, the cavalry-master Alainde, had spent nearly two years playing a laundryman in the service of Grand Duke Erbin before beginning his startling rise through the ranks. At any rate, in the etiquette of Sarxos, "Are you a player?" was not a question you ever asked. It "broke the spell."

If a player chose to come out to you you, that was different, and afterwards you thanked them for their trust. But there were tens of thousands of players in Sarxos who preferred to remain anonymous as to both their names and their status, people who might dip into the Virtual Domain for an evening's enjoyment every now and then, or who might come in night after night, as Shel did, in pursuit of something specific-amus.e.m.e.nt, excitement, adventure, revenge, power-or just escape from a real world whose reality sometimes became just a little too grinding.

Shel took a long drink of the honeydraft, and sat and thought, pausing a moment to shake himself, and scratch. More pine needles down his tunic...it would be days before they were all gone. He would really have preferred to do the rest of this evening's work in the morning, but there was no telling what kind of trickery Delmond might attempt to pull if he were allowed the time. Even in his present strong position, Shel couldn't ignore Delmond's slippery reputation. The man's mother, Tarasp of the Hills, was a wizard-lordling, one notoriously nonaligned, who s.h.i.+fted stances between Light and Dark without warning. From her Delmond had inherited both some small measure of power as a shapes.h.i.+fter, and a dangerous s.h.i.+ftiness of temperament that made him capable of signing a peace treaty with one hand while holding, spell-concealed in the other, the knife intended for your guts. Once he had actually attempted such an a.s.sa.s.sination in a tent where he was supposed to be coming to terms with someone else who had beaten him in battle. There were people in the game who admired this kind of tactic, but Shel didn't think much of it, and had no intention of falling foul of it now.

In the meantime, Shel wasn't too worried about the success of any a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on him him. Leaning against the tentpole, unsheathed, was his hand-and-a-half broadsword: a very simple-looking implement, gray steel with a slight blue sheen. It had many names, but then most swords in Sarxos did-the ones that were worth anything anyway. The sword that people around here called Ululator (or Howler) had a nasty reputation, and was well known for its ability to protect its master without him having to actually handle it. Few heard Ululator's scream and lived to tell about it.

Shel c.o.c.ked his head at the sound of footsteps outside, and the sound of complaints, and then emphatic swearing, in Elstern.

"Talch?"

A pause, and his guard stuck his head into the tent.

"Our boy getting impatient out there?" Shel asked.

His guard produced a sardonic grin and said, "Seems his dignity's injured because we haven't given him his own tent."

"He should count himself lucky his dignity's all that's injured."

"I think most of the camp would agree. Meanwhile, sir, Alla's waiting, when you're ready to start."

"Ask her to come in."

"Right, sir."

The tent-flap fell, then was tossed aside again. Alla came in, her mail ringing softly over her long deerskin tunic as she moved, and Shel's heart bounced, as it had done for a while now when he looked at her after a fight. She was a valkyrie-not literally, but in body type: big, strong but not overmuscled, and dazzlingly blond, with a face that could go from friendly to feral in a matter of seconds...which it did, on the battlefield. She was another of the people about whom Shel was most curious in Sarxos. Was she real on both sides of the interface, or just this one? Again, he wouldn't ask, but in Alla's case, Shel's reticence had just a little more to do with nervousness than etiquette. He would have been unhappy to find that there was no Alla in the real world, and to find that there was was one would immediately have raised the question one would immediately have raised the question And what are you going to do about it? And what are you going to do about it? For the time being, he left well enough alone. For the time being, he left well enough alone. But someday But someday, he thought, someday I'm going to find a way to work around to the subject myself...ever so gradually. And if she wants to say anything, well... someday I'm going to find a way to work around to the subject myself...ever so gradually. And if she wants to say anything, well...

"How are you feeling?" Shel said. "Did you see the barber?"

She sat down, making a face that suggested she didn't much see the need. "Yes...he st.i.tched the leg up all right. Didn't take long. He says it'll be healed tomorrow-he put one of those sustained-release spells on it. How about you? Got the shakes out of your system yet?"

"Please," said Shel. "It'll be a week or more. I hate battles."

Alla rolled her eyes expressively. "You must...you have so many of them. You want the accounting now?"

"Yes."

"Of our forces: one hundred ninety-six dead, three hundred forty wounded, twelve of those critical. Of Delmond's: two thousand fourteen dead, a hundred and sixty-odd wounded, forty critical."

Shel whistled softly. The news of this spectacular success would spread. It might keep some of the more land-hungry or fight-hungry denizens of Sarxos's South Continent out of his hair for a while. Many would think superior strategy had been involved. Even more would think it had been magic...which suited Shel. "Other captives?"

"Thirty unwounded infantry captives. Not a lot of unhurt n.o.bles, maybe ten. Almost all the rest of them are wounded, or went down fighting. Everybody else not accounted for seems to have run away, southward mostly."

"Back to his cities. What's the matter with these people? Do they like like being cavalry fodder?" being cavalry fodder?"

Alla shrugged. She was not overly political. Her preferences ran to fighting and eating, though what she did with the calories was an eternal mystery to Shel, and a cause for some envy. If he even looked sideways at a meatpie or a haunch of roast boar, he gained weight. "Anything else?" Shel said.

"You might want to look at the contents of their baggage train," Alla said, pulling a piece of parchment out of her tunic and handing it to him.

Shel scanned down it, and as he read, his mouth dropped open. "What the...What did he need all this this stuff for?" stuff for?"

"Seems there was going to be a big victory party in Minsar tonight," Alla said, stretching lazily, though her face was wearing that feral look. "Fancy clothes and fancy food and an exhibition of rich booty for the victors: ritual humiliation for the losers...the usual thing. Nooses around our necks, people pelting us with beef bones and pig knuckles."

Shel snorted. "As if they were likely to find any. This is sheep country."

"Yeah, well. Instead of his big victory dinner and ma.s.sive boozefest, and instead of all the other local rulers getting very nervous, now Delmond gets the sc.r.a.ps, and we we get his baggage train." get his baggage train."

Shel nodded, though he was still incredulously reading the baggage manifest. "The absolute stupidity of bringing all this stuff along...I can't believe believe he's this naive...he must be up to something. I wonder. Who has Delmond been dealing with lately that it would be to his advantage to make them think he's stupid, or mad?" he's this naive...he must be up to something. I wonder. Who has Delmond been dealing with lately that it would be to his advantage to make them think he's stupid, or mad?"

Alla raised her eyebrows. "Us?"

Shel glanced at her. "You suggesting that he threw us this battle on purpose? Walked into the trap despite expecting it to be there?"

"He doesn't care much about his people's lives, if that's the case," Alla said. "But that wouldn't be news."

"Hmm." Shel sat there for a moment, thinking about it. "Well, we'll see. If it wasn't wasn't us he was trying to fool..." He sat back, thinking which of his recent opponents might have been behind Delmond's actions somehow. Who would it benefit? us he was trying to fool..." He sat back, thinking which of his recent opponents might have been behind Delmond's actions somehow. Who would it benefit? Argath maybe? Not him...he's usually a little more straightforward than this. Elblai? No, she's getting ready to square off with Argath, last I heard...some attempt to undermine the Tripart.i.te Alliance Argath maybe? Not him...he's usually a little more straightforward than this. Elblai? No, she's getting ready to square off with Argath, last I heard...some attempt to undermine the Tripart.i.te Alliance.

Shel thought about that, letting his mind range briefly among the possibilities, and his eyes strayed to something else on his map table, a rolled-up piece of parchment that had been lying there quietly smoking. Alliances were s.h.i.+fting all over Sarxos at the moment, as the Dark Lord began his nine-yearly movement out of his mountain-bordered land, seeking the final conquest of all the lands of the Dominion. Every time he tried this, the Sarxonian lords united to throw him back, but the last union had been a little less organized than usual, the alliance taking almost too long to come together...and the Dark Lord had begun his next round of "diplomatic initiatives" much sooner than usual after his defeat. Almost as if he thought this time he might actually win....

It was complicated, but then most things in Sarxos were. That was what made playing the game worthwhile. Meanwhile, Shel would have to handle Delmond in such a manner as not to bring the man's enemies down on his back right away-especially his mother, who was a power in the Dominion in her own right, with many potentially troublesome connections. He had to handle Delmond in some way that would seem fair, possibly even make him look good.

"I think you should kill him," Alla said.

Shel gave her a slight, sidelong smile. "Not enough points in it," he said, but that was not the real reason, and he knew Alla knew it. She rolled her eyes again.

"He's a waste of your time," Alla said.

"If one would be Lord of All the Wide Dominion someday," Shel said, "one has to behave properly at the start of the game, as well as the finish. Let's just call this practice, shall we? Anything else I need to know about the cleanup?"