Iain M. Banks - Culture 2 The Player of Games

The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrownup many great Game Players, and one of the greatest isGurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. ThePlayer of Games. Master of every board, computer andstrategy.

Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad,cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game agame so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomesemperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered,Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - andvery possibly his death.

Published: 1988. ISBN: 1857231465

This is the story of a man who went far away for a long time,just to play a game. The man is a game-player called'Gurgeh'. The story starts with a battle that is nota battle, and ends with a game that is not a game.

Me? I'll tell you about me later.

This is how the story begins.

Dust drifted with each footstep. He limpedacross the desert, following the suited figure infront. The gun was quiet in hishands. They must be nearly there; the noise ofdistant surf boomed through the helmetsoundfield. They were approaching a tall dune, fromwhich they ought to be able to see thecoast. Somehow he had survived; he had not expectedto.

It was bright and hot and dry outside, but inside the suit hewas shielded from the sun and the baking air; cosseted andcool. One edge of the helmet visor was dark, whereit had taken a hit, and the right leg flexed awkwardly, also damaged,making him limp, but otherwise he'd been lucky. Thelast time they'd been attacked had been a kilometre back, and now theywere nearly out of range.

The flight of missiles cleared the nearest ridge in aglittering arc. He saw them late because of thedamaged visor. He thought the missiles had alreadystarted firing, but it was only the sunlight reflecting on their sleekbodies. The flight dipped and swung together, like aflock of birds.

When they did start firing it was signalled by strobing redpulses of light. He raised his gun to fire back; theother suited figures in the group had already startedfiring. Some dived to the dusty desert floor, othersdropped to one knee. He was the only one standing.

The missiles swerved again, turning all at once and thensplitting up to take different directions. Dustpuffed around his feet as shots fell close. He triedto aim at one of the small machines, but they moved startlinglyquickly, and the gun felt large and awkward in hishands. His suit chimed over the distant noise offiring and the shouts of the other people; lights winked inside thehelmet, detailing the damage. The suit shook and hisright leg went suddenly numb.

'Wake up, Gurgeh!' Yay laughed, alongsidehim. She swivelled on one knee as two of the smallmissiles swung suddenly at their section of the group, sensing that waswhere it was weakest. Gurgeh saw the machinescoming, but the gun sang wildly in his hands, and seemed always to beaiming at where the missiles had just been. The twomachines darted for the space between him andYay. One of the missiles flashed once anddisintegrated; Yay shouted, exulting. The othermissile swung between them; she lashed out with her foot, trying tokick it. Gurgeh turned awkwardly to fire at it,accidentally scattering fire over Yay's suit as he didso. He heard her cry out and thencurse. She staggered, but brought the gun round;fountains of dust burst around the second missile as it turned to facethem again, its red pulses lighting up his suit and filling his visorwith darkness. He felt numb from the neck down andcrumpled to the ground. It went black and very quiet.

'You are dead,' a crisp little voice told him.

He lay on the unseen desert floor. He couldhear distant, muffled noises, sense vibrations from theground. He heard his own heart beat, and the ebb andflow of his breath. He tried to hold his breathingand slow his heart, but he was paralysed, imprisoned, without control.

His nose itched. It was impossible toscratch it. What am I doing here? he asked himself.

Sensation returned. People were talking,and he was staring through the visor at the flattened desert dust acentimetre in front of his nose. Before he couldmove, somebody pulled him up by one arm.

He unlatched his helmet. Yay Meristinoux,also bare-headed, stood looking at him and shaking herhead. Her hands were on her hips, her gun swung fromone wrist. 'You were terrible,' she said, though notunkindly. She had the face of a beautiful child, butthe slow, deep voice was knowing and roguish; a low-slung voice.

The others sat around on the rocks and dust,talking. A few were heading back to the clubhouse. Yay picked up Gurgeh's gun and presented itto him. He scratched his nose, then shook his head,refusing to take the weapon.

'Yay,' he told her, 'this is for children.'

She paused, slung her gun over one shoulder, and shrugged (andthe muzzles of both guns swung in the sunlight, glinting momentarily,and he saw the speeding line of missiles again, and was dizzy for asecond).

'So?' she said. 'It isn'tboring. You said you were bored; I thought you mightenjoy a shoot.'

He dusted himself down and turned back towards the clubhouse. Yay walkedalongside. Recovery drones drifted past them,collecting the components of the destructed machines.

'It's infantile, Yay. Why fritter your timeaway with this nonsense?' They stopped at the top of thedune. The low club house lay a hundred metres away,between them and the golden sand and snow-whitesurf. The sea was bright under the high sun.

'Don't be so pompous,' she told him. Hershort brown hair moved in the same wind which blew the tops from thefalling waves and sent the resulting spray curling back out tosea. She stooped to where some pieces of a shatteredmissile lay half buried in the dune, picked them up, blew sand grainsoff the shining surfaces, and turned the components over in herhands. 'I enjoy it,' she said. 'Ienjoy the sort of games you like, but I enjoy this too.'She looked puzzled. 'This is agame. Don't you get any pleasurefrom this sort of thing?'

'No. And neither will you, after a while.'

She shrugged easily. 'Till then, then.' Shehanded him the parts of the disintegratedmachine. He inspected them while a group of youngmen passed, heading for the firing ranges.

'Mr Gurgeh?' One of the young males stopped, looking at Gurgehquizzically. A fleeting expression of annoyancepassed across the older man's face, to be replaced by the amusedtolerance Yay had seen before in suchsituations. 'Jernau MoratGurgeh?' the young man said, still not quite sure.

'Guilty.' Gurgeh smiled gracefully and - Yay saw -straightened his back fractionally, drawing himself up alittle. The younger man's face litup. He executed a quick, formalbow. Gurgeh and Yay exchanged glances.

'An honour to meet you, Mr Gurgeh,' theyoung man said, smiling widely. 'My name'sShuroI'm' He laughed. 'Ifollow all your games; I have a complete set of your theoretical workson file'

Gurgeh nodded. 'How comprehensive of you.'

'Really. I'd be honoured if, any timeyou're here, you'd play me at well,anything. Deploy is probably my best game; I playoff three points, but-'

'Whereas my handicap, regrettably, is lack of time,' Gurgehsaid. 'But, certainly, if the chance ever arises, Ishall be happy to play you.' He gave a hint of a nod to the youngerman. 'A pleasure to have met you.'

The young man flushed and backed off,smiling. 'The pleasure's all mine, MrGurgeh. Goodbye goodbye.' Hesmiled awkwardly, then turned and walked off to join his companions.