Steppe

  Yueh couldn't go back east to match Hun again, so he exited west. He shoved aside another moderate giant, Saka, and continued on toward one of the territories of the powerful dwarf Greek. Actually Yueh pushed Saka right into that region, then followed him, using him as a kind of fighting shield, and Greek just had to get out. Yueh and Saka stayed there, battling the civilized giant of Parthia in the west and India in the south, and never did leave those regions.

  All this had been started by Hun when he decided he needed more space. But it was only the beginning, for Hun was just achieving his first full flower of giantism. He still had a grudge against the supergiant of the southwest: fat Ch'in, now known as Han.

  Every few Days Hun would get on his horse and raid Han's territory, snatching up his booty and zipping back across the Yellow River where Han couldn't catch him. More fun! Only Han didn't see the joke and even built a great wall to stop the raids. That was only partially effective.

  Then Han had a bright idea. He was too clumsy to catch Hun by himself, but he thought he might get Yueh-chih to help him. After all, Yueh should have a score of his own to settle with Hun! So he sent a message-bug across the desert to Yueh. But Hun snatched the bug and held it for ten Days, just watching it squirm. At last it escaped and got to Yueh. Yueh said he liked it where he was and wouldn't go back. So the bug began the long trip home to its master—and Hun caught it again and held it for another Day. When it finally got home, twelve whole Days had passed—and it had no good news to report! Hun could hardly contain his laughter.

  Those were the Days, Alp agreed, amused.

  Han, furious, sent another bug to Alan, but Alan was afraid of Hun and refused to mess with him. So Han had to do it by himself. He exercised, converting some of his fat to muscle. He practiced his horsemanship and his fighting, and he actually got to be pretty good at it.

  Now he was ready. Han crossed the Yellow River into the old Yueh-chih territory and began slashing around with his sword. Hun, who hadn't taken the threat seriously, had a couple of toes cut off. They turned into dwarves named Huen-shih and Hie-Ch'u, and agreed to serve Han instead of Hun. Alp was furious at this treachery; never trust a dwarf!

  A couple of Days later Han stepped right into the center of Hun's territory and really cut him up. They fought in a storm that blew sand in Hun's face; otherwise, Alp knew, the fat slob never could have done it. Pieces of Hun were strewn all about, and he was left a much smaller and weaker giant than he had been. Han set forts all through the old Yueh territory so that Hun couldn't come back, and Alp raged again at the indignity. One day Han would get what was coming to him!

  But Han took no note of Alp's ire. A couple of Weeks later the dwarf living in Fergana, where Yueh had just moved out, said something nasty to Han, thinking he was beyond the grasp of the giant. Han had been dickering with him for a better horse, because the dwarf was an excellent horse-breeder. But after that insult, Han reached all the way across Steppe and bopped him head over heels and took the horse. Han was not half as flabby as he looked!

  But Hun was still around, biding his time, waiting for Han to go soft again. For a Month or two he harassed Han routinely, trying to gain control of the Silk Road that stretched from Han's territory to Parthian's territory. There was brisk trade along that route. So Hun raided, taking the nice things for himself. Fine silks, precious artifacts, good slaves—rich harvest indeed!

  Naturally Han was upset at this pilfering. He laid about him and chopped up several dwarves of the region who had sided with Hun, thus securing the road again.

  Hun should have put up more of a fight, but he had another problem. He was not well at the moment. A routine change of heads had gone wrong, and now two heads were growing simultaneously. Each head wanted to get rid of the other and run the body. Two heads were not better than one for a giant!

  One head asked Han for help. Alp took an immediate dislike to that one. It was treason to deal with the grasping entity of the south!

  Han was ready enough to negotiate, however. "Certainly I'll help you," he said greasily, "if you'll promise to behave yourself. Agree that I'm the real boss of the Steppe, and promise never to make any more raids..."

  "Go kiss my horse!" Alp muttered. But the traitorous Hun head was already slavishly agreeing. "Yes, yes!" it said eagerly. "Anything you say!"

  So Han helped this head, and it succeeded in dominating the Hun body. Naturally the other head didn't appreciate this; giants were bad sports even at the best of times. "Don't give up!" Alp urged it. "You are the true head! Fight!"

  But the true head's valiant effort succeeded only in breaking away a large portion of the body, which formed into a smaller giant. This lesser Hun retreated in a foul mood, beat up Alan and several dwarves, and established himself in a fine big territory north of Sogdiana. He was now called Western Hun.

  A few days later Han reached out and cut off Western Hun's head with one stroke of his sword. "Vile Chinese oppressor!" Alp shouted. "He wasn't bothering you!" But the damage was done. The Hun body shuffled off and hid, not to be heard from again for over a Year.

  "Now," the cartoon narrator explained, "commences the Christianized dating system. Thirty-five Days after the decapitation of Western Hun a religious figure was born in the far west, in the same general region where Philistine had settled a thousand Days before. This event was not particularly important to Steppe, but the dating system deriving from it has been a convenient reference point for other Games, such as the recent Rome, so will also be employed here."

  It seemed to Alp that the Uigur twelve-day cycle was superior: year of the Lion, year of the Ox, Dragon, Dog...

  but the matter was unimportant.

  About this time—Day 10 in the new scheme—Eastern Hun got back some of the Silk Road, because Han was having some two-headed trouble of his own. But then Hun himself had another attack of this malady. "Not again!"

  Alp wailed. He was somewhat disenchanted with Hun, who was showing up as less formidable than anticipated, but still favored him over the Chinese giants. If Alp had been in charge, he would have found some way to humble Han permanently!

  Part of Eastern Hun broke off and became Southern Hun, while the rest became Northern Hun. It was Day 48.

  Both were smaller than the original Hun. Han persuaded a couple of small giants or large dwarves to raid Northern Hun. These traitors were named Wu-huan and Hsien-pi.

  "Hsien-pi!" Alp exclaimed, recognizing the name. No dwarf, that!

  Northern Hun, weakened by the successive breakoffs of Western and Southern Huns and now attacked from behind by his own kind, was chopped down into dwarf size himself, and no longer represented any threat to Han.

  The unscrupulous tyrant of the south had successfully divided and conquered the mighty horde of Steppe. Alp shook his head, disgusted.

  Now a number of dwarves sprang up along the Silk Road. These were mostly splinters of the Indo-European family, related to Cimmerian and his offspring. Hun belonged to another great family called Turk, the terror of the western steppe. The little traitor Hsien-pi was from a third family, Mongol, more primitive and less important than Turk. Another family, Tungus, had little present power. All these families spoke different languages, but they could work together when they had to, and sometimes even fraternized.

  A Month or more passed with constant bickering and minor scraps between Han and one of the Hun brothers, but Han generally had the best of it. In Day 93 he sent the Mongol Hsien-pi to cut Northern Hun down to size again, and around Day 155 the Mongol actually ate the Turk.

  "You couldn't have done it when Hun was in his prime!" Alp muttered wrathfully. Uigur was of the Turk family, with Hunnic blood in his ancestry...

  Chapter 8

  PARTS AND PLAYERS

  But there was not time enough to view the rest of the Game history; the huge center cluster of the galaxy was upon the fleet, and Hun's descendant Uigur had to deal directly with Han's descendant T'ang. The horses had to slow way down to maneuver deviously alo
ng established channels between the myriads of stars and clusters and nebulae.

  These were the lowlands, with a hundred Chinese planets for every Uigur planet and population to match.

  They landed at the Emperor's city-planet of Changan. Its Game-surface was a fertile riverside marsh given over to extensive rice and millet culture. Stolid, bent-over peasants worked the fields, and their junks floated in the wide river. There was hardly decent footing for a horse.

  Alp felt stifled here in this unnatural congestion. But he knew that his nomad impulse to burn all the buildings and plow the fields into fallow pasture was mistaken. There was, unfortunately, much to be said in favor of civilization.

  The architecture was awesome to a born Uigur. Inside the palace were elegant hangings and extremely realistic murals. Uga was less impressed than Alp, perhaps because outside the Game Uga was accustomed to the opulence of twenty-fourth century existence.

  The Emperor was too busy at the moment to see them.

  Every Minute of the Game was six hours historically. Four Minutes was a full twenty-four hour day. Half an Hour was about a week. The Uigur envoys had traversed a major section of the galaxy to call on this derivative of fat Han—who was now entertaining himself by making the nomads wait. Alp showed no more emotion than the others did, but he seethed.

  A full Hour passed, and another commenced.

  The Uigurs were vastly outnumbered here, and by protocol had no weapons inside the palace. They had to wait the Emperor's pleasure.

  After a full historical month, Uga talked as privately as was possible with his lieutenants. "It's a studied insult,"

  he said. "How should we best react?"

  "We must wait," Pei-li counseled. "We dare not return without an answer for the Khagan."

  "The only answer the Khagan wants is news of Uga's death," Alp said. "We know he will get no T'ang bride.

  Why should we tolerate this lowlander insolence? There is nothing to be lost by a little judicious violence."

  Pei-li, no coward, shook his head negatively. "On honest open plains I would fire an arrow up the Emperor's fat posterior. Here in his home-city it would be disastrous to try it. Our corpses would not even be honored."

  Spoken like a genuine Uigur! Alp thought, liking the gruff noble better. Of course the matter of proper burial was academic; there were no literal corpses in the Game.

  Still, his own time was running out. Alp had to achieve a good position within ten Days or lose his advantage and probably his life. He could not afford to sit idle far from the sources of Steppe power while that precious time expired. "Neither of you will die on this tour," he reminded them. "With no legitimate mission to accomplish and no risk—"

  "I do not care to gamble the fortune of my part on the word of a recruit player," Pei-li said shortly.

  Uga spoke quickly, preventing Alp's response. "Ko-lo's counsel is tempting—but if we survived we should not know whether it was the result of Game predetermination or sheer luck. If we die, no one would care. So we shall let discretion guide us and wait."

  So they waited. After the third Hour they went out to look at the city—and discovered T'ang troops surrounding their horses and men.

  Uga's jaw tightened. "Do they think mere Chinese could hold us if we choose to leave?" he snorted. But he made no overt issue of the matter.

  More time passed. When the palace attendants became openly insolent, Uga finally had enough. "Inform the Emperor we shall see him now," he said, walking toward the throne room.

  Guards appeared, swords drawn. Alp and Pei-li, unarmed, moved as one man to flank the chief on right and left and shield him with their bodies. Uga forged straight ahead, pushing through the archway leading to the throne room.

  Weapons flashed. This was the pretext the palace guards had been waiting for: a technically aggressive move against the Emperor. Alp, on the right, leaped right, his boot sweeping up to catch the wrist of the attacking guard and kick free the descending sword. Pei-li, on the left, blocked the left-hand guard with a length of wood he seemed to have smuggled in, disarming the man similarly. Suddenly the two Uigurs were armed!

  Uga, true to his diplomatic mission, left his own hands open. He pushed through the archway.

  Now a dozen more guards converged, blades lifted. But Uga marched on as if oblivious to danger. Alp and Pei-li turned to face the men behind, but had to keep pace with their chief by marching backward.

  Two T'ang guards charged. Alp, now defending leftward because of his backwards position, had to parry awkwardly from his right. His sword met that of his attacker—and blue sparks crackled where the two blades came together. Alp yanked his own back, and the band of light re-formed. This was an uncommon variety of swordplay, and he didn't like it! Was it impossible to parry a stroke?

  But Pei-li was showing how it was done. When a Chinese sword came at him, he rotated his own so that the flat of it made contact—and the other sword bounced off, its light-edge momentarily disrupted. Then Pei-li struck—

  and though the light sliced through the guard without visible effect, the man toppled, stunned.

  Three more guards charged. This became ticklish, because while two were being fended off, the third could strike Uga down from behind. Alp turned his sword sidewise and put all his force into a sweep that knocked his man's weapon into that of the center man, fouling the thrust of each in a shower of sparks. Pei-li, meanwhile overcoming his own man, then sliced across both guards engaging Alp and dropped them to the floor.

  Pei-li might be gruff of speech and sharp of suspicion, but he could indeed fight—and that was the important thing. The man's technique was distinct from Alp's, but by no means inferior. Not all Galactics were decadent!

  Still Uga marched on. paying no attention.

  With five of their number out of the Game, the remaining guards were more respectful of nomad prowess. They followed closely but for the moment did not attack. Alp appreciated the guards' tactical problem: on a one-to-one basis the Uigurs were supreme; but when the Chinese ganged up they crowded each other and became vulnerable in another way. Yet they had to protect the Emperor—or suffer consequences perhaps less pleasant than elimination by sword.

  They were still in an anteroom of this capacious palace. Uga parted the heavy curtains shrouding the entrance to the throne room proper and stepped boldly through as Alp and Pei-li waged another defensive action against the furious lunge of four more guards.

  The vast room was empty. The throne was bare.

  "Not even here!" Uga said, disgusted. "Probably carousing with young boys in some other decadent city.

  Bastard never intended to see us!"

  "Might as well go home," Alp said, glad the scheme had been exposed, so that no more time would be wasted.

  "Not without a damned princess!" Uga said.

  Pei-li shook his shaggy head. "I agree with Ko-lo. The Emperor will not give us a princess—especially not after this mischief in his palace. We have dispatched eight—"

  "Nine," Alp said, running another through.

  "Who said anything about giving? " Uga demanded, cheerfully grim. "Are we not Uigurs? The Chinese exist only to provide spoils for the sons of the Turk!"

  Alp was getting to like this man, too! He might be imitation-Uigur, but he had the basic spirit. Uga's eyes-front march to the throne room had been an impressive act of nomad bravado. The Chinese would remember that!

  But Pei-li counseled caution again, even as his sword dazzled another guard. "Reinforcements will come soon.

  We are surely finished in these roles if we delay further before going for our horses."

  "Ko-lo says these roles of ours cannot be terminated here," Uga said. "Do you now call him liar?"

  Alp knew Pei-li had been observing his technique, just as Alp himself had been observing Pei-li's. Pei-li was more proficient with this particular type of weapon at this time—but Alp's strength and reflexes were faster. Was Uga trying to set them off against each other?

  Pei-l
i stifled an explosive bark of laughter. "Not while I yet live!"

  Alp relaxed. Pei-li had identified the essential conflict: they would have to die to prove Alp wrong. It wasn't worth it!

  " You two won't die here," Alp said, parrying another aggressive guard. "Unless the Game diverges from history. But I have no such assurance. My own future is blank to me."

  "Still," Uga said, as if that were a mere quibble, "we might as well put it to the test." And he walked forth into the bristling blades of the Emperor's reinforced guard.

  Pei-li and Alp, caught by surprise, were not able to protect him immediately. The T'ang troops were astonished.

  They fell back, daunted by the assurance of the unarmed nomad who stepped so blithely into their midst.

  Now Alp was quite curious. The theory was simple enough: the Game Machine would not permit an important character to die unhistorically. But the practice could become complex. What would happen if a guard struck directly at Uga, and no one was there to foil it? Alp had observed no direct intervention, and all characters in this play seemed to possess free will. So how did the Machine preserve the lives of those players fated to live—and how did it ensure their demise when the proper time came?

  Uga strode on through the ranks, Pei-li and Alp following. The guards, abashed, did not attack. There was now an aura of invincibility about the Uigur group. Did the guards suspect that the Game plan protected at least two members of the party? Were the Chinese afraid of what might happen if they pushed that limit too hard?

  The question bothered Alp increasingly as he followed the chief. History was too intricate; there had to be control if the Game were not very quickly to diverge far from history. Yet there was not control—and little diversion so far. Some element was missing.

  He could test it very simply: all he had to do was try to slay Uga himself. The Machine would either act—or it wouldn't. But he couldn't—because he had sworn loyalty. Aside from the fact that treachery against one's leader was not the Uigur way.