Robot Adept

He looked at her again. She had reverted to a more normal figure and color, except for her nipples and eyes, which were now electric green. What would she choose? 8. COOPERATIVE? Maybe he could still get close to her. “Earth” meant a flat surface, as opposed to the variable or discontinuous surfaces of the following options, or the liquid surface of H20. Cooperation on a flat surface—that might be good.

He touched the E panel. Again, her choice was ready.

She had chosen 5. SEPARATE. So much for that. Was she teasing him again? No, she was merely playing the game, unaware of his thoughts. They would do what they would with each other after the game; they had no need to do it in the game. He was being foolish.

They were in 1B5E: the category of tool-assisted physical games, individually performed on a flat surface. That did not sound very appetizing to Bane.

This time the grid was only nine squares, with the numbers 9, 10 and 11 across the top and the letters J, K, and L down the left side. There were no words there, but there were a number of choices listed to the right. These consisted of ball games, wheeled games, and assorted odds and ends games that had perhaps been lumped into this category because it was the least irrelevant place for them.

Bane hesitated, not sure where to go from here. “Now we place games,” Agape explained. “May I have the first turn?”

Bane shrugged. “Thou mayst.”

She put her finger to her screen and evidently touched KNITTING, for that word brightened on his screen. Then she must have touched the center square of the grid, for abruptly the word was there.

“Knitting?” he asked. “What kind o’ game be that?”

“A woman’s game,” she said smugly. “I am not good at it, because we do not have it in my society, but I had to learn its basics in order to come here; I suspect that you, being arrogantly male, have never had experience with it.”

Bane opened his mouth, and shut it again. She had him dead to rights.

“Now you place one,” she said.

“Ah.” If knitting was a tool-assisted physical game of the female persuasion, there were many others of the male persuasion. He put his finger on BALL: Throwing. She would have trouble throwing a ball as far as he could! He touched the upper left square, and the expression appeared there.

She put SEWING beside it in the top row.

He scowled. If she got three lined vertically, then got to choose the numbers, she would be guaranteed one of her choices! But no, he remembered now that the turns alternated; the last person to place a game, which on this odd-numbered grid would be her, had to yield the choice of sides to the other. So he could choose the vertical and avoid that.

All the same, he played it safe. He put ICE SKATING in the middle of the bottom row.

She put BAKING in the left center, or 9K square. He quickly filled in the other end of the K row with BICYCLE RACING so that she would not have a horizontal line. He was beginning to enjoy this; he had thought they would not play the game until the grids decided what it would be, but realized that they were already in it. This was the aspect of strategy, where the game could be virtually won or lost, depending on the player’s cleverness in choosing and placing.

Agape put COOKING in the lower right corner.

Bane put SHOT PUT in the lower left.

She put SOAP BUBBLES in the upper right square, the final one. The grid was complete.

He chose the numbers, though there did not seem to be much difference. Then he wrestled with the decision over which column to choose. If he took the first, he had two chances to win one of his sports: Ball-throwing or Shot-putting. But she would anticipate that, so take the middle row, winning her choice of Baking. So he should take one of the other columns… where the odds were two to one against him. Except that if she figured him to take the first column, so she chose the middle row, he obviously should take the third column, putting them in Bicycle Racing. So the odds weren’t really against him. Unless she realized this, so took one of the other rows, so as to win. So he should—

He shook his head. He was getting confused! There was no way to be sure of victory; it was an endless maze of suppositions.

He decided to go with the odds. He touched Column 9.

This time she had not chosen before him, for the chosen box did not illuminate. His row highlighted; that was all.

At last she chose. The 9K square lighted, then expanded to fill the full screen. She had won it after all: they would play the game of Baking.

“Do you concede?” she asked.

It was only part of the ritual, but he was tempted. What did he know of baking? His mother, the Lady Blue, had always handled that. But he didn’t like quitting, even when it was only a game. Even when it really didn’t matter who won or lost. “Nay.”

“Will you accept a draw?”

That was a generous offer! He knew he should take it, but he decided to take his loss like a man. “Nay.”

She sighed. “I thought to bluff you,” she admitted. “I know nothing of baking.”