Split Infinity

Stile took that stone and laid it on the board. Black, by convention, had the first move. With 361 intersections to choose from—for the stones were placed on the lines in Go, not in the squares—he had no problem.  A one-stone advantage was not much, but in a game as precise as this it helped.

Snack settled down to play. The game was by the clock, because this was a challenge for access to the Tourney; probably few games of Go would be played, but time was limited to keep the Tourney moving well.  This was another help to Stile; given unlimited time to ponder. Snack could probably beat him. Under time pressure Stile generally did well. That was one reason he was a top Gamesman.

They took turns laying down stones, forming strategic patterns on the board. The object was to enclose as much space as possible, as with an army controlling territory, and to capture as many of the opponent’s stones as possible, as with prisoners of war. Territory was the primary thing, but it was often acquired by wiping out enemy representatives. Stile pictured each white pebble as a hostile soldier, implacable, menacing; and each black pebble as a Defender of the Faith, up-right and righteous. But it was not at all certain that right would prevail. He had to dispose his troops adantageously, and in the heat of battle the advantage was not easy to discern.

A stone/man was captured when all his avenues of freedom were curtailed. If enemy forces blocked him off on three sides, he had only one freedom remaining; if not buttressed by another of his kind, forming a chain, he could lose his freedom and be lost. But two men could be surrounded too, or ten enclosed; numbers were no certain security here. Rather, position was most important. There were devices to protect territory, such as “eyes” or divisions that prevented enclosure by the other side, but these took stones that might be more profitably utilized elsewhere. Judgment was vital.

Snack proceeded well in the early stages. Then the complexity of interaction increased, and time ran short, and Stile applied the notorious Stile stare to unnerve his opponent. It was a concentrated glare, an almost tangible aura of hate; every time Snack glanced up he encountered that implacable force. At first Snack shrugged it off, knowing that this was all part of the game, but in time the unremitting intensity of it wore him down, until he began to make mistakes. Trifling errors at first, but these upset him all out of proportion, causing his concentration to suffer. He misread a seki situation, giving away several stones, failed to make an eye to protect a vulnerable territory, and used stones wastefully.

Even before the game’s conclusion, it was obvious that Stile had it. Snack, shaken, resigned without going through the scoring procedure. Rung Seven was Stile’s.

Stile eased up on the glare—and Snack shook his head, feeling foolish. He understood how poorly he had played in the ambience of that malevolence—now that the pressure was off. At his top form he might reason-ably have beaten Stile, but he had been far below his standard. Stile himself was sorry, but he was above all a competitor, and he had needed this Rung. All his ma-lignance, the product of a lifetime’s reaction to the slight of his size, came out in concentrated form during competition of this nature, and it was a major key to his success. Stile was more highly motivated than most people, inherently, and he drove harder, and he never showed mercy in the Game.

The holder of Rung Six was a contrast. His name was Hulk, after an obscure comic character of a prior century he was thought to resemble, and he was a huge, powerful man. Hulk was not only ready but eager to meet the challenge. He was a specialist in the physical games, but was not stupid. This was his last year of tenure, so he was trying to move into qualifying position; unfortunately his last challenge to Rung Five had been turned back on a Game of chance, and he could not rechallenge until the rung-order shifted, or until he had successfully answered a challenge to his own Rung.  Stile was that challenge. The audience, aware of this, had swelled to respectable size; both Stile and Hulk were popular Gamesmen, and they represented the extremes of physical appearance, adding to that novelty.  The giant and the midget, locked in combat!

Stile got the numbered face of the prime grid, this time. For once he had the opening break! He could steer the selection away from Hulk’s specialty of the physical.