As Dliiavrnt had rather suspected, the operation on Aki was a typical Ine Givar fifth-column exercise, designed to destabilize an Imperial world, while presenting the impression that the anarchy and dissent had come from within. This explained the sourcing of local weapons rather than reliance on imported ones; preserving the cover of the two Zhodani leaders.
They also uncovered O'Rourke's personal journal. His real name was Zhdiebrtsakljdesiazh. There were detailed accounts of his dealings with the crew of the Akhashuua, including notes that the captain, Dreng, was a known player of the illegal game Damage.
|
The illegal game Damage is an underground, high-stakes tournament combining gambling, illegal psionic amplification, addiction and technical murder.
The entry fee is reputed to be MCr1, with the prizes for victory many times that number. The players are grouped around a table, into which is built a powerful telempathic amplifier. Each player attempts to project extremes of emotion - love, hate, madness, despair - at his opponents, whilst defending himself from their efforts. The object is to tip your opponent into insanity, brain haemorrhage, or despair; or to induce such blind love and trust in them that they'll come within your reach - at which point a physical assault is well within the rules.
Each player has up to five "lives" to expend to keep them in the game. The macabre touch is that these Lives are real. Unfortunate sentients, usually tramps and beggars picked up on worlds where such people exist, are restrained in a bank of chairs behind each player; when the player suffers an assault which would prove fatal, the table's machinery re-routes it to one of the Lives. Only when all are expended does the player themselves take damage - assuming they haven't packed it in by then; it's perfectly allowable to fold during the game, though this costs the stake, of course.
Spectators of this brutal spectacle are of two types; the gamblers and pundits, who wager enormous sums on the outcomes, and the Moties. Moties are the wretched specimens who cluster close to the play area, within the range of the psionic backwash of the emotion amplifier. The effects of this are highly addictive to the right kind of personality, and these people will keep coming back again and again to ride the game with the players, often burning out both their brains and their finances to the point that they wind up in the chairs, as Lives - as near as they'll ever get to playing the game...
Details on the location of the game are understandably sketchy, and exclusively based on examination of the sites of past tournaments. Going on that, the ISS has concluded that the tournament runs once a year, somewhere in the Glisten subsector, generally on unpopulated subordinate worlds within quiet star systems, and there is a marked preference for spectacular and dangerous locations; the edge of a soon-to-erupt volcano, an island populated by man-eating beasts, a derelict space station and so on.
|
Lasnus and Nose decided to try and make some sort of underworld contacts to try and track down the location of this game, as it was easily their best "forward lead" on Dreng to date. Donning their nicely inconspicuous combat armour, they ventured back into the lawless area of Fourth City where they'd picked up their leads on Red Action before. Drifting from bar to bar, they bought drinks and schmoozed with the lowlife.
Meanwhile, Stpierb' and Dliiavrnt had gone for a stroll around the shops. Being in a stroppy mood, they were wearing t-shirts with things like "Humans Suck" and "I'm with the Zhodani ->" printed on them. Most people watching them seemed to treat them the same way 20th Century folk regarded "punks", but, inevitably, the police stopped them.
"Gentlemen. These ...garments... are a little tasteless, aren't they?" opened the sergeant.
"They are, aren't they?" responded Dliiavrnt. "Never mind, we won't tell anyone, and you can go right home and change."
The sergeant and his men bristled, but the Zho Bros promised to go home and change, and simply walked off. Once around the corner, true to their word, they changed shirts... with each other.
As they did this, Dliiavrnt felt a brush against his mental shields. He ignored it, and the probe intensified, then faded to a telepathic message. "We need to meet," it said.
"You're not my type," responded Dliiavrnt crisply. There was consternation on the other end of the "line".
"You misunderstand!" came back. "We want to exchange information, to learn!" There was a touch of respect and even awe in the mental tone. Probably the local psionics institute, wowed at the concept of a Real Live Zhodani.
Dliiavrnt and Stpierb' carried on shopping.
Meanwhile, Nose and Lasnus were getting somewhere. Working their way into the underworld, they finally got introduced to a sweaty, shifty-looking man who introduced himself as Normal Neville. Once bought a drink or two, Normal Neville responded to the word Damage, and gave the pair directions to the premises of one Big Ron; described as "the main man round here".
Lasnus and Nose outlined their desires; contacts to enable them to get into the Damage Crowd, and, if possible, any information pertaining to Dreng and the crew of the Akhashuua. Big Ron thought for a moment. Then he started quoting prices; KCr50 for the introductions, to start with...
Nose spluttered angry protests, and concluded by observing that they hadn't got that sort of money. As he did so, Lasnus noticed some of the people around the room taking a keener interest; their eyes showing they thought they could prevent any violent action the pair cared to take. Big Ron spread his arms without rancour. "I deal in information, gents," he said apologetically, "it has great value to me, and I have to price my wares appropriately."
Just as the deal was starting to fall apart, Lasnus had a brainwave. "What about a trade in information?" he asked. "How much would - say - the data core of an ISS Agent's hand computer, fully unlocked and accessible, be worth to you?" Big Ron's eyes lit up, and he sat back down. "You have managed to open one?" he asked keenly. "Can you prove this?"
