7
A Game of Damage
“Damage—the game banned everywhere. Tonight, in that unprepossessing building across the square under the dome, they’ll gather:
the
Players of the Eve of Destruction… the most select group of rich psychotics in the human galaxy, here to play the game
that is to real life what
soap opera is to high tragedy.
“This is the bi-port city of Evanauth, Vavatch Orbital, the very same Vavatch Orbital that in about eleven standard hours
from now is due to
be blasted into its component atoms as the Idiran-Culture war in this part of the galaxy, near the Glittercliff
and Sullen Gulf, reaches a new high
in standing-by-your-principles-regardless and a new low in common sense. It’s that imminent
destruction that’s attracted these scatological
vultures here, not the famous Megaships or the azure-blue technological miracles
of the Circlesea. No, these people are here because the
whole Orbital is doomed to be blown away shortly, and they think it’s
kind of amusing to play Damage—an ordinary card game with a few
embellishments to make it attractive to the mentally disturbed—in
places on the verge of annihilation.
“They’ve played on worlds about to suffer massive comet or meteorite strikes, in volcanic calderas about to blow, in cities
due for nuclear
bombardment in ritualistic wars, in asteroids heading for the center of stars, in front of moving cliffs of
ice or lava, inside mysterious alien
spacecraft discovered empty and deserted and set on courses aiming them into black holes,
in vast palaces about to be sacked by android
mobs, and just about everywhere you can think of you’d rather
not
want to be immediately after the Players leave. It might seem like a strange
sort of way to get your kicks, but it takes
all sorts to make a galaxy, I guess.
“So here they’ve come, these hyper-rich deadbeats, in their rented ships or their own cruisers. Right now they’re sobering
up and coming
down, going through plastic surgery or behavior therapy—or both—to make them acceptable in what passes for normal
society, even in these
rarefied circles, after months spent in whatever expensive and unlikely debauchery or perversion particularly
appeals to them or happens to be
in fashion at the moment. At the same time, they or their minions are scraping together their
Aoish credits—all actual; no notes—and scouting
hospitals, asylums and freeze-stores for new Lives.
“Here, too, have come the hangers-on—the Damage groupies, the fortune seekers, the past failures at the game desperate for
another try
if they can only raise the money and the Lives… and Damage’s very own special sort of human debris: the moties,
victims of the game’s
emotional fall-out; mind-junkies who only exist to lap at the crumbs of ecstasy and anguish falling
from the lips of their heroes, the Players of the
Game.
“Nobody knows exactly how all these different groups hear about the game or even how they all get here in time, but the word
goes out to
those who really need to or want to hear about it, and like ghouls they come, ready for the game and the destruction.
“Originally Damage was played on such occasions because only during the breakdown of law and morality, and the confusion and
chaos
normally surrounding Final Events, could the game be carried out in anything remotely resembling part of the civilized
galaxy; which, believe it
or not, the Players like to think they’re part of. Now the subsequent nova, world-busting or other
cataclysm is seen as some sort of metaphysical
symbol for the mortality of all things, and as the Lives involved in a Full
Game are all volunteers, a lot of places—like good old pleasure-
oriented, permissive Vavatch—let the game take place with
official blessing from the authorities. Some people say it’s not the game it used to
be, even that it’s become something of
a media event, but
I
say it’s still a game for the mad and the bad; the rich and the uncaring, but not the
careless; the unhinged… but well connected.
People still die in Damage, and not just the Lives, either, or the Players.
“It’s been called the most decadent game in history. About all you can say in the game’s defense is that it, rather than reality,
occupies the
warped minds of some of the galaxy’s more twisted people; gods know what they would get up to if it wasn’t there.
And if the game does any
good apart from reminding us—as if we needed reminding—how crazy the bipedal, oxygen-breathing carboniform
can become, it does
occasionally remove one of the Players and frighten the rest for a while. In these arguably insane times,
any
lessening or attenuation of
madness is maybe something to be grateful for.
“I’ll be filing another report again some time during the course of the game, from within the auditorium if I can get in there.
But in the
meantime, goodbye and take care. This is Sarble the Eye, Evanauth City, Vavatch."
The image on the wrist screen of a man standing in sunlight on a plaza faded; the half-masked, youngish face disappearing.
Horza put his terminal screen back onto his cuff. The time display winked slowly with the countdown to Vavatch’s destruction.
Sarble the Eye, one of the most famous of the humanoid galaxy’s freelance reporters, and also one of the most successful at
getting into
places he wasn’t supposed to, would now probably be trying to enter the games hall—if he hadn’t got in already;
the broadcast Horza had just
watched had been recorded that afternoon. Doubtless Sarble would be in disguise, so Horza was
glad he’d bribed his way in before the
reporter’s broadcast went out and the security guards round the hall got even more
wary; it had been hard enough as it was.
Horza, in his new guise as Kraiklyn, had posed as a motie—one of the emotional junkies who followed the erratic, secretive
progress of the
major game series round the more tawdry fringes of civilization, having discovered that all but the most expensive
reserved places had been
sold out the day before. The five Aoish credit Tenths he had started out with that morning were now
reduced to three; though he also had some
money keyed into a couple of credit cards he’d bought. That currency would shrink
in real value, though, as the destruction time drew nearer.
Horza took a deep, satisfying breath and looked around the big arena. He had climbed as high as he could up the banked steps,
slopes
and platforms, using the interval before the game began to get an overview of the whole thing.
The dome of the arena was transparent, showing stars and the bright shining line that was the Orbital’s far side, now in daylight.
The lights
of shuttles coming and going—mostly going—traced lines across the still points. Beneath the dome cover hung a smoky
haze, lit with the