"But you must! What are you trying to do? If you don't say something soon you'll turn them against you; this enigmatic stuff won't do for ever you know. You're the underdog at the moment; don't lose that!"

"Pequil," Gurgeh said, fully aware he was insulting the apex by addressing him so, "I have no intention of speaking to anybody about my game, and what they choose to say or think about me is irrelevant. I am here to play the game and nothing else."

"You are our guest," Pequil said coldly.

"And you are my hosts." Gurgeh turned and walked away from the official, and the ride back in the car was completed in silence, save for Flere-Imsaho's humming, which occasionally sounded to Gurgeh as if it barely concealed a chuckling laugh.

"Now the trouble starts."

"Why do you say that, ship?" It was night. The rear doors of the module lay open. Gurgeh could hear the distant buzz of the police hoverplane stationed over the hotel to keep news-agency craft away; the smell of the city, warm and spicy and smoky, drifted in too. Gurgeh was studying a set-piece problem in a single game, and taking notes. This seemed to be the best way of talking to the Limiting Factor with the time-delay; talk, then switch off and consider the problem while the HS light flashed to and fro; then, when the reply came, switch back to speech mode; it was almost like having a real conversation.

"Because now you have to show your moral cards. It's the single game, so you have to define your first principles, register your philosophical premises. Therefore you'll have to give them some of the things you believe in. I believe this could prove troublesome."

"Ship," Gurgeh said, writing some notes on a scratch tablet as he studied the holo in front of him, "I'm not sure I have any beliefs."

"I think you do, Jernau Gurgeh, and the Imperial Game Bureau will want to know what they are, for the record; I'm afraid you'll have to think of something."

"Why should I? What does it matter? I can't win any posts or ranks, I'm not going to gain any power out of this, so what difference does it make what I believe in? I know they need to find out what people in power think, but I just want to play the game."

"Yes, but they will need to know for their statistics. Your views may not matter a jot in terms of the elective properties of the game, but they do need to keep a record of what sort of player wins what sort of match… besides which, they will be interested in what sort of extremist politics you give credence to."

Gurgeh looked at the screen camera. "Extremist politics? What are you talking about?"

"Jernau Gurgeh," the machine said, making a sighing noise, "a guilty system recognises no innocents. As with any power apparatus which thinks everybody's either for it or against it, we're against it. You would be too, if you thought about it. The very way you think places you amongst its enemies. This might not be your fault, because every society imposes some of its values on those raised within it, but the point is that some societies try to maximise that effect, and some try to minimise it. You come from one of the latter and you're being asked to explain yourself to one of the former. Prevarication will be more difficult than you might imagine; neutrality is probably impossible. You cannot choose not to have the politics you do; they are not some separate set of entities somehow detachable from the rest of your being; they are a function of your existence. I know that and they know that; you had better accept it."

Gurgeh thought about this. "Can I lie?"

"I shall take it you mean, would you be advised to register false premises, rather than, are you capable of telling untruths." (Gurgeh shook his head.) "This would probably be the wisest course. Though you may find it difficult to come up with something acceptable to them which you didn't find morally repugnant yourself."

Gurgeh looked back to the holo display. "Oh, you'd be surprised," he muttered. "Anyway, if I'm lying about it, how can I find it repugnant?"

"An interesting point; if one assumes that one is not morally opposed to lying in the first place, especially when it is largely or significantly what we term self-interested rather than disinterested or compassionate lying, then—"

Gurgeh stopped listening and studied the holo. He really must look up some of his opponent's previous games, once he knew who it would be.

He heard the ship stop talking. "Tell you what, ship," he said. "Why don't you think about it? You seem more engrossed in the whole idea than I do, and I'm busy enough anyway, so why don't you work out a compromise between truth and expediency we'll all be happy with, hmm? I'll agree to whatever you suggest, probably."

"Very well, Jernau Gurgeh. I'll be happy to do that."

Gurgeh bade the ship goodnight. He completed his study of the single-game problem, then switched the screen off. He stood and stretched, yawning. He strolled out of the module, into the orange-brown darkness of the hotel roof-garden. He almost bumped into a large, uniformed male.

The guard saluted — a gesture Gurgeh never did know bow to reply to — and handed him a piece of paper. Gurgeh took it and thanked him; the guard went back to his station at the top of the roof-stairs.

Gurgeh walked back into the module, trying to read the note.

"Flere-Imsaho?" he called, uncertain whether the little machine was still around or not. It came floating through from another part of the module in its undisguised, quiet form, carrying a large, richly illustrated book on the avian fauna of Eä.

"Yes?"

"What does this say?" Gurgeh flourished the note.

The drone floated up to the piece of paper. "Minus the imperial embroidery, it says they'd like you to go to the palace tomorrow so they can add their congratulations. What it means is, they want to take a look at you."

"I suppose I have to go?"

"I would say so."

"Does it mention you?"

"No, but I'll come along anyway; they can only throw me out. What were you talking to the ship about?"

"It's going to register my Premises for me. It was also giving me a lecture on sociological conditioning."

"It means well," said the drone. "It just doesn't want to leave such a delicate task to someone like you."

"Just going out, were you, drone?" Gurgeh said, switching on the screen again and sitting down to watch it. He brought up the game-player's channel on the imperial waveband and flicked through to the draw for the single games in the second round. Still no decision; the draw was still being decided; expected any minute.

"Well," Flere-Imsaho said, "There is a very interesting species of nocturnal fish-hunter that inhabits an estuary just a hundred kilometres from here, and I was thinking—"

"Don't let me keep you," Gurgeh said, just as the draw started to come through on the imperial game-channel; the screen started to fill with numbers and names.

"Right. I'll say goodnight, then." The drone floated away.

Gurgeh waved without looking round. "Goodnight," he said. He didn't hear whether the drone replied or not.

He found his place in the draw; his name appeared on the screen beside that of Lo Wescekibold Ram, governing director of the Imperial Monopolies Board. He was ranked as Level Five Main, which meant he was one of the sixty best game-players in the Empire.

The following day was Pequil's day off. An imperial aircraft was sent for Gurgeh and landed beside the module. Gurgeh and Flere-Imsaho — which had been rather late returning from its estuarial expedition — were taken out over the city to the palace. They landed on the roof of an impressive set of office buildings overlooking one of the small parks set within the palace grounds, and were led down wide, richly carpeted stairs to a high-ceilinged office where a male servant asked Gurgeh if he wanted anything to eat or drink. Gurgeh said no, and he and the drone were left alone.