Short Fiction - Fritz Leiber (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Doctor Las-ker,” Bill and Judy chanted as one.

“Shut up,” Dave warned them. An official glared angrily from the floor and shook a finger. Much later Sandra discovered that Dr. Emanuel Lasker was a philosopher-mathematician who, after holding the world’s championship for 26 years, had won a very strong tournament (New York 1924) at the age of 56 and later almost won another (Moscow 1935) at the age of 67.

Sandra studied Doc’s face carefully through her glasses. He looked terribly tired now, almost a death’s head. Something tightened in her chest and she looked away quickly.

The Angler-Jal and Grabo-Machine games were still dingdong contests, Dave told her. If anything, Grabo had a slight advantage. The Machine was “on the move,” meaning that Grabo had just made a move and was waiting the automaton’s reply.

The Hungarian was about the most restless “waiter” Sandra could imagine. He twisted his long legs constantly and writhed his shoulders and about every five seconds he ran his hands back through his unkempt tassle of hair.

Once he yawned self-consciously, straightened himself and sat very compactly. But almost immediately he was writhing again.

The Machine had its own mannerisms, if you could call them that. Its dim, unobtrusive telltale lights were winking on and off in a fairly rapid, random pattern. Sandra got the impression that from time to time Grabo’s eyes were trying to follow their blinking, like a man watching fireflies.

Simon Great sat impassively behind a bare table next to the Machine, his five gray-smocked technicians grouped around him.

A flushed-faced, tall, distinguished-looking elderly gentleman was standing by the Machine’s console. Dave told Sandra it was Dr. Vanderhoef, the Tournament Director, onetime champion of the world.

“Another old potzer like Krakatower, but with sense enough to know when he’s licked,” Bill characterized harshly.

“Youth, ah, un-van-quish-able youth,” Judy chanted happily by herself. “Flashing like a meteor across the chess fir-ma-ment. Morphy, Angler, Judy Kaplan⁠ ⁠…”

“Shut up! They really will throw us out,” Dave warned her and then explained in whispers to Sandra that Vanderhoef and his assistants had the nervous-making job of feeding into the Machine the moves made by its opponent, “so everyone will know it’s on the level, I guess.” He added, “It means the Machine loses a few seconds every move, between the time Grabo punches the clock and the time Vanderhoef gets the move fed into the Machine.”

Sandra nodded. The players were making it as hard on the Machine as possible, she decided with a small rush of sympathy.

Suddenly there was a tiny movement of the gadget attached from the Machine to the clocks on Grabo’s table and a faint click. But Grabo almost leapt out of his skin.

Simultaneously a red castle-topped piece (one of the Machine’s rooks, Sandra was informed) moved four squares sideways on the big electric board above the Machine. An official beside Dr. Vanderhoef went over to Grabo’s board and carefully moved the corresponding piece. Grabo seemed about to make some complaint, then apparently thought better of it and plunged into brooding cogitation over the board, elbows on the table, both hands holding his head and fiercely massaging his scalp.

The Machine let loose with an unusually rapid flurry of blinking. Grabo straightened up, seemed again about to make a complaint, then once more to repress the impulse. Finally he moved a piece and punched his clock. Dr. Vanderhoef immediately flipped four levers on the Machine’s console and Grabo’s move appeared on the electric board.

Grabo sprang up, went over to the red velvet cord and motioned agitatedly to Vanderhoef.

There was a short conference, inaudible at the distance, during which Grabo waved his arms and Vanderhoef grew more flushed. Finally the latter went over to Simon Great and said something, apparently with some hesitancy. But Great smiled obligingly, sprang to his feet, and in turn spoke to his technicians, who immediately fetched and unfolded several large screens and set them in front of the Machine, masking the blinking lights. Blindfolding it, Sandra found herself thinking.

Dave chuckled. “That’s already happened once while you were out,” he told Sandra. “I guess seeing the lights blinking makes Grabo nervous. But then not seeing them makes him nervous. Just watch.”

“The Machine has its own mysterious powwow-wers,” Judy chanted.

“That’s what you think,” Bill told her. “Did you know that Willie Angler has hired Evil Eye Bixel out of Brooklyn to put the whammy on the Machine? S’fact.”

“… powwow-wers unknown to mere mortals of flesh and blood⁠—”

“Shut up!” Dave hissed. “Now you’ve done it. Here comes old Eagle Eye. Look, I don’t know you two. I’m with this lady here.”

Bela Grabo was suffering acute tortures. He had a winning attack, he knew it. The Machine was counterattacking, but unstrategically, desperately, in the style of a Frank Marshall complicating the issue and hoping for a swindle. All Grabo had to do, he knew, was keep his head and not blunder⁠—not throw away a queen, say, as he had to old Vanderhoef at Brussels, or overlook a mate in two, as he had against Sherevsky at Tel Aviv. The memory of those unutterably black moments and a dozen more like them returned to haunt him. Never if he lived a thousand years would he be free of them.

For the tenth time in the last two minutes he glanced at his clock. He had fifteen minutes in which to make five moves. He wasn’t in time-pressure, he must remember that. He mustn’t make a move on impulse, he mustn’t let his treacherous hand leap out without waiting for instructions from its guiding brain.

First prize in this tournament meant incredible wealth⁠—transportation money and hotel bills for more than a score of future tournaments. But more than that, it was one more chance to blazon before the world his true superiority rather than the fading reputation of it. “… Bela Grabo, brilliant but erratic⁠ ⁠…” Perhaps his last chance.

When, in the name of Heaven, was the Machine going to make its next move? Surely it had already taken more than four minutes! But a glance at its clock showed him that hardly half