SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

The game board had been oriented so that Erin was playing the dark side. That meant she would move second, and could be at a disadvantage. She wondered if her opponent would complain—or even notice—if she turned the board around, so that she would move first as the light side. Switching seats might be a bit obvious.

Erin picked up the dark king, which was heavier than she expected. The piece had been carved out of some kind of rock, apparently by hand. She could see that the lines cut into the sides of the conical shape were not quite straight. What kind of history did these objects have? Were they the Quggano captain’s personal effects? A family heirloom?

She sighed and put the game piece down. Maybe Darrow had the right idea. It would be easier to fight the Quggano if she didn’t think of them as people. But they were. Erin made her living as a merchant by treating all kinds of alien life forms as people. Her business was understanding what each species valued, and finding the most profitable way to trade between as many of them as possible. She didn’t judge those species which prized things she found distasteful, like cannibalism or slavery; she just didn’t do business with them. But she had to acknowledge that they were people. Maybe bad people, or just people she didn’t want to hang out with, but still people.

The door in the far wall slid open, and Erin’s opponent entered the chamber.

The child didn’t look like a miniature version of an adult Quggano, as Erin had thought it—he—might. Instead of walking upright on his four back limbs, he scuttled forward on all eight legs. The door slammed shut behind him, and Erin barely caught a glimpse of two adults—his parents, presumably—watching as their offspring crawled forth into battle.

How the hell did I wind up here?

The young Quggano climbed up onto the stool across from Erin. His body was squat and round. His dark, bulbous eyes reflected the ceiling lights. She couldn’t tell where he was actually looking; the Quggano’s fly-like ommatidia radiated in all directions. It felt like the kid was staring at her. She folded her arms to cover her bare breasts—which was silly; an alien wasn’t going to get turned on by her naked body. But it just felt wrong, to be unclothed in front of a child.

“Hi,” Erin said, after the silence had gone from awkward to weird. “I’m Erin. What’s your name?”

The kid tilted his head slightly.

“Erin,” she repeated, tapping her chest with one hand. She pointed at the kid. “What’s your name?”

The kid raised one foreleg, aimed it at Erin, and made a noise that could have been interpreted as “AAARRRNNN.”

Erin nodded and pointed at herself again. “Erin. Close enough. What’s your name?”

The kid touched its own thorax and said something like “MMMAAAKH,” with extra hissing at the end.

Erin stared for a moment. “Mikey?”

The kid repeated the sound and waved his antennae.

“Mikey,” Erin repeated. “So. Nice weather we’re having, eh?”

“GAALAANN,” Mikey said.

He reached out with two limbs, picked up a light pawn, and moved it into the center of the board. The surface glowed momentarily, just as Darrow had predicted: it was recording each move, for archival purposes. It would also send a signal outside the chamber when the game ended. That was the only communication permitted between this chamber and the outside world for the duration of the contest.

“Well,” Erin sighed, “I guess we’re getting right down to business.”

She pushed a dark pawn forward to block the light pawn from advancing. Mikey immediately grabbed one of his tall-bishops and shoved it forward.

Erin frowned, her hand hovering over the board. Why did this seem familiar?

“Light pawn to center,” she murmured to herself. “Dark pawn to block, tall-bishop forward, then…”

She remembered. This was one of the first game openings Darrow had taught her, a simple strategy he called “tower defense.” Erin lifted one of her side-rooks and moved it up next to her pawn, watching Mikey’s expression. His mandibles twitched, but she had no idea what that meant.

As soon as Erin released her side-rook, Mikey moved his other tall-bishop into position to threaten the leftmost of her three knights. Completely by the book.

Was this kid just playing by rote? Did he have any idea what he’d been dropped into here? That he was literally fighting for his life?

Erin’s vision blurred. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at Mikey again. She had no idea what he was thinking, and she couldn’t ask him, given the language barrier. They couldn’t even talk about what was happening. They just had to go through with this ritual, and then one of them had to die.

It was an impossible choice. She knew how to break through Mikey’s tower defense—if that was what he was playing—but she couldn’t condemn this kid to death just because he didn’t know how to play a damn game.

On the other hand, how could she sentence the entire crew of the Myrmidon to death, just because she couldn’t stand the thought of being a murderer? Was her own psychological well-being worth all those hundreds of lives?

Mikey made a noise, jolting her back to the game. Erin interpreted his utterance as impatience, and she reflexively made the next textbook move, sliding her other side-rook forward to defend her knight.

As soon as her hand released the dark piece, Mikey moved his tall-bishop in for the kill, using another arm to remove the dark knight and set it on the table beside the game board. He lifted his head and made a cawing noise that might have been laughter.

Erin shook her head. He was playing exactly the way Darrow had shown her not to. Sure, Mikey’s tall-bishop was now inside her lines, but he had left himself wide open to a counterattack. Erin could take out his tall-bishop with her side-rook, then send her other two knights in through the opening he had just made. She could decimate his pieces in half a dozen moves. There was still no guarantee that she would win, but if all Mikey knew about Ton-Gla-Ben was what he’d read in a book, she actually had a fighting chance.

“AAARRNNN,” Mikey said, fluttering his antennae. He tapped the table with two legs. “AAARRNNN GAALAANN.”

“Okay, okay,” Erin said. “But you’re not going to like it.”

She captured his tall-bishop with her side-rook. Mikey stared silently for a moment, then moved his other tall-bishop forward, setting up to capture her side-rook.

Erin gaped for a moment. He’d just gone off-book, but not in a good way. There was no advantage to taking her side-rook now. Sending his other tall-bishop in was an obvious mistake. Was he just baiting her? Testing to see what this dumb human would do?

“What the hell are you doing?” Erin muttered.

She decided to do something off the wall. She took her rightmost pawn and shoved it forward. The move was completely irrelevant to everything that had happened in the game so far. Would Mikey ignore it and take her side-rook in an act of short-sighted vengeance?

He didn’t. He moved his own light pawn forward, blocking the dark pawn she’d just released. Now they were deadlocked, removing an entire section of the board from play.

Erin frowned at him. “What the hell are you doing?” she said out loud.

She grabbed her leftmost pawn and moved it out, mirroring her last move. Once again, Mikey blocked with his own pawn. Now two entire lanes were unplayable.

“What the hell are you doing?” Erin repeated.

He stared back at her with giant, unblinking eyes. “GAALAANN.”

Erin looked down at the board, then up at Mikey again. If he was going to play like this—short-sighted, reacting to low-value captures, focused on retaliation and spite instead of long-term gain—there was a very good chance Erin could beat him. And this was a single contest, not some kind of tournament.