Piers Anthony - Phaze Doubt

“I agreed to help you,” she retorted. “I never agreed to like you.”

“And you will do the one, and not the other,” he agreed. “I would rather have an honest enemy in my camp than a dishonest friend. This is why I chose you, apart from your propinquity.”

She nodded. Purple was awful in every way except cunning. Certainly she was more to be trusted than his ally Tan. His choice of her for his second made sense despite her lack of experience with the game. He had had to make a decision quickly, and it would have taken precious time to run down someone else, while she had been right there. Nepe must have figured on that. Still, Nepe was a nervy player herself.

She gazed at the wall and pondered the play-family situation. Father, mother, daughter, father accused of poisoning the king in order to assume the throne. By the rules of this contest, she was sure, any statement made by a player had to be taken at face value; if the Hectare said the father was next in line for the throne, then it would be so, and they would have to find a way to nullify that motive without denying the connection. They could do that at the outset, as Purple had the first statement, but that would be purely defensive. If they said that the father was unrelated, merely a good friend of the king’s, who had no motive to do him harm, the Hectare might merely modify the charge: the father was doing it because he had no personal ambition, and would be unsuspected; he had a secret reason to promote a third party, who had promised him a much better position. That would be hard to refute, and the effort would keep them on the defensive, a bad position to be in. So the answer must be in the attack: keep the heat on the other side, so that it could not attack the father.

She was discovering that her mind was attuning nicely to this challenge, despite her lack of experience. Perhaps it was the fascination of the setting, whose appeal made her truly want to participate.

“Time,” the Game Computer announced.

“Go for the attack!” Brown said hurriedly. “Never let up! I’m not sure of our defense.”

“My own conclusion,” he said.

They passed through the decorated stone door and reentered the main chamber. The Hectare and Citizen Tan emerged from an opposite chamber.

Now it occurred to Brown that the layout of the palace could be significant; a person could establish an alibi by showing that he was nowhere near the kitchen at the time the dates were poisoned. No, the suspects had already been determined, so must have had access. Still, the complicated network of the palace might figure in some other way; she would keep that in mind.

“We are gathered here in the South Anteroom to determine the truth,” the Game Computer said. “The scenes will be reenacted as described. Players will take turns addressing particular actors. Citizen Purple will make the opening statement.”

“I address the maiden in the multicolored dress,” Purple said.

As he spoke, that one animated, looking at him. “She is the sister of that young man.” He pointed to the narrow-waisted man Brown thought of as the bull-leaper. “She is in love with her brother’s friend, there.” He indicated the other young man. The young woman walked to the young man and embraced him, dramatizing their love. They made a pretty couple. “She wanted to marry him, but the king wanted her for a concubine.” The couple broke, and the woman gazed with evident dismay offstage, where presumably the king was beckoning. “So, in order to protect his sister, the brother tried to poison—“

“Objection!” Tan cried. “He is charging an unaddressed player.”

“Sustained,” the Game Computer said. “Statement must be limited to the addressed player.”

Purple scowled, and Brown, sharing his situation, understood. The rule should have been clarified beforehand. “Still, you can establish the motive by implication,” she murmured.

Purple nodded. “Correction: the young woman knew that the king desired her for a concubine, and that this would ruin her chance to marry her beloved, so she pleaded with her brother to do something to ease her case.” The young woman approached the man designated as her brother, and gestured animatedly as she faced him: her pleading. “She knew he would do whatever it took.” She looked confident.

Brown considered it a good attack. The Hectare could hardly afford to ignore it; even if a motive were established for some other player, that brotherly love would be persuasive. It was also a good animation. She knew that the setting was largely illusion, and that the characters were robots, but everything looked real and alive, and it was easy to suspend disbelief. The drama was coming alive for her.

The Hectare consulted briefly with his second, then made some squeaks. “I address the brother,” the translator said. The indicated young man animated. “It is true that he loves his sister, but his loyalty to his king is paramount. He would do anything to promote the welfare of his sister that does not conflict with his honor. So though she begged him to help her, and he agreed, he stressed that no action could be taken against the king. Instead, he would try to distract the king by proffering another potential concubine, the daughter of respected palace nobles.” A tentacle pointed, and Purple’s young woman animated: she was the one.

“Oops,” Brown murmured, suddenly seeing what was coming.

“Tan’s sharper than I thought,” Purple muttered. “He saw me coming with the brother ploy.”

“So he approached the other woman,” the translation continued, and the young man did just that with Purple’s young woman. “He suggested to her that the king found her interesting, but hesitated to approach her because he did not wish to offend his friend the noble. If, on the other hand, she were to approach the king, she might find a warm reception, and excellent benefits from his favor. She, taken by surprise, agreed to consider the matter. However, her father overheard, and—“

“Objection!” Brown called. “Neither the girl nor her father is being addressed.”

“Sustained,” the Game Computer said.

“As the brother left the girl,” the Hectare translation continued, “he saw her father in an adjacent chamber, separated by only a hanging rug, and realized that the man had been listening to their conversation. That made him nervous, for he knew the father to be a man set in his ways, and there was no telling what he might do if he thought his daughter was about to compromise herself with the king and ruin her value on the marriage market.”

Brown was worried. The Hectare, supposedly not comfortable with human conventions, was addressing them very well. That had to be Tan’s input; he probably was serving the Hectare as loyally as Brown was serving Purple, lest his own hide suffer.

“This I can handle,” Purple murmured. Brown was relieved, because her mind was blank on this one; she realized that she was not good at devious ploys. “I’ll throw him a curve that will scotch this ploy.”

Purple spoke to the stage. “I address the father.” The man straightened up behind the rug. “What he overheard amazed him, but his reaction was not anger but gratification. He had felt subtly alienated from the king recently, and now understood why: the king was developing another kind of interest. But if his daughter were to attract the king’s interest, the father would be right back in the king’s favor. Since the daughter seemed to have no good prospects for marriage, this was an excellent alternative prospect. Meanwhile, this development provided him with a sinister private satisfaction. He was privy to certain secrets of the palace, and knew that the fiancée of the girl whose brother was trying to save her from the king was not the sterling character he seemed. He led a double life, and had had a mistress of lower class whom he had dearly loved—until the king had taken her as a passing concubine, and she had dumped him, the friend.”