Phaze Doubt

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.”

“Objection!” Tan said.

“I am not addressing any other character,” Purple said. “I am merely describing the father’s thoughts, which cover his knowledge of palace intrigues and affect his course of action.”

“Overruled.” the Game Computer said.

Purple smiled, and continued. “The father knew that the friend had of course been unable to protest, but nursed an abiding grudge against the king for that episode, though the king had been unaware of his interest in the girl. The friend’s present engagement was a matter of expedience; his heart was not in it, though he said nothing to her brother about that. When the king’s interest in his fiancée developed, the friend realized that the king might do him an unwitting favor to match the unwitting injury before, by breaking up a liaison he had concluded he did not desire. But now the king was about to ruin even that, if the brother’s ploy was effective, and leave him stuck. He realized that it was pointless to allow events to take their own course; if he was going to settle with the king for the prior injury, it had better be now.” Purple smiled. “Such were the thoughts of the father. Of course he intended to protect the king against any such attack, and resolved to watch the young man closely.”