Distraction - Bruce Sterling [56]
It was very quiet. He should have thought to put on some music.
“I think that you need someone. You need someone who can understand your interests, someone to be your champion. People don’t appreciate you for what you are. People are using you for their own small-minded little ends. You’re very brave and dedicated, but you have to break out of your shell, you can’t go on retreating and being polite, you can’t go on accommodating those goons, they’ll drive you crazy, they’re not fit to touch the hem of your shoe. Your gown. The, what the hell, your lab coat.” He paused and drew a shaky breath. “Look, just tell me what you need.”
“I was wrong about you,” she said. “I thought you were going to grab me.”
“No, of course I’m not going to grab you.” He smiled.
“Stop smiling. You think I’m very innocent, don’t you. I’m not innocent. Listen to me. I have a body, I have hormones, I have a limbic system. I’m a sexual person. Look, I’ve been sitting up there under those cameras bored to death, restless, going crazy, and then you show up. You show up, and you’re coming on to me.”
She stood up. “I’ll tell you what I need, since you want to know so badly. I need a guy who’s kind of coldblooded and disposable, who won’t kick up a big fuss. He has to want me in this completely shallow, obvious way. But you’re not the kind of guy I want, are you. Not really.”
There was a ringing silence.
“I should have found some way to tell you all that, before you came down here, and took all this trouble. I almost didn’t come at all, but …” She sat back down wearily. “Well, it was more honest to be here face-to-face, and have it all out, all at once.”
Oscar cleared his throat. “Do you know the game of go? Go-bang? Wei-chi, in Chinese.”
“I’ve heard of it.”
Oscar got up and fetched his travel set. “Senator Bambakias taught me how to play go. It’s a core metaphor for his krewe, it’s how we think. So if you want to mix with modern politicians and accomplish something, then you need to learn this game right away.”
“You’re really a strange man.”
He opened and set out the square-lined board, with its two cups of black and white stones. “Sit down on the rug here with me, Greta. We’re going to have this out right now, Eastern style.”
She sat down cross-legged near the oil heater. “I don’t gamble.”
“Go isn’t a gambling game. Let me take your jacket now. Good. This isn’t chess, either. This isn’t a Western-style, mechanized, head-to-head battle. Those just don’t happen anymore. Go is all about networks and territories. You play the net—you place your stones where the lines cross. You can capture the stones if you totally surround them, but killing them is just a collateral effect. You don’t want to kill the stones, that’s not the point. You want the blankness. You want the empty spaces in the net.”
“I want the potential.”
“Exactly.”
“When the game ends, the player with the most potential wins.”
“You have played go before.”
“No, I haven’t. But that much is obvious.”
“You’ll play black,” he said. He set a group of black stones on the board, crisply clicking them down. “Now I’ll demo the game a bit, before we start. You place your stones down like this, one at a time. The groups of stones gain strength from their links, from the network that they form. And the groups have to have eyes, blank eyes inside the network. That’s a crucial point.” He placed a blocking chain of white stones around the black group. “A single eye isn’t enough, because I could blind that eye with one move, and capture your whole group. I could surround the whole group, drop into the middle, blind your eye, and just remove the whole group, like this. But with two eyes—like this?—the group becomes a permanent feature on the