Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [38]
Colonel Kelly looked at the youngster with curiosity and dejection. "Let’s face it. The little man upstairs has all the trumps." An expression borrowed from another game, he thought irrelevantly. "He’s an outlaw. He hasn’t got a thing to lose by getting the United States sore at him."
"If he’s going to kill us, say so!" the pilot said explosively. "So he’s got us cold! What’s he going to do?"
"He considers us prisoners of war," said Kelly, trying to keep his voice even. "He’d like to shoot us all." He shrugged. "I haven’t been trying to keep you in suspense, I’ve been looking for the right words—and there aren’t any. Pi Ying wants more entertainment out of us than shooting us would provide. He’d like to prove that he’s smarter than we are in the bargain."
"How?" asked Margaret. Her eyes were wide. The two children were waking up.
"In a little while, Pi Ying and I are going to play chess for your lives." He closed his fist over his wife’s limp hand. "And for my four lives. It’s the only chance Pi Ying will give us." He shrugged, and smiled wryly. "I play a better-than-average game—a little better than average."
"Is he nuts?" said the sergeant.
"You’ll all see for yourselves," said Colonel Kelly simply. "You’ll see him when the game begins—Pi Ying and his friend, Major Barzov." He raised his eyebrows. "The major claims to be sorry that, in his capacity as a military observer for the Russian army, he is powerless to intervene in our behalf. He also says we have his sympathy. I suspect he’s a damn liar on both counts. Pi Ying is scared stiff of him."
"We get to watch the game?" whispered the corporal tensely.
"The sixteen of us, soldier, are the chessmen I’ll be playing with."
The door swung open....
"Can you see the whole board from down there, White King?" called Pi Ying cheerfully from a balcony overlooking the azure-domed chamber. He was smiling down at Colonel Bryan Kelly, his family, and his men. "You must be the White King, you know. Otherwise, we couldn’t be sure that you’d be with us for the whole game." The guerrilla chief’s face was flushed. His smile was one of mock solicitousness. "Delighted to see all of you!"
To Pi Ying’s right, indistinct in the shadows, stood Major Barzov, the taciturn Russian military observer. He acknowledged Kelly’s stare with a slow nod. Kelly continued to stare fixedly. The arrogant, bristle-haired major became restless, folding and unfolding his arms, repeatedly rocking back and forth in his black boots. "I wish I could help you," he said at last. It wasn’t an amenity but a contemptuous jest. "I am only an observer here." Barzov said it heavily. "I wish you luck, Colonel," he added, and turned his back.
Seated on Pi Ying’s left was a delicate young Oriental woman. She gazed expressionlessly at the wall over the Americans’ heads. She and Barzov had been present when Pi Ying had first told Colonel Kelly of the game he wanted to play. When Kelly had begged Pi Ying to leave his wife and children out of it, he had thought he saw a spark of pity in her eyes. As he looked up at the motionless, ornamental girl now, he knew he must have been mistaken.
"This room was a whim of my predecessors, who for generations held the people in slavery," said Pi Ying sententiously. "It served nicely as a throne room. But the floor is inlaid with squares, sixty-four of them —a chessboard, you see? The former tenants had those handsome, man-sized chessmen before you built so that they and their friends could sit up here and order servants to move them about." He twisted a ring on his finger. "Imaginative as that was, it remained for us to hit upon this new twist. Today, of course, we will use only the black chessmen, my pieces." He turned to the restive Major Barzov. "The Americans have furnished their own chessmen. Fascinating idea." His smile faded when he saw that Barzov wasn’t smiling with him. Pi Ying seemed eager to please the Russian.