Tactics of Conquest Read Free

undercover agents.
    Five turned upon me then a look both querulous and penetrating, allowing the silence to magnify itself over a period, a veritable hush falling over my little suite (to say nothing of the bed in which I was lying) while he pondered all of my aspects hopefully.
    “I hope you’re not trying to make problems,” he said.
    “Oh no,” I said a little too eagerly, “no, I’m not trying to make things difficult at all; I just don’t feel well.”
    “Because we have an enormous stake in these matches,” Five said. “After all, you must realize that we are poising our entire future plans upon how you and your opponent do, David.”
    “Well, of course.”
    “You were both carefully selected from many billions to carry on the contest and you had better not fail us now. We don’t like failures.”
    “I understand that,” I said. Already I regretted the haste of my action, to say nothing of how impulsively I had arrived at it. Throwing a match through feigned illness suddenly struck me as a rather stupid idea considering, as Five had pointed out, the stakes involved. But then again, as I have noted, I was already too deeply committed to my posture to back out without embarrassing results. “I’m sure that I’ll feel better within a day or so.”
    “A day is not satisfactory.”
    “In fact it might only be hours,” I said, backing away but still stubborn. “I can’t just leap out of bed, you know. Perhaps the match could be set back—”
    “I’m really afraid not,” Five said. “We’re on a tight schedule with these matches, as you know. Commitments have already been made: One hundred and fifty billion intelligent creatures of all species are participating through a complicated communications network and any delay in the matches would have catastrophic results at this time. Also,” Five added rather dourly, “also, we have our own problems, scheduling commitments and so on, of which you must be well aware. If itdoes go to the final game, the forty-one-match series must be completed by a certain date. Our stay in this universe, you see, is severely affecting laws of entropy and geophysics with which I won’t bore you. If we overstay the period we risk destroying the very fabric of your universe which, as you know, is merely a small and trivial cosmology to us but rather important to you. Also, we would die here with you.”
    “All right,” I said, “very well.” It occurred to me, and not for the first time I must admit (everything going on has happened at least twice before), that all of the Overlords, but particularly Five, tend to have a rather melodramatic streak. Like grandmasters themselves, they build up issues out of all proportion to their real worth. It is very difficult for a man in my position to play chess for the outcome of the universe, in short, but this was insignificant to the Overlords. I had a dilemma.
    “All right,” I said again, tossing the sheets rather petulantly and then trying to sit, “if that’s the way you feel about it I’ll try to compete. But I must warn you that I’m just not in top form and that there’s a good likelihood that I’ll lose the game. Perhaps I’ll lose a whole
series
of games. One must be in top physical condition to play successfully; it’s an athletic endeavor, as you know, so I can hardly promise you a fair contest.”
    The Overlords believe in fairness. They have insignificant morals, true, but have insisted from the beginning that this must be a fair contest, an even match, that we must play at a serious and spirited level, otherwise the exercise will be worthless. So I knew that this would strike Five in an area of grave vulnerability.
    “Very well,” he said and indeed did appearshaken. “We will take that into account, the fact of your illness and that you will perhaps be unable to perform at the best level. Still and all ... the matches must go on.”
    “Only if I am well.”
    “Regardless of your