very imaginative and a nice game
The Bloodless Hunt
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lol, nice resurrection.
The Bloodless Hunt
Razeth flexed his front claws in frustration. Twenty days had already passed with his hind legs in traction and the healing was going oh-so-slowly. He longed to be back hunting in the canopies of forest on the planet below, with the rest of his pride, but his injuries (from falling ignominiously during what would have been a spectacular leap from tree to tree) made it convenient for them to leave him to perform the duty of monitoring the signals filtering through the wormhole. He hissed an order at one of their simian slaves and it scurried to fetch him a cool drink. Even incapacitated so, the mere fear of the penalties for anything other than complete obedience earned him instant service. He irritably snatched the glass from the little monkey; sometimes Razeth wondered why his people had even been gracious enough to augment the slave species' intelligence so they could communicate – things would have been better under the old hunter-prey relationship, he mused.
This line of thought brought him back to the duty he was nominally performing. The race they were studying was some sort of descendant of monkeys like the one cowering as far from Razeth's hammock as it could without causing offence. He did not glance at it, though; his razor-sharp hearing could locate its exact position, just from its breathing, an ancient primal predator's advantage; nevermind the smell the things gave off. He honed in with the computer's instruments to the wormhole nexus his people had hacked into a few lunar months before. They were tracking communications these Humans were making between two of their outposts at the mouths at either end of a wormhole. Razeth's ship was at an equidistant point between them. So far they had not interfered with the signals; that would change if the High Command deemed it appropriate, or if it looked like fun. Pleasure-seeking was very much their leonine race's birthright.
Mostly the signals were mundane: transmission of survey findings and technical data; Razeth's ship's semi-sentient computer would store and catalogue these automatically. What was of more interest was a series of coded signals amongst the messages, usually at the end of the data stream. After a few weeks the computer had managed to establish that it was some sort of game using co-ordinates in a sixty-four square matrix, played between inhabitants of both outposts. Some aspects of it took longer to fathom like the mysterious “O-O” and strange transformations where one piece, seemingly a footsoldier, became a general. Razeth, like all of his people, the Ka, enjoyed games – especially ones like this of an obviously martial nature. He had played some casual games of it with the artificial intelligence computer. Its mind was designed by the Ka in their image with a ruthless, almost cruel streak ideal to this intricate game and it had beaten him easily. His culture had other games of a similar nature but this strange alien game of Chess appealed to Razeth. Injured as he was, he channelled his mental energies into analysing the games the humans were playing with each other. Nothing else in their binary transmissions merited interest, anyway. The human scientists appeared to get excited about properties of sampled rocks, as if they had never mastered matter transmutation. Pathetic.
He considered their play. He felt he could beat either outpost at their own game – their moves lacked substance, it seemed to him. The Ka, as a race, had very high levels of cunning; their home planet had been a challenging one to survive, let alone to escape – although they were the species at the top of their food chain, its constant volcanoes, tsunamis and many poisonous plants and wildlife nearly wiped them out a few times on their evolutionary path to the stars. An entertaining thought was forming in his mind. One of the outposts' games was coming to a close by the looks of it. He started preparing a subroutine with the computer's aid. He was still working on this when his sister breezed in on all fours, tail twitching. She switched smoothly to stand upright, as the Ka were comfortable either way, having an evolved spine. “Keeping amused, Razeth?” purred Salia. He gave a curt nod, well aware that she was lording it over him that she had been out hunting. “And you, dear sister, bored with the hunt? Or did you need to brush your fur some more?” Salia was vain even by Ka standards. Not to be discomfited, though, she smiled indulgently at her brother and enquired “Not keeping you from anything important, am I dear?” There was no way he was going to take her into his confidence; Salia was much more physical than cerebral and would only sneer. “Nothing worth a moment of your time, precious sister.” He returned his gaze to the programming tablet in his lap and pretended not to notice as she stalked out, still upright. She would no doubt suit up again and jet back down to the surface to continue hunting; their parents would have had her check on him.
Some hours later, he ran his work through the AI and, satisfied it would perform properly, set up the subroutine. Basically it would instruct the ship to intercept messages through the wormhole and edit small changes in, without his having to confirm the content as safe to be allowed to pass on. Out of the two outposts, designated Scylla and Charybdis by the humans, Scylla seemed to be the primary dwelling and it was through this one that orders from their central space government were issued. Razeth amended a fragment of signal from Scylla to Charybdis from “Your turn to go black, Geoff. Best of luck.” to a brief regretful statement that policy had changed, to save costs and maintain operating integrity, and that no personal communications including chess games would be allowed to be sent via the wormhole system. That should stop Charybdis, the smaller outpost, from sending any chess moves; this enabled Razeth to add some of his own moves in to the messages being returned from the outpost to its companion station. Scylla had also sent the first move of the next game they thought they were playing against their colleagues: a footsoldier, or “pawn” as they seemed to call it, advancing. Razeth was familiar with this from the games he had watched already. Some time later the next data burst came through from Charybdis and in place of their slightly offended and stiffly worded protest over the “new policy” he substituted his opening pawn move. Battle was joined; Razeth felt a strange little thrill he hadn't quite expected. [1) e4 c5]
During the next hour, as the humans measured it, or three quarters of the Ka's time unit, the bned, Razeth waited for the next transmission and amused himself by throwing a ball for the monkey to fetch. When the signal came he pounced on his interface/programming tablet and told the subroutine to reply to Scylla's piece move, the knight, with one of his own, when the data burst returned from Charybdis. It was a maneuver he had both seen in the humans' games and played himself in practice with his computer. After giving this instruction, he lay back in his hammock as comfortably as the supports for his legs would allow and switched his attention to a view of the planet below, thinking about his family. They were good, as family went, he supposed; his parents would be watching his three brothers and sole sister stalk prey and cavort. Although his siblings were all more or less of adult age, family ties were important to the Ka, and it was very common for whole families to acquire skill sets to allow them to be posted together like Razeth and his family were. He napped for a short while, waking only to consume some fish and set up a response to Scylla's next pawn move with a capture in the centre and program in a conditional knight move in answer to the expected recapture. The AI would easily deal with that and delete any messages from Charybdis that threatened his plan, if need be. [2) Nf3 Nc6 3) d4 cd 4) Nxd4 Nf6]
With those moves going backwards and forwards he prepared a report for Maranul, his father and head of the pride, on the wormhole communications. Naturally he did not tell the full truth over his subversions of the chess game but stated simply that one game had ended and another started. If his father actually checked the logs would show that Charybdis was in fact playing the black side of the game. It would take a full audit to show the truth – even that might not reveal it unless it was looked for. Razeth allowed himself a self-satisfied purr once he had finished this. He got to be the dutiful son and have a little fun on the side. While waiting for the next transmission he listened to some music and dozed some more. He woke when the AI pinged his tablet to let him know the message was through. The humans had sent another developing move, a knight coming out to protect their pawn. He nodded to himself and programmed in another pawn move to be sent on the returning carrier signal when it came. [5) Nc3 d6]
He had just keyed that in when a clattering noise from the airlock announced that the pride had returned, with the other two slave monkeys in tow. Razeth was pleased; it was nice in a way to have the place to himself (if you didn't count the monkey that had remained with him) but the Ka were a very sociable race and drew strength from each other. He sat up in his hammock and greeted them as they entered the main area. They chatted for a while and he gave Maranul his report. They settled down to an evening of relaxation while father checked the wormhole logs. This was not a slight on Razeth: the responsibility rested on Maranul. Satisfied he rejoined the group. During that evening Razeth was pinged twice by the tablet; the first time he responded to an aggressive looking bishop move by making a defensive structure with a pawn; the second time he met another bishop development with one of his own. The game was shaping up nicely. [6) Bc4 e6 7) Be3 Be7]
Some time in the night, Razeth was woken by something. He looked at his tablet but it wasn't that; he was not surprised, though – he had been sleeping restlessly since he was injured, waking with cramps and pains. He was about to try to go back to sleep when he realised he could hear a faint low chatter from the next room. Curious now, he strained his superb hearing to pick up detail. From the faint traces he could gather he fathomed it was the monkey who had been attending him talking to the other two of its kind. He would have considered it beneath him to listen in on slave talk but he caught one word “wormhole” amongst it. Frustrated at his lack of mobility, he lay there eavesdropping and wondering. He realised the monkey would have observed his discussion with the computer but was unsure what interest it would have had. The chatter continued for a quarter of a bned and in that time he heard another couple of words, uttered when the monkey was excited: monkey-people and champions. He almost laughed out loud. The little slaves saw themselves in the humans and imagined they were playing for all simians. He was still purring with amusement at this when the tablet pinged softly again to him. The Ka stationed there were using sleep periods akin to the humans for convenience of their official purposes but the occasional transmission still came through in the night time. Sure enough, there was another chess move buried at the end of it, an attacking pawn thrust on the kingside flank. In the time before the return signal came, Razeth considered his response – it seemed a sound enough move, gripped the central area and announced the white player's intention to assault him. He was probably best vacating the centre with his king: he decided to “castle”. It was partly through context of the other moves that the AI had worked out what this was in the end; just as well for him now. [8) f4 O-O]
He awoke, a few bneds later, feeling much refreshed and used his crutches awkwardly to propel himself through to the eating area. He would go mad if he didn't at least stay partially mobile. He had a monkey fix him a light breakfast of some sort of vole the others had brought back from their hunt, with a little greenery as roughage. The others started to trickle through from the communal bed they were mostly sleeping in; shared body warmth was something he missed with his legs this way – it was not obligatory for the Ka but it was seen as a little strange to not prefer to make one big furry ball together. He chatted for a while with them then waved them off as they headed down to the planet again. Shortly after, the next signal came. To his surprise, the humans from Scylla had moved another pawn aggressively, attempting to storm his king. For a moment he was a little concerned as it did look overpowering. Something was wrong with it, though: the white king looked very exposed. All his predator's instincts flared; this must be his chance to pounce. He slowed his heartbeat and pinned back his ears; the Ka hunting traits came through. With a flash of insight he saw how to exploit it. He programmed in an exchange of knights in the centre for the returning message and wondered if the humans would realise their mistake. [9) g4 Nxd4]
He was fairly buzzing with excitement as he waited; he realised this alien game was thrilling him more than he thought it could. Planning ahead a few moves was akin to lying in the long grass of a planet and anticipating which way prey would run. He wondered what it would be like to play the game face-to-face with a human; to see their panic and revel in crushing their defences. Some day, maybe, but the Ka High Command had been explicit in its instructions: no first contact. Ka policy was to gather as much information about other races as possible before exposing themselves to a potential aggressor. A little paranoid, in Razeth's opinion, but for now he would settle for the safer meddling he was indulging in. Nobody would surely fault him for that if discovered. Besides which, the humans were clearly on a much lower technological level than his people, so would present no threat.
He passed the time waiting for the next move by laying in his hammock with his tablet showing the planetary view. It would be pointless trying to zoom in on his pride with the high levels of foliage down there and their predisposition to stalk from cover, but this did not stop him using the device to create a virtual view skimming the treetops. The only interruption was the by now familiar ping on the tablet with the next move from Scylla, a bishop recapturing in the centre; he smoothly keyed his response, a thrust with a central pawn, into the diagram in front of him. Sure of his analysis now, he set up a conditional move with the AI that if they took his offered pawn he would capture one of theirs with his remaining knight, heralding the onslaught to come. This should be interesting. [10) Bxd4 e5 11) fe Nxg4]
Razeth settled down again after checking the rest of the transmission – the computer would have done this anyway but it was expected of him and in any case he had to jot down some notes for the daily report he had to file with father. He had finished this and was again snoozing when the airlock signalled someone entering the ship; to his surprise it was not one of his siblings but Maranul in person. Razeth drew himself up in his hammock and nodded respectfully to him. His father enquired whether Razeth was bored with the minimal nature of his duties; he replied that he was a little, but had no complaints – these things had to be endured. Razeth looked at his father and noticed a pleased twinkle in his eye. “I may have a solution to both your boredom and a growing family concern,” stated Maranul, who went on to explain that they had received a number of offers for an arranged marriage with Salia, his older sister. He wanted Razeth to start to learn the specific duties of ship's navigator that Salia normally performed. It was not a difficult role, as the computer dealt with a lot of the calculations but it would require a working knowledge of star charts and tables of data. Razeth readily agreed and his father allocated some training modules to his tablet. Maranul left him to it and he immersed himself in learning, occasionally checking the larger maps the ship could display or asking the AI a small question over details. The signal came and went from Scylla via the ship to Charybdis; Razeth checked the conditional move had gone through and smiled to himself. By the time he felt reasonably on top of the training material, a couple of bneds had passed and another transmission was through from Scylla. With delight he scanned it for the chess move. When he saw they had captured another pawn he pounced so fast mentally his legs tried to reflexively twitch, causing him a spasm of pain. He grinned through it and programmed in an attack with his bishop on the enemy king. The hunt was on! [12) ed Bh4+]
He checked through the rest of Scylla's message but as usual there was nothing of interest there. He wondered how humans could bear to live such grey lives; from what the Ka intelligence reports told him they ate meat but didn't hunt it. Where was the joy in that? Mostly on the space stations what they reputedly ate was synthetic and not even very high grade stuff. Certainly Ka traders could make fortunes from them, assuming the humans came up with something worth trading for – maybe the precious gems that the Ka found their machines could not synthesise but had to barter for with various races, scrabbling in the dirt for them being distasteful. Alternately, the Ka could pay for hunting rights on their planet, an arrangement they had with a number of species throughout the galaxy. He recorded the majority of his daily report and settled down to study the star charts some more; no doubt they would grow dull but for now they brought him one step closer to being allowed to pilot the ship, a duty trusted only to his eldest brother and his father. It was nonetheless a relief when the next move came through the wormhole; the Scylla crew sent a rather desperate-looking sidestep by the white king to evade the bishop but this allowed Razeth to develop his queen with check and what surely must be a lethal attack. [13) Kd2 Qg5+]
He noticed the attending monkey, left with him again, watching and something cruel inside him kicked in. Razeth pretended not to be aware of it and had the AI display the full game on the main monitor screen, move by move, then give an evaluation of the likely result. The little monkey seemed to shrink into itself, he noted with some glee. Feeling quite satisfied with himself, Razeth returned to his star charts and tables of data. After a couple of bneds he was happy that he knew the general layouts of most of Ka occupied space and where to find any data he needed; it was just not actually memorised but this would do for now. He was so caught up with this that he did not realise how long it had been till the next signal appeared from Scylla. Their most precious piece, the king, had been forced even further up the board to what must be its doom. He puzzled over the position though; he could not instantly see any way to punish this isolation from it's defenders. The problem was that the white bishop was covering all the nice dark squares he wanted to come in on; the thing to do then must be to eliminate this piece: he moved his own bishop to challenge it. The tablet accepted this response and would of course retain it till the Charybdis signal returned – during that time he could change his mind but the more he looked at it the happier he was with this quiet yet unanswerable move. [14) Kd3 Bf2]
This would be the last signal before Maranul and the rest of the pride returned for the day, though, so Razeth checked over the rest of it and finished his report, sending a copy to his father's terminal. He grabbed a bite to eat, kicked the little monkey and told it to tidy up after him. When his family returned from their day's hunting and relaxing, he greeted them perhaps more warmly than usual, feeling pleased with his own hunt. They settled down, laying on rugs and couches, to listen to music and chat. He stepped away from the group when a signal came through his tablet, announcing the latest move from Scylla, a desperate attempt to use the queen to cover the dangerous weaknesses. He smiled and exchanged off the annoying dark-squared bishop which would bring the enemy king to the complete centre of the board, inputting a conditional move for this recapture that he would check with the queen, guarded by the knight. Razeth could now see a forcing sequence to win the game. He rejoined the family. [15) Qf3 Bxd4 16) Kxd4 Qe5+]
Maranul got up after a while, to review the ship's status logs and Razeth's report. He was gone some time, during which the Charybdis signal came back and the next Scylla one came in, indeed confirming the king had retaken the bishop in the centre of the board. Razeth was sitting sprawled on a couch talking with his older brother about star charts when their father came storming over to him. He beckoned angrily at Razeth to follow him and he hastened to obey as fast as his crutches would allow. His father led the way to his terminal workstation, where he demanded Razeth tell him the truth of his antics. One look at his father's face told the young Ka that he had better not lie. He told his father about the chess game and the subroutine and the exhilaration of the chase of the king across the board. Maranul's face was grim. “You have no idea what you have done, do you?” he roared. Razeth started to say “It was just a little fun, fath...” when he cut him off with “No, clearly you don't. I did not realise I had raised an idiot. I was proud of you taking on the navigation training; even proud when I discovered your subroutine and the chess game. What you did not seem to consider, however, was that you have left us open to discovery. What did you think would happen when we leave and Scylla sends another chess move to Charybdis? As far as the latter is concerned there are no chess games now.” He paused to glare at his son, who was dumbfounded at his own short-sightedness. He bowed his head to his father and apologised. “Nothing I can say will undo this; how can I repair this situation?” His father's expression softened a little. “There is one solution, although it is a little inelegant. I will need to think some more on it – for now carry on with this game of yours. Dismissed.” Razeth scurried away, ashamed but relieved too that his father had not summarily punished him. On reflection, though, Razeth was already denied hunting on the planet through circumstance; there was little more that could be imposed.
Razeth rejoined the family, slightly subdued, staying with them till the next signal came through, a retreat by the king. He input his move to the tablet, capturing a pawn with the queen and forcing the white king back again. He still felt a thrill at the chase of the king but the feeling was a bit diluted by awareness of the trouble he had placed his family in. He couldn't help wondering what his father had in mind as a solution. He stopped, remembering something...his father did say he was proud of him after all. Cheered up by this, the rest of the evening went better for him. He set up another triggered response that once the king retreated again he would have his knight swing in to threaten the queen and the bishop. That way he would be able to sleep without being interrupted by the signal. [17) Kd3 Qxd6+ 18) Ke2 Ne5]
In the morning he woke refreshed and checked with the interface tablet to see that the moves had gone through and nothing had changed in the rest of the transmissions – no alerts from either human outpost. He breakfasted with the family and Maranul announced that they would only go down to the planet to pack up the campsite there and return within a bned or two. This brought a few moans from his cubs but that changed when he stated they would return home later that day and they would see all their friends on the Ka homeworld, sooner than expected. The family had not long set out when the next signal came from Scylla. They had sent a queen move, no real surprise as it had been attacked and had to go somewhere; this was easily met as Razeth's win was there at last, a simple capture of a bishop by a knight and he was a piece ahead. He set up this move and wondered what now for the humans; they were material down with an exposed king and threats coming from Razeth's well-placed pieces. [19) Qg3 Nxc4]
By the time the family came back from the planet below the signal had come back from Charybdis and Razeth's addition to it had been made by the computer. Maranul explained his solution to Razeth and the family. Although the humans could only communicate via the wormhole, the Ka ship would be able to traverse it to the Charybdis end. Once there they would clean up loose ends. They set off immediately and on arrival cloaked and lay off the space station a short distance. Maranul revealed a small programme he had been working on, which he implemented. The Ka ship used its electromagnetic field manipulation to trigger a nuclear power unit overload on Charybdis and it detonated, instantly killing the crew there. As he explained it would look like freak equipment failure; regrettable though it was, there was no other way to ensure the Ka were not detected. They stayed a short time charting the voyage home – while they did one last signal came through from Scylla, more scientific data and a message “Well done, Geoff, I think that's the first time you have won one. We resign. We look forward to the next game.”
So do I, thought Razeth as their ship powered away. So do I.