THE PLAYER OF GAMES 2

"Buy me one"

said Gurgeh, to the foolish ambassador.

"Gurgeh it's impossible! Buying a fleet of ships for you of that quantity and scale,

and especially making them work together and convincing them of the truth of your

ambitions, is a terrible thing try to to do."

"Without those ships,

The culture cannot assure the handover of Azad to

go speedily, or efficiently, there will be blood."

"urrrrrrrgh" sighed the ambassador "You always were a stubborn opponent.

In any negotation."

The man thought about this for a while, and said "Fine, if giving you those ships will save some lives of the Azadians, then I guess it is worth it, isn't it?"

A grunt came running in and stumbled into Gurgeh. His drink fell upon the foolish ambassador.

"EMEROR GURGEH!!!

HELP!!!

OUR MEN NEED HELP!!!

IT'S IMPORTANT,

AND NOT FOR THE OUTSIDERS!!!"

"If you'll excuse me sir" said Gurgeh "I must attend to this." Without apologizing for the drink Gurgeh and his company exited the Party Room.

"Of..... course."

said the man, walking away, in a haze of what had just happened to him.

"LORD GURGEH" the minion said "YOUR REFORMS ARE VERY UNPOPULAR,

MANY AMONG THEM ARE ASKING FOR YOUR H E A D , HAVE YOU GONE MAD!?!?""

"The people will come to understand that my reforms are better for them, not worse."

"BUT LORD GURGEH!!! THE PAPAL CHANCELLOR IS AMONG THEM!!!!

HE HAS THE MEN TO TAKE THIS CAPITAL!!!"

"Have our airships, smartcannons, drones, ships, and tank brigades planet-wide gone derelict since I asked you yesterday, Byron?"

"NO MY COMMANDER, BUT WE HAVE SEEN ENOUGH BLOODSHED, WE NEED P E A C E NOW, NOT MORE WAR!!!"

Gurgeh sighed at this.

"The papal chancellor dies tonight. He has outlived his welcome to say the least, a degenerative virus is currently being fed to his UNDEFEATABLE army of grunts. I tire of this, Byron."

BYRON sat there dumbfounded.

Then he stood himself up tall, and continued walking.

"The rebellion is not really as bad as my propagandists have been telling people.

I assure you we are in no danger of losing this game."

BYRON looked shocked by this, "Then why do any of this?"

"The people need a grand narrative to build their new kingdom on.

The foolish but noble rebels dying at the hands of the brilliant new emperor

and his sea of grunts, enforcing their warped... and hitherto unseen MORALITY

on them." said Gurgeh "Yes we can play around with that for a while, the rebellion

is meaningless, a floorshow, for the history books, there are bigger things afoot."

"Like what?" said BYRON

"Like dealing with all the new changes coming, all the new reforms, which we

will cut down any opposition to with brutal efficiency, soon they'll have to deal

with what do with all that free time, now that they do whatever they want with

their lives, instead of it being rigorously controlled by brutal authoritarians."

"What then?" said BYRON, his curiosity growing.

"Then the once tyrant Gurgeh, the then man of the people GURGEH,

shall, in no sense unwarrantedly, become THE GOD GURGEH, and I will

reign over them for 1000 years."

"But what of our friends in the culture?" asked BYRON

GURGEH shot his eyes upward at him.

"The people of the culture are our friends.

If you deal with them fairly they will deal with you fairly.

They will in no way impede or interfere in our KINGDOM."

"I'm not so sure about that LORD GURGEH those culture agents can't be trusted.

Look you let him wander around imperial court, to tattle back to CONTACT."

"The agent can be trusted to discreetly and quietly pass a message onto them,

We look forward to a long and trusting relationship with you, but the Empire of Azad

is not a satellite of THE CULTURE, and we are not the puppets of CONTACT."

"VERRY WELL but I don't think I agree with with." mumbled BYRON

"That's why I hired you BYRON, you're skeptical."

"I'm not just skeptical, I'm downright flummoxed. You're giving equal weighted votes to apexes, males and females, when it comes to who plays in the national games. Respectfully sir, the apexes gonna kill you."

"They'll be too busy dealing with angry females bearing knives to get anywhere near me. And the games, well, be honest BYRON, who cares who plays the dice these days, HOUSE ALWAYS WINS."

"What's the point of all this?" asked BYRON "I don't understand, WHY?"

"Because this is how people should live, BYRON, people should live free and unrestrained, they should be happy instead of sad, they should be spending most of their days thinking about how to have sex with each other, and how to buy the best ship to drive around in. People have needs, I attend to them instead of neglecting them."

"Now if you''ll excuse me" said Gurgeh "I have important matters of State to Attend to."

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END PROLOGUE

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