“That’s the way it goes,” Stile said. “I have nothing against you, but I intend to put you away.”
“Of course,” she said. “If you get the numbers.”
“If I get the numbers,” he agreed.
Their summons came. Stile did not get the numbers. Thus they landed in 2B, Tool-Assisted MENTAL GAMES. They played the sixteen choices of the subgrid and came to MAZE.
They adjourned to the Maze-section of the Game prem-ises. The Game Computer formed new mazes for each contest by sliding walls and panels along set channels; there was an extraordinary number of combinations, and it was not possible to anticipate the correct route through. One person started from each end, and the first to complete the route won.
They took their places. Stile was designated blue, the convention for males, and Hella red, the convention for females. Had two males been competing, they would have been blue and green, or red and yellow for females. The Computer liked things orderly.
The starting buzzer sounded. Stile pushed through the blue door into the labyrinth. Inside the walls and floor were restful light gray, the ceiling a translucent illumination panel. As Stile’s weight came on the floor, it turned blue, panel by panel, and remained that way to show where he had been. Spectators could view this Game on vision screens in mockup form, the patterns developing in red and blue to show the progress of both competitors, appreciating the ironies of wrong turnings and near-approaches to each other.
Stile moved quickly down the hall, his blue trail keeping pace, until he came to the first division. He didn’t hesitate; he took the left passage. Further along, it divided again; this time he took the right passage. The general law of chance would make the right and left splits along the proper way come out about even; this was unreliable for short-term efforts, but still as good a rule to follow as any.
This passage convoluted, turned back on itself, and abruptly dead-ended. So much for general laws! Stile quickly reversed course, following his own blue trail, and took what had been the left passage. This twisted about and finally intersected his original blue trail—the first right turn he had ignored.
Oops—there had to be an odd number of passages available, for at least one led to the red door on the other side of the maze. If two led there, then there would be an even number—with two passages as yet untried. But that was unusual; spectators liked to have the two contestants meet somewhere in the center, and start frantically following each other’s trails, and the Game Computer usually obliged with such a design. He must have missed a passage in his hurry. First mistake, and he hoped it would not prove to be too expensive.
He checked the passage back to the blue door. Nothing there. Then he took off on the right-hand passage he had used to complete the loop. Sure enough, it divided; he had overlooked the other passage because it angled back the way he had come. He should have checked behind him as well as ahead; an elementary precaution. He was not playing well.
However, this was not necessarily time wasted. Hella would be working her way through from the other side, trying to intersect his blue trail that would lead her to the blue door. If he had a single path there, she would have no trouble. As it was, he had turned all paths blue, so she would have no hint; she might get lost, just as he had. Sometimes, in these mazes, one person got nine-tenths of the way through, while the other floundered—and then the flounderer followed the other trail to victory while the nine-tenths person floundered. One could never tell. He moved on down the new passage. It, too, divided; he moved left and followed new convolutions. This one did not seem to be dead-ending or intersecting itself; good. Now he needed to intersect Hella’s trail before she intersected his.
Stile paused, listening. Yes—he heard her walking in the adjacent passage. That did not necessarily mean she was close; that passage could be a dead-end without connection to this one. Nevertheless, if he knew her location while she did not know his, that could be an advantage. He might sneak in and find her trail while she was still exploring a false lead, and hurry on to victory.
Then he heard her make a small, pleased exclamation. Ouch—that could mean only one thing: she had intersected his trail. Which meant that he was probably the one on the dead-end.
Stile backtracked hastily and silently. Sure enough, her red path intersected his, where he had bypassed the last right passage, and ended there. She was hot on his blue trail, and going the right direction. He was in trouble!
Stile took off down the red trail. He had only two hopes: first that she had a fairly direct trail he could follow without confusion; second that she would get lost on his loops and dead-end.
