As the visiting team, she and Renna were invited to make the first move. Maia swallowed nervously, almost dropping the pieces she carried, but Renna grinned and whispered, "Remember, it's just a game."
She smiled back tentatively, and handed him the first tightly-wound piece. He put it in the extreme lower right corner of the board, white side up.
They had talked over strategy earlier. "We'll keep it simple," Renna had said. "I learned a few tricks while sitting around in jail. But I was mostly trying to write messages or paint pictures. I'll bet it's lots different with someone opposing you, trying to wreck what you create." Renna had sketched on a notepad what he called a "very conservative" pattern. Maia recognized some of the primitive forms. One cluster of black tokens in the left tier would sit and "live" forever if left untouched by other moving pattern of black dots. Their strategy would be to try to defend this oasis of life until the time limit, concentrating on defense and making only minimal forays into enemy territory with gliders, wedges, or slicers. He would do nicely.
While Renna laid down that first row, the boys nudged each other, pointing and laughing. Whether they actually saw naivete in the design, or were just trying to rib the neophytes, it was unnerving. Worse, from Maia's perspective, were the jibes of women spectators. Especially the and the southlanders, who clearly thought this exercise profoundly male-silly. A female crew member named Inanna whispered in a comrade's ear, and they both laughed. Maia felt sure the joke was about her. She was doing herself no good, nor was it clear what Renna was going to learn. Then why are we doing it?
The first row was finished. At once, the cook and cabin boy began laying down forty pieces of their own.
They used no notes, although Maia saw them confer once. A few seamen observed idly from the quarterdeck stairs, whittling sticks of soft wood into lacy, finely curled sculptures of sea animals.
When the boys signaled their turn finished, Renna took a long look and then shrugged. "Looks just like our first row. Maybe it's coincidence. Might as well continue with our plan."
So they laid another forty, mostly white side up, seeding enough strategically located black pieces so that when the game commenced and all the wound-up springs were released, a set of pulsing geometric patterns would embark on self-sustaining lifespans, setting forth to take part in the game's brief ecology.
At least, we hope so.
It went on that way for some time as the sun set beyond the billowing, straining jib. Each side took turns laying forty disks, then watching and trying to guess what the other team was up to. There came one interruption when the wind shifted and the chief bosun called all hands to the rigging. Dashing to their tasks, sailors hauled lanyards and turned cranks in a whirl of straining muscles. The tack maneuver was accomplished with brisk efficiency, and all was calm again before Maia finished forty breaths. Naroin leaped down from the sheets, landing in a crouch. She grinned at Maia and gave thumbs-up before sauntering back to a spot along the port rail favored by the female crew members, who smoked pipes and gossiped quietly as game preparations resumed.
"Those devils," Renna said after eight rows had been laid. Maia looked where he pointed, and momentarily saw what he meant. Apparently, their opponents had copied the same static "oasis" formation to sit in their most protected corner. In fact, she realized. They're mimicking us right along! Only slight variations could be seen along the left-hand side. What's the purpose of that? Are they making fun of us?
Differences began to creep in after the tenth row. Suddenly, the cook and cabin boy began laying down a completely different pattern. Maia recognized a glider gun, which was designed to fire gliders across the board. She also saw what could only be a cyclone — a configuration with the attribute of sucking to its doom any moving life pattern that came nearby. She pointed out the incipient design to Renna, who concentrated, and finally nodded.
"You're right. That'd put our guardian in danger, wouldn't it? Maybe we should move him to one side. To the right, do you think?"
"That would interfere with our short fence," she pointed out. "We've already laid two rows for that pattern."
"Mm. Okay, we'll shift the guardian leftward, then."
