Technically, any Life match was over before it began. Two men — or teams of men — faced off at opposite ends of a board consisting of anywhere from two score to several hundred intersecting horizontal and vertical lines. During the crucial preparation phase, each side took turns strategically laying rows of game pieces in the squares between the lines — choosing to place them either white or black side up — until the board was full. Simple rules were programmed into the pieces, or sometimes into the board itself, depending on how rich the players were and what kind of set they could afford.
As a little girl, Maia used to watch in fascination as sailors from docked freighters spent hours winding up old-fashioned watch-spring game pieces, or collecting the solar-powered variety after soaking on rooftops by the piers. Each team might spend up to ten minutes between turns huddled, arguing strategy until the referee called time and they had to lay down another row on their side of the playing field. After which they would watch, arms crossed, contemptuously sneering as their opponents fussed and laid a layer of their own, on the other side. The teams would continue alternating, laying new rows of white or black pieces, until the halfway boundary was reached, and all empty squares were filled. Then everyone stepped back. After proclaiming an ancient invocation, the referee would then stretch out his staff toward the timing square.
Most women found all of the arguments and arm waving leading up to this point profoundly tedious. Yet, whenever a major match was finally about to get under way, people would start arriving — from poor var laborers to haughty clanfolk descending from castles on the hill — all gathering to stand and watch, awaiting the tap of the referee's stick. . . .
When, suddenly, the quiescent pieces wakened!
Maia especially loved the times when players used the spring-wound disks, which, on sensing the condition of their neighbors, would respond by buzzing and flipping their louvers with each beat of the game clock — white giving over to black, black becoming white, or mysteriously remaining motionless with the same face up until the next round.
The process was controlled by preset rules. In the classic version of Life, these were absurdly simple. A square with a black piece was defined as "alive." White side up meant "unliving." Its state during an upcoming round would depend on its neighbors' status the round before. A white piece would "come alive," turning black next turn, if exactly three of its eight neighboring squares (including corners) were black this turn. If a site was already black, it could remain so next round if it currently had two or three living neighbors. Any more or less, and it would switch back to white again.
Someone once told Maia that this simulated living ecosystems. "Among plant and animal species, whenever population density climbs too high in a neighborhood, there often follows a collapse. Everything dies. Similarly, death also reigns if things get too sparse." Ecology thrives on moderation, or so the game seemed to say.
To Maia, that just sounded like rationalization. The game got its name, she was sure, from the patterns that surged across the board just as soon as the referee gave his starting rap. From that moment, each individual game piece remained on the same spot, but its abrupt changes of state contributed to waves of black and white that crisscrossed the playing area with great speed and hypnotic complexity. Even Perkinite missionaries, standing on their portable pedestals, would lapse in their denigrations of all things male long enough to stare and sigh at the entrancing, rippling waves.
Certain initial patterns appeared to animate on their own. A compact "glider" would, if left alone, cruise from one end of the board to the other, changing shape in a four-stage pattern that repeated over and over as it inched along. Another grouping might throb in place, or send out branching limbs that budded, like flowers sending forth seeds that sprouted in their turn.
Sometimes pattern was the sole objective. There were form-generating contests, with prizes going to the most intricate final design, or to the purest image obtained after twenty, fifty, or a hundred beats. Variants using more complex rules and multicolored pieces produced even more sophisticated displays.
More often, though, the game was played as a battle between two teams. Their objective: to lay down starting conditions such that when play commenced, the sweep of shapes would carry their way, wiping clear their opponents' territory, so that the last oases of "life" would be on their side of the board.
