your moves and I'll tell you my replies. I'll see the board, but you won't."

"A curious variant."

"But you must promise to keep out of my mind; otherwise you would know my plans."

He smiled. "Set up the pieces. What color do you want?"

"I'll defend. Give me black."

She loosed her waist-purse, took a handkerchief from it, and set the purse on the deep carpet in the shadow of her table. She unfolded the chessboard in front of her on the couch and quickly placed the pieces. "I'm ready," she announced.

Indeed, everything was in readiness now except that she didn't know where the cat was. She regretted bitterly not having killed that innocent mouser weeks ago.

"Pawn to king four," announced Perat, gazing idly at the ceiling.

She made the move and replied, "Pawn to king three."

From the unlaced purse hidden on the floor a tiny head thrust itself out, followed soon by a pair of minuscule shoulders.

"Have you studied this Terran game?" queried Perat curiously, "or don't you know enough to seize the center on your first move?"

"Have I made an error already? Was that the wrong move?"

"It's the first move in a complete defensive system, but few people outside of Terrans understand it. Pawn to queen four."

She had blundered in attempting the French Defense, but it was not too late to convert to something that could be expected of a Scythian woman beginner. "Pawn to queen three."

The grey doll was out of the purse, sidling through the shadows to the door, which stood slightly ajar.

"So you don't know the book moves, after all. You would really have astonished me if you had moved your queen pawn two squares. I'll play pawn to king bishop four. Will you have some terif?"

He spun around upright and reached for the decanter, looking full at the door ... and the tiny figure.

Evelyn was 

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