"Certainly. I am here to ascertain just how open to suggestions you are. Contact might be able to find you something which would interest you."

"A game?"

"I have been given to understand it is connected with a game."

"That does not mean you have to play one with me," Gurgeh said, brushing his hands free of crumbs over the plate. A few crumbs flew towards the drone, as he'd hoped they might, but it fielded each one, flicking them neatly to the centre of the plate in front of it.

"All I know, sir, is that Contact might have found something to interest you. I believe it to be connected with a game. I am instructed to discover how willing you might be to travel. I therefore assume the game — if such it is — is to be played in a location besides Chiark."

"Travel?" Gurgeh said. He sat back. "Where? How far? How long?"

"I don't know, exactly."

"Well, try approximately."

"I would not like to guess. How long would you be prepared to spend away from home?"

Gurgeh's eyes narrowed. The longest he'd spent away from Chiark had been when he'd gone on a cruise once, thirty years earlier. He hadn't enjoyed it especially. He'd gone more because it was the done thing to travel at that age than because he'd wanted to. The different stellar systems had been spectacular, but you could see just as good a view on a holoscreen, and he still didn't really understand what people saw in actually having been in any particular system. He'd planned to spend a few years on that cruise, but gave up after one.