Tactics of Conquest Read Online Free PDF

the miracle of advanced technology everything is automatically transcribed by stylus by a team of experts located on Sirius. Of this I have been informed.)
    Indeed, being summoned by the Overlords gave me rather a turn but I was able to understand eventually that there was no easier way to do it. One moment I was in my pajamas in Warsaw, yawning and scratching myself, thinking of all the events of the sections that day which had put me into third place alone in clean, challenging position below Still (whose game had improved enormously in thirty years and two months). The next moment I was in some damp enclosure infected with murk, confronted by a purple, ten-tacled creature whose rather human eyes looked at me in a stolid but satisfied way. “Ah,” the creature said, “I see that the contact has been made, and not a moment too soon, I might add.” It burbled with satisfaction (or at least my anthropomorphic consciousness inferred that this was a satisfied burble; actually it might have been a whine of displeasure at my appearance, although this is hard to say). The important point is that the creature was quite repulsive and horrifying and it took all of my self-control and inner strength, qualities developed through thirty-one years of international grandmaster chess, not to lose control in that void and disgrace myself. “Sit down,” the creature said.
    “Where am I?” I asked. “And who are you, and what is going on, and what is this all about, and so on?” Routine queries all of them, questions one might expect from an amazed and discommodedconsciousness, but I must admit that there was little fervor in the questioning and indeed I had no more interest in the prospective answers than the creature might have had in responding to them, for indeed he seemed rather distracted. “All right,” I said rather petulantly, “so be it. Don’t tell me anything. I just want you to know that if I can’t compete tomorrow I’ll not only lose the best chance I’ve ever had of advancing to the Interzonals, I’ll completely destroy their scheduling. Games will be lost by forfeit; audiences will be disappointed; revenues collected will have to be returned and the impoverished grandmasters of Warsaw will have to continue to live in disgrace.”
    Saying this I folded my arms rather sullenly and stared through the murk trying to find some familiar object or geographical site by which I might be able to position myself but it was quite hopeless. It is hard to describe the surroundings except to say that there was little terrestrial about them (I can doubly confirm this now that I have had the opportunity to investigate the extra-terrestrial artifacts of the universe more closely). “So be it,” I said and closed my eyes, opening them immediately as a vivid flare of light penetrated my eyeballs, affording a good jolt of pain.
    “I’m sorry,” the creature said in its perfect if rather flat English, “but you cannot withdraw. Our time is very limited and we are, in addition to this, already severely behind schedule. I am here to advise you that you have been recruited for an important chess match upon which the outcome of the universe will be decided. You may call me One since I am the first of our race whom you have met. There will be others, and as a group you may refer to us as the Overlords.” Thecreature went on from there to give expository details which I have already discussed: the fact that the universe had reached a difficult point in its development and the Overlords found it necessary to hasten a decision; the fact that the universe which might be understood by my intelligence was in a perpetual struggle between the forces of good and evil, and had now reached a perilous state of imbalance where the two contending forces were evenly matched and could be expected to struggle to no real conclusion for many millennia; the decision of the Overlords that the process could be accelerated through an arbitrary chess