Freelance Traveller

Second Game

reviewed by Jeff Zeitlin

Second Game. Charles V. deVet & Katherine MacLean
Original publication: 1958 as Cosmic Checkmate; expanded as Second Game in 1962   
Current Availability: Cosmic Checkmate as ebook; Second Game secondhand in various print editions.

Author’s note: it is not clear whether the electronic copy I obtained is actually of the 1958 Cosmic Checkmate or 1962 Second Game text. The presented title is actually Cosmic Checkmate, but the length is consistent with the expanded Second Game. I have chosen to use the Second Game title, as it better fits the story (in my opinion).

“The sign was big, with black letters that read: I’ll Beat You the Second Game.”

This is the opening sentence of Second Game, and clearly signals that the story opens in media res, with the reader having to figure out what’s really going on as the story develops.

Robert O. Lang has an eidetic memory, and a knack. This combination makes him ideal for being a spy against Velda for the Ten Thousand Worlds, and he volunteers for the job. Naturally, he gets caught early in the story (as it turns out, by a Veldian that visited the Ten Thousand Worlds as a spy); the story focuses on his efforts to avoid execution, and to find a way to avoid the needless destruction and casualties that a war between Velda and the Ten Thousand Worlds would cause. In the process (as a ‘guest’ of the Veldian spy against the Ten Thousand Worlds), he learns much about the culture – and biology – of Velda and Veldians that he did not understand previously, and gradually comes to (subconsciously) realize how the Ten Thousand Worlds could beat Velda – in the “second game”. He is eventually forced to reveal what he (consciously) knows under interrogation and torture – but the Veldians don’t know what questions to ask, and while they find out what Lang knows and considers their weaknesses, they don’t see – and don’t ask – how those weaknesses can be exploited. They end up releasing him at his own request, to return to the Ten Thousand Worlds, where he counsels agreeing to the Veldian demand for unconditional surrender (and is thus hailed a traitor). In the end, however, the Ten Thousand Worlds do surrender to Velda, and it is only after the surrender and domination of the Worlds by Velda that it is revealed what Lang saw as the win in the ‘second game’. The revelation isn’t ultimately via any sort of ‘gotcha’; in fact, Lang’s ‘host’ from Velda manages to discern most of the answer on his own (though ‘too late’), and all Lang must do is fill in the details and history (for both the Veldian and the reader).

The telling of the story principally from Lang’s view, and not authorial omniscience, serves well to keep the reader guessing what will happen next, and how Lang is going to accomplish his aims once he is known to the Veldians as a spy. The writing is not turgid, excessively expository, or otherwise difficult for the reader to ‘get into’, unlike (for example) some of C.S.Lewis’s or Ayn Rand’s work.

The world-building is not as extensive or detailed as (for example) Lee and Miller’s in the Liaden Universe®, or Flint, Wentworth, and Carrico’s in the Jao Empire series, and there are some elements that seem unlikely, viewed through a known-science lens. However, it is ‘sufficient unto the day’, and the ultimate solution does take into account (or, in fact, relies on) the improbabilities.

While this story as written could not take place in any of the major published Traveller or Cepheus Engine settings, there is certainly nothing stopping a good referee from taking the basic plot and ‘filing off the serial numbers’ to fit it into a campaign where the PCs’ actions could end up having far-ranging effects. The major difficulty would arise from it being essentially a single-PC story

I don’t consider this to be one of the better Traveller-adjacent stories out there (it’s in the middle of the pack, but better than some of the ‘official’ Traveller novellas), but it’s not bad, and doesn’t come across as ‘dated’ (the way some of the James Schmitz “Federation of the Hub” stories do) in spite of its original publication being over sixty years ago. I consider it good enough to keep in one’s library of Traveller and Traveller-adjacent fiction, especially if your tastes run more toward espionage thrillers than combat-monstering.

(Lang’s knack: in playing the first game ‘for feel’, he can find his opponent’s weaknesses, and then exploit them in the second game to win. It is not stated in the story, but to be able to do this, he must also have an intuitive understanding of strategy and tactics.)