Free The Ganymede Club by Charles Sheffield Page A

capability.

Mars: Population eight million, self-sufficiency maintained.

Asteroid Belt: Colonies on Ceres, Pallas, Juno. Population nine million, no longer self-sufficient.

Jupiter: Relatively unaffected, except by rapid prewar immigration. Interdependent colonies on Ganymede and Callisto, research stations on Europa and Io, unmanned collection vessels in Jovian atmosphere; combined population, Jovian system: eighty-seven million.

Saturn: Unaffected by war. Ganymede-based exploring parties to rings and all major moons. Von Neumanns working on Dione and Titan. No colonies.

Uranus: Unaffected by war. Smart probes to all major moons, research station proposed for Oberon. No colonies.

5
    Ganymede: 2072 A.D.
    The Great War was over. It ended just four months after it had begun, in a final cataclysm that shattered the solar system and reshaped it into a new form. Its aftermath would reverberate down the centuries. It was the war to end wars.
    Except that wars still went on. This particular one was fought without armies, without hardware, without bloodshed, without reinforcements or mercy or remorse. Its warriors would probably never meet. They were unlikely to know their adversaries' real names, since the Puzzle Network permitted—and encouraged—anonymity.
    But the Masters of the Net did not need names. They knew each other very well, at the profound mental level where battles were engaged.
    Bat, just two years in the Masters' division, was learning fast. He had advanced to the point where he could recognize a puzzle designed by Claudius, a five-time champion, as surely as if she (he was convinced that Claudius was a woman) had signed her name. She took a unique delight in misdirection, layer after layer of it. Four weeks earlier, Bat had set his own trap, hoping to exploit that misdirection and turn it into a weakness. He was convinced that he had caught her—until she sent back the correct solution, with an added note, "Old age and treachery will defeat youth and skill. Keep trying."
    He would. Most of the other Masters fell far short of Claudius, and all of them had their own strange quirks. He would recognize Attoboy, Simple Simon, Gaslight Tattoo, Pack Rat, James the Rose, and Sneak Attack, no matter where or how they appeared, or under what name.
    But the Puzzle Network could still offer surprises. One was appearing now, filling his display with four complicated three-dimensional sets of interlocking donuts. The accompanying text read, "Specify connectivity: simply connected or multiply connected?" It was signed Ghost Boy.
    The name was unfamiliar, but that meant nothing. Claudius, when she was in an unusually vicious mood, was likely to sign on as Xantippe. Bat normally signed on as Megachirops , but presented his word puzzles as Thersites. The puzzle, not the name, was the thing, the only thing; and this one was a major oddity. The structures were so clearly multiply connected that no one with any self-respect would offer this as a problem at the Masters' level. That suggested two things: First, the puzzle was not what it seemed; and second, a new and distinctive personality had been added to the game.
    Rule number one of the Puzzle Network: Use all of the information available to you. Rule number two: There is no such thing as cheating. Bat had his own Rule number three: Know thy enemy. He had a trick that he suspected might be his alone.
    First, he checked the response time for Ghost Boy's net access. As he had hoped, it was only a few milliseconds. Therefore, Ghost Boy was somewhere on Ganymede, rather than being an off-world entry. Bat knew the style of the dozen Ganymede Masters. It was unthinkable that Ghost Boy could emerge as a new Master, without years of experience on the Puzzle Network.
    And that led to only one possible conclusion: Ghost Boy had been in the net for some time, but he had been promoted recently to the Senior League.
    Bat took the next logical step. He did what no self-respecting