Playing Black, no less! None of it was my fault. I was merely acting as would any reasonable man: setting my conditions, setting the price. Furthermore, it was apparent that at this, the fifteenth match of the cross-universal series to decide the fate of the worlds, the turning point had arrived. I was going to smash my opponent, tear open his game, render him useless for the remainder of the series, and since there remained twenty-six matches beyond this I did not want to risk, at this relatively early stage, the demolition of the series. Reasonable? Reasonable! Better, I figured, to carry Louis along, split the matches as we moved further toward the Outer Celestial Ring and there, having contrived a twenty-to-twenty tie for this last suspenseful encounter, having controlled matters toward a situation of the utmost suspense, I would destroy him utterly ... exhibiting as if for the first time the full, dazzling range of my technique and thus bring about—as had been fated from the beginning—the Era of Decency and Kindness.
