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Like to play chess? Like puzzles? Robert Lang, from Earth, likes these games too. Now working as a spy, he ventures to a planet where playing games is the favorite pastime of all its inhabitants. These are not your easy games for simple stakes, however. On Velda, games are played for life and death. Captured as a traitor, Lang must now seek to win his freedom by learning the secrets of this strange world. His skills and deductive reasoning get him into dangerous situations… and out of them. Trobt, his captor, can’t help but admire Lang’s skills… but will this prove an advantage or a hindrance? “I’ll beat you the second game,” was the Earthman’s challenge to the planet Velda, whose culture was indeed based on a complicated super-chess game of skill and concentration. A Human and a Veldian could meet over a game board, but was there any other ground for understanding? For the code of Velda was strange and savage, based on a concept of honor no Earthman could comprehend. The men were warriors and the women were—mysteries. One world was challenging a galaxy, as one man was challenging that world. And in the contest for a universe, would there be a second game?