Games are a very effective way to study the psychology of an intelligent being. A certain highly developed civilization kidnaps earthlings... and not quite earthlings... and forces them to play with each other. Both the game itself and its rules are chosen by the players themselves, always two. And the stake in this game is returning to your home planet. Unfortunately, earthling Kelly McLane plays too well. And even more than that, he constantly deliberately loses in order to stay longer in the Game Center and learn more about his captors. And this makes earthlings related to the “Keynes,” longtime enemies of the experimenters, the “Striffs.” This means that if the experiments do not reveal factors that impede mankind’s space expansion, the Earth will be destroyed. But... the earthlings are playing really well.© Jozef Nerino