The Blood Red Game

ELEVEN

Adam Roffrey was a psychopath, a rebel without a cause, a hater of state and organisation.

Adam Roffrey morosely watched the ships re-forming about him, but remained where he was, refusing to answer the signal on his screen. His large head, made larger by the thick, black beard and hair covering it, had a dogged, insolent set. He was refusing to budge and he knew he was within his rights.

The flexible laws of the galaxy had been bent by him many times, for the rights of the citizen were varied and complex. He could not be forced to take part in a war; without his permission the authorities could not even contact him. Therefore, he sat tight, ignoring the urgent signal.

When Lord Mordan's bloodhound face appeared, unauthorised, on the laser-screen, Roffrey disguised his shock and smiled sardonically. He said lightly, as he always said things, whatever the gravity of the statement:

'It's a lost cause, Lord Mordan. We can't hope to win. We must be fantastically outnumbered. Asquiol's forcing the race to commit suicide. Are we voting?'

'No,' said Mordan, 'we're not. For the duration of the emergency all citizen's rights are liable to be waived if necessary. You have no choice but to comply with the decision of Asquiol and the Galactic Council. Asquiol knows what's best.'

'He doesn't know what's best for me. I'm the only lost cause I've ever backed, and that's the way it's staying!'

Lord Mordan regarded the black-bearded-giant grinning out of the laser screen and he frowned.

'Nobody leaves the fleet, Roffrey. For one thing, it's too dangerous, and for another we've got to keep it tight and organised if we're to survive!'

He said the last words to a blank screen. He whirled round in his control chair and shouted to a passing captain.

'Alert the perimeter guard. A ship may try to leave. Stop it!'

'How, Lord Mordan?'

'Force - if there is no other alternative,' said Mordan, shocking the captain, who had never received such an order in his whole career.

Adam Roffrey had been anti-social all his life.

His living had been made on the fringes of the law. He wasn't going to give in to the demands of society now. The chips were down for the fleet- that was his guess - and he had no reason for sticking around. He objected to the discipline required to fight complicated space-battles; he objected to the odds against the human race winning the battles; he objected to the fact that he was being personally involved. Personal involvement was not in his line.

So he broke the energy seals on his anti-neutron cannon and prepared to blast out. As he moved away from the rest of the fleet, several Geepee gunboats, alerted by Mordan, flitted towards him from nadir-north-west.

He rubbed his hairy chin, scratched his hairy forehead and reached out a hairy hand to his drive control. At full power he retreated, away from the oncoming ships, away from the fleet, into the unknown space of the unknown universe.

He was prepared to take such chances to avoid curtailment of his personal liberty.

But his ship, a peculiar vessel, at first sight an impossible old hulk, a space launch got up to look like a merchantman and fitted like a battle-wagon, could not hope to outdistance the Geepee craft in the long run. Already they were beginning to catch up.

Humming to himself, he debated his best course of action.

There was one sure method of evading immediate danger as well as the alien threat already visible as a huge fleet of spherical vessels, seen on his screens, approached the fleet from the depths of space.

But to take that way out, although he had considered it much earlier in another context, could be highly dangerous.

The odds were that, if he committed himself to it, he would never see another human being again.

The necessity to make a decision was increasing.

His ship, like all those in the great cosmic caravan, was fitted with the I.T. drive enabling him to travel through the dimensions. He had already taken the trouble to learn all he could about multi-dimensional space and certain things existing in it. He knew, suddenly, where he was going.

The idea had been in the back of his mind for years. Now he would be forced to go.

The Geepee ships were getting closer, their warning blaring on his communicator. He pressed a button of his chart-viewer, keeping a wary eye on the oncoming ships.

Though the Geepees were nearer, the two embattled fleets were far behind. He saw faint splashes of coloured light on his screen. He was tense and was surprised to note that he had a feeling half of relief, half of guilt that he had missed the battle. He wasn't a coward, but now he had something to do.

A quick glance at the slide of equations on the viewer and his hand was reaching for the crudely constructed controls of the I.T. drive. He pulled a lever, adjusted the controls, and quite suddenly the Geepee ships seemed to fade away. And fading into the place where they had been was a backdrop of great blazing suns that made his eyes ache.

Once again he experienced the unique sensation of falling through the layers of the multiverse.

Rapidly, as he operated the I.T. drive, the suns faded to be replaced by cold vacuum, which was replaced by an agitation of gases heaving about in an unformed state, scarlet and grey. He was phasing quickly through the layers, through universe after universe with only a slight feeling of nausea in his stomach and a fierce determination to reach his destination.

The Geepee ships hadn't followed him.

They had probably decided that their first priority was to aid the human fleet.

He travelled through space as well as time and the separating dimensions, and he was heading back in the direction where in his home universe, the edge of the galaxy had been. He had all the bearings he needed and, as he moved on one level, he moved through others at reckless speed.

He knew where he was going - but whether he would make it was a question he couldn't answer.

Asquiol of Pompeii watched the battle on his screens with a feeling akin to helplessness. Mordan was conducting the war, needing only basic orders from him.

Am I doing as much as I could? He wondered. Am I not accepting too complacently, what I have discovered?

It was easy for him to dominate the fleet, for his mind had become at once flexible and strong and his physical presence overawed his fellows. There was a part of him, too, which was not at ease, as if he were a jig-saw complete but for the last piece, and the section that would complete him was just - tantalisingly - out of reach.

Somewhere in the multiverse he felt the piece existed - perhaps another intelligence that he could share his thoughts and experiences with. He was almost certain it was out there, yet what it was and how he would find it he did not know. Without it, his picture of himself was incomplete. He felt that he functioned but could not progress. Had the Originators deliberately done this to him? Or had they made a mistake?

At first he had thought it was the loss of Renark which gave him the sense of incompleteness. But Renark's loss was still there, inside him, kept out of mind as much as possible. No, this was another lack. A lack of what, though?

He bent closer to observe the battle.

The fleet's formation was lost as yet another wave of attackers pounced out of space with weapons cutting lances of bright energy.

They were not impervious to anti-neutron cannon, but the two forces were fairly matched as far as technology went. There were more of the aliens and they had the double advantage of being in home territory and defending it. This was what primarily worried Asquiol.

But he could do nothing decisive at the moment. He would have to wait.

Again, while Mordan sweated to withstand and retaliate against this fresh attack, Asquiol let his mind and being drop through the layers of the multiverse and contact the alien commanders. If they would not accept peace terms, he strove to arrange a truce.

To his surprise, this suggestion seemed acceptable to them.

There was an alternative to open war - one which they would be delighted to negotiate.

That was?

The Game, they said. Play the game with us - winner takes all.

After he had got some inkling of the Game's nature, Asquiol deliberately momentarily. There were pros and cons…

Finally, he agreed and was soon watching the enemy ships retreating away into the void.

With some trepidation, he informed Mordan of his decision and awaited its outcome.

This new development in their struggle with the aliens disturbed Lord Mordan. War he could understand. This, at first, he could not. All psychologists, psychiatrists, physiologists and kindred professionals had been ordered to the huge factory ship which engineers were already converting.

From now on, according to Asquiol, the battle was to be fought from this single ship - and it had no armaments!

Asquiol was unapproachable as he conferred with the alien commanders in his own peculiar way. Every so often he would break off to issue strange orders.

Something about a game. Yet what kind of game, wondered Lord Mordan, required experts in psychology as its players? What was the complicated electronic equipment that technicians were installing in the great converted hold of the factory ship?

'This is our only chance of winning,' Asquiol had told him. 'A slim one - but if we learn how to play it properly, we have a chance.'

Mordan sighed. At least the truce had allowed them time to regroup and assess damage. The damage had been great. Two-thirds of the fleet had been destroyed. Farm ships and factory ships were working at full capacity to supply the fleet with necessities. But tight rationing had been introduced. The race was subsisting on survival rations. The initial joy of escape was replaced by gloomy desperation.

Adam Roffrey could see his destination.

He slammed the I.T. activator to the 'of' position and coasted towards the looming system ahead.

It hung in empty space, the outlines of its planets hazy, following a random progression around a magnificent binary sun.

The legendary system rose larger on his laser screen. The unnatural collection of worlds came closer.

The epic story of Renark and Asquiol on their quest to the Sundered Worlds was common lore among the human race these days. But the story - or, at least, part of it had had a special significance for Roffrey.

Renark and Asquiol had left two members of their party behind - Willow Kovacs and Paul Talfryn.

Roffrey knew their names. But dominant in his skull was another name-a woman's, the woman he had come to find.

If he did not find her this time, he told himself, then he would have to accept that she was dead. Then he would have to accept his own death also.

Such was the intensity of his obsession.

As he neared the Sundered Worlds he regarded them with curiosity. They had changed. The planets were spaced normally - not equidistantly, as he had thought. And, as far as he could tell, the system had stopped shifting.

Now he remembered part of the story which was fast becoming a myth among those who had fled their own galaxy. A dog-like race called the Shaarn had attempted to stop the system's course through the dimensions.

Evidently they'd succeeded.

His maps aided him to find Entropium and he cruised into the Shifter's area warily, for he knew enough to expect two kinds of danger - the Thron and the lawless nature of the Shifter itself.

Yet, wary as he was, it was impossible to observe either chaos or enemy as he swept down over Entropium, scanning the planet for the only city that had ever been built there.

He didn't find the city, either.

He found, instead, a place where a city had been. Now it was jagged rubble. He landed his ship on a scattered wasteland of twisted steel and smashed concrete.

Scanning the surrounding ruins, he saw shadowy shapes scuttling through the dark craters and between the shattered buildings. His experience told him nothing about the cause of this catastrophe.

At length, sick at heart, he climbed into space armour, strapped an anti-neutron pistol to his side, descended to the airlock and placed his booted feet on the planet's surface.

A bolt of energy flashed from a crater and spread itself over his force-screen. He staggered back to lean against one of his ship's landing fins, lugging the pistol from its holster.

He did not fire immediately for, like everyone else, he had a certain fear of the destructive effects of the a-n gun.

He saw an alien figure - a dazzling white skin like melted plastic covering a squat skeleton, long legs and short arms, but no head that he could see - appear over the edge of the crater, a long metal tube cradled in its arms and pointing at him. He fired.

The thing's wailing shriek resounded in his helmet. It absorbed the buzzing stream of anti-neutrons, collapsed, melted and vanished.

'Over here!'

Roffrey turned to see a human figure, all rags and filth, waving to him. He ran towards it.

Ina crater which had been turned into a crude fortress by the piles of wreckage surrounding its perimeter, Roffrey found a handful of wretches, the remnants of the human population of Entropium.

The man who had waved had a fleshless head and huge eyes. Dirty, scab-covered skin was drawn tight over his skull. He fingered his emaciated body and eyed Roffrey warily. He said:

'We're starving here. Have you got any supplies?'

'What happened?' Roffrey said, feeling sick.

There was desolation everywhere. These human beings had evidently banded together for protection against similar bands of aliens. Evidently, also, only the fittest survived.

The ragged man pointed at the rubble behind him. 'This? We don't know. It just hit us…'

'Why didn't you leave here?'

'No ships. Most of them were destroyed.'

Roffrey grimaced and said: 'Keep me covered while I return to my ship. I'll be back.'

A short time later he came stumbling back over the rubble with a box in his hands, his boots slipping and sliding on the uneven ground. They clustered around him greedily as he handed out vitapacks.

Something terrible had happened to the planet - perhaps to the whole system. He had to know what - and why.

Nowa woman separated herself from the group squatting over their food. The man with the fleshless head followed her.

She said to Roffrey: 'You must be from the home galaxy. How did you get here? - Did they… find how the Shifter worked?'

'You mean Renark and Asquiol?'

Roffrey looked hard at the woman, but he didn't know her. He noted that she had obviously been beautiful, probably still was under the filth and rags. 'They got through. They discovered more than they bargained for here - but they got through. Our whole universe doesn't exist any more. But the race - or the part which left - is still going. Maybe it's wiped out by now. I don't know.'

The man with the fleshless head put his arm around the woman. They looked like a pair of animated skeletons and the man's action enhanced the bizarre effect.

'He didn't want you then and he won't now,' he said to her.

Roffrey saw tension between them, but couldn't understand why.

She said: 'Shut up, Paul. Are Renark and Asquiol safe?'

Roffrey shook his head. 'Renark's dead. Asquiol's okay - he's leading the fleet. The Gee-lord gave him complete leadership during the emergency. They work under him now.'

'Local boy makes good,' said the male skeleton.

Roffrey felt he could name both of them now. He pointed at the man. 'Are you Paul Talfryn?"

Talfryn nodded. He cocked his head towards the woman. She dropped her eyes. "This is Willow Kovacs - my wife. We sort of got married… Asquiol's mentioned us, eh? I suppose he sent you back for us?'

'No.'

Willow Kovacs shuddered. Roffrey reflected that she didn't appear to like Talfryn very much; there was a kind of apathetic hatred in her eyes. Probably she regarded Talfryn merely as a protector, even if that. But it was no business of his.

'What happened to the rest of the human population?' Roffrey said, concentrating on his own affairs and trying to ignore the sickening feeling of disgust at the sight of such degeneration. 'Were they all killed?'

'Did you see anything when you came through the ruins?' Talfryn asked. 'Little, scuttling animal shapes, maybe?'

Roffrey had seen them. They had been repulsive, though he didn't know why.

Talfryn said: 'All those little creatures were intelligent once. For some reason, the Shifter stopped shifting. There was a long period of absolute madness before she seemed to settle down again. This happened - that happened.

'When the trouble started, the actual forms of human beings and aliens changed, devolving into these. Somebody said it was metabolic pressures combined with time-slips induced by the stop, but I didn't understand it. I'm no scientist - an astro-geographer. Unlicensed, you know…' He seemed to sink into an attitude of detachment and then looked up suddenly. 'The city just crumbled. It was horrifying. A lot of people went mad. I suppose Asquiol told you…'

'I've never met Asquiol,' Roffrey broke in. 'All my information is second-hand. I came particularly to find another person. A woman - she helped Renark with information. Mary the Maze - a mad woman. Know her?'

Talfryn pointed upwards to the streaked sky.

'Dead?' said Roffrey.

'Gone,' Talfryn said. 'When the city started breaking apart, she took one of the only ships and just spun off into space. She probably killed herself. She was like a zombie, and quite crazy. It was as if some outside pressure moved her. I heard she wanted to get to Roth. That was a crazy thing to want to do, in itself! She took one of the best ships, damn her. A nice one - Mark Seven Hauser.'

'She was heading for Roth? Isn't that the really strange planet?'

'As I said, she was crazy to go there. If she did get there.'

'You think there'd be a chance of her still being alive if she made it?'

'Maybe. Asquiol and Renark obviously survived.'

'Thanks for the information.' Roffrey turned away.

'Hey!' The skeleton suddenly became animated. 'You're not leaving us here! Take us with you - take us back to the fleet, for God's sake!'

Roffrey said: 'I'm not going back to the fleet. I'm going to Roth.'

'Then take us with you - anywhere's better than here!' Willow's voice was shrill and urgent.

Roffrey paused, deliberating. Then he said: 'Okay.'

As they neared the ship, something small and scaly scuttled across their path. It was like nothing Roffrey had seen before and he felt he never wanted to see it again. Entropium, when it flourished, had contained the seeds of corruption - and now corruption was dominant, a physical manifestation of a mental disease. It was an unhealthy place, with intelligent species scrabbling and fighting like animals to survive. It was rotten with the sickness that came from a state of mind as much as anything.

He was glad to reach the ship.

As Willow and Talfryn climbed into the airlock, he glanced back at the ruins, his face was rather grim. He helped them aboard and closed the lock.

Now he turned his thoughts to Mary the Maze.