The Blood Red Game

THIRTEEN

The fleet had been badly depleted since he left it. It was still big - a sprawling collection of ships, stretching mile upon mile in all directions and resembling nothing so much as a vast scrap-yard, guarded by the cruising Geepee battle-wagons like whales guarding a motley school of fish.

In the centre of the fleet, a little distance from Asquiol's battered cruiser (easily recognised by its slightly out-of-focus outline) was a huge factory ship with the letters 'G' emblazoned on its side. This puzzled Roffrey.

Then the Geepee patrol contacted him.

To his astonishment, he had the pleasure of being received almost cordially. They began to guide him into a position fairly close to the factory ship with the 'G' on its side.

While Roffrey was getting his ship into line, a man in the loose, unmilitary garb which was identical save for rank insignia with all other Geepee uniforms, appeared on the laser screen, his stern, bloodhound face puzzled. The large band on his left sleeve also bore a letter 'G'.

'Hello. Lord Mordan,' Roffrey said with cheerful defiance.

Willow wondered at the vitality and control which Roffrey must possess in order to seem suddenly so relaxed and untroubled.

Lord Mordan smiled ironically. 'Good morning. So you decided to return and help us after all. Where have you been?'

'I've been on a mercy trip rescuing survivors from the Shifter,' Roffrey said virtuously.

'I don't believe you,' Mordan said candidly. 'But I don't care - you've just done something nobody thought was possible. As soon as we assemble our data I'll be getting in touch with you again. We need all the help we can get in this business - even yours. We're up against it, Roffrey. We're damn near finished.' He broke off as if to pull himself together. 'Now, if you are carrying extra passengers, you'd better register them with the appropriate authorities.' He switched out.

'What did all that mean?' said Talfryn.

'I don't know,' Roffrey said, 'but we may find out soon. Mordan obviously knows something. The fleet's evidently suffered from attacks such as we experienced. Yet there seems to be more order now. The battle, or whatever it is, seems to have taken a different course.'

Willow Kovacs cradled Mary Roffrey's head in her arm and gently wiped a trickle of saliva from the mad woman's mouth. Her heart was beating swiftly and her stomach seemed contracted, her arms and legs weak. She was very frightened now at the prospect of reunion with Asquiol. Surely he had remained faithful to her.

Roffrey locked the ship's controls and came aft, staring down at the two women with a light smile on his sensuous, bearded mouth. He began stripping off his suit and the overalls beneath, revealing a plain quilted jacket of maroon plastileather and grubby white trousers tucked into soft leather knee-boots.

'How's Mary?'

'I don't know,' Willow said. 'She's obviously not sane… Yet there's a different quality about her insanity. Something I can't pin down.'

'A doctor maybe will help,' Roffrey said. He patted Willow's shoulder. 'Contact the admin ship will you, Talfryn? Send out a general call till you can get it.'

'Okay,' Talfryn said.

Worst of all, Roffrey thought as he stared down at his wife, had been the all-pervading red - blood red. It had been unmistakable as blood red. Why had it affected him so badly? What had it done to Mary?

He scratched the back of his neck. He hadn't slept since he left the fleet. He was full of stimulants, but he felt the need for some natural sleep. Maybe later.

When Talfryn had contacted the Registration Ship, which had as its job the classification of all members of the fleet so that it would be easier to administer the survivors if they at last made planet-fall, they were told that an official would be sent over in a short while.

Roffrey said: 'We need a psychiatrist of some sort, quickly. Can you help?'

'Try a hospital ship - though it's unlikely you'll be lucky.'

He tried a hospital ship. The doctor in charge wasn't helpful.

'No, I'm afraid you won't get a psychiatrist for your wife. If you need medical treatment we'll put her on our list. We're overworked. It's impossible to deal with all the casualties…'

'But you've got to help her!' Roffrey bellowed.

The doctor didn't argue. He just switched out.

Roffrey, bewildered by this, swung round in his chair. Willow and Talfryn were discussing the earlier conflict with the alien ships.

'They must be hard pushed,' Roffrey cursed. 'But I'm going to get help for Mary even if it means going right to the top.'

'But what about those hallucinations we had back there?' Talfryn said. 'What caused them?'

'It's my guess we were experiencing the force of one of their weapons,' Roffrey replied. 'Maybe what happened to us on Roth made us more susceptible to hallucination.'

'A weapon - yes, it could be.'

The communicator buzzed. Talfryn went to it.

'Registration,' said a jaunty voice. 'Mind if I come aboard?'

He was a pale and perky midget with genial eyes and a very neat appearance. His gig clamped against Roffrey's airlock and he came bustling through with a case of papers under his arm.

'You would be Captain Adam Roffrey,' he lisped, staring up at the black-bearded giant.

Roffrey stared down at him, half in wonder.

'I would be.'

'Good. And you embarked with the rest of the human race roughly two weeks ago - relative time, that is. I don't know how long it was in your time, since it is not always possible to leave and return from one dimension to another and keep the time flow the same - kindly remember that.'

'I'll try,' said Roffrey, wondering if there was a question there.

'And these three are…?'

'Miss Willow Kovacs, formerly of Migaa…'

The midget scribbled in his notebook, looking prim at the mention of the planet Migaa. It had possessed something of a reputation in the home galaxy.

Willow gave the rest of her data. Talfryn gave his.

'And the other lady?' The little official asked.

'My wife - Doctor Mary Roffrey, born on Earth, nee Ishenko; anthropologist; disappeared from Golund on the Rim in 457 Galactic General Time, reappeared from Shifter System a short while ago. The Geepees will have all her details prior to her disappearance. I gave them to the police when she disappeared. As usual, they did nothing.'

The midget frowned, then darted a look at Mary.

'State of health?'

'Insane,' said Roffrey, quietly.

'Curable or otherwise?'

'Curable!' said Roffrey, and the word was cold, savage.

The tiny official completed his notes, thanked them all and was about to leave when Roffrey said:

'Just a minute. Could you fill me in on what's happened to the fleet since I left?'

'As long as we keep it brief, I'd be pleased to. Remember, I'm a busy little man!' He giggled.

'Just before we got here we had a tussle with some alien ships, experienced hallucinations, and so on. Do you know what that, was?'

'No wonder the lady is insane! For untrained people to withstand the pressure, it's amazing! Wait till I tell my colleagues! You're heroes! You survived a wild round!'

'Bully for us. What happened?'

'Well, I'm only a petty official - they don't come much pettier than me - but from what I've gathered, you had a "wild round." That is,' he explained quickly, 'anyone straying beyond the confines of the fleet is attacked by the aliens and has to playa wild round, as we call it - one that isn't scheduled to be played by the Gamblers. We're not really supposed to do that.'

'But what is this Game?'

'I'm not sure, really. Ordinary people don't play the Game - only the Gamblers in the Game Ship. That's the one with the big "G" on it. It isn't the sort of game I'd like to play. We call it the Blood Red Game because of the habit they have of confusing our sense so that everything seems to be the colour of blood. Psychologists and the like play it and they are called Gamblers…'

'How often is it played?'

'All the time, really. No wonder I'm a bundle of nerves. We all are. Citizen's rights have been waived, food supplies reduced… We're having a pause just at the moment, but it won't last long. Probably they're recovering from your little victory.'

'Who'd know details about this Game?'

'Asquiol, of course, but it's almost impossible to see him. The nearest people ever get is to his airlock, and then only rarely. You might try Lord Mordan, though he's not too approachable, either. Mr. High and Mighty - he's worse than Asquiol in some ways.'

'Mordan seems interested -enough to tell us already,' Roffrey nodded. 'But I've got to speak to Asquiol on another matter, so I might as well try to combine them. Thanks.'

'A pleasure,' the midget enthused.

When he had gone, Roffrey went to the communicator and tried to contact Asquiol's ship. He had to get by nearly a dozen officials before he made contact.

'Adam Roffrey here, just in from the Shifter. Can I come to your ship?'

He received a curt acceptance. There had been no picture.

'Will you take me with you?' Willow asked. 'He'll be surprised. I've been waiting a long, long time for this. He predicted we might meet again, and he was right.'

'Of course,' Roffrey agreed. He looked at Talfryn. 'He was a friend of yours, too. Want to come?'

Talfryn shook his head. 'I'll stay here and try to find out a bit more about what's going on here.' He took a long, almost theatrical look at Willow and then turned away. 'See you.'

Roffrey said: 'Just as you like.' He went to the medical chest and took out a hypodermic and a bottle of sedative, filled the hypo and pumped the stuff into Mary's arm.

Then he and Willow left his launch and, by means of personal power units, made their way to Asquiol's ship.

The airlock was open, ready for them, and it closed behind them as the entered. The inner lock, however, did not open.

Instead, they saw the light of an internal viewer blink on as they waited and they heard a brooding voice - a polite, faraway voice that seemed to carry peculiar echoes which their ears could not quite catch.

'Asquiol speaking. How may I help you?'

Willow, masked in her space suit, remained silent.

'I'm Adam Roffrey, just in from the Shifter system with three passengers.'

'Yes?' Asquiol's acknowledgement bore no trace of interest.

'One of them is my wife - you know her as Mary the Maze. She helped Renark in the Shifter.' Roffrey paused. 'She sent you to Roth.'

'I am grateful to her, though we didn't meet.'

'I've tried to contact a psychiatrist in the fleet. I haven't succeeded.' Roffrey kept his voice level. 'I don't know where they all are, but my wife's condition is desperate. Can you help?'

'They are all playing the Game. I am sorry. Grateful as I am to your wife the first priority is to the race. We cannot release a psychiatrist.'

Roffrey was shocked. He had expected some response at least. 'Not even to give me advice how to help her?'

'No. You must do what you can for her yourself. Perhaps a medical man will be able to give you certain kinds of help.'

Roffrey turned disgustedly back towards the outer lock. He stopped as Asquiol's voice came again: 'I suggest you contact Lord Mordan as soon as you can.'

The voice cut off.

'Willow spoke. She felt as if she had died and the word was the last she would ever utter.

'Asquiol!'

At length, they returned to Roffrey's ship.

Mary was sleeping peacefully under the sedative but Talfryn had disappeared. They did not bother to wonder where he had gone. They sat by Mary's bunk, both of them depressed, their thoughts turned inward.

'He's changed,' Willow said flatly.

Roffrey grunted.

'He doesn't sound human any longer,' she said. 'There's no way of appealing to him. He doesn't seem to care about the approval of the rest of us. His loyalty to these mysterious creatures he contacted seems greater than his loyalty to his friends - or the rest of mankind, for that matter.'

Roffrey stared down at Mary.

'He doesn't care about anything except this "mission" he has. Everything is being sacrificed and subordinated to that one aim. I don't even know how valid it is. If I did I might be able to argue - or even agree with him!'

'Perhaps Paul could talk to him. I got scared. I meant to tell him who I was. I might be able to later.'

'Save it. I'll see what Mordan wants with me first.'

Roffrey moved over to his control panel and operated the screen.

'Lord Mordan?'

'Mordan here.' The Gee-lord's face appeared on the screen. He seemed disconcerted when he saw Roffrey.

'I was just going to contact you. You and Talfryn have been enlisted as Gamblers - subject to preliminary tests.'

'What the hell, Mordan? I'm not interested. Tell Talfryn about it. I've got a sick wife to think about.'

'Talfryn's already here.' Mordan's face was serious. 'This is important - though it may not look like it to you. There's a war to the death on and we're up against it. I'm directly responsible to Asquiol for enlisting any men I think will help us win. You've given us a great deal of trouble already. I'm empowered to kill anyone liable to disrupt our security. Come over to the Game Ship - and come fast! If you refuse we'll bring you over forcibly. Clear?'

Roffrey switched out without answering.

Defiantly, he waited by Mary's bed. She was beginning to show signs of improving, physically, but how her mind would be when she came out of the drugged sleep he didn't know.

Later, two Geepees demanded entry. Their launch was clamped fast against his. They threatened to hole his ship and enter that way if they had to. He opened the airlocks and let them in.

'What can one extra hand do?' he said. One of them replied: 'Any man who can hold off an enemy attack virtually single-handed is needed in the Game Ship. That's all we know.'

'But I didn't…' Roffrey stopped himself. He was losing his grip.

The Geepee said with false impatience: 'You may not have realised it, Captain Roffrey, but you did something a while ago that was impossible. You held out under the combined attack, mental and physical, of ten enemy ships. Most people couldn't have taken an attack from even one!'

The other Geepee drawled: 'That means something. Look at it this way. We're damn near beaten now. We took a hell of a lambasting during the initial alien attacks. We're the last survivors of the human race and we've got to stay together, work for the common good. That's the only way you'll look after your wife in the long run. Don't you see that?'

Roffrey was still not convinced. He was a stubborn man. There was an atavistic impulse in him which had always kept him away from the herd, and outside the law, relying entirely on his own initiative and wits. But he was also an intelligent man so he nodded slightly and said:

'Very well - I'll speak to Lord Mordan, anyway.' Then he turned to Willow. 'Willow, if Mary shows any sign of getting worse, let me know.'

'Of course, Adam.'

'You'll stay with her - make sure she's all right?'

She looked into his face. 'Naturally. But when she's under a sedative there's something else I've got to do.'

'Yes. I understand.'

He shrugged at the Geepees, who turned and led him through the airlock.