The Blood Red Game

FIFTEEN

They were seated in threes, each group before a large screen which mirrored the scene on the huge screen over their heads. The large chamber was dark, illuminated solely by light from instruments and screens. Below the small screens were even smaller ones, in two rows of six. Mordan, who had brought Talfryn and Roffrey into the chamber, explained in a soft voice what purpose they served.

Roffrey looked about him.

Three sections of the circular chamber were occupied with the screens and seated before them each bad its trio of operators - pale, thin men and women, for the most part, living off nervous energy and drugs. They had glass-alloy caps, similar to those he had worn while taking the tests. No one looked up as he entered.

'The screen above us is, as you can see, merely a wide-angle viewer which enables us to scan the space immediately around the fleet,' Mordan was saying.

'Each group of operators - Gamblers we call them - is delegated a certain 'area of this space to watch for signs of alien expedition. So far as we can gather, it is part of their code to come close - within firing range - to our fleet before beginning the round. Apart from that, we are given no warning that a fresh round is about to commence. That's why we keep constant watch. Presumably among themselves the aliens have subtler ways of beginning, but this seems to be their compromise.

'When an alien expedition comes into sight, the team sighting it alerts the rest and they all concentrate on that area. The smaller rows of screens record the effect which we beam towards the aliens. They record hallucinatory impulses, and these are broken down into sections governed by the different senses, brain-waves of varying frequencies, emotional-impulses such as fear, anger and so on, which we are capable of simulating. We have, of course, projectors, magnifiers and broadcasting equipment which is capable of responding to the commands of the Gamblers. But primarily, in the last resort, everything depends on the imagination, quick reactions, intelligence and ability to simulate emotions, thoughts and so on, which each individual Gambler possesses.'

'I see.' Roffrey nodded. In spite of himself, he was interested. 'What happens then?'

'Just as many of our emotions and impulses are unfamiliar and incommunicable to the aliens, the same applies to us. Presumably half the impressions and mental impulses we have flung at us do not have the effect the aliens desire, or would get in their own kind. But we have the same difficulty.

'These men have been playing the Game long enough to recognise whether the effects they send are effective or not, and can guard against those effects which are most dangerous to us. Winning the Game, at this stage, anyway, depends largely upon the extent to which we can assimilate and analyse what works and what doesn't work. This also, of course, applies to the aliens. You, for instance, had the hallucination of a monster beast which shocked not only your instincts, triggering fear, panic, and so on, but shocked your logical qualities since you knew that it was impossible for such a beast to exist in the vacuum of space.'

Roffrey and Talfryn agreed.

'This sort of effect is what the aliens are relying on - although in the general run of things these days they have learned to be much more subtle, working directly on the subconscious as they did to a large extent on you, after the beast-image didn't get the result they wanted. Therefore our psychologists and other researchers are gathering together every scrap of information which each round gives us, trying to get a clear picture of what effects will have the most devastating results on the alien's subconscious. Here, as I mentioned, we are fairly well matched - our minds are as alien to them as theirs are to us.

'The prime object in playing the Blood Red Game, therefore, is to find the exact impulse necessary to destroy the qualities which we term self-respect, strength of character, intrinsic confidence, and so on.'

Mordan exhaled heavily.

'The number of losses we've had can be assessed when I tell you that we've got two hundred men and women alone who are curled up into foetal balls in the wards of our hospital ships.'

Talfryn shuddered. 'It sounds revolting.'

'Forget that,' Mordan said curtly. 'You'll lose all sense of moral values after you've been playing the Game for a short time. The aliens are helping us to do what philosophers and mystics have been preaching for centuries. Remember it? Know thyself, eh?'

He shook his head, staring grimly around the chamber where the grey-faced Gamblers watched the screens concentratedly.

'You'll get to know yourself here all right. And I'm sure you won't like what you learn.'

'Easier on the brooder, the introvert,' Roffrey said.

'How deep can one man go in probing his innermost impulses before he pulls back - out of self-protection if nothing else?' Mordan said sharply. 'Not far in comparison to what the aliens can do to you. But you'll find out.'

'You're giving an attractive picture,' Roffrey said.

'Damn you, Roffrey - I'll talk to you after your first round. This may, now I come to think of it, do you an awful lot of good!'

They were joined by a third individual. He had obviously been a Gambler for some time. They were beginning to recognise the type. He was tall, thin and nervous.

'Fiodor O'Hara,' he said, not bothering to shake hands. They introduced themselves in the same curt manner.

'You will be in my charge until you become familiar with the Game,' O'Hara said. 'You will obey every order I give you. Try not to resist me. The sooner you are trained, the sooner you will be able to play the Game without any direction. I believe you are what they call an individualist, Roffrey. Well, you will have to conform here until you have mastered the Game - then your individualism will doubtless be of great use, since we depend on such qualities.

'Most of the people here are trained in some branch of psychology, but there area few like yourselves - laymen - who have a sufficiently high I.Q. to be receptive, almost instinctively, to the needs of the Game. I wish you luck.

'You will find it a great strain to keep your ego free and functional - that is really all you have to learn to do as a beginner. You will carry out defensive strategy, as it were, until you are adept enough to begin attacking the enemy. Remember, both of you, physical strength and daring mean absolutely nothing in this war. And you lose not your life, but your sanity - at first anyway.' Roffrey scratched the back of his neck. Tor God's sake, let's get started,' he said, impatiently. 'Don't fret,' Mordan said as he left them. 'You'll soon know when another round begins.'

O'Hara took them to a row of empty seats. There were three seats, the usual screen and the miniature screens beneath it. Immediately in front of them were small sets of controls which were evidently used to operate the sense-projectors and other equipment.

'We have a short vocabulary which we shall use later for communication while the Game is in progress,' O'Hara said, settling the skullcap on his head. 'Switch sound, for instance, means that if, at a certain moment, you are concentrating on taste sensations, I have decided that sounds would be more efficient against the enemy. If I say, "Switch-taste," it means that you send taste-impressions. That is simple - you understand?'

They showed their assent. Then they settled themselves to await their first - and perhaps - last round of the Blood Red Game.

The morality of what they were doing - invading this universe and attempting to wrest dominance of it from the native race - had bothered Asquiol little.

'Rights?' he had said to Mordan when the Gee-lord had relayed the doubts of some of the members of the fleet. 'What rights have they? What rights have we? Because they exist here doesn't mean that they have any special right to exist here. Let them, or us, establish our rights. Let us see who wins the Game.'

Asquiol had more on his mind than a squabble over property, dangerous as that squabble could be for the race.

This was Man's last chance of attaining his birthright - something which Asquiol had almost attained in his ability to perceive simultaneously the entire universe - to take over from the Originators.

Somehow he had to teach his race to tap its own potential. Here, those Gamblers who might survive would be of use.

The race had to begin on the next stage of its evolution, yet the transition would have to be so relatively sudden that it would be virtually revolution.

And there was the personal matter of his incompleteness the torturing frustration of knowing that the missing piece that would make him whole was so close - he could sense it - as to be almost within his grasp. But what was it?

Dwelling in thought, Asquiol was grave.

Even he could not predict the eventual outcome if they won the Game. More able to encompass the scope of events than the rest of the race, in some ways he was as much in a temporal vacuum as they were - quite unable to relate past experience with present, or the present with whatever the future was likely to be.

He existed in all the many dimensions of the multiverse. Yet he was bound by the single multiversal dimension of Time almost as much as anyone else. He had cast off chains of space but was tied, as perhaps all denizens of the multiverse would always be, by the steady-paced, imperturbable prowl of Time, which brooked no halt, which condoned no tampering with its movement, whether to slow it or to speed it.

Time, the changer, could not be changed. Space, perhaps, the material environment, could be conquered. Time, never. It held the secret of the First Cause - a secret not known even to the Originators who had built the great, finite multi-verse as a seeding bed - a womb - for their successors. But should the human race survive the birth pangs and succeed the Originators, Asquiol felt that it would not present a key to the secret.

Perhaps, in many generations - each generation measured as a stage in Man's evolution - it would be found. But would the solution to the puzzle be welcomed? Not by his race - but maybe its great-grand-children would be capable of accepting and retaining such knowledge. For once they replaced the Originators they would have the task of creating their successors. And so it would continue, perhaps ad infinitum - to what greater purpose?

He stopped this reverie abruptly. In this respect he was a pragmatist. He could not concern himself with such pointless speculation.

There was a lull in the Game. The coming of Roffrey's ship and its defeat of the aliens had evidently non-plussed them for a while. But Roffrey, so far, had not experienced the real struggle which was between minds, trained minds capable of performing the most savage outrage there could be - destroying the id, the ego, the very qualities that set man above other beasts.

For a moment he wondered about Talfryn, but stopped the train of thoughts since it led to another question troubling him.

Asquiol allowed his concentration to cease for a moment as he enjoyed the rich nourishment that experience of dwelling on all planes of the multiverse gave him. He thought: I am like a child in a womb, save that I know I am in the womb. Yet I am a child with a part missing, I sense it. What is it? What will complete me? It is as if the part would not only complete me, but complete itself at the same time.

As was happening increasingly, he was interrupted by a sharp signal from the communicator.

He leaned forward in his chair, the strange shadows and curious half-seen images dancing about his. As he moved, the area of space between him and the communicator seemed to spray apart, flow and move spasmodically like water disturbed by the intrusion of an alien body. This happened whenever he moved, although he himself was only aware of his passing his arm through many objects which exerted a very faint pressure upon his limbs.

He could not only see the multiverse, he could also feel it, smell it, taste it. Yet this was little help in dealing with the aliens, for he found it almost as difficult as the rest of his race to understand the actual psychology of the non-human attackers.

The communicator came to life.

'Yes?' he said.

Again, Mordan had not turned on his own receiver, so that whereas Asquiol could see him, he need not subject himself to the eye-straining sight of Asquiol's scintillating body.

'A few messages,' Mordan went through them quickly. 'Hospital ship OP8 has disappeared. We heard that the I.T. field was becoming erratic. They were repairing it when they just… faded out of space. Any instructions?'

'I saw that happen. They're safe enough where they are. No instructions. If they're lucky they'll be able to rejoin the fleet if they can adjust their field.'

'Roffrey and Talfryn, the two men who succeeded in withstanding the B.R. effect so successfully, have been subjected to all Professor Selinsky's tests and he is studying the 'results now. In the meantime they are being taught how to play the Game.'

'What else?' Asquiol observed Mordan's worried expression.

"There were two women on Roffrey's ship. One of them was the mad woman - Mary Roffrey. The other calls herself Willow Kovacs. I have already forwarded this information to you, you remember.' 'Yes. Is that all?'

'Miss Kovacs asked me to pass a message on to you. She says that you were personally acquainted on Migaa and later in the Shifter. She would like it if you could spare the time to get in touch with her. The ship is on 050L metres for tight contact.' 'Thank you.'

Asquiol switched out and sat back in his seat. There was in him still some part of the strong emotion he had felt for Willow. But he had had to rid himself of it twice. Once when she had declined to follow him to Roth, once after he met the Originators. His impression of her was, by now, a little vague - so much had happened.

He had had to dispense with many valuable emotions when he assumed control of the fleet. This was out of no spirit of ambition or will to dominate. It was simply that his position demanded maximum control of his mind. Therefore emotions had to be sacrificed where they could not directly contribute to what he was doing. He had become, in so far, as ordinary human relationships were included, a very lonely man. His perception of the multiverse had more than compensated for the breaks in human contact he had been forced to make, but he rather wished that he had not had to make those breaks.

Normally, he never acted on impulse, yet now he found himself turning his communicator dial to the wavelength 050L metres. When it was done he waited. He felt almost nervous.

Willow saw her screen leap into life and she quickly adjusted her own controls with the information indicated above the screen. She acted hurriedly, excitedly, and then the sight she saw froze her for a moment.

After that, her movements were slower as she stared fascinatedly at the screen.

'Asquiol?' she said in a faltering voice.

'Hello, Willow.'

The man still bore the familiar facial characteristics of the Asquiol who had once raged through the galaxy spreading chaos and laughter in his wake.

She remembered the insouciant, moody youth she had loved. But this… this Satan incarnates sitting in its chair like some fallen archangel - this golden sight bore no relation to him as she remembered him.

'Asquiol?'

'I'm deeply sorry,' he said, and smiled at her with a melancholy look for an archangel to wear.

Her face reflected the peculiar dancing effect which the image on the screen produced. She stepped back from it and stood with her shoulders drooping. And now she had only the memory of love.

'I should have taken my chance,' she said.

'There was only one, I'm afraid. If I'd known, I perhaps could have convinced you to come with us. As it was I didn't want to endanger your life.'

'I understand,' she said. Tough for me, eh?'

He didn't reply. Instead he was glancing behind him.

'I'll have to switch out - our opponents are starting another round of the Game. Goodbye, Willow. Perhaps, if we win, you and I can have another talk.'

But she was silent as the golden, brilliant image faded from the screen.