The Blood Red Game

ONE

The three of them met, at last, in a terrible town called Migaa on the harsh, bright edge of a wilderness. Both town and planet were called Migaa and it was the Last Chance planet for the galaxy's fugitives.

Renark disembarked from his cruiser, uncomfortable under the glare of the diamond-bright sun. He threaded his way through the great looming shapes of a hundred other ships, his mind searching the town ahead for his two friends. His skilled brain probed the shapes of streets and buildings, people and objects until at last he had located them, half a mile away on the other side of the town.

He strode briskly from the spaceport and there were no Customs officers to stop him here. He kept his friends' forms firmly fixed in his mind as he hurried in their direction. They were agitated and he guessed they might be in trouble.

People stared at him as he passed a very tall, very gaunt man with deep-set black eyes in a long skull a brooding face in repose. But they didn't stare at his face - they thought him remarkable mainly because he wore no apparent weapon. Almost all the men and women who came to Migaa came hurriedly - but they also came armed.

Only Renark walked purposefully along the metal-paved streets, through the glinting steel buildings. The others moved aimlessly, wearing dark lenses to ward off the glare of the desert reflected in the steel and chrome of the buildings. He noted little transport on the streets, and what there was moved lazily. He thought the town had an exhausted air - yet at the same time it possessed an atmosphere of expectancy. It was a peculiar mood - and it smothered Migaa.

He noted also a shared quality in the faces of the men and women, a set expression, which tried vainly to disguise the hope lurking in their eyes. They seemed afraid of hoping, yet evidently could do nothing else. Migaa - or what Migaa offered - was their last chance. It was Renark's too, but for other, less selfish, reasons.

When he reached the building where he sensed his two friends were, it wasn't the tavern he'd expected. This was called The Drift Inn, like hundreds of other taverns throughout the galaxy, but this one's name had a special significance.

He walked in to find tumult.

A fight was going on. He recognised several, who could be either thieves or spacehands judging by the white, metal-studded plastileather overalls they wore. They were thick, brutal shouting men and they were attacking two others, not of their kind.

Renark recognised the pah". Paul Talfryn and young Asquiol of Pompeii, their backs against the far wall of the noisy, overcrowded public room. For a moment he felt the urge to leave them to it, confident that they would survive, but then he decided to help them. He wanted them to be as fit as possible for the forthcoming journey.

As he moved forward, a spacehand, using the whole of his metal-studded body as a weapon launched himself at Renark. The spacehand had obviously learned his fighting techniques aboard ship or on a low-gravity planet. Migaa wasn't a low-grav world and the man's method of charging in an attempt to buffet Renark against the far wall didn't work. Renark skipped aside and the hand blundered past. Renark kicked against the base of the man's spine with a pointed boot. The spacehand collapsed backwards and Renark kicked nun sharply in the head knocking him out.

Swiftly Renark pushed towards his friends.

Talfryn looked almost panic-stricken as he warded off the blows of his attackers, but Asquiol - flamboyant, grinning and vicious - was enjoying himself. A set of knuckle-spikes gleamed on his right fist, and there was blood on them. One of Asquiol's opponents blundered back into Renark, clutching at a bleeding eye-socket.

'We're wasting time!' Renark shouted as the others saw him.

He moved into the crowd, pulling the tumbling spacemen aside with his large, ugly hands. Together, Talfryn and Asquiol punched their way towards him.

A growling giant swung a pocket-mace at Asquiol who ducked, crouched, then shot out his spike-covered fist deep into the spacehand's belly. The giant shrieked and the mace dropped from his hand as he fell to his knees.

The trio burst from the tavern and ran up a narrow side street until they saw the spacehands abandon the chase, shouting catcalls from behind them. They turned into an alley, running between the backs of the buildings, their boots ringing on the metal.

'Which way to the Salvation Inn?' Renark said.

'Thanks for breaking that up,' Asquiol grinned. 'I thought you Guide Sensers could tell where anything was. It's this way. Not far.'

Renark didn't bother to use his space sensing ability. The image of what he had done to the spacehand was still sharp in his mind. He didn't like violence.

Asquiol led them back on to a main way. As they walked, Talfryn turned to Renark, his expression embarrassed.

'Sorry about that,' he said. 'Those hands were looking for trouble. They picked on Asquiol because of his clothes. We had to fight. We managed to avoid a dozen others, but couldn't get out of this one. The whole damned town's the same - tense, nervous, impatient.'

'I'm afraid I encouraged them,' Asquiol said. 'Really, one can't have one's dress insulted by such a vulgar breed!' He collapsed his knuckle-spikes and put them away.

Lonely and time-begrimed for all his youth, Asquiol dressed with careful flamboyance. He wore a high-collared, quilted jacket of orange ny-fur and tight slacks of purple stuff, which fitted over his pointed, fibreglass boots. His face was pale and tapering, his black hair cut short in a fringe over his forehead. He carried a slender, anti-neutron beamer - an outlawed weapon.

Asquiol had once been a prince - independent Overlord of Pompeii, before the Galactic Lords enforced their powers and brought the planet into the Union.

Renark remembered that Asquiol had lost his title and estates for protecting him, and he was grateful.

He noticed that the younger man had lapsed into a brooding mood. It was his usual reaction and because of it many people thought him unbalanced, though Renark knew that Asquiol was the very opposite. His was a fine, delicate balance which only his will maintained.

Talfryn, lean-faced like his two friends, sensitive and bearded, was an unlicensed explorer and therefore a criminal. He was dressed conservatively - sleeveless jerkin of unstained hide, blue shirt and black trousers. He carried a heavy power-gun. He looked curiously at Renark, but since he said nothing Renark remained silent.

Then he smiled. His thin, grim lips quirked upwards and he straightened his back, turning his long head and looking hard at Talfryn.

Talfryn seemed disturbed by the look, and felt obliged to speak, so he said: 'When do we leave? I'm impatient to get started.'

Renark did not respond for a moment, and just kept looking.

Talfryn said: 'I can't wait.'

'I'm not sure yet,' Renark said.

As they reached the tall, many-windowed structure of the Salvation Inn, on the edge of town, Talfryn said to Renark: 'You told us we were wasting time back there. How much time have we, roughly?'

'Maximum, thirty-six hours,' the Guide Senser replied.

Asquiol looked up, startled out of his mood. He seemed troubled. 'Is that all?'

'That's all - probably less. I can feel it coming closer to this continuum all the time, but it's difficult to keep a fix on it always. It takes most of my energy.'

They entered the wide, high-roofed public hall of the Salvation Inn. Asquiol looked around him, seeking someone in the crowd, but was disappointed. The huge windows, which stretched up one high wall lighted several tiered galleries and looked out on to the bright black and white carbon desert of the planet.

They pushed through the crowd of men and women of many types. There were richly clad men; ragged men; men who drank heavily and men who sipped at a single drink; vociferous men and quiet men. Here, as in the rest of the town, there was an air of tired, tense expectancy - an atmosphere, which had lasted, this era, for thirty-seven years. All the residents glanced often at the big scanner screens suspended in the middle of the hall.

The screens would come to life only on particular occasions - when what they awaited entered the area of space on which they were always focused. When that happened - if it happened - there would be a rush for the spaceport and Migaa would be deserted again. Some people had been waiting in Migaa for over thirty years; others had died before their chance came.

The three climbed a narrow, winding stair until they reached a gallery occupied by a table and three chairs. They sat down.

'I had this reserved,' Asquiol said as he craned his neck to look down into the public hall.

Renark looked at him quizzically. 'I'm having the ship checked and re-checked,' he said. 'It's got to be ready very soon. The Snifter could materialise well before the maximum thirty-six hours I mentioned. Though it shouldn't be here for another twelve hours - judging by the rate it's been moving towards us since I contacted it twenty days ago.'

Renark paused, staring out across the terrible desert, screwing his eyes against the glare, which penetrated even the polaroid windows.

'We've got to be ready,' he said. 'I can't tell how long it will remain in this continuum. There's also the possibility that it will go through the continuum at speed and we won't have a chance to get there before it travels on.'

'So we could have come to Migaa for nothing,' Talfryn shrugged. 'Well, my tune's my own.'

'Mine isn't,' Renark said - but he didn't expand on that remark.

He was the only man in the entire galaxy capable of knowing when the Shifter System would materialise. Others who came to Migaa took the chance that the bizarre, continuum-travelling system would appear in the space-time during their own life, but it was a gamble. This was the only reason Migaa existed, built on the nearest halfway, habitable planet to where the Shifter would materialise. So the outlawed and the damned, the searching and the hunted came to Migaa when there was nowhere else to go. And they waited.

Renark knew he did not need to wait, for he was a Guide Senser with a peculiar instinct, developed to the level of a science. He could locate, given only the vaguest direction and description, anything in the galaxy, whether it was a planet or a lost penny.

Needing no maps or co-ordinates, he could lead a person anywhere they wanted to go. He was a human directionfinder, and because of this he knew the Shifter was coming closer, for he had trained himself to see past his own space and out into other dimensions lying beyond, where there seemed to be hazy ghosts of planets - and suns almost, but not quite - like his own.

He had trained himself to see them, to prove a theory concerning the nature of the weird Shifter System which had been known to materialise - just suddenly appear in space and then vanish again without trace - only five times since mankind had reached the rim.

Little else was generally known about it.

The few explorers and scientists who had managed to reach the Shifter before it vanished again had not returned. It was impossible to say how long it would stay at any one time. The mystery system seemed to have a wildly erratic orbit, and Renark's theory that it moved on a course different from the rest of the universe - a kind of sideways movement - had been postulated years before when, as Warden of the Rim Worlds, he had been given the responsibility of sensing it - as he sensed the world and suns within his own continuum.

The time of the Shifter's stay varied between a few hours and a few days. It was never certain when it would appear or disappear. The desperate men who came to Migaa were optimists, hoping against hope that they would have the luck to be there when the Shifter arrived.

Though the Shifter received its title from Renark's own theory, it had several other names - Ghost System was a popular one - and certain religious-minded people ascribed some more dramatic significance to the system, declaiming that it had been cast from the universe for some sin its inhabitants had committed. These fanatics also had a name for the system - the Sundered Worlds.

And so a whole framework of myth had developed around the system, but very few dared investigate it for fear of being stranded. For the most part only criminals were willing to take the risk.

Renark stared down at the seething public hall. The Galactic Union's government machinery was near perfect, its institutions difficult to abuse. This meant they could allow a greater degree of personal freedom for their citizens. But, because the government worked so well, criminals were hard put to escape the Union's laws. Migaa was their only hope. From Migaa they had the chance of escaping right out of the universe - unless the Galactic Police - the Geepees - made one of their sudden swoops on the town. For the most part the Geepees were content to leave well alone, but sometimes they hunted a criminal when he possessed some particular item or piece of information which they wanted. Then, if he eluded them long enough, they would come to Migaa looking for him.

Renark knew the Gee-lords sought him, that Lord Mordan, Captain in Chief of the Galactic Police, had his men scouring the galaxy for him. He wondered how long it would be before Mordan thought of Migaa.

Asquiol put his head in his hands and stared at Renark.

'Isn't it time we had your reasons for this trip, Renark?' He turned his head and searched among the crowd below. 'What made you quit your position as Rim Warden? Why wouldn't you tell the Gee-lords what you learned from that strange spaceship which landed on Golund three years ago? And why the passion to visit the Shifter?'

'I don't want to answer yet,' Renark told him. 'In fairness I should, but if I did it would give rise to further questions I can't possibly answer yet. All I can tell you right now is what you've guessed - I've been waiting three years to get to the Shifter, ever since I learned something of great importance from the crew of that spaceship on Golund. What they told me indirectly caused me to resign as Warden. As for the answers I don't have - I hope the Shifter will give me them.'

'We're your friends, Renark.' Talryn said, 'and we're willing to go with you for that reason alone. But if you don't find the answers you want out there, will you answer the original questions?'

'There'll be nothing to lose if I do,' Renark agreed. 'But if you decide you don't want to come, then say so now. It's dangerous, we know that much. We might perish before we even reach the Shifter, and once there we may never be able to return.'

Both men moved uncomfortably but said nothing.

Renark continued: 'I owe you both debts of friendship. You, Paul, helped me in my research on variable time flows and were responsible for finally crystallizing my theory. Asquiol saved me from the attentions of that police patrol on Pompeii, sheltered me for six months and, when the Gee-lords found out, was forced, under the terms of his agreement, to give up his birthright. You have both made big sacrifices on my behalf.'

'I'm curious enough, anyway, to explore the Ghost System,' smiled Talfryn, 'and Asquiol has nothing to keep him here unless it's his new-found attraction for Willow Kovacs.'

Willow owned the Salvation Inn. She was reputed to be beautiful.

Asquiol appeared displeased, but he only shrugged and smiled faintly. 'You're right, Talfryn - if tactless. But don't worry, I'll still go when the time comes.'

'Good.' said Renark.

A woman came up the narrow stair leading to the gallery.

She moved in full knowledge of her slim beauty and her lips were curved in a soft smile. She was wearing the spoils of her conquests - her emerald-coloured dress was covered with jewels mined on a thousand planets. They flashed brightly, challenging the very brilliance of the desert. Her hands, heavy with rings, held a tray of hot food.

As she reached the table, Asquiol looked up at her and took the tray, making sure he touched her hands as he did so.

'Thanks,' she said. 'And hello - you must be the famous Warden Renark."

'Ex-Warden,' he said. 'And you're the young woman who has so disturbed our proud friend here.'

She didn't reply to that.

'Eat well, gentlemen,' she said, then returned down the staircase. 'We'll meet later, Asquiol,' she called over her shoulder as she made her way across the crowded floor of the great tavern.

Renark felt slightly troubled by this new intrusion. He hadn't been prepared for it. Although his loyalty to both his friends was great, he wanted Asquiol on the trip much more than he wanted Talfryn.

Asquiol was young, reckless, inclined to vindictive acts of cruelty at times; he was arrogant and selfish and yet he had a core of integrated strength which was hard to equate with his outward appearance.

But a woman. A woman could either complement that strength or destroy it. And Renark wasn't sure about Willow Kovacs.

Philosophically, and for the moment, Renark accepted the situation and turned his mind to the problem in hand.

'I think we should give the ship another check,' he suggested when they had eaten. 'Shall we go out to the pads now?'

Talfryn agreed, but Asquiol said: 'I'll stay here. I'll either join you out there or see you when you return. How long will you be?'

'I've no idea,' Renark said, rising. 'But stay here so that we can contact you if necessary.'

Asquiol nodded. 'Don't worry - I wasn't thinking of leaving the inn.'

Renark restrained an urge to tell Asquiol to be, wary, but the Guide Senser respected his friend - it was up to the Prince of Pompeii to conduct his own affairs without advice.

Renark and Talfryn walked down the stairs, pushed their way through the throng and made for the door.

Outside there was a buzz of excited conversation. The two men caught some of it as they walked along the metal-paved streets.

'It seems there's a rumour that the Geepees are on their way in,' Talfryn said worriedly.

Renark's face was grim. 'Let's hope they don't get here before the Shifter.'

Talfryn glanced at him. 'Are they after you?'

'They've been after me for three years. Oh, it's not for any crime. But the Gee-lords came to the conclusion that I might know something of use to them and have been trying to get hold of me.'

'And do you know something of use to them?'

'I know something,' Renark nodded, 'but it's in their interest and mine that they don't find out about it.'

'That's part of your secret?'

Tart of the secret,' Renark agreed. 'Don't worry - if we reach the Shifter, I'll let you know it, for better or worse.'

He let his mind reach out into the void beyond the Rim. It was out there, coming closer. He could sense it. His mind trembled. He felt physically sick.

It was so wrong - wrong!

Implacably, the impossible system was shifting in. Would it stay long enough for them to get to it? And could they reach it? If only he knew a little more about it. It was a big gamble he was taking and there was just a shin chance of it paying off.

Only he knew what was at stake. That knowledge was a burden he had had to strengthen himself to bear. Most men could not have done so.

As he walked along, glancing at the wretches who had so hopefully come to Migaa, he wondered if it was worth the attempt after all. But he shrugged to himself. You had to accept that it was worth it, he told himself.

There were none there who might have been properly described as extra-terrestrials. One of the discoveries Man had made when settling the galaxy was that he represented the only highly-developed, intelligent life-form. There were other types of animal life, but Earth, throughout the galaxy, had been the only planet to bear a beast that could reason and invent. This was an accepted thing amongst most people, but philosophers still wondered and marvelled and there were many theories to explain the fact.

Two years previously Renark had suddenly resigned from his position as Warden of the Rim Worlds. It had been an important position and his resignation had given rise to speculation and gossip. The visit of an alien spaceship, supposedly an intergalactic craft, had not been admitted by the Galactic Lords. When pressed for information they had replied ambiguously. Only Renark had seen the aliens, spent much time with them.

He had given no explanation to the Gee-lords and even now they still sought him out, trying to persuade him to take over a job which he had done responsibly and imaginatively. Space-sensers were rare, rarer even than other psi-talents - and a Guide Senser of Renark's stature was that much rarer. There were only a few G.S. men in the entire galaxy and their talents were in demand. For the most part they acted as pilots and guides on difficult runs through hyper-space, keeping, as it were, an anchor to the mainland and giving ships exact directions how, where and when to enter normal space. They were also employed on mapping the galaxy and any changes which occurred in it. They were invaluable to a complicated, galaxy-travelling civilisation.

So the Gee-lords had begged Renark to remain Warden of the Rim even if he would not tell them who the visitors to Golund had been. But he had refused, and two years had been spent in collecting a special knowledge of what little information was known about the Shifter. In the end they had resorted to sending the Geepees after him, but with the help of Talfryn and Asquiol he had so far evaded them. He prayed they wouldn't come to Migaa before the Shifter materialised.

Renark had fitted his ship with the best equipment and instruments available.

This equipment, in his eyes, included the dynamic, if erratic, Asquiol and the easy-going Paul Talfryn. Both had helped him in the past because they admired him. He, in turn, responded to the sense of loyalty for them that he felt - and knew he could work best with these two men.

Several hundred ships were clustered in the spaceport. Many had been there for years, but all of them were kept in constant readiness for the time when the Shifter might be sighted.

Certain ships had been there for a century or more, their original owners having died, disappointed and frustrated, never having achieved their goal.

Renark's great spacer was a converted Police Cruiser which he had bought cheaply - and illegally - rebuilt and re-equipped. It could be ready for take-off in half a minute. It was also heavily armed. It was against the law to own a police ship and also to own an armed private vessel. The Union owned and leased all commercial craft.

The spacer required no crew. It was fully automatic and had room for thirty passengers. Already, since landing, Renark had been pestered by people offering huge sums to guarantee them passage to the Shifter, but he had refused. Renark had little sympathy for most of those who gathered in Migaa. They would have received more mercy from the enlightened Legal Code, of which the Union was justly proud, than from Renark of the Rim.

Although Migaa itself was thick with criminals of all kinds, there were few in relation to the huge human population of the galaxy. For nearly two centuries the galaxy had been completely at peace, although the price of peace had, in the past, been a rigid and authoritarian rule which had, in the last century, thawed into the liberal government which now had been elected to serve the galaxy.

Renark had no hatred for the Union which pestered him. He had served it loyally until he had acquired that certain knowledge which he had withheld from the Galactic Lords. They had asked many times for the information he possessed, but he had refused; and he was cautious, also, never to let his whereabouts be known.

He glanced up into the blazing white sky as if expecting to see a Geese patrol falling down upon them.

Slowly, the two men walked across the pad towards the cruiser.

Mechanics were at work on Renark's ship. They had long since completed their initial check and found the ship completely spaceworthy. But Renark had not been satisfied. Now they checked again. Renark and Talfryn entered the elevator and it took them into the centre of the ship, to the control cabin.

Talfryn looked admiringly around the well-equipped cabin. He had the scientist's eye that could appreciate the ingenuity, the skill, the energy, the pure passion which had gone into its construction.

Once, a year before, Renark had said in a talkative moment: Take note of these instruments, Talfryn - they represent man's salvation. They represent the power of the mind to supersede the limitations of its environment, the power of every individual man to control, for the first time, his own destiny.'

Renark hadn't been referring to his own particular instruments and Talfryn knew that.

Now, Talfryn thought, the mystique attached to science had made it at once a monster and a salvation. People believed it capable of anything, because they had no idea any more what it was. And they tended to think the worst of it.

More men like Renark were needed - men who could not take the simple workings of a turbine for granted, yet, at the same time, could take the whole realm of science for granted.

Just then another thought occurred to Talfryn - a thought more immediately applicable to their present situation. He said:

'How do we know that our drive - or any of our other instruments - will work in the Shifter, Renark?' He paused, looking around him at the tall, heaped banks of instruments. 'If, as you think might be possible, different laws of space and time apply, then we may find ourselves completely stranded in the Shifter's area of space - cut adrift without control over the ship.'

'I admit we don't know whether our instruments will work out there,' Renark agreed, 'but I'm prepared to risk the fact that we may share certain laws with the Shifter. Maybe I'll be able to tell when it's closer, but my judgment won't be infallible.'

As a space senser, Renark needed no equipment to heighten his powers, but he did need to concentrate, and he therefore used an energy-charger, a machine which replaced natural, nervous and mental energy as it was expended and could, if used wisely, give a man an extra boost if he needed it especially. It was equipment normally only issued to hospitals.

Now, as Talfryn studied the recordings which had been made of the Shifter and became increasingly puzzled, Renark got into a comfortably padded chair and attached electrodes to his forehead, his chest and other parts of his body. He held a stylus and a plastic writing block on the small ledge in front of him.

Calmly, he switched on the machine.