The Blood Red Game

TWO

Renark concentrated.

He could feel the presence of the galaxy, spreading Inwards from his own point in space; layer upon layer of it, time upon time.

He was aware of the galaxy as a whole and at the same time felt the presence of each individual atom in its structure - each atom, each planet, each star, nova and nebula. Thorough space, where matter was of minimum density, little cores of denser matter moved. Spaceships.

Faintly, beyond the limits of his own galaxy, he sensed the lesser density of intergalactic space, and beyond that he picked up faraway impressions of other galaxies.

There was nothing unpleasant happening out there - something he already knew about. Something he was pledged to alter.

Then he adjusted his mind so that, instead of sensing the components of the galaxy, he sensed it as a whole. He widened his reception to take in a small area beyond the galaxy and immediately the entire structure of time and space, as he knew it, was flawed.

There was something there that was alien - something that did not fit. It was as if a body had moved through that small area and had torn a hole in the very fabric of the universe. His mind and body trembled as he sought to adjust, as previously, to his new, unnatural factor. It was a binary star with eleven planets equidistantly encircling it.

It did not exist. Not in relation to the universe Renark knew. He could make no close assessment of its components - as yet. It was wrong! Renark controlled his mind against the thought and concentrated on judging the system's progress. It was, in relation to itself, travelling through space in the same manner as ordinary stars and planets travelled. But it also travelled through a series of dimensions of which Renark had no experience whatsoever. And its course, its orbits through the dimensions was bringing it closer to Renark's own continuum.

He opened his eyes, gasping.

Quickly, he jotted down an equation; closed his eyes and re-adjusted his mind.

It continued towards them. It shifted through myriad alien dimensions, moving through a whole series of continua, progressing imperturbably onwards in an orbit as constant as the orbits of its planets about its stars. Soon now it would be passing through Renark's continua.

But how long would it stay there? Renark could not tell without knowing a little of the universes which lay beyond his own - and of these he had much to find out. His future plans depended on it.

In less than twenty minutes, Renark was finished. He looked over Talfryn's shoulder at the records.

'She's coming closer,' he said. 'Between twelve to fifteen hours and shell be here. That's if my calculations are right. I think they are. As far as I can tell, she's travelling at a regular rate. I can't explain why the periods spent in this continuum have varied so much, though, if her speed is as constant as it seems to be.'

'Well, you've narrowed it, anyway.' Talfryn's body seemed to tense.

'Yes.' Renark moved about the control room reading gauges.

'And you're certain it won't miss this space-time altogether?'

'That's possible - but unlikely.'

Renark stared at a bank of gauges for a moment and then he moved towards a chrome and velvet chair which had a whole bank of levers and switches in front of it, a laser-screen above it. This was the gunnery control panel.

Again he began to move uneasily about the great cabin. Again he volunteered a suggestion.

'We don't know all the directions in which our own universe moves,' he said. 'It may also, for all we know, have a "sideways" movement through the dimensions at an angle different from the Shifter. This would explain to some extent any inconsistency in the length of time the system stays in our space-time continuum.'

Talfryn shook his head. 'I've never been able to grasp any of those theories about the system. I don't even understand your ability to sense its approach. I know that, with training, space sensers can locate planets and even smaller bodies in normal space-time, but I wasn't aware that they could sense things outside, beyond, in different dimensions - wherever it is.'

'Normally they can't,' Renark said, 'but many who have probed the perimeter of space outside the galaxy have mentioned that they have sensed something else, something not in keeping with any recognised natural laws. Others have had the illusion of sensing suns and worlds within the galaxy - where suns and worlds just can't be! This has given rise to the theory of the "multi-verse", the multidimensional universe containing dozens of different universes, separated from each other by unknown dimensions…'

He paused. How could he explain in calm, logical words the sense of apartness, of alienness, he had received? How could he describe that shock, that experience which contradicted all he accepted with every sense he possessed, something that struck at the id, the ego, the emotions - everything?

He opened his mouth, trying to find words. But the words did not exist. The nearest way of expressing what he felt was to give vent to a shout of horror, agony - triumph. He didn't feel inclined to try.

So he shut his mouth and continued to pace the cabin, running his ugly hand over the firing arm of the big anti-neutron gun which had never been used. It was a savage weapon and he hoped there would never be need to use it.

Nuclear weapons of any sort made him uncomfortable. His strange sixth sense was as aware of the disruption of atoms as it was of their presence in natural state. It was an experience close to agony to sense the disruptive blast of atomic weapons. The anti-neutron cannon, beaming particles of anti-matter, was an even more terrible experience for him.

Once, as a child, he had been close to the area of a multi-megaton bomb explosion and his whole mind had blanked out under the strain of the experience. It had taken doctors a year to pull him back to sanity. Now he was stronger, better co-ordinated - but it was still not pleasant to be in a space flight.

Also, he loathed violence, considering it was the easy way out and, like many easy ways out, not a way out at all but only continuation of a vicious circle. So whenever possible he avoided it.

However, he was prepared, in this case, to use it - if it meant using it against anything in the Shifter which attempted to stop him in his avowed objective.

Renark had geared himself to drive towards one aim, and one only. Already he was driving towards it and nothing - nobody - would stop him. He was dedicated, he was fanatical - but he was going to get results if that was possible. If it wasn't possible, then he'd die trying to make it possible.

Soon, now - very soon - the Shifter would enter their area of space. He was going there. The Shifter offered the only chance in the universe of supplying him with the information he needed.

He glanced back at Talfryn, who was still studying the records.

'Any clearer?' he asked.

Talfryn shook his head and grinned.

'I can just understand how the Shifter orbits through dimensions hitherto unknown to us, in the same way as we orbit through time and space, but the implications are too big for me. I'm bewildered. I'm no physicist.'

'Neither am I,' Renark pointed out. 'If I were I might not be so affected by the Shifter. For instance, there's something peculiar about any system comprised of a G-type binary star and eleven planets all equidistant from it - something almost artificial. If it is artificial - how did it happen?'

'Maybe it's the other way about,' Talfryn suggested vaguely. 'Maybe the planets all being the same distance away from the parent suns has something to do with the peculiar nature of the system. If they area natural freak, could this have caused the Shifter's orbit?'

Renark nodded. He thought for a moment before he said:

'If you take for granted that Time is cyclic in accordance with the other known laws of the universe - although, as you well know, my own experiments seem to prove that there is more than one particular time flow operating in our own universe - if you take that for granted, however, we can describe the rest by means of circles.'

He walked to the chair where he had left his stylus and pad, picked them up and moved over the chart table.

'The Shifter orbits this way' - he drew a circle - 'whereas we progress this way.' He drew a half-circle cutting horizontally through the first circle.

'Imagine that we have a finite number of space-time continua each with some mutually shared laws.' He drew a number of other half-circles below and above the first. They're all, like us, travelling this way. There is no contact between us but we exist side by side without being aware of each other's presence, all revolving in different sets of dimensions.'

Talfryn nodded.

'Imagine that the normal continua, as we understand the word normal, are orbiting horizontally, as it were. Then imagine that the Shifter is orbiting vertically. Therefore, instead of going its way without ever touching other alternate universes, its course takes it through them.'

'But wouldn't it take millions of years to complete a cycle like that?'

'Not necessarily. We know it doesn't, because we can't use temporal and spatial values and apply them to something as different as the Shifter. It has rules of its own which seem erratic to us but are probably as ordered in relation to itself as ours are to us.'

'You've got to take quite a bit for granted,' Talfryn sighed.

'Our scientists have been doing extensive research into the "multiverse" theory. They're pretty convinced.'

'Life and the universe,' said Talfryn, seating himself in a chair, 'are getting too complicated.'

Renark laughed shortly. 'One thing's clear, Talfryn - there 'are going to be a lot of mysteries solved and a lot of new ones started when we reach the Shifter. No one has ever returned from it.'

He glanced up suddenly. A light was blinking on the control panel.

'That's the intercom,' he said. 'Might be Asquiol or one of the engineers. Could you deal with it, Paul?'

Talfryn walked over and picked up the instrument He flipped a switch but no picture appeared on the screen. He listened briefly and then turned back to regard Renark.

'Asquiol's here - and he's brought that girl with him.'

'What?' Renark for a moment lost his equilibrium. 'Why?'

'That's the other thing - that's why they came here so fast. The Geepees have arrived - they're looking for you!'

Renark pursed his lips. He should have been ready for a police raid but he had been so busy explaining the Shifter to Talfryn that he hadn't been on the look out for them.

Asquiol and Willow Kovacs stepped out of the elevator.

Asquiol said nervously: 'Sorry about this, Renark - but these are my terms.'

Renark shrugged. 'Terms?' He leant over the control panel adjusting dials. 'What's happening out there?'

'The Geepees are scouring Migaa asking if you're there. I got out as fast as I could. They'd be likely to recognise me and connect me with you.'

'Good.'

'You're willing to have Willow along on the trip?'

'You've told her the risks?'

'Yes.'

Renark sighed. 'I thought this might happen - knowing you. But I want you with us - and even if she's included in your conditions, I'm willing to concede to them.'

Renark forced away his irritation. There was no room for petty emotions in his plans. Only he knew what hung on his reaching the Shifter and discovering its nature and its cause.

Matters of personalities could not be considered. Action, not argument, was required of him now.

He had to pray that the Geepees wouldn't discover him before the Shifter materialised. They'd have to sit tight and wait it out. With any luck the Geepees wouldn't make a search of the ships on the pads until after they had scoured the town.

Renark beamed a message to the engineers, telling them to clear away their equipment and leave the ship in readiness for take-off.

Then he sat in his chair and waited.

An hour passed.

Willow seemed uncomfortable, sitting there in her immaculate sheath dress, listening to the men talking and going over the equations Renark had made, the records of the Shifter, theories which had been put forward.

Renark said: 'Rumour has it that this planet has a large human colony. I think we should head for that - number eight by my reckoning. You can see I've marked it.'

He glanced at Willow, who appeared pensive - not used to being ignored, evidently.

She moved nervously on her seat, looking about her disinterestedly. Normally there seemed to be nothing that could break her usual self-contained attitude - an attitude that had been necessary in a town like Migaa. But here, for the first time, she was in the company of men even more self-contained than she was. And it obviously disquieted her.

At last Asquiol saw her discomfort and said half apologetically: 'Anything troubling you?'

She smiled without amusement, obviously piqued: 'A woman's place is in the galley,' she said. 'Where is it?'

If she had intended to throw Asquiol off balance she had not succeeded.

'You might as well,' he said. 'I guess I'll be quite busy from now on. I expect we'll want something to eat soon.' He pointed to a door, then bent again over the charts.

Shrugging, she left the control room.

'Willow had always been curious about the Ghost System, living as she had in its shadow all her life. But she had never seen it. For some reason it had allowed her to dominate all the many men in her life, for they had seemed to have a hunger which she could not satisfy - though they had sought in her that satisfaction and had, therefore, put themselves in her power, thinking she had a secret she did not, in fact, possess.

Now she was going to the Shifter… on Asquiol's instigation. She was glad. These men, all three, offered her something she was unused to. A strength of character, perhaps, that she had never found in all the others who had come to Migaa.

Renark, Talfryn and particularly Asquiol offered her calm, controlled strength - a peculiar mixture of detachment and passion. She busied herself preparing the food, finding a well-stocked larder - for Renark enjoyed food.

Talfryn looked up from the charts, glanced at the scanner screen. He swore and moved towards the controls.

'Something's gone wrong with the laser. I'll try and…'

'Don't touch those controls!'

Renark's brain seemed to swell within his skull, excitement pulsing through him, his body pounding. He paused for a second, frowned, controlled himself and then said calmly:

'It's coming, Talfryn.'

He sent his mind out, probing. He felt the sudden presence of the alien system grow as it merged into his own space-time - a whole system plunging towards them out of the hazy twilight of the universe, rupturing time and space on its rogue orbit. Elation flooded through him as he ran towards the laser screen.

The other two stood close behind him.

He watched as visible lines of energy swept across the area of space where his calculations indicated the Shifter would appear.

Space seemed to peel back on itself as great, blossoming splashes of colour poured through as if from the broken sides of a vat, merging with the darkness of space and making it iridescent so that sections shone like brass and others like silver, gold or rubies, the whole thing changing, changing constantly, erupting, flickering, vanishing, reappearing.

Then, faintly at first, as if through rolling, multi-coloured clouds, the Shifter itself began to materialise, growing clearer and clearer, coming into sharper focus.

And then it was hanging there, as solid as anything else in the universe, the clouds which had heralded its approach fading away. A new system had joined the galaxy.

But for how long, Renark wondered, would the eleven planets hang, equidistant, around the blazing blue binary star?'

He rushed back to the control panel, pressed a single stud activating the ship's automatic circuits.

The ship lifted. It shrieked away from the spaceport, away from the Geepee vessels, and within minutes was in deep space straining towards the shifter.

Moving to a single-minded, prearranged pattern, Renark acted like a zombie, his eyes fixed on the weird system ahead, his body one with the streaking ship which leapt the space between the edge of the galaxy and the mystery worlds.

Willow came out, startled, saw the screen and began to tremble.

Asquiol looked at her, but she glanced away and hurried back to the galley.

Renark seated himself in the control chair, his arms outstretched over the complicated control board, checking every slight tendency for the ship to veer away from the Shifter.

At this distance the planets seemed, apart from their ordered positions around the suns, to be no different from any other system in the galaxy.

Yet they glowed like carefully set diamonds around the sapphire suns. The ship sped closer and Renark could observe the rotation of the planets around the twin star. They seemed to be moving very slowly. Yet the closer they came the faster the planets seemed to move.

The other two had taken their places. The ship's drive, buried in the core of the ship, could be heard now, humming with the strain.

Renark shouted: 'Talfryn, keep all communication equipment on Receive. Asquiol, don't use those guns at random - wait until I order you to, if it's necessary.'

He turned in his seat for a moment, stared at Asquiol. 'And don't, on any account, use the anti-neutron cannon.'

Asquiol grimaced.

Talfryn flipped switches.

Willow reappeared, bewildered by the suddenness of events. She was frustrated, wanting something to do. The men worked, with concentration and efficiency, to their prearranged plan. Again Asquiol was oblivious of her presence.

The planets came closer. There was something peculiar about several of them, particularly one at nadir-south-east of the binary.

As the Shifter got larger on the screen, the communications panel began to squeal and moan.

'We're picking up its static, anyway,' Talfryn commented.

'They must be panicking on Migaa,' Asquiol grinned. 'The quicker we move the less chance we've got of getting caught up with the mob when they come out.'

'They'll be fighting the Geepees right now,' Renark said. 'They won't even let a fleet of battle-wagons stop them reaching the Shifter after waiting so long.'

'That'll delay both sides for a while,' Asquiol said.

'Let's hope the delay will be a long one.' Renark stared at his screen. 'What's ahead of us to starboard, Talfryn? Looks like a small fleet of some sort.'

Talfryn moved dials. 'You're right - spaceships of a kind I don't recognise. We'd better head for the nearest planet and try to escape them. The way they're coming up, they don't look friendly.'

The twin star was very close and bright now, blacking out the planets on Renark's laser screen.

Asquiol broke the energy seals on the guns with the key Renark handed him.

About ten of the weird ships came jolting closer, the metal of their hulls giving off a peculiar, yellowish glint. They pulsed through space and there was something menacing in their approach. Then they veered away, describing a long curve, and began to circle the area through which Renark's cruiser would have to pass.

Then, with a jerk which seemed to tug at their nerves and muscles and threaten to turn their bodies inside out, they entered alien space. They were in the Shifter's territory now - that was why the other ships had come no further, but awaited them. Their senses blanked momentarily, they felt dizzy, sick. Renark, feeling his senses going, sent out a desperate tendril of mental energy, anchoring himself to the Shifter ahead. Also he felt the presence of the darting alien ships. The metal of their construction was unfamiliar to him.

Then, suddenly, his whole mind seemed to explode, as the fabric of space was ripped apart.

He gasped with the agony, forced his eyes open. He looked at the screen, and the planets, no longer whirling so rapidly around the binary, were moving at a more leisurely pace.

An inhuman growl rumbled through the control room. Talfryn worked the receiver, trying to pick up a picture, but couldn't. The growl came again but the language was unrecognisable. The leading vessel of the yellow fleet moved.

It seemed to turn over on itself, described a couple of somersaults, and then sent a Coiling blast of energy before the humans' ship.

Renark blocked his mind and tensed his body. 'Screens!' he yelled.

But Asquiol had already raised them.

The ship shuddered and the screens proved effective against the alien weapons - but only just Asquiol aimed the energy-laden guns on the leading ship.

'The anti-neutron cannon would dispose of them quickly enough,' he said wistfully.

'And probably the system as well,' Talfryn added as Asquiol's rapid shots bit into the alien ship, and it exploded to form, almost immediately, nothing more than a ball of ragged metal.

Now the other ships came on in formation. But Asquiol bent over his guns and grimly pressed his fingers down on all studs. The ship took the enemy retaliation, but shuddered horribly. His own fire damaged two, which then spiralled away from their comrades.

Then the whole fleet sailed up in the strange, somersaulting motion and fired together.

'We can't take this attack!' Talfryn screamed.

Asquiol's eyes were intent on the enemy craft. He sent another great blast of energy slamming through space as the force of the joint attack hit the cruiser.

The ship shook, shuddered, groaned and came to a dead stop. Lazily it began to spiral through space while more of the alien ships came flooding up from the nearest planet. Asquiol did what he could to stop them, but with the ship out of control it was difficult to aim.

Renark was fighting the controls.

'We took it,' he shouted, 'but it's thrown our circuits crazy. Talfryn, get down there and see what you can do with the Master Co-ordinator!'

Talfryn scuttled from his seat and entered the elevator, dragging a space suit with him.

Asquiol, eyes narrowed, aimed his guns carefully, cursing.

He cut down several more, but these ships didn't seem to care whether they were destroyed or not. Momentarily Asquiol wondered if they had living crews aboard.

Something was wrong with the quality of the void. It did not have its normal sharpness. Rivers of colour, very faint, seemed to run through, and shapes seemed to move just beyond the limit of his vision. It was tantalising, it was maddening…

Willow, pale and tense, clung to a bulkhead, her eyes fixed on the big laser screen. Space was alive with boiling energy. It swirled and coiled and lashed through the disturbed vacuum. To her, it was as if the binary had suddenly gone nova, for she could not see through the multi-coloured patterns of force which obscured everything but the yellow, darting shapes of the enemy ships.

Slowly the patterns faded, but the alien vessels came on, Renark realised that the hideous nature of the void was not created by the force released in the battle. It was something else. Something much more ominous.

Asquiol kept up a rapid continuous fire. The screens took the brunt of the energy, but suddenly the ship was agonisingly hot.

Renark spoke into his mike.

'Talfryn, are you down there now?'

Talfryn's worried voice groaned back to him. 'I'm doing what I can. With any luck I should have fixed up most of the masters in five minutes.'

'Do it sooner,' Renark ordered, 'or you'll be dead.'

What were these aliens? Why were they so savagely attacking a ship when they hadn't even bothered to discover whether it was friend or enemy?

They came on with implacable ferocity.

Asquiol's lean face ran with sweat. Willow was on the floor now, her eyes wide, still fixed on the screens.

'Get into a suit, Willow,' he shouted. 'Get into a suit!'

She staggered up and walked unsteadily towards the locker from which she had seen Talfryn take a suit. Slowly she opened it, hissing with pain as the metal burned her hand, struggled to release a suit and clamber into it, its fabric automatically adjusting to the shape of her body.

Renark pulled on heavy gauntlets. The controls were now too hot for him to manipulate with bare hands.

Again and again the alien craft somersaulted and sent charges of energy towards the ship.

Asquiol felt his skin blister as he returned the fire and had

the satisfaction of seeing another three alien ships collapse into scrap.

Then Renark felt the ship responding again to the controls. Talfryn had fixed the Master Co-ordinator. He sent the ship veering away from the alien vessels.

Talfryn came rushing from the elevator, tearing off his helmet. He flung himself into his seat.

'Christ!' he shouted. 'More of them!'

Another fleet, larger than the one that had already attacked them, was coursing in to join the fight. As it got nearer, Talfryn noticed that the ships were not of the same design as the first fleet. In fact not one of these ships was of identical design. The weirdly assorted fleet fanned out - to engage not their ship but the enemy fleet!

Pale rays landed out and twined around the enemy craft, which vanished.

'By God, they're on our side!' Asquiol cried joyously as Renark eased his ship away from the area of the fight.

Suddenly a clear voice came over the speakers. It began giving directions. Talfryn moved the dials. 'I can't find the source,' he said. The voice, speaking their own language, although a slightly archaic version, began to repeat the directions in exactly the same tone as before - velocity, trajectory and so forth.

The ship was beginning to cool. The people inside relaxed somewhat.

'Don't bother finding the source,' Renark said. 'It sounds like a recording, anyway - an automatic instruction to visitors. We'll do as it says.'

Following the directions they found themselves shooting towards an ochre planet - small, ominous. The ships which had aided them now surrounded them, a motley assortment, but fast enough to stay with Renark's speedy cruiser.

When they were on course, a new voice broke into the taped instruction recital.

'Welcome to Entropium. We saw that you were in trouble and sent help. Forgive us for not doing so earlier, but you were then beyond our boundaries. You put up a pretty good fight.'

'Thanks,' Asquiol said softly, 'but we could have done with that help sooner.' Except in rare instances, Asquiol was not a grateful young man.

'That was out of the question,' the voice said lightly. 'But you're all right now, barring accidents…'

They sped down into the glowing red shroud of the planet.

'… barring accidents…'

Again and again they went through the same action, unable to do anything, trapped into it, as if they were on a piece of film being run many times through a projector.

Every time they appeared to reach the planet's surface they found themselves heading through the red mist again.

Then they were in the mist and motionless, the voice speaking amusedly:

'Don't worry, this will probably last a short while.'

Exhausted as he was, Renark had to use his special space sense to get some kind of grip on the situation. But it was virtually impossible. One moment he felt the presence of the red planet, the next it was gone and there was nothing in its place.

Several times they repeated their action of dropping down towards the surface until, quite suddenly, they were flashing through the fog and emerged into daylight - pinkish daylight - observing the jagged face of a sombre-coloured planet which, in its wild texture, was like a surrealist landscape painted by an insane and degenerate artist.

Willow lay on the floor in her space suit, her eyes closed, and even the men fought to control their minds and emotions as they jarred and shuddered at the sight of the alien planet. It was unlike any other they had ever seen, unlike any planet in the galaxy they knew.

Why?

It wasn't simply the quality of the light, the texture of the surface. It was something that made them uncomfortable in their bones and their brain.

It seemed unsafe, insecure, as if about to collapse beneath them, to break up like a rotten melon.

'Follow the scarlet vessel,' said the voice on the intercom.

Then Asquiol, Willow and Talfryn had vanished and only Renark was in the ship moving down once again into the red fog of the planet.

Where were they?

Desperately he quested around him with his mind, but the madness of disordered space and time was all about him - a whirlpool of wrongness. Talfryn reappeared.

Renark said: 'Where were you - what happened?' Then Willow reappeared, and Asquiol reappeared.

And suddenly they were back over the surface of the planet again.

'Follow that scarlet vessel,' the voice instructed.

This time they noted a sardonic quality. Asquiol smiled, sensing that out there was a fellow spirit, as malicious as himself.

Willow had been seriously affected by the phenomenon, particularly when she had found herself momentarily alone in the ship. How many ships had there been in those few moments?

The scarlet vessel was at the point of the phalanx of slim, round, squat or square spaceships surrounding them. It broke away from the main fleet and headed across the planet in a south-westerly direction. Renark turned his own ship after it. The scarlet vessel slowed and Renark adjusted his speed. There was a break and for a few seconds the ship travelled backwards then lurched and was moving forwards again after the scarlet ship. Ahead of them now they could make out the towers of a city.

The whole situation was taking on the aspect of a confused nightmare. Whether it was illusion or some physical distortion of reality, Renark simply couldn't tell.

Even the outline of the city ahead did not remain constant but wavered and changed.

Perhaps, Renark guessed, these hallucinations or whatever they were, were the effect of adjusting to the different laws which applied to the Shifter system. Their senses had been thrown out of gear by the change and were having to adapt.

He hoped, for the sake of his mission, that he could adapt.

'Entropium,' said the voice on the laser.

The scarlet craft arched upwards until it was vertical over the planet, and began to shudder downwards on an invisible repulsion field. Renark followed its example.

Cautiously, he nursed the ship towards the ground, still not sure that the planet would not suddenly disappear from around them and they would be once again in the thick of battle with the alien ships. The experiences of the past half-hour had shattered his nerves, almost sapped his confidence. 'They landed on a mile-square field which was bare but for a collection of small buildings at its far end.

'What now?' Willow said.

'We disembark - we got here comparatively safely and we were aided. They'd be unlikely to go to all the trouble they did if they wished us harm. Also I'm curious to find but about the people of "Entropium".' Renark pushed his big frame into a space suit and the others followed his example.

'What happened back there?' Talfryn said a trifle shakily.

'I should imagine we experienced some sort of spacetime slip. We know nothing of this system to speak of. We must be prepared for anything and everything - we can't even be certain that actions we make here will have the results and implications they would have in normal space-time. We could, for instance, walk forward and discover that we were one step backwards, could jump and find ourselves buried in rock. Be careful, though - I doubt if anything as drastic as that will happen here, particularly since human beings seem to inhabit the world and have built a city here. But we must go warily.'