'You're sure they'll work all right with the rest?' Mordan said, getting up.
'Why shouldn't they?' Selinsky pointed his thumb towards the door. 'You know what the atmosphere in there's like, with O'Hara and everything… None of them are what you would call "normal." Our Gamblers are all neurotics these days, by definition. Normal people couldn't stand the strain - normal people couldn't hit back. We count on unusual physiological and psychological patterns to play the Game.'
'I trust Talfryn,' Mordan said, 'he's much more susceptible to persuasion. But Roffrey's a born troublemaker. I know - I've dealt with him more than once.'
'Give him something important to handle, in that case.' Selinsky swung the arm of the optigraph away from Roffrey's chair. The man stirred but didn't wake. 'He's the kind who needs to be kept active - who needs to feel that every action he makes is personally inspired.'
'There never was such a thing,' said Mordan, walking over and staring down at his old enemy.
'Then don't tell him.' Selinsky smiled faintly. 'It's egocentricity of that order which has pushed humanity up the scale. Renark and Asquiol were the same - they may sometimes have the wrong information, but they get better results than we do.'
'Of a kind,' Mordan agreed reluctantly.
'It's the kind we need right now,' Selinsky told him as he and his assistants bustled out of the cabin. 'We'll send a couple of attendants to take care of them.'
'You'll need the whole damn police force to take care of Roffrey once he starts getting stubborn,' Mordan said fatalistically. He liked Roffrey, but he knew Roffrey didn't like him. He'd come to the somewhat comforting conclusion that Roffrey didn't really like anyone - apart from his wife. It was a great pity that he'd found her, Mordan reflected.
Selinsky and his assistants pored over their findings. Mann, although a good and clever scientist, was beginning to tire of the routine work. As they paused for coffee, he said to Selinsky:
'Something occurred to me, professor, which may mean nothing, but it's worth throwing out for discussion, I think.'
Selinsky, who disapproved of Mann's weakness for theorising while on the job, said impatiently: 'What is?'
'Well, in the history we got from records, both Talfryn and Roffrey were on that planet they call Roth - in the Sundered Worlds - the "lattice planet." Parts of it exist in different continua, rather like Asquiol is supposed to do. Could this planet have exerted some kind of influence on them? Or perhaps if they stood the test of staying sane on Roth - it turned Roffrey's wife mad, remember they are therefore better fitted for fighting the aliens?'
Selinsky drained his coffee cup and ran a finger across his wet lips.
'There may be something there,' he said. 'Look, I'll tell you what. Work something out properly, in your spare time, and show me your ideas in a report.'
'Spare time!' Mann said explosively, though he was pleased at Selinsky's encouragement - a rare thing in itself.
'Well, you can't sleep all of those six hours,' said Zung quietly, grinning to himself as he went back to his work.
Willow Kovacs felt more resigned now. Roffrey had been away too long for there to be much chance of his coming back soon. She calmly filled the hypo and gave Mary another sedative, but she didn't, after all, take one herself. In this calmer frame of mind her thoughts had again turned to Asquiol. She must contact him, she felt. At least she would have a clearer idea of how to act after she had seen him - whatever happened.
She experienced some difficulty in getting Roffrey's communications equipment to work, but finally she contacted Mordan.
The Gee-lord's sagging face appeared on the screen. He was hunched over his desk apparently doing nothing. He looked incredibly tired. Willow decided he must be keeping himself awake with stimulants.
He gave her a nod of recognition and said: 'Miss Kovacs, if you're worried about Roffrey and Talfryn, there's no need. They have been recruited as Gamblers and will no doubt be getting in touch with you during a rest period.'
'Thanks,' she said, 'but there was something else.'
'How important is it, Miss Kovacs? You understand that I'm very…'
'I wish to contact Asquiol directly.'
"That's impossible now. And, anyway, you wouldn't find it desirable if you realised what he looks like. What do you want to say to him?'
'I can't deal through someone else - it's a purely personal matter.'
'Personal? I remember - you had some emotional relationship…'
'We were very close on Migaa and on the Shifter worlds. I'm sure he would want to see me.' She didn't sound as if she particularly believed her own words.
'Next time I report to him I'll pass your message on. That's all I can do, I'm afraid.' Mordan stared curiously at her but said nothing more.
'Will he contact me if he gets your message?'
'If he wants to that's exactly what he will do. I'll tell him what you've said - I promise.'
The screen shimmered and was empty again. Willow turned it off and walked slowly back to where Mary was sleeping.
'What's going to happen to you in all this?' she said.
There was in Willow a large capacity for sympathy with those in distress. Even now, with troubles of her own which she hadn't counted on before she'd reached the fleet, she could turn her attention to Mary.
But what had at first been a detached emotion of sympathy such as she could feel towards anyone in an unpleasant predicament, was fast running into a less healthy feeling. She was beginning to sense a kinship with Mary. They were both very lonely women - the one lacking any contact with her fellows, trapped inside her disturbed and jumbled mind, veering between near-sanity and complete madness; the other with a growing conviction that, in her moment of need, she had been deserted - not only by Asquiol, but by Talfryn and Roffrey too.
She sat by the screen, waiting for Asquiol to contact her. She sat stiffly. The cabin was silent, as silent as the space through which the fleet moved. She shared with the rest of humanity a demoralised, disillusioned sense of loss, of unknowing, of confusion. And as in the rest of them, these feelings were crystallising into fear.
Only the certain knowledge that loss of control at this time would bring certain destruction of mind or body allowed them to keep going.
Kept active by drugs, sent to sleep by sedatives, driven by the uncompromising will of Asquiol and his tool Mordan, the Gamblers prepared for another round of the 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.