The Game-Players of Titan (26 page)

As he piloted his car toward California he could taste it, hear the voices, see the members of the group, now.

The celebration. Of their victory. Everyone was there.

Or was it everyone?
Almost
everyone, anyhow. That was good enough for him.

Tramping across the sand, the wasteland which was the Nevada Desert, Freya Garden Gaines knew that it would be a long time before she got back to the condominium apartment in Carmel.

And anyway, she thought to herself, what did it matter? What did she have to look forward to? The thoughts she had had as she floundered in the intermediate regions into which the Titanian Game-players had hurled them … I
don’t repudiate those thoughts
, she said to herself with envenomed bitterness. Pete has his pregnant mare, his wife Carol; he’ll never notice me again as long as I live.

In her pocket she found a strip of rabbit-paper; getting it out, she removed the wrapper and bit it. With the light cast by her cigarette lighter she examined it and then crumpled it up and violently flung it away from her. Nothing, she realized. And it’ll always be like this for me. It’s Pete’s fault; if he made it with that Carol Holt creature he could have
made it with me. God knows we tried it enough times; it must have been several thousand. Evidently he just didn’t want to succeed.

Twin lights flashed ahead of her. She halted, cautiously, gasping for breath. Wondering what she had arrived at.

A car lowered itself warily to the surface of the desert, its signal lights flashing on and off. It landed, stopped.

The door opened.

“Mrs. Gaines!” a cheerful voice called.

Peering, Freya walked toward the car.

Behind the wheel sat a balding, friendly-looking elderly man. “I’m glad I found you,” the elderly man said. “Get in and we’ll drive out of this dreadful desert-area. Where exactly do you want to go?” He chuckled. “Carmel?”

“No,” Freya said. “Not Carmel.” Never again, she thought.

“Where then? What about Pocatello, Idaho?”

“Why Pocatello?” Freya demanded. But she got into the car; it was better than continuing to wander aimlessly across the desert, alone in the darkness, with no one—certainly none of the group—to help her. To give a damn about what happened to her.

The elderly man, as he started up the car, said pleasantly, “I’m Doctor E.R. Philipson.”

She stared at him. She knew—she was positive she knew—who he was. Or rather, who
it
was.

“Do you want to get out?” Doctor Philipson asked her. “I could, if you wish, set you back down there again where I found you.”

“N-no,” Freya murmured. She sat back in her seat, scrutinized him thoroughly, thinking to herself many thoughts.

Doctor E.R. Philipson said to her, “Mrs. Gaines,
how would you like to work for us, for a change?”
He glanced her way, smiling, a smile without warmth or humor. A smile utterly cold.

Freya said, “It’s an interesting proposal, but I’d have to think it over. I couldn’t decide just like that, right now.”

Very interesting indeed, she thought. “You’ll have time,” Doctor Philipson said. “We’re patient. You’ll have all the time in the world.” His eyes twinkled. Freya smiled back.

Humming confidently to himself, Doctor Philipson drove the car toward Idaho, skimming across the dark night sky of Earth.