The Geepee ships hadn't followed him.
They had probably decided that their first priority was to aid the human fleet.
He travelled through space as well as time and the separating dimensions, and he was heading back in the direction where in his home universe, the edge of the galaxy had been. He had all the bearings he needed and, as he moved on one level, he moved through others at reckless speed.
He knew where he was going - but whether he would make it was a question he couldn't answer.
Asquiol of Pompeii watched the battle on his screens with a feeling akin to helplessness. Mordan was conducting the war, needing only basic orders from him.
Am I doing as much as I could? He wondered. Am I not accepting too complacently, what I have discovered?
It was easy for him to dominate the fleet, for his mind had become at once flexible and strong and his physical presence overawed his fellows. There was a part of him, too, which was not at ease, as if he were a jig-saw complete but for the last piece, and the section that would complete him was just - tantalisingly - out of reach.
Somewhere in the multiverse he felt the piece existed - perhaps another intelligence that he could share his thoughts and experiences with. He was almost certain it was out there, yet what it was and how he would find it he did not know. Without it, his picture of himself was incomplete. He felt that he functioned but could not progress. Had the Originators deliberately done this to him? Or had they made a mistake?
At first he had thought it was the loss of Renark which gave him the sense of incompleteness. But Renark's loss was still there, inside him, kept out of mind as much as possible. No, this was another lack. A lack of what, though?
He bent closer to observe the battle.
The fleet's formation was lost as yet another wave of attackers pounced out of space with weapons cutting lances of bright energy.
They were not impervious to anti-neutron cannon, but the two forces were fairly matched as far as technology went. There were more of the aliens and they had the double advantage of being in home territory and defending it. This was what primarily worried Asquiol.
But he could do nothing decisive at the moment. He would have to wait.
Again, while Mordan sweated to withstand and retaliate against this fresh attack, Asquiol let his mind and being drop through the layers of the multiverse and contact the alien commanders. If they would not accept peace terms, he strove to arrange a truce.
To his surprise, this suggestion seemed acceptable to them.
There was an alternative to open war - one which they would be delighted to negotiate.
That was?
The Game, they said. Play the game with us - winner takes all.
After he had got some inkling of the Game's nature, Asquiol deliberately momentarily. There were pros and cons…
Finally, he agreed and was soon watching the enemy ships retreating away into the void.
With some trepidation, he informed Mordan of his decision and awaited its outcome.
This new development in their struggle with the aliens disturbed Lord Mordan. War he could understand. This, at first, he could not. All psychologists, psychiatrists, physiologists and kindred professionals had been ordered to the huge factory ship which engineers were already converting.
From now on, according to Asquiol, the battle was to be fought from this single ship - and it had no armaments!
Asquiol was unapproachable as he conferred with the alien commanders in his own peculiar way. Every so often he would break off to issue strange orders.
Something about a game. Yet what kind of game, wondered Lord Mordan, required experts in psychology as its players? What was the complicated electronic equipment that technicians were installing in the great converted hold of the factory ship?
'This is our only chance of winning,' Asquiol had told him. 'A slim one - but if we learn how to play it properly, we have a chance.'
Mordan sighed. At least the truce had allowed them time to regroup and assess damage. The damage had been great. Two-thirds of the fleet had been destroyed. Farm ships and factory ships were working at full capacity to supply the fleet with necessities. But tight rationing had been introduced. The race was subsisting on survival rations. The initial joy of escape was replaced by gloomy desperation.
Adam Roffrey could see his destination.
He slammed the I.T. activator to the 'of' position and coasted towards the looming system ahead.
It hung in empty space, the outlines of its planets hazy, following a random progression around a magnificent binary sun.
The legendary system rose larger on his laser screen. The unnatural collection of worlds came closer.
The epic story of Renark and Asquiol on their quest to the Sundered Worlds was common lore among the human race these days. But the story - or, at least, part of it had had a special significance for Roffrey.
Renark and Asquiol had left two members of their party behind - Willow Kovacs and Paul Talfryn.
Roffrey knew their names. But dominant in his skull was another name-a woman's, the woman he had come to find.
If he did not find her this time, he told himself, then he would have to accept that she was dead. Then he would have to accept his own death also.
Such was the intensity of his obsession.
As he neared the Sundered Worlds he regarded them with curiosity. They had changed. The planets were spaced normally - not equidistantly, as he had thought. And, as far as he could tell, the system had stopped shifting.
Now he remembered part of the story which was fast becoming a myth among those who had fled their own galaxy. A dog-like race called the Shaarn had attempted to stop the system's course through the dimensions.
Evidently they'd succeeded.
His maps aided him to find Entropium and he cruised into the Shifter's area warily, for he knew enough to expect two kinds of danger - the Thron and the lawless nature of the Shifter itself.
Yet, wary as he was, it was impossible to observe either chaos or enemy as he swept down over Entropium, scanning the planet for the only city that had ever been built there.
He didn't find the city, either.
He found, instead, a place where a city had been. Now it was jagged rubble. He landed his ship on a scattered wasteland of twisted steel and smashed concrete.
Scanning the surrounding ruins, he saw shadowy shapes scuttling through the dark craters and between the shattered buildings. His experience told him nothing about the cause of this catastrophe.
At length, sick at heart, he climbed into space armour, strapped an anti-neutron pistol to his side, descended to the airlock and placed his booted feet on the planet's surface.
A bolt of energy flashed from a crater and spread itself over his force-screen. He staggered back to lean against one of his ship's landing fins, lugging the pistol from its holster.
He did not fire immediately for, like everyone else, he had a certain fear of the destructive effects of the a-n gun.
He saw an alien figure - a dazzling white skin like melted plastic covering a squat skeleton, long legs and short arms, but no head that he could see - appear over the edge of the crater, a long metal tube cradled in its arms and pointing at him. He fired.
The thing's wailing shriek resounded in his helmet. It absorbed the buzzing stream of anti-neutrons, collapsed, melted and vanished.
'Over here!'
Roffrey turned to see a human figure, all rags and filth, waving to him. He ran towards it.