CHAPTER 10

A ROLE OF THE DICE!

Bill stood in front of the full-length mirror, jaw gaping as he bulged his eyes at his reflection.

"What's with this? Why the crummy outfit and haircut?" he demanded.

"Give him another drink from the wine-skin, Bruce," said Dr. Delazny, rummaging through piles of hats and garments. "You must relax, Bill. Drinky, drinky, don't say no."

The satyr robot (the very one who had kidnapped Bill on the ocean front and dragged him down to this top secret Chinger compound) capered forward, and unslung the large goat-skin drinking pouch from its neck. Bill, who had never refused a drink in his life, was horrified at the doc's suggestion, grabbed at the skin and shot a dark jet of the glutinous, resinous wine down his throat. Pretty poisonous stuff — but it contained alcohol! He smacked his lips and stared at himself again in the mirror.

A little better, but still weird as hell!

Bill was dressed in a long robe of sackcloth. Strapped to his feet were leather sandals. A wooden cross hung around his neck partially obscured by the dead dove that was still pendant there. A cowl was bunched up on his back, and he held a wooden staff in his hand. Electro-scissors and depilatory cream had made quick work of his hair — it was now in a tonsure.

Worst of all was his woolen underwear, which itched like a plague of crotch-crickets. He scratched industriously at all the irritated spots and looked over at Dr. Delazny, pawing through the pile of hats. He was depressed. Maybe this was better than lying on his back connected with a bunch of electrical equipment, but not much. "You wouldn't like to take the time to explain all this to me, would you, Doc? And what about the dove? You said you were getting rid of it?"

"In a moment ... ah!" Doctor Delazny pulled out a hat from the pile. A skullcap, to be precise. He went to Bill and fitted it over his head. "This is really you. Sorry about the dove, impossible to remove at the present time. Now the good news, Bill, you are about to engage upon a quest."

"Not another quest!"

"Another one — and the most important one. In the land of the Over-Gland, all is metaphorical. Now that we have jelled it into semi-physical state, with your excellent help, of course, we can begin to look for the core. Once that is discovered, we can then take action to deal with the problems it represents. First, however, we have to find it.... Hence, the quest. So, we have developed a variation on a medieval game of Ancient Earth. A brief aberration of certain adolescents called 'role-playing games' developed somewhere in the dark ages before the planetary holocaust. Fortunately for mankind, the discovery was made that the playing of 'role-playing games,' schizophrenia, and signing blood pacts with Satan were all due to a lack of certain nutrients in the diet. The simple potato, Solanum tuberosum, proved to be rich in the minerals that could control this deficiency. Free Fry Kitchens were opened all across the world and soon adolescents were gorging themselves on this delicacy.

"The mental disease soon cleared up — and the manufacturers of Clearazits acne medicine grew rich. However, I have determined that by playing a variation of the 'role-playing' game involving a team of cooperating agents in dealing with the convoluted metaphorical highways and byways of the human Over-Gland, the inherent dangers may be overcome."

"A good chance," said Bgr the Chinger, popping out of the skull of Bruce the satyr. "Gee — at the very least one or two participants may actually get through!"

"A team. You mean that you two are coming along with me?"

Dr. Delazny shook his head. "Uhmm, no, we've got to stay back here at Chinger Central and monitor. However, we've assembled a crack group to travel with you, Bill.

"This game I've called 'Drunkards and Flagons.' You, Bill, have been assigned the role of the 'Drunken Monk.' Bgr, I think it's time that we let Bill keep the full wineskin, don't you?"

"Gee — sure, you're the doctor."

The Chinger popped back inside the robot-skull and banged away at the controls, causing the robot to step forward and present Bill with the whole wine-skin. Bill took a grateful drink and then flung the thing over his shoulder. "A team, you say. You wouldn't like to tell me just who else is going?"

A roar suddenly vibrated the very structure of the room. A seven foot tall, shaggy blond man with a beard strode in, wearing furs, a sword and a cap from which protruded two horns. From one gorilla-sized hand hung a half-full bottle of Jack Spaniels whiskey. "Women! Where are the women you promised me!" he bellowed, sniffing the air as though to ferret out feminine pheromones.

"Bill, this is Ottar, an ancient Viking we discovered frozen in the Over-Gland. He will portray the Barbarian Hero role in the game." Delazny turned and gently held up a hand. "Plenty of women, Ottar. First, we make a movie, yes?"

Ottar's eyes glimmered with enthusiasm. Ottar grinned. "Ottar like movies. Ottar movie star!"

"Huh?" said Bill.

"Don't ask," said Bgr. There are some things best left unknown. He turned to Ottar in his satyr guise. "Remember Ottar. You find the Fountain of Hormones, and you'll also find your precious, darling Slithy Tove!"

Ottar grunted and grinned. Drool began to foam from his lips, beaded onto his food-encrusted beard. Bill was also aware of the profound stench the character was also giving off. Where was the "loo stasis" when he needed it?

"Okay, who else?" Bill asked with a sigh. He had thought about asking Ottar for a drink, but decided against it when he saw that the liquid in the bottle was green with pink foam on it.

"An old friend, Bill. Proof of the energy-to-matter efficacy of my equipment!" Dr. Delazny stepped over to a wall and pulled open a curtain. A man lay sprawled over a table, a stein of beer in one hand, a cutlass in another. Delazny prodded the man awake.

"It's Rick!" cried Bill, astonished. "Rick, the Supernal Hero!"

"Yes, but he'll be playing the role of the Virgin Knight in this particular adventure."

There were grating sounds as Rick opened his eyes. They were bright red and steaming slightly. He shuddered and clanked them shut, then took long and quavering gulps of beer. This time he opened only one eye a crack and blinked around him. His ruddy gaze fixed on Bill and he said, "Arrrrr. Don't I know you, matey?"

Bill turned to Dr. Delazny. "And this is going to be the team?" He took a drink and emitted a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a moan.

The other members of the motley crew were quickly trotted out for introductions:

Clitoria, the Amazon warrior.

Hyperkinetic, the Trickster.

And finally, Missionary Position, the Cattlelick Priest.

Ottar made a drunken lunge for Clitoria, but the seven foot tall woman boxed his ears soundly, and knocked him to the floor. "Try that again, you bushy bastard, and I'll stick your whiskey bottle so far up your whatsit that you'll need dynamite to get it out."

Hyperkinetic was dressed in gay colors and he carried a lute, and had a despicable tendency to sing verses of a long and dull marching song. In a nasal monotone:

"A questing we will go!

Summer, fall, or snow!

The Fountain of Hormones we must find.

So come on chaps — don't fall behind."

"Arrrr!" said Captain Rick. "I like this guy! Even though he can't sing and his verse doesn't scan."

"Fountain of Hormones?" said Bill puzzled.

"Yes," said Doctor Delazny. "According to the best of our readings in our computer, the goal of your quest is called 'The Fountain of Hormones.' Exactly what that means or exactly what it is has not yet been determined."

"But, gee — the name is pretty evocative though," said Bgr through his satyr guise.

The priest was a red-cheeked, merry-looking fellow, who turned out to be the only volunteer on the Quest.

"Faith and begorrah!" he said when questioned by Bill on the subject. "And sure, sincerely I believe the lusts of the flesh so personified at the end of this quest are merely pagan heathen, and God willing I should like to bring them to the ways of righteousness."

"Arrrrr. Me, I don't give a bowb," said Rick. "Except for the fact I got a hot rumor that the Holy Brewery is right by the Fountain. The one that makes Holy Grail Stout. My soul thirsts after righteousness, but so do my taste buds!"

"Holy Grail Ale!" cried the priest, almost peeing himself with excitement. "Well, I suppose I could use a wee sip of the dark stuff!"

"Of course you could," said Dr. Delazny, smiling, raising his hand as though to give benediction. "There is treasure for you all. But remember.... the successful completion of this quest may well result in the saving of many lives, both human and Chinger!"

"Gee — that's great!" said Bgr. But he was the only one apparently who entertained that sentiment. The others had their attention too focused on their own personal gains to care much about the sparing of lives. As for Bill, his hormone and alcohol drenched brain vacillated between lust and booze. A steaming vision of his lost love merged with a full bottle until he couldn't tell the two apart. Which, basically, was fine with him. In his zonked-out state, it did not occur to him that what Dr. Delazny was asking him to do was to help pull the plug on his own lusts. But then, human desire has a way of muddling one's mind, causing one's puny rational abilities to shrivel up and blow away. For if, as the Ancients discovered, meditation places human consciousness in the Eternal Now, then surely lust places the body-mind web in the Eternal Rut. The notion of slaking his desires with Irma's agile help year after year, combined with a lifetime of Manure Technicianship, his own home on a quiet planet, all the alcohol he could drink, and no more Troopers was sufficient to short-circuit the perfidious chemo-behavioral wiring jury-rigged in his nervous system by the Empire, as well as to dampen the notion that this Quest might actually be fraught with horrendous dangers beyond his feeble imagination. Nor did he wonder if the game was worth the candle; he did not consider that Irma's beauty might fade with years. All of his attention, what little was left, was focused on the eternal now. The future would only be more of the same. Most certainly, he never considered that his already overtaxed liver might not be able to handle all the promised alcohol. But most especially, he hadn't the faintest idea that by this late stage of the game, his position in the Starship Troopers was as firmly wedded to his identity as the leather thong was to his neck, and his old Farmboy days were just as dead as the dove.

No, all these considerations were far beyond Trooper Bill's ken. His heart's desire was for Irma. Doctor Delazny had chosen well, for he had become, by this foggy stage, the archetypical Fool for Love.

So it was that when Dr. Delazny called this odd troop of travelers to attention, Bill obeyed without question.

"Right this way, folks," said the good Doctor, gesturing them to follow him. "The Aperture into the Paradigm lies in a room down the hall. We will toss your weapons in after you have stepped through the Portal. We don't want any accidents here, now do we?"

Bgr the Chinger, in his satyr outfit, herded them all toward the indicated room, chuckling enthusiastically and telling them how he intended to spend the peaceful years of his life, following the Armistice that would surely result after this excellent adventure. He would return to his studies, what intellectual joy. He described some of the repulsive alien races he had studied and thought of the slimy joys still untouched, and Bill cringed. Luckily, the lecture on exobiology ceased as they entered a large chamber, chock-a-block with computers and other extravagantly curved and angled machinery. Above it all, a gigantic Van der Graaf generator crackled fat zaps of electricity across its gap, frying the odd mosquito, moth or fly that escaped from the portal that yawned below it.

"Gulp!" susurrated Bill.

The others gulped as well. As well they might.

It was a round doorway, its edges rimmed with blinking red, green and cerulean lights. An occasional claw of energy would paw across the inlaid coppery metal work, or reach out and grab the air of the land beyond.

It was like peering through a window at a distant portion of landscape. It looked like a proscenium stage of a rococo production of a bad historical tragedy. Crumbling castles tilted in the distance, craggy mountains stuck out willy-nilly beyond. A blasted heath oozed ground fog, ridged with twisted, skeletal branches of trees, with gorse bushes and heather arrayed about simmering bogs like barbed wire about trenches. A chill wind sieved through the hole with faint hints of rotting vegetation and broad elbow-nudges of decomposing corpses.

Dr. Delazny grinned. "Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, fellas! Now go find that Fountain of Hormones!"

From the Drunkards and Flagons came a collective gulp.

More gulps ensued as they knocked back large quantities of drink to embolden their flagging spirits.

One by one, they stepped through the portal. Bill's hair frizzed up, standing on end with the energy humming along the portal's periphery. Or was that the pure and simple terror that suddenly gripped his spine with ice-cold hands? His feet squelched into ankle deep muck. The smell grew truly horrendous; it was as though they had just stepped into some dragon's sulfurous lower bowels. When they were all through, Bgr and Dr. Delazny tossed their promised weapons after them.

Broadswords, daggers. Bows and arrows. Dirks and knives. Slingshots and Boy Scout knives.

"What the hell is this bowb?" cried out Rick the Supernal Hero, trying in vain to lift a broadsword out of the muck. "I need a blaster!"

"Afraid that modern technology doesn't work in this particular dimensional grid, Rick," Dr. Delazny shouted through the shrinking portal. "Bye bye now, folks. We'll be monitoring you!"

"Ixnay, ixnay!" said Rick, slogging forward. "This wasn't the deal!"

But before he could reach the portal, it clashed shut with a frizzle and a flash and Rick stumbled forward past where it had been, through misty air, tripped, and fell head first into a grayish green puddle.

Just then a horrendous, semi-human screech seared the atmosphere, like a skeleton's fingernails on a squeaky blackboard.

"I got idea," said Ottar, picking up the broadsword as though it were merely a particularly long toothpick and glowering about through his bushy eyebrows. "I going to like this place. What I kill first?"