Ellison Wonderland

space. Marmorth found his fingers twisted in the epaulet at his right shoulder.

As he watched Krane’s Magnificent-class destroyer wheel in the control-room screens, a half-naked, blood- soaked and perspiring crewman burst into the cabin’s entrance-well.

“Captain! Captain, sir!”

Marmorth looked over the plastic rail, down into the well.

“What?” His voice snapped with brittleness.

“Cap’n, the port side is riddled! We’re losing pressure from thirteen compartments. The Reclamation Mile is completely lost! The engineers’ group was in one of the compartments along that mile, Cap’n! They’re all bloated and blue and dead in there! We can see them floating around without any…”

“Get the Hell out of here!” Marmorth turned, lifting a spacetant from his chart-board, and flinging it with all his strength at the crewman. The man ducked and the spacetant bounced off the bulkhead, snapping pieces from its intricate bulk.

“You maniac!” he yowled, leaping back out of the well, through the exit port, as Marmorth reached for another missile.

Marmorth shut his eyes tight, blanking out the shuddering ship, space, the screens, everything.

“Right, right, right, right, right! I’m right!” he shouted, lifting clenched fists.

The explosion came in two parts, as though two torpedoes had been struck almost simultaneously. The ship rocked and heeled. Bits of metal sheared through the outer bulkheads, crashed against the opposite wall.

As the lights went dead, and the screams drove into his brain, Marmorth shouted his credo once more, with all the force of his conviction, with all the power of his lungs, with all the strength in his gasping body.

“I’m right! May God strike me dead if I’m not right! I know I’m right, I made an inexhaustible…”

…check!” he finished, opening his eyes and looking back down at the chessboard. The pieces, happily, had not moved. He still had Krane blocked off.

“I say check,” he repeated, smiling, steepling his fingers.

Krane’s black-bearded face broke into a wry grimace.

“Most clever, my dear Marmorth,” he congratulated the other with sarcasm. “You have forced me to touch a pawn.”

Marmorth watched as Krane, with trembling fingers, reached down to the jet pawn. It was carved from stone; carved with such care and intricacy that its edges were precisely as they had been desired by the master craftsman. They were razor sharp.

The pieces were all cut the same. Both the blanched alabaster pieces before Marmorth, and the ebony- stone players under Krane’s hand. The game had been constructed for men who played more than a “gentleman’s game.” There was death in each move.

Marmorth knew he was in the ascendant. Each of them had had two illusions—that remembrance was sharp- -and this was Marmorth’s. How did he know? The older man looked down at the intricately carved chess pieces. He was white, Krane was black. As clear as it could be.

“Uh, have you moved?” Marmorth inquired, his voice unctuous with casualness. He knew the other had not yet touched his players. “I believe you still lie in check.” He was enjoying toying with his once-arrogant foe. He thought he heard a muted, “Damn you!” under Krane’s breath, but could not be certain.

Slowly Krane touched the player, carefully sliding the fingers of his hand across the razor-thin, razor- sharp facets. The piece almost slid from his grasp, so loosely was he holding it, but the move was made in an instant. Marmorth cursed mentally. Krane had calculated beautifully! Not only was his King blocked out from Marmorth’s Rook—Marmorth’s check-piece—but in another two moves (so clearly obvious as Krane had desired it) his own Queen would be in danger. In his mind he could hear Krane savoring the words: “Garde! I say garde, my dear Marmorth!”

He had to move the Queen out of position.

He had to touch the Queen!

The most deadly piece on the board!

“No!” he gasped.

“I beg your pardon?” said Krane, the slash-mouth opening in a violent grin.

“N-nothing, nothing!” snapped Marmorth. He concentrated. Deadly poison, instant-acting, lay filmed on those razor edges.

There was little chance he could maneuver that thousand-keen-edged Queen without poisoning himself for his trouble. Lord! It was an insoluble, a double-edged, dilemma. If he did not move, Krane would win. If he won, it was obvious Marmorth would die. He had seen the deadly dirk’s hilt protruding slightly from Krane’s cummerbund when the other had sat down. If he did move, he would convulse to death before Krane’s taunting eyes.

You shall never have that pleasure! he thought, the bitter determination of a man who will not be defeated rising in him.

He approached the Queen, with hand, with eye.

The base was faceted, like a diamond. Each facet ended in a cutting edge so sensitive he knew it would sever the finger that touched it. The shape of the upper segments was involved, gorgeously-made. A woman, arms raised above her head, stretching in tension. Beautiful—and untouchable.

Then the thought struck him: Is this the only move?

Deep within his mind he calculated. He could not possibly recognize the levels on which his intellect was working. In with his chess theory, in with his mental agility, in with his desire to win, his Theorem rearranged itself, fitting its logic to this situation. How could the Theorem be applied to the game? What other paths, through the infallible truth of the Theorem—in which he believed, now, more strongly than ever before—what other paths could he take.

Then the alternative move became clear. He could escape a route, escape the garde, escape the taunting smile of Krane by moving a relatively safe Bishop. It was not a completely foolproof action, since the Bishop, too, was a razored piece of death, but he had found a way around the certain success of Krane’s maneuverings.

“Ha!” A terrible smile burst upon his face. His eyes bored across to the other’s. Krane turned white as Marmorth reached out, touched the one piece he had been desperately hoping the older man would not consider. He felt the uncontrollable tightening in his throat as he realized the game would go on, and on, and on and… …he unclenched his fist as the volcano leaped up around them.

It was more than the inside of a volcanic cone, however. The Corridor was there, too. The dung-brown