And it may take some time to learn what&#39;s real

Adam takes off his much-mended glasses midway through this recitation and starts fiddling with them.

He's thinking. He's still not entirely sure he believes what these strangers are telling him - but there is a certain coherence to it. When you put things together.

"Funny," he says, when Helen stops talking. "You all seem to have seen Them differently." He's picked up their way of emphasizing the word, without thinking. "It's given me quite a few ideas. I'm not sure I like my ideas, either. But I know what kind of games They were playing. Want to come and see?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, just turns and walks down towards the basement.

From:

Past Frederick M. Allington, down a flight of steps to a basement, and as soon as Adam turns on the light for the well-furnished room-

Joris is just about back out the door and gone.

For the very good reason that it looks like one if Their game tables is sitting right in the middle of the room.

From:

Louder, so he can hear: "It's only models. Come back, fool."

From:

Jamie's also jumped back at the sight, but manages to get ahold of himself before he goes for the full-out bolt.

He remembers the games he saw Them playing. He remembers them very, very well. These don't look nearly so real, of course, but still -

By the time Jamie has gotten over his shock and tuned back in, Adam has already been explaining for quite some time (and in detail) how he makes the landscape out of paper and glue and paint and created his own mud-brown model figures. He sounds very proud of himself. Jamie is not surprised.

From:

All of them look like they've been clobbered over the head with something.

Adam's watching their reactions out of the corner of his eye, as he picks up a ruler to measure the distance from one of his tanks to one of his father's regiments. "I think I've got him," he remarks idly. "When he comes back on Sunday, I'm going to crush him. It takes real skill, you know."

From:

The intent way that Adam makes the measurements reminds Jamie even more of Them.

"Doesn't it depend on luck at all?" He nods towards the dice lying near the rulers, but he's thinking of Them and their chance machines. Random factors, they call them.

From:

Joris is back in the room, but he keeps eyeing the table as if expecting Them to show up at any moment.

"They threw dice."

From:

"You told me," Adam says, turning back around. "You said They moved things on the table and sometimes threw dice after that. That was what made me sure it was War Gaming."

He is sure, too - and what a marvelous idea it is, a War Game with a whole world for a table! Half of him wishes he could have a chance to play too. Even when Helen jumps in to protest that the game that she saw Them playing wasn't really like that, he's already thought of an explanation. "It was the kind we call Fantasy War Gaming," he tells her, and takes Helen and Jamie over to see the other board set up, the one with traps and pitfalls and monsters.

"You make it sound a lot like one of my outside fantasy maps. Players can take over a fort in those. Oh, and a lot of emphasis is put on the endowments of the players' men - how strong they are, and whether they're fighting men or thieves or clerks and what class of man or magic user they've got to. Is your world like that?"

From:

Helen nods, after a moment, stiff and wary. "Yes, I am a cleric and a magic user."

Duh.

From:

Joris has been paging though a book of rules for the war game on Adam's table.

Scarily, most of it makes sense, at least when it comes to strategy for fighting battles and wars, broken down into rules and odds. But that is war, and that is a totally different 'game'. For fighting one-on-one, or in small groups against foes not even human, however-

"This War isn't like ours with the demons. Not really."

From:

"No," Adam says - patiently enough, because he really doesn't mind letting them see how he's got it figured out.

"From what you said, yours is a version of the game in Helen's world. That's why they threw dice so much. When a player's man meets a monster - or a demon - he's allowed a saving throw, to give him some kind of chance. We use these many-sided dice -"

From:

Joris nods, curtly.

"Some of Their dice had many sides."

Sometimes he is good at noticing details like that.

From:

Helen's been quietly watching this, observing the maps and the rule book Joris has open.

Loud, abrupt: "I'm angry. How dare they play games?"

From:

"Quite," Adam says, keeping his tone deliberately cool.

"What worries me is that this world - my world - has to be a game like the one on the table. And when They start playing Their next war, it's going to be a nuclear one. You know - radiation."

From:

Radiation?

Oh, right. That is what Helen called-

"Demon rays."

From:

Jamie vaguely hears Helen saying something as well, but he doesn't chime in himself; he's too busy remembering all over again that Adam's world - which is so painfully much like his world - is ninth in a series. A war series.

Jamie's world is probably next. Tenth. They could be playing a war on right there, at this very moment. Or, on the other hand, it could have been the world before -

No. No, it couldn't have been. Jamie won't let himself think that. And if war hasn't reached Adam's world yet, it can't have reached Jamie's either. It can't.

From:

Adam doesn't like where his thoughts are going.

He looks away from the others, turning around, and takes his glasses off, cleaning them absently on his jacket. But his voice is quite calm as he asks, "How does one get rid of Them?"

From:

Before anyone can answer, there is a loud clatter of feet.

"Adam! Adam! I draw the line at pet mice on the kitchen table!"

A few seconds later, a face appears in the basement door to accompany the sound of the feet - quite a pretty face, if wearing too much makeup, and surrounded by a lot of red hair. "A tame mouse! Eating biscuits on the table!"

From:

Vanessa would show up just at this very moment!

There is very little that Adam hates more than his sister poking her nose in where it's not wanted.

"It wasn't tame," he informs her. "It was quite, quite wild. I hoped it would tear you to bits."

He glances at the - the Homeward Bounders, all right - and says, without a jot of friendliness in his tone, "My sister. Vanessa."

If he's lucky they'll take a hint and keep their mouths shut.

From:

"Oh, you would have visitors!" says Vanessa, taking in the other three children for the first time. "You always do when I'm really mad at you!"

He times it on purpose, Vanessa is sure, just to make her look a fool. The best she can think to do is try to pretend it's all a joke, so she plasters a smile on her face and comes politely towards them.

From:

Er.

This would be the 'theoretical' red-haired, handsome young virgin that Adam was asking about.

Joris flushes red and backs up a step.

From:

Helen stiffens with suprise, withdrawing into her hair. She glances over to Adam, then back to Vanessa.

She's not sure what to make of this.

From:

Which leaves Jamie, wobbling rather, standing out in front.

:D? says Jamie.

From:

. . . that boy does not look well.

The smile drops off Vanessa's face as she really focuses on Adam's friend, taking in his pallor and the towel round his arm. "What's been happening to you?" she asks. "You look really ill!"

From: