Troy came back to the chair and looked down at Nick. “Now,” he said, “I think you’re ready Any questions?”
“Just one, my lord and guide,” Nick replied with mock meekness. “May I please have another beer before I risk my manhood in some weird world of your creation?”
Actually Nick was not yet ready to play the game. Even after Troy booted three compact discs, there were more preliminary activities before Nick could begin the game itself. He had to enter his name, race, age, and sex in response to questions that appeared on the giant screen. Nick looked at Troy with a curious tilt of his head and a weird expression on his face. “Don’t ask questions at this point,” Troy told him, “it will all be clear soon enough.”
The screen next was filled with a beautiful ringed planet that looked like what an artist who favored purple might make out of Saturn. The perspective was from the pole of the planet; the rings were all displayed like the different sections of a dart target. Little flecks of light gleamed intermittently from the rings, indicating that the sun or star or whatever was the source for the reflected light was in the vicinity of the viewer. It was a lovely picture. A simple credit in block titles, Alien Adventure by Troy Jefferson, was superimposed on the ringed planet for three or four seconds and the sound of soft classical music could be heard in the room. Nick resisted an urge to chuckle when he heard Troy’s voice, clearly serious and selfconscious, coming from one of the speakers.
Troy’s recorded voice explained the initial conditions for the game. The adventurer was on a space station in polar orbit around Gunna, the largest planet belonging to another solar system whose central body was the G-type star that we call Tau Ceti, only ten light years or so away from the Earth. “Tau Ceti has eight primary bodies in its system,” Troy’s voice said, “including six planets and two moons.
“Maps of the system are available at the commissary on the space station,” Troy’s voice continued, “although some of the regions have been incompletely mapped. When your adventure begins, you are sleeping in your cabin onboard the station. An alarm sounds on your personal receiver . . .”
The voice faded and the sound of an alarm could be heard. The picture on the giant screen was the inside of a space cabin, almost certainly taken from one of the many successful science fiction movies. In the upper right hand corner of the screen was a game digital clock that was changing by one unit every four seconds or so. Nick looked helplessly at Troy. Troy suggested that he hit the L key. In a few seconds Nick learned that he could use the direction keys on the board to look at specific items in his cabin. Each time he hit a direction key, the picture on the screen changed to correspond to a different point of view. Nick noticed that there was a fuzzy picture on his small television and followed Troy’s suggestion to watch until it became clear.
When the focus on his cabin television sharpened, Nick could see a young woman wearing a long, full, richly red dress that dropped almost all the way to the floor. She was standing, somewhat incongruously, in a small, stark room furnished with a single bed, a little desk, and a straight chair. Some light was entering the room through the solitary window near the ceiling and behind the desk. Thick vertical bars were imbedded in the window glass.
The camera zoomed in on her face. Nick leaned forward in his chair in Troy’s apartment. “Why . . . why it’s Julianne,” Nick said in astonishment, just as the woman began to speak.
“Captain Nick Williams,” she said, much to his surprise, “you and I have never met, but your reputation for valor and justice is unequaled in the Federation. I am Princess Heather of Othen. While attending the great ball at the inauguration of the Viceroy of Toom, I was kidnapped by willens and taken to their stronghold on the planet Accutar. They have told my father, King Merson, that they will not release me unless he cedes to them all the ore-rich asteroids in the Endelva region.
“He must not do that, Nick,” the princess continued earnestly as the camera zoomed in on her face, “or he will deprive our people of their only source of hanna, the key to our immortality. My sources tell me that already my father wastes away, brooding over his impossible predicament. My sister Samantha has fled from Othen with a key division of our best soldiers and a huge store of hanna. It is not clear whether she intends to try to free me or to revolt against my father’s rule in the event that he should decide to give up the Endelva asteroids in exchange for my life. She has always been completely unpredictable.
“Yesterday the willens delivered an ultimatum to my father. He must make his decision in one month, or they will behead me. Captain Williams, please help me. I do not want to die. If you come and rescue me, I will share with you the Othen throne and the secret of our immortality. We can live forever as king and queen.”
The transmission stopped suddenly and the picture was gone. The screen again showed a picture of the inside of Nick’s cabin onboard the space station. Nick resisted an impulse to applaud and sat without moving. Somehow Troy had made Julianne into a very believable Princess Heather. But how did my name get into the script? he wondered. He wanted to ask questions but a warning message flashed on the giant screen, indicating that time was passing and the adventurer was not taking any action. Nick found the X key and the digital clock on the screen stopped. He turned to Troy. “So what do I do now?”
With Troy’s occasional help, Nick equipped himself for a journey, found his way to the spaceport, and climbed in a small shuttle craft. Despite Troy’s hints that his chances for survival in “open space” were small unless he spent more time examining the other facilities on the space station, Nick blasted off anyway. It was great fun. He used the commands on the keyboard to control his speed and direction. What he saw on the screen was perfectly matched with his commands, giving him the illusion that he was actually flying a vehicle through space. He saw many other vehicles on the monitor as he maneuvered toward his target, a planet named Gunna, but none of them approached his shuttle. Just outside the Gunna sphere of influence, however, a needle-nosed craft approached him quickly and then, without warning, blasted him with a battery of missiles. Nick was unable to escape. The screen filled with fire from the explosion that ripped through his shuttle. Then the monitor went blank and black except for the simple message “Game Over” in white letters in the middle of the screen.
“Time for another beer? Nick asked, surprised to discover that he was actually disappointed by the death of his character.
“Right on, Captain,” Troy replied.
They walked into the kitchen together. Troy opened the refrigerator and pulled out two more beers. He handed one to Nick. The professor was still absorbed in thinking about the game. “If I remember correctly, there were four sections marked on that map of the space station,” Nick said aloud. “And I only went in two of them. Would you mind telling me about the other two sections?”
“You missed the cafeteria and the library,” Troy said delighted that Nick was still interested. “The cafeteria is not all that important,” he added, laughing, “although I’ve never known you to go anywhere before without eating first. But the library — ”
“Don’t tell me,” Nick said, interrupting him. “Let me figure it out. In the library I can learn about willens and the Otheners, or whatever they’re called, who can live forever and what exactly is a Viceroy of Toom.” He shook his head. “My, my, Troy. I must say that I am more than a little impressed. I have no idea how anyone could create something like this; And I have a feeling that I’ve just scratched the surface.”
“I take it you’re ready to continue, Professor?” Troy replied, acknowledging the praise with a huge grin. “One piece of advice. While you’re in the library, look in the Encyclopedia of Space Vehicles so you can at least tell a hostile ship when it appears. Otherwise you’re never going to reach the exciting parts of the game.”
The afternoon passed quickly Nick found that escape into the imaginative world of Troy’s game was magnificently relaxing, just the tonic that he needed after the morning memories of Monique. Troy knew that Nick was enjoying the playing and he was thrilled. He felt a surge of creative pride and his belief that Alien Adventure would be his ticket to success was reborn.