The Magic Labyrinth (36 page)

Burton wept with the others. He’d liked the huge man, had perhaps loved him. With his death the group had lost much courage, much morale-boosting, much strength.

After a while they turned around, cautiously, and continued the slow, still dangerous descent. When six hours passed, they stopped to eat and sleep. The latter was difficult, since they had to lie on one side and make sure they didn’t roll over while sleeping. They put their pistols against their backs so these would, they hoped, be so uncomfortable that they’d wake them immediately. Excretion was not easy either. The men could face the outer side of the ledge to urinate, though the updraught sometimes caused the liquid to blow back on their clothes. The women had to hang their posteriors over the ledge and hope for the best, which often didn’t happen.

Alice was the only modest one. She required that the others look away while she was relieving herself. Even then, their near presence made her inhibited. Sometimes, though, the mists thickened enough to give her privacy.

They were a gloomy party, still numbed by Joe Miller’s death. Also, they could not help dwelling on the strong possibility that the Ethicals had found the cave and sealed it.

The sound of waves crashing against the base became louder. They descended into the thick clouds; the cliff face and the ledge became even wetter. Finally, Burton, in the lead, was wet by spray and the sea boomed around him.

He halted and sent his lantern beam ahead of him. The edge ran into the black waters. Ahead was an outcropping, and, if what Paheri had said was true, the mouth of the cave would be on its other side.

He called back to those behind Alice, telling them what his light had revealed. He walked into the water, which was only knee-deep. Apparently, the shallow ledge went a long way out since the waves were weak here, though powerful on both sides not far away. The water was very cold, seeming to turn his legs into icy clumps.

He came back to the black projection and worked his way around it. Alice came closely behind him.

“Is there a cave?” Her voice trembled.

He shot the beam ahead to his right. His heart was hammering and not just from the shock of the cold water.

He breathed out, “Ah!”

There it was, the long-imagined hole at the base of the mountain. It was arched and low and would require that even Nur stoop to get through it. But it was wide enough for the boats which Paheri had described to pass through it.

Burton shouted back the good news. Croomes, fifth in line, screamed, “Hallelujah!”

However, Burton was not as exultant as he sounded. The cave could still be here, but the boats might not be.

He led Alice along on the rope still connected to her belt and bent down to enter the mouth. A few feet inside, a smooth stone floor sloped upward at a 30-degree angle, the hollow broadened, and the ceiling rose to twenty feet. When they were all gathered inside, he ordered that they disconnect the rope. They shouldn’t need it now.

He shone his light on their faces, pale and tired-looking but eager. Gilgamesh was on his far right, and Ah Qaaq stood on the left behind the rest. If Burton had not abandoned his plan to seize the two, the time to do so would be near. But he had decided to improvise when he had to.

He turned and led them up the floor to a tunnel. It curved gently to the right for over three hundred feet, and the air became warmer as they advanced. Before they got to its end, they saw light.

Burton could not resist running toward the illumination. He burst into a very large dome-shaped chamber and almost stepped on a human skeleton. It lay facedown, its right armbones stretched out as if reaching for something. He picked up the skull and looked within it and at the floor beneath it. There was no tiny black ball.

The light came from huge metal balls, each on one of nine black metal tripods about twelve feet high. The light looked cold.

There were ten black metal boats on V-shaped supports and one empty support. It had held the vessel that the Egyptians had used to get to the tower.

The boats were of various sizes, the largest able to hold thirty people.

At the left side were metal shelves holding gray tins—the Americans would call them cans—each about ten inches high and six inches wide.

It was as Paheri had said it was.

Except that three human skeletons clad in blue clothes lay by one of the large boats.

The others moved in, talking in low tones. The place was certainly awing, but Burton ignored its effect to examine the unexpected remains.

The clothes seemed to be one-piece suits, pocketless, seamless, and buttonless and with pants legs. The material felt glossy and filled out where his fingers had depressed it. He rolled the skulls to one side and shook the bones from the garments. One individual was tall and had heavy bones and a thick supraorbital ridge and heavy jaws. He had probably been an early palaeolithic. The bones of the other two were of the modern type, and the pelvis of one was a woman’s.

Inside each skull was a very tiny black sphere. If he hadn’t been looking for them, he wouldn’t have noticed them.

There was no evidence of violence. What had struck these agents down?

And what vehicle had brought them here?

He would have expected one of the flying vessels he’d glimpsed many years ago. But there had been none outside the cave mouth. Could it have floated away?

What or who had interrupted the three? Why hadn’t the people in the tower come after them after a certain amount of time?

They hadn’t because they were having troubles of their own. Or they were dead, slain by the same thing that had felled these three.

X had to be responsible for this.

Burton reasoned that the same event that had downed these three had also resulted in stranding X and all the other Ethicals and agents in The Valley.

That meant that no craft could fly out from the tower to pick them up. Nor could the renegade fly one of his hidden vessels to the tower. He’d been forced, as Barry Thorn, to go on the airship built by Firebrass. And he’d failed to get in the tower.

From Burton’s viewpoint, the event had made certain advantages for him and for X. The agents had obviously discovered the cloth-ropes hanging down from the cliffside and the tunnels, and they’d found out that the very narrow ledge had been used by people from The Valley. They had probably found the cave last, after trying to make sure that passage would be impossible for any more of the unauthorized.

If the three hadn’t been killed, the cave entrance would be plugged up.

He strode to the shelves filled with tins. At the corner of each shelf was a plastic sheet about twelve inches by twelve inches. On it were figures of a man demonstrating how to open the tins. Burton didn’t need the pictures since he knew from Paheri’s story what to do. He passed a fingertip completely around the upper rim and waited for a few seconds. The top, seemingly of hard metal, quivered, shimmered, and turned into a gelatinous film. His finger penetrated it easily.

Burton said, loudly, “X forgot all about eating utensils and plates! But that’s all right! We can use our fingers!”

Famished, the others quit looking at the objects in the cave and followed his example. They scooped out the beef stew—warm—with their fingers and, from the tins marked by a bas relief of bread, brought out loaves. They ate voraciously until their bellies were stuffed. There seemed no reason to ration themselves. The supply was more than plentiful.

Burton, sitting on the floor, his back against a wall, watched the others.

If one was X, why didn’t he reveal his identity?

Was it because he had only recruited The Valley people to have a backup team? People who might pull his chestnuts out of the fire for him if he was in a situation where he was helpless without them?

If so, why hadn’t he told them more of what he expected from them?

Or had he meant to do that but events had happened unexpectedly and too swiftly? And now he was in a position where he didn’t need their help? Might, in fact, believe them to be a hindrance?

And why was he a renegade?

Burton didn’t believe X’s story about why the other Ethicals had resurrected the Terrans.

Indeed, he wasn’t sure that he hadn’t been allied with someone whose true goals he would loathe if he knew them.

Perhaps that was why the Mysterious Stranger had been so mysterious, why he’d not told them the truth, why he was still in disguise.

If he were.

Whatever the truth was, it was long past time for the Ethical to reveal himself. Unless…unless X knew that some of this party were agents or other Ethicals. He would then believe that he had to keep his disguise until they were in the tower. Why in the tower? Because there he had means to overpower or kill his enemies. Or anyone else who would try to keep him from carrying out his schemes, beneficent or malignant.

These might require that his recruits be among the removed. He’d needed them only to get to the tower.

Why would he ever have thought that he might have to have their help?

Well…when Spruce had been interrogated, he’d said something about the Operator of a giant computer. Burton didn’t know who the Operator was, but a computer might have been used secretly by X when, or before when, the resurrection project began. He might have put into it all the probabilities he could think of regarding his unlawful project and asked for an estimate of their happening. Perhaps, the computer might even have been able to come up with some that X couldn’t think of.

One of the items offered by the computer was a situation or situations in which X might need recruits.

Burton couldn’t imagine what it was, unless it was the present one.

Good enough.

And so X had gotten his recruits, and he’d erased all his questions and the answers from the computer. Somehow, he’d done it without the Operator’s knowing about it. That is, all this had happened if Spruce hadn’t lied and there were indeed such things as an Operator and computer.

As of now, Burton’s big problem was that X hadn’t told him who he was. Which meant that very soon X would be acting, not for his recruits but against them.

Burton thought that they should get some sleep before they ventured out on the boats. All agreed, and so they laid out their heavy cloths on the floor and rolled up others for pillows. Since it was warm here, they didn’t even have to cover themselves with their eskimo-suit-type garments. The hot air came from slits along the bases of the walls.

“Probably powered by nuclear energy,” Frigate said. “The same goes for the lamps.”

Burton wanted to set two-hour watches with two guards each.

“Why?” Tai-Peng said. “It’s evident that we’re the only ones around for twenty thousand miles.”

“We don’t know that,” Burton said. “We shouldn’t get careless now.”

Some agreed with the Chinese, but it was finally decided that they should take no chances. Burton picked the sentinels and appointed Nur to be Gilgamesh’s partner and himself as Ah Qaaq’s.

The Moor wasn’t likely to be taken by surprise; he had extraordinary perceptions of others’ attitudes and feelings; he could often tell by subtle body language what others intended to do.

It was possible that Nur was an agent or that Gilgamesh and Ah Qaaq were in cahoots. One might pretend to sleep until his colleague who was on watch attacked his partner.

The possibilities were numerous, but Burton had to take chances. He couldn’t do without sleep all the time.

What worried him most, though, was that X, if he was here, might take a small boat during the night and get to the tower ahead of the others. Once there, he would make sure that the entrance at the base couldn’t be entered.

Burton gave de Marbot, Alice’s partner for the first duty, his wristwatch. Then he lay down on his cloths, which were near the entrance to the tunnel. His loaded pistol was under his pillow. He had trouble getting to sleep, though he wasn’t the only one if the sighs and mutterings he heard were any indication. It wasn’t until the first two hours were almost over that he slid into an uneasy sleep. He kept starting awake; he had nightmares, some of them recurrences for the past thirty years. God, in the garments of a late Victorian gentleman, poked him in the ribs with a heavy cane.

“You owe for the flesh. Pay up.”

His eyes opened, and he looked around. Tai-Peng and Blessed Croomes were on guard now. The Chinese was talking in a soft voice to the black woman not ten feet from Burton. Then Croomes slapped his face and walked away.

Burton said, “Better luck next time, Tai-Peng,” and he went back to sleep.

When Nur and Gilgamesh were on watch, Burton roused again. He slitted his eyes so that they would think he was still sleeping. Both were in one of the big boats, sitting on the raised deck by the controls. The Sumerian seemed to be telling a funny story to the Moor, if Nur’s smiles meant anything. Burton didn’t like their closeness. All the very strong Gilgamesh had to do was to reach out and seize Nur’s throat.

The Moor, however, seemed very much at ease. Burton watched them for a while, then nodded off. When he awoke again, with a start, Nur was shaking him.

“Your watch.”

Burton rose and yawned. Ah Qaaq was standing by the shelves, eating bread and stew. He gestured at Burton to join him. Burton shook his head. He didn’t intend to get any closer to him than he had to. Stooping, he withdrew the pistol from under the pillow and placed it in his holster. Ah Qaaq, he noted, was also armed. There was nothing significant in this. The guards were supposed to carry their weapons.

Burton got within six feet of Ah Qaaq and told him he was going outside to urinate. The Mayan, his mouth full, nodded. He’d lost weight during the hard journey and now seemed determined to make up for it.

If he’s X pretending to be a compulsive eater,
Burton thought,
he’s certainly an excellent actor.

Burton went through the tunnel with frequent looks behind him and stops now and then to listen for footsteps. He didn’t turn on his lantern until he reached the cave. The lantern, set in the mouth on the sloping floor, beamed past him. The cold fog pressed wetly. Having finished his business quickly, he went back into the cave.