THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

"I outclevered myself."

He poised a finger over a button. "Gather around. I'll explain the simple operation twice so that there won't be any confusion. You're able to read the markings. When I press this button, that small silvery inset disc will turn on. That indicates that the power is on.

"That larger inset disc by the ON light is a readout frequency meter."

He pressed a button. The smaller disc glowed orange.

"Now..."

The light went out.

"Khatuuch! What is... ?"

Loga put his hand on the box for a second, then ran around to the front of the cabinet. He opened the door and looked in. Even at their distance from it, the others could feel the heat.

"Run!" Loga said, and he limped as fast as he could toward the exit.

When Burton had reached the exit he looked at the cabinet. The control box was melting, and a large cube inside the cabinet was glowing red.

Loga swore in Ghuurrkh and then said, "Those... those...! They fixed it so that when power came on it'd melt the converter!"

Except for Loga and Burton, who'd died so many times that they no longer feared the prospect of death, the others were relieved. Burton could see it in their faces. They knew they'd be resurrected with their wathans attached, but they still loathed the idea of dying.

Burton said, "We have the other resurrector."

"It'll be set up, too," Loga said. He was ashen.

"Can't you fix it so it won't melt?"

"I'll try."

But he failed.

Burton, looking at the molten mass, thought it was time to tell Loga something he'd put off revealing because the resurrectors were more urgent business.

He said, "Loga, when we left your secret room to go after you, I put a bullet by the door to mark its location. The bullet is gone."

There was a short silence. Frigate said, "A housekeeping robot probably picked it up."

"No," Loga said. "If the robots were programmed to do such work, they'd have disposed of the skeletons."

"Then someone else has gotten in!"

SECTION 14

Three-Cornered Play: Carroll to Alice to Computer

54

THEY WENT TO A LABORATORY. LOGA SAT DOWN BEFORE A COMputer and worked furiously. Within a short time, all the cameras in the tower were operating. Two seconds later, the screen before him glowed with a display.

Burton whistled.

"Frato Fenikso! Herma

He was at a table eating a meal made by a grail-box. From his extreme thi

"I can't see how he caught up with us so quickly," Loga said.

"The computer reports seeing no one else, but they may be out of camera range just now. And if they're agents, one might have the codeword. Monat could've passed it on to them in The Valley."

"Why don't we ask Goring?" Burton said.

"Of course. First, though, I'll ask the computer where he is."

Loga read the instructions, and they got into their chairs and flew out of the room. Ten minutes later, they were outside the laboratory down the corridor from Loga's hideaway. They set their chairs down softly and entered on foot. Though Goring was not armed, they couldn't be sure they wouldn't find others with him by now.

Burton bellowed, "Achtung!"

He laughed loudly when Goring jumped up, food spewing from his mouth, arms flying, the chair falling backward. Gray and trembling, he whirled around, his eyes wide. He seemed to be trying to say something, and then his face reddened, and he clutched his throat.

"My God! He's choking!" Alice said.

Goring was blue and on his knees by the time Burton hit him on the back and made him expel the food caught in his throat.

Alice said, "That wasn't at all fu

Burton wiped the tears away and said, "I'm sorry, Goring. I guess I just wanted to pay you back for some of the things you'd done to me."

Goring gulped at the glass of water handed him by Aphra Behn.

"Yes, I suppose I can't blame you."

"You look near-starved," Nur said. "You shouldn't be eating so fast. Too much food too soon after a long starvation can kill you."

"I'm not that starved. But I seem to have lost my appetite."

He looked around. "Where are the others?"

"Dead."

"May God take pity on their souls."

"He hasn't and won't unless we do something fast."

"Goring!" Loga said sharply. "Did you come alone?"

Goring looked at him strangely. "Yes."

"How long have you been here?"

"About an hour."

"Were there any others close behind you when you were in the mountains?"

"No. At least, I saw no one."

"How did you get here so fast?"

Goring and other Virolanders had dived into the hold of the Not For Hire before it slipped over the shelf into the abyss. They had brought up some sections of the batacitor and rebolted them together in a wooden sailboat. They had also brought up two small electric motors, a spare propeller of the smaller launch, the Gascon, and other parts. They'd worked fast, and four left in the reconverted boat two weeks after the Post No Bills had departed.

Unlike Burton's group, they'd not taken days off for rest or recreation.

"Where are your companions?" Loga said, though he'd probably guessed their fate.

"Two quit early and went back. I went on with my wife, but she slipped and fell down the face of a mountain."

He made the circular sign, the blessing, used so much by the Chancers.

"You should sit down," Burton said kindly. "We have much to tell you."

When he'd heard Loga and Burton tell what had happened, Goring looked horrified.

"All those wathans! And my wife's among them?"

"Yes, and now we don't know what to do. Kill the computer so that no more wathans may be caught. Or hope that we can think of some way to countermand its prime command."

Herma

"What?"

"Let me try to get the module in."

"Are you crazy?"

"No. I have a debt to pay."

Burton thought of his recurring dream of God.

"You owe for the flesh. Pay up."

"If you die, your wathan will be doomed."

"Perhaps not," Herma

No one argued with him.

"Very well," Loga said. "You are the most courageous person I've ever met. I think you clearly understand that you may have very little chance to succeed. But here's what we're going to do."

Burton was very sorry that he had played his little joke on the German. The man was risking his soul, would face the equivalent of damnation, if he failed. Loga was right. Goring was the bravest man he'd ever known. He may not have been once, but he was now.

Loga decided that they should return to the top level to be near their apartments. On the way, they stopped at a floor where Goring could see the caged wathans.

He gazed at the glowing, contracting-expanding swirling darting things for a few minutes, then turned away.

"The most beautiful, the most awe-inspiring, the most hideous."

He made the circular sign again, though Burton thought that this was more than a blessing. He caught intimations of a prayer for salvation and for stiffening of his determination.

When they got to the control room, the Ethical immediately set about working at the console on the revolving platform. After five minutes, he sent Goring into a cabinet. There his measurements were made by beams. Loga put more data into the computer, finishing in an hour.

He waited for a few seconds before punching another button. He left the platform and limped to a large energy-matter converter. The others crowding behind him, he opened its door. The parts of a suit of armor were on the floor. Loga picked them up and threw them to those outside the cabinet. They put these on Goring and, when they were done, he looked more like a robot than an armored knight. The addition of the backpack, his air supply, made him resemble an astronaut.