THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

In one sense, they were old though their youthful bodies had been restored. She had lived on Earth to be eighty-two and he to sixty-nine. ("Considering my sexual preferences, a significant age at which to die," Burton had once drawled.) A long life tended to ossify more than the arteries; it also ossified habits and attitudes. It made it much more difficult to adjust, to change one's self for the better. The impact of the resurrection and the Riverworld had shattered many people's beliefs and helped set them up for change. It had decalcified many, though in some the fragmentation was only slight, in others much more, and many had been unable to adjust at all.

Alice had suffered a metamorphosis in many respects, though her basic character remained. It was down there in the abysm of the soul, the deeps which make the spaces between the stars seem a mere step over a puddle. It was the same with Burton.

So Alice stayed with him, hoping what she knew was hopeless.

At times, she dreamed of finding Reginald again. But she also knew that that was even more hopeless. She would never go back to him whether he had remained the same or changed. It was doubtful that he had changed. He was a good man, but, like all the good, he had faults, some grave, and he was too stubborn to change.

The thing was that no caterpillar could ever effect a metamorphosis in another. The other, if it is to become a butterfly, must do it itself. The difference between man and caterpillar was that the insect was pre-programmed and the human had to re-program himself.

Thus the days passed for Alice, though there was much more to them than thinking such thoughts.

And then one day, when the Rex co

10

SHOCK AND PANIC.

Fifteen years ago, the grailstones on the left bank had quit operation. Twenty-four hours later, they had resumed functioning. King John had been told by Clemens that the line had been severed by a great meteorite but that it had been reco

King John, though stu

After all were soaked enough in the drink that gives good cheer and courage, he ordered that the copper "feeder" cap be taken back into the boat. Then the Rex proceeded up-river in the shallows near the left bank. There was enough energy in the batacitor to keep the boat going until the next mealtime. When it was two hours to dusk, John commanded that it stop and the copper cap be attached to a stone.

As expected, the locals refused to "loan" a stone to the Rex. One of the steam machine guns loosed a stream of plastic bullets over the heads of the crowd on the bank, and it ran back panicked halfway across the plain. The two amphibian launches, once named Firedragon I and II, now Eleanor and Henry, rumbled onto shore and stood guard while the cap was placed over the stone. Within an hour, however, locals from stones as far away as a mile on each side gathered, including those whose grailstones were in the foothills. Whooping war cries, yelling, thousands of men and women charged the amphibians and the riverboat. At the same time, five hundred in boats attacked from the water.

Exploding shells and rockets from the Rex wiped out hundreds. The steam guns mowed down hundreds more. The marines and crew members lined along the railings shot rifles, pistols, and arrows, and launched small rockets from bazookas.

The bank and the waters around the Rex quickly became bloodied and strewn with corpses and pieces of corpses. The charge broke, but not before small and large rockets sent by the locals had done some damage and killed and wounded some of John's people.

Burton could still barely walk though wounds healed more quickly than they would have on Earth. He nevertheless dragged himself to the railing of the texas-deck promenade and fired a rifle with .48-caliber wooden bullets. He hit at least a third of his targets, which were on The River side. When all the boats, dugouts, canoes, war canoes, and sailing boats had been sunk, he struggled around to the other side to help.

He got there in time for the third and final charge. This had been preceded by much haranguing by the enemy officers, pounding of drums, and blowing of fishhorns, and then, with another yell, the locals ran toward the boat. By this time, the launches had exhausted their ammunition and retreated to the dock in the rear of the motherboat. However, the two fighter planes, the single-seater reco

Almost, a few locals reached the water. Then, the ranks wilting, they broke and fled. Shortly thereafter, the stones boomed and flashed, and the grails and the batacitor were recharged.

"God's teeth!" King John said, his eyes wild. "Today was bad enough! Tomorrow...! God save us!"

He was right. Before dawn the next day, the hunger-mad right-bankers came in hordes. Every boat available, including many two-masters, was jammed to capacity with men and women. Behind them came another horde of swimmers. And when the sun rose, for as far as the eye could reach, The River was alive with vessels and swimmers. The front ranks, the boats, were met with all the rockets and arrows the defenders had. Nevertheless, most of the boats grounded, and from them leaped the right-bankers.

Caught between two forces, the Rex battled mightily. Its fire cleared space around the grailstones, and the amphibians, spouting flame, rolled on their trackless treads to the stone. While they kept off the raging defenders and attackers alike, the crane of the Henry swung the cap onto the stone.

The grailstones thundered, and immediately the cap was swung off by the crane, which then telescoped into the interior of the Henry.

After the launches had returned to the boat, John ordered that the anchor be' taken up. "And then full power ahead!" It was easier commanded than carried out. The press of vessels around the Rex was so great that it could move only very slowly. While the paddle wheels dug into the water, and the prow crushed into pieces the large sailing boats and ground the smaller between them, the right-bankers bombarded it. Men and women managed to clamber onto the promenade of the boiler deck, though they didn't stay there long.

Finally, the Rex broke loose and headed for the other shore. There it swung into the weaker current near the bank and forged up-River. Across the stream, the battle was still raging.

At noon, John had to decide whether or not to recharge. After a minute of deliberation, he ordered the boat to anchor by a big dock.

"We'll let them kill each other," he said. "We have plenty of smoked and dried food to keep us going through tomorrow. The day after, we'll recharge. By then the slaughter should be over."

The right bank was a strange sight indeed. They had gotten so used to seeing its throngs, noisy, chattering, laughing, that the unpeopled land was eerie ./On this side, except for a very few wise or timid persons who'd elected not to try to fill their bellies at the expense of the left-bankers, not a soul was to be seen. The huts and the longhouses and the big state log buildings were tenantless, and so were the plains and the foothills. Since no animals, birds, insects or reptiles existed on this planet, only the wind rustling the leaves of the few trees on the plains made any sound.