THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

At last the operator got the words out.

"Sire, Sire! The Clemens frequency!"

The frequency which the Not For Hire used was, of course, known. It could have been changed by Clemens, though even then the radio of the Rex would have sca

Not now. The message was not for the Parseval or the airplanes or launches of the Not For Hire. It was in nonscrambled Esperanto and meant for the Rex.

The speaker was not Sam Clemens himself. He was John Byron, Clemens' chief executive officer. And he wished to talk to, not King John, but his chief officer.

John, who'd gone down to his quarters for sleep or dalliance with his current cabinmate, or both, was summoned. Strubewell did not dare to talk to Byron until his commander authorized it. John was at first determined to talk directly to Clemens. But Clemens, through Byron, refused to do that nor would he say why.

John replied, through his first mate, that there would be no communication at all then. But, after a minute, while the radio hissed and crackled, Byron said that he had a message to deliver, a "proposition." His commander dared not speak to John face to face, as it were. Clemens was afraid that he'd lose his temper and cuss out King John as no one else in the universe had ever been cussed out before. And that included Jehovah's denunciation of Satan before He hurled him headlong from Heaven.

Clemens had a sporting offer to make John. However, it was necessary, as John should now understand, that it be transmitted via intermediaries. After waiting half an hour to make Clemens swear and fume and fret, John replied via Strubewell.

Burton was again in the pilothouse and heard everything from the begi

John heard it all out, then replied that he'd have to talk about this to Werner Voss and Kenji Okabe, his top fighter pilots. He couldn't order them to accept these conditions. And, by the way, who were Clemens' two pilots?

Byron said that they were William Barker, a Canadian, and Georges Guynemer, a Frenchman. Both were famous aces of World War I.

There was more identification of the pilots. Their histories were expanded upon. John called Voss and Okabe to the pilothouse, and he told them what had happened.

They were astounded. But after they'd recovered, they talked to each other.

And then Okabe said, "Sire, we have been flying for twenty years for you. It's mostly been dull work though occasionally dangerous. We've been waiting for this moment; we've known that it would happen. We won't be facing fellow nationals or former allies, though I understand that my country was an ally of England and France in World War I.

"We will do this. We look forward to it."

Burton thought, what are we? King Arthur's knights? Idiots? Or both?

Nevertheless, part of him approved deeply and was very excited.

27

THE NOT FOR HIRE HAD BEEN ANCHORED NEAR THE RIGHT BANK a few miles up from the entrance to the lake. Goring was taken to Aglejo by the launch Post No Bills. Clemens sent his apologies to La Viro for not coming to meet him at once. Unfortunately, he said, a previous engagement had held him up. But late tomorrow or possibly the day after, he would come to the temple.

Goring had begged Clemens to make overtures of peace to King John. Clemens, as Herma

"The final act of this drama has been too long delayed. The damn intermission was forty years long. Now nothing is going to stop its being staged."

"This isn't a theater," Herma

"For what matters," Clemens said. "I don't want to talk about it any more."

He puffed angrily on his big green cigar. Goring silently blessed him with the three-fingered gesture of the Church and left the pilothouse.

All day long the boat had been readied. The thick duraluminum plates with the small portholes were secured over the windows. Thick duraluminum doors were secured to the exterior entrances of the corridors and passageways. The ammunition was checked. The steam machine guns were fired for a few rounds. The elevation and vertical and horizontal movement machines of the 88-millimeter ca

Every station conducted a dozen drills.

After the batacitor and the grails were charged at evening, the Not For Hire went for a five-mile circular cruise, and more drills were conducted. Radar swept the lake and reported that the Rex was not within its range.

Before the crew went to bed, Clemens talked to almost all the crew in the grand salon. His short almost entirely serious speech went out over the loudspeakers to those on duty.

"We've had a fantastically long ride up The River, the longest river in the universe, perhaps. We've had ups and downs, our tragedies, our pains, our boredoms, our comedies, our cowardly deeds, our heroic. We've faced death many times. We've seen those we loved die, though we've been somewhat recompensed for this by also seeing those we hated die.

"It's been a long long ride. We've gone 7,200,020 miles. That's about half of the estimated 14,500,000 miles of The River. It's been a long voyage. But if we'd walked it, we'd still be walking. We would've walked only about 127,500 miles, leaving more than 7,000,000 miles to go.

"Everybody who signed on knew before signing what the ride on the greatest and most luxurious vessel in the world would cost him. He and she were made aware of the price of the ticket. This ride is paid for at the end, not the begi

"I know each of you well, as well as one human being can know another. You were all hand-picked, and you've all justified my judgment. You've gone through many tests and passed them with flying marks. So I have complete confidence that you'll pass the final, the hardest, test tomorrow.

"I'm making this sound like an arithmetic examination in high school or like the speech a football coach gives before his team goes out to play. I'm sorry about that. This test, this game, is deadly, and some of you alive today won't be by tomorrow's end. But you knew the price when you signed up, and none should think of welshing.

"But after tomorrow is over..."

He paused to look around. Joe Miller, sitting on a huge chair on the podium, looked sad, and tears were trickling down his craggy cheeks.

Little de Marbot leaped up then and raised his glass of liquor and cried, "Three cheers for our commander and a toast to him!"

Everybody huzzaed loudly. After they had drunk, tall big-nosed rapier-thin de Bergerac stood up and said, "And a toast to victory! Not to mention death and damnation to John Lackland!"

Sam stayed up late that night. He paced back and forth for a while in the pilothouse. Though the boat was anchored, there was a full watch in the room. The Not For Hire could up-anchor and paddlewheel into the lake at top speed within three minutes. If John should try a night attack despite his promises not to, Sam's vessel would be ready for it.

The pilothouse watch said little. Sam left them with a good night and walked for a few minutes on top of the flight deck. Ashore, many fires blazed. The Virolanders knew what was coming tomorrow, and they were too excited, too apprehensive, to get to sleep at their customary time. Earlier, La Viro himself had appeared on the bank in a fishing boat and requested permission to board. Clemens had told him, through a bullhorn, that he was certainly glad to meet him. But he could not discuss anything until after tomorrow. Sorry. That was the way it had to be.