THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

Sam took them along the outside or promenade deck to the bow. Here was mounted an 88-millimeter ca

"But when I catch up with the Rex, I'll blow Rotten John out of the water with this."

He also pointed out the rocket batteries on the promenade, heat-seeking missiles with a range of a mile and a half and carrying warheads of forty pounds of plastic explosive.

"If the ca

One of the women tourists was well acquainted with Clem-ens' work and biographies about him. She spoke in a low voice to her companion. "I neyer realized that Mark Twain was so bloodthirsty."

"Madame," Sam said, having overheard her, "I am not bloodthirsty! I am the most pacifistic of men! I loathe violence, and the idea of war puts my bowels into an uproar. If you'd read my essays about war and those who love it, you'd know that. But I have been forced into this situation and many like it. To survive, you must lie better than the liars, deceive more than the, deceivers, and kill the killers first! For me, it's sheer necessity, though justified! What would you do if King John had stolen your boat after you'd gone through years of search for iron and other metals to build your dream! And years of fighting others who wanted to take them away from you after you'd found them, and on every side treachery and murder all directed against you! And what would you do if that John killed some of your good friends and your wife and then sped away laughing at you! Would you let him get away with it? I think not, not if you've got an ounce of courage."

"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," a man said.

"Yes. Maybe. But if there is a Lord, and He works His vengeance, how's He going to do it without using humans as His hands? Did you ever hear of any wicked person being struck down by lightning, except by accident? Lightning also strikes thousands of i

Sam was so upset that he had to send a marine up to the grand salon to get four ounces of bourbon to settle his nerves.

Before the drink was brought down to Sam, a tourist muttered, "Bullshit!"

"Throw that man off the boat!" Sam shouted. And it was done.

"You're a very angry man," the woman who knew his works said.

"Yes, ma'am, I am. And with good reason. I was angry on Earth, and I'm angry here."

The marine brought Sam's whiskey. He downed it quickly and then continued the tour with his good humor restored.

He led the group up the grand staircase to the grand salon. They paused in the entrance, and the tourists oohed and ahed. It was two hundred feet long and fifty wide and the ceiling was twenty feet above the floor. Along the center of the ceiling was a line of five huge cut-glass chandeliers. There were many windows making the huge room well lighted and many wall and ceiling lights and towering ornate brass floor lamps.

At the far end was a stage which Clemens said was used for live dramas and comedies and for orchestras. It also had a big screen which could be pulled down when movies were shown.

"We don't use chemically treated film to shoot these," he said. "We have electronic cameras. We make original films and also remake the classics of Earth. Tonight, for instance, we're showing The Maltese Falcon. We don't have any of the original cast except Mary Astor, whose real name is Lucille Langehanke, and she plays Sam Spade's secretary. Astor was, from what I've been told, miscast. But then I don't suppose most of you know what I'm talking about."

"I do," the woman who'd called him angry said. "Who played her part in your version?"

"An American actress, Alice Brady."

"And who played Sam Spade? I can't imagine anyone else but Humphrey Bogart in the role."

"Howard da Silva, another American actor. His real name was Howard Goldblatt, if I remember correctly. He's very grateful to get this role, since he claims he never had a chance to show his real acting ability on Earth. But he's sorry that his audience will be so small."

"Don't tell me the director is John Ford?"

"I never heard of him," Sam said. "Our director is Alexander Singer."

"I never heard of him."

"I suppose so. But I understand that he was well known in Hollywood circles."

Irked at what he considered an irrelevant interruption, he pointed out the sixty-foot-long polished oak bar on the port side and the neatly stacked row of liquor bottles and decanters. The group was quite impressed with these and the leadglass goblets. They were even more affected by the four grand pianos. Sam told them that he had aboard at least ten great pianists and five composers. For instance, Selim Palmgren (1878-1951), a Fi

"Amadeus Mozart was once on this boat," Sam said. "He's a really great composer, some say the greatest. But he turned out to be such a failure as a human being, such a sneak and lecher and coward, that I kicked him off the boat."

"Mozart?" the woman said. "My God, Mozart! You beast, how could you treat such a wonderful composer, a genius, a god, like that?"

"Ma'am," Clemens said, "believe me, there was more than enough provocation. If you don't like my attitude, you may leave. A marine will escort you to shore."

"You're no fucking gentleman," the woman said.

"Oh, yes, I am."

5

THEY WENT DOWN A PASSAGEWAY TOWARD THE BOW, PASSING more cabins. The last one on the right-hand side was Clemens' suite, and he showed them that. Their exclamations of surprise and delight gratified Sam. Across from his cabin, he said, was that of his bodyguard, Joe Miller, and Joe's mate.

Beyond his quarters was a small room which contained an elevator. This led into the lowest of the three rooms of the pilothouse structure. This was the E deck or observation room, furnished with overstuffed chairs, lounges, and a small bar. There were also mounts in the windows for machine guns which shot plastic or wooden bullets.

The next room of the pilothouse structure was the F or ca

The very highest deck, the pilothouse or control or G deck, was twice as large as the one beneath it.

"Big enough to hold a dance in," said Clemens, who didn't mind exaggeration at all, especially when he was the exaggerator.

He introduced them to the radio and radar operators, the chief executive officer, the communications officer, and the chief pilot. The latter was Henry Detweiller, a Frenchman who'd emigrated to the American Midwest in the early nineteenth century and become a river pilot, then a captain, and finally the owner of several steamboat companies. He'd died in Peoria, Illinois, in his palatial mansion.

The exec, John Byron, was an Englishman (1723-1786) who'd been a midshipman on Anson's famous naval expedition around the world but was shipwrecked off the coast of Chile. When he became an admiral, he earned the nickname of "Foul-weather Jack" because every time his fleet put to sea it ran into very bad storms.

"He is also the grandfather of the famous or infamous poet, Lord Byron," Sam said. "Isn't that right, admiral?"

Byron, a small blond man with cold blue eyes, nodded.

"Admiral?" said the woman who'd been bugging Clemens. "But if you're the captain... ?"