THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

"Battle stations!" Clemens said.

Byron punched a button. Sirens began howling, but the crowd on the decks had already started toward its posts.

"Full speed ahead!"

Detweiller, sitting in the pilot's chair, pushed his two control sticks as far as they would go. The giant electrical motors began turning; the huge paddle wheels attached to them dug into the water. The boat almost seemed to leap forward.

"That's a smart trick old John's pulled," Clemens said. "Radio the Goose and tell them to come in on the Rex's broadside."

Byron hastened to obey. Sam turned to de Marbot. The little fellow wore a coal-scuttle helmet of duraluminum, a chain-mail shirt and kilt, and leather jackboots. A leather belt held a holster in which a Mark IV pistol was couched and a scabbard in which a cutlass was sheathed.

"Tell your men to bring up the SW," he said. "On the double!"

The Frenchman punched a button which would put him on the intercom to the storage room.

"Is the enemy plane still on the radar?" he said to the operator.

"Not at the moment," Schindler replied. "It's behind the hills, too close to the mountains."

"It'll come hellbent for election right over the tops of the trees," Clemens said. "We won't have much time."

De Marbot gave a groan. Clemens looked at his pale face and said, "What is it?"

"I don't know," de Marbot said. "I heard something that sounded like an explosion! The line's dead! Nobody answers!"

Sam could feel himself turning gray. "Oh, my God! An explosion! Get down there, find out what's going on!"

Byron was by another intercom on the bulkhead. He said, "Station 25 reports an explosion in Station 26."

The Frenchman stepped into the elevator and was gone.

"Sir, there's the enemy plane!" the radar operator said. "On the port bank, just above the structures, coming in between those two rock spires."

Sam ran to the window and looked out. The sun flashed on the silver-and-blue-streaked nose of an aircraft.

"Coming like a bat out of hell!"

He gripped the ledge, forced himself to be calm, and turned. But Byron had sent word down. It wasn't needed, since the attacker was visible.

"Hold your fire until the attacker is five hundred yards distant," Byron said. "Then fire the rockets. Ca

"I shouldn't have waited," Sam muttered. "I should have brought the laser out as soon as those boys took off. It could slice that plane in half before it launched the torpedo."

One more regret in a lifetime of regrets.

And just what in blue blazes happened down there?

"Here it cometh!" Joe Miller said.

The torpedo plane had dipped down past the bridges ru

Events happened fast after that. The plane was going at least 150 miles per hour. Once it reached The River, it would have a mile to go to its target. But it would release the torpedo within six hundred feet. Closer, if the pilot was daring. The nearer the release, the less chance for the Not For Hire to evade the missile.

It would have been better if the boat were to turn prow-on and so present a smaller target. But to do this would cut the defense fire to a minimum.

Sam waited. The moment that the silvery weapon of destruction was loosed from its carrier, he would give the order to Detweiller to swing the boat around. The plane would be a lesser menace then. In any event, if it survived the hail of fire, it would be getting to hell out.

"Five hundred yards," Byron said, reading the radarscope over its operator's shoulder. He spoke into the intercom linked with the batteries. "Fire the rockets!"

Twenty silvery cone-tipped cylinders, spouting flame from their tails, sprang like cats at a feline convention after a lone mouse.

The pilot had the reflexes of a cat, too. Twelve rockets, smaller than those hurled at him, sprang from below his wings. The two flights met in three battings of an eye and went up in flame surrounded by smoke. Immediately after, the plane bored through the clouds. Now it was so close to The River that it seemed the waves would snap its bottom.

"Fire the second battery of rockets!" Byron yelled. "Fire ca

Another flight of missiles arced out. The steam machine guns hosed a stream of ,80-caliber plastic bullets. The 88-millimeter ca

The long sharkish-looking torpedo dropped from the airplane at an altitude of a hundred feet, hit the water, skipped, sank. Now all that could be seen of it was its wake, boiling white.

"Hard aport!" Sam said.

Detweiller yanked back on the port stick. The monster wheels on the left side slowed, stopped, began churning water in the opposite direction. Slowly, the boat swung around.

Taishi, feeling the plane suddenly relieved of the weight of the torpedo, pulled back on the stick. Up rose the nose as the twin motors, on full power, lifted her to pass over the boat. Taishi leaned over the side of the cockpit, the wind hitting him full in the face. He could not see the torpedo, even though the water was clear, because he had passed it.

Ahead, the sun shone briefly on rockets, trailing smoke. Another launching! Heat-seekers, too.

If things had ‘gone otherwise, Taishi would have skimmed, the edge of the boat's flight deck, passed beyond it, swung around, and come back to strafe. O'Herlihy was standing up now, bracing himself with one hand against the edge of his cockpit, waiting until the plane assumed a level to swing his guns around. But O'Herlihy would never get a chance to use his twin .50-calibers.

The plane, Taishi, and O'Herlihy disappeared in a great cloud, pieces flying out of it almost immediately, metal, flesh, bone, and blood.

One of the motors fell in an arc, smashing into the flight deck near a ca

A crewman called for a fire-fighting squad.

Sam Clemens, looking out the port window, saw the explosion, saw a dark object out of the corner of his eye, felt the vibrations of the impact.

"What in hell was that?"

But he kept his eyes on-the torpedo's wake, sinister as a shark's approach and even more swift.

If only the boat could spin around faster, spin around on a dime and give five cents' change.

This was a strange geometry, a deadly one. The torpedo was describing a straight line, the shortest distance between two points—in this case, anyway. The boat was describing a circle in order to avoid being at the end of the line drawn.

Sam gripped the ledge, bit through his cigar so savagely that its outer part fell off, but, not totally severed, swung down. Its glowing end burned his chin, causing him to yell with pain. But that was a few seconds later. While the torpedo scraped against the hull, he felt nothing except extreme anxiety.

Then it had gone on, headed toward the shore, and he clapped his hand to his neck, burned his hand, and dashed the cigar away.

"Straighten her out," he told Detweiller. "Resume former course, full speed ahead."

Byron, looking out of the starboard window, said, "The torpedo's half-submerged against the bank, Captain. Its motor is still pushing it, but it's stuck in the mud, tilting up."

"Let them worry about it," Sarn/said, referring to the people on the bank. "Oh! Oh!"

He stopped. For several minutes, he'd forgotten about the explosion near the SW room.

"Byron! Has Marbot reported yet?"

"No, sir."

The bulkhead intercom tootled. Byron answered it with Clemens close behind him.