THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

Sam puffed on his cigar, then said, "Yes, I'm the only captain aboard. The next highest rank is full admiral and so on down. The chief of my air force, which consists of four pilots and six mechanics, is a general. So is the chief of my marines. The latter, by the way, was once a full general in the United States army during the Civil War. He's a full-blooded American Indian, a Seneca chief. Ely S. Parker or, to use his Iroquois name, Donehogawa, which means ‘Keeper of the West Gate.' He is highly educated and was a construction engineer on Earth. He served on General Ulysses S. Grant's staff during the war."

Sam next explained the controls and instruments used by the pilot. He sat in a chair on each side of which were two long metal rods projecting from the floor. By moving the control sticks forward or backward, he could control the forward or backward rotations of the paddlewheels. Also, their rate of speed of turning. Before him was a panel with many dials and gauges and several oscilloscopes.

"One is a sonarscope," Sam said. "Reading that, the pilot can tell exactly how deep the bottom of The River is and how far from the bank the boat is and also if there are any dangerously large objects in the water. By switching that dial marked AUTO CRUISE to ON, he doesn't have to do a thing then except keep an eye on the sonarscope and another on the banks.

"If the automatic system should malfunction, he can switch to a backup system while the other is being repaired."

"Piloting must be easy," a man said.

"It is. But only an experienced pilot can handle emergencies, which is why most of them are Mississippi boat veterans."

He pointed out that the deck of the control room was ninety feet above the surface of The River. He also called to their attention that the pilothouse structure was, unlike that on the riverboats on Earth, located on the starboard side, not in the middle of the deck.

"Which makes the Not For Hire resemble an aircraft carrier even more."

They watched the marines drilling on the flight deck and the men and women busy practicing the martial arts, sword, spear, knife, and axe fighting, and archery.

"Every member of this crew, including myself, has to become proficient with all weapons. In addition, each person has to become fully qualified to handle any post. They go to school to learn electricity, electronics, plumbing, officering, and piloting. Half of them have taken lessons on the piano or with other musical instruments. This boat contains more individuals with more varied skills and professions than any other area on this planet."

"Does everybody take turns being the captain?" said the woman who'd angered him.

"No. That is the exception," Sam said, his thick eyebrows forming a frown. "I wouldn't want to put ideas into anybody's head."

He strode to the control panel and punched a button. Sirens began to wail, and the exec, John Byron, asked the communications officer to send the "Bridges, clearing" warning over the general intercom. Sam went to a starboard window and urged the others to gather by him. They gasped when they saw long thick metal beams slide out from the three lower decks.

"If we can't sink the Rex," Clemens said, "we'll board it over those bridges."

The woman said, "That's fine. But the crew of the Rex can also board your vessel on your own bridges."

Sam's blue-green eyes glared above his falcon nose.

However, the others of the group were so awed, so astounded, that Sam's hairy chest puffed from joy. He had always been fascinated by mechanical devices, and he liked others to share his enthusiasm. On Earth his interest in novel gadgets had been responsible for his going bankrupt. He'd put a fortune into the unworkable Paige typesetting machine.

The woman said, "But all this iron and aluminum and other metals? This planet is so mineral-poor. Where did you get these?"

‘"First," Sam said, pleased to recount his exploits, "a giant nickel-iron meteorite fell into The Valley. Do you remember when, many years ago, the grailstones on the right bank ceased operating? That was because the falling star severed the line.

"As you know, it was back in operation twenty-four hours later. So...."

"Who repaired it?" a man said. "I've heard all sorts of stories, but..."

"I was in the neighborhood, in a ma

He mentally winced then, not because of the near-fatality but because he remembered what he'd done later to one of his companions, the Norseman Erik Bloodaxe.

"So I can testify to the amazing but undeniable fact that not only had the line been repaired overnight, but the blasted land had also been restored. The grass and the trees and the stripped soil were all back."

"Who did it?"

"They had to be the beings who made this Rivervalley and resurrected us. I've heard that they are human beings like us, in fact, Earthmen who lived ages after we did. However..."

"No, not human beings," the man said. "Surely not. It was God who made all this for us."

"If you're so well acquainted with Him," Clemens said, "give me His address. I'd like to write Him."

He continued, "My group was the first to get to the site of the meteorite. The crater, which might have been as wide and deep as the famous one in Arizona, was buried by then. But we staked out a claim, and we began digging. Some time later, we heard that large deposits of bauxite and cryolite were under the land of a state down-River. Its citizens, however, had no means of digging it up or then using it. But my state, Parolando, could make aluminum from the ores after we'd fashioned iron tools. That state, Soul City, attacked us to get the iron. We beat them and confiscated the bauxite and cryolite. We also found that some other states relatively nearby had some copper and tin deposits. Also, some vanadium and tungsten. We traded our iron artifacts for these."

The woman, frowning, said, "Isn't it strange that there was so much metal in that area, and elsewhere there is almost none? It's quite a coincidence, isn't it, that you were looking for these metals and just happened to be in the neighborhood when the meteorite fell?"

"Maybe God directed me to that place," Sam said sneeringly.

No, he thought, it wasn't God. It was that Mysterious Stranger, the Ethical who called himself X, who had arranged, who knew how many thousands of years ago, mat the deposits should be so concentrated in that area. And who then directed that meteorite to fall near them.

For what purpose? To build a riverboat and to provide weapons so that Sam could voyage up The River, perhaps for ten million miles, and get to the headwaters. And from there to the tower which reared high in the mists of the cold northpolar sea.

And then do what?

He didn't know. The Ethical was supposed to visit him again during a thunderstorm at night, as he always did. Apparently, he came at that time because the lightning interfered with the delicate instruments the Ethicals used to try to locate the renegade. He would give him more information. In the meantime, others visited by X, his chosen warriors, would find Sam and get on his boat and go with him up-River.

But things had gone awry.

He'd not seen or heard from the Mysterious Stranger again. He'd built his boat, and then his partner, King John Lackland, had hijacked it. Also, some years later, the "little resurrections," the "translations," had ceased, and permanent death had come to the dwellers in The Valley again.

Something had happened to the people in the tower, the Ethicals. Something must also have happened to the Mysterious Stranger.

But he, Clemens, was going to the headwaters anyway and then try to get into the tower. He knew how difficult the climbing of the mountains which circled the sea would be. Joe Miller, the titanthrop, had seen the tower from a path along the side of that towering range when he'd accompanied the Pharaoh Akhenaten. Joe had also seen a gigantic aircraft of some sort descend to the top of the tower. And then he'd tripped over a grail left by some unknown predecessor and had fallen to his death. After being resurrected to a place in The Valley, he'd met Sam and had told his strange tale to him.