THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

"Now they'll see the Azazel]" John cried.

It was about thirty feet above the flight deck of the enemy or at least it seemed to be. It was difficult to estimate at that distance. It was not up to the pilothouse yet. That was apparent, since if it had been, it would have collided with the structure.

Something dark and small dropped through the area of bright sky between the airship and the Not For Hire.

"There goes the bomb!" John cried.

Burton couldn't be sure, but it seemed to him that the bomb had fallen on the stern of the flight deck, perhaps at its edge. The bombardier must have set its timed automatic-release mechanism, and then he and the pilot had jumped. But the timing had not been right. The release should have been activated when it was in the middle of the deck. Or, better, as close to the pilothouse as possible.

The explosion wreathed the flight deck in flames and silhouetted the pilothouse and the tiny figures in it.

The airship soared upward, bending in the middle, its keel twisted by the blast. And its envelope burst into flames, the hydrogen in it one huge ball of fire.

"The torpedo!" John shouted. "The torpedo! Why didn't it fall?"

Perhaps it had, and it couldn't be seen from the Rex.

But it should have been set off by now.

Now Burton could see the dirigible drift down, flaming. Its forward part fell upon the stern of the Not For Hire and then slid off into The River through the great hole made by the forty-pound bomb. The Not For Hire plowed on, leaving the blazing and spreading-out envelope behind it. The stem was aflame, too, the wooden flight deck burning furiously.

John yelled, "God tear those two to pieces in the deepest pits of Hell! They're cowards! They should have waited a few seconds more!"

Burton thought that the pilot and the bombardier had been very brave indeed. They must have waited until what seemed to them to be the last possible second before being able to jump. Under such pressure, they couldn't be blamed for having made such a slight miscalculation. Nor was it their fault that the torpedo had not exploded. They'd made several trial runs with a dummy torpedo, and the release mechanism had worked then. Mechanical devices frequently malfunctioned, and it was their bad luck, and the bad luck of their comrades, that it had failed now.

However, the torpedo might still go off. Unless it had slid off the stern with the wreck.

John was not so unhappy when he saw that the blast had ripped off all of the two lower decks of the pilothouse structure except for two vertical supporting metal beams and the elevator shaft. And these were bending forward slowly under the weight of the control room.

Somehow, a few people in the room had survived. They were silhouetted against the holocaust on the rear of the flight deck.

"God's balls!" John said. "He has spared Clemens so that I may take him prisoner!"

He paused, then said, "They won't be able to steer! We have them in our hands!"

He spoke to the pilot.

"Bring us up along the enemy's port at pointblank range!"

The pilot looked wide-eyed at his captain, but he said, "Aye, aye, sir."

John spoke to Strubewell and Tordenskjold then, telling them to ready the crew for broadsides first and then for boarding.

Burton hoped that he would be ordered to join his marines. They had been sitting deep within the hurricane deck, behind locked doors, waiting. During the entire battle, they had not been informed of anything. All they knew was that the boat had rocked and shaken from time to time, and thunder had roared outside their room. Doubtless, they were all keyed up, nervous, sweating, wondering when they would see action.

The Rex plowed The River in a furrow angling in toward the stricken vessel. The gap between the two swiftly shortened.

"Batteries B2, C2, and D2 will aim for the pilothouse top deck," John said.

Strubewell relayed the orders. Then he said, "Battery C2 doesn't reply, sir. Either the communication's cut or it's out of action."

"Tell C3 to aim for the pilothouse control room."

"You forget, sir. C3's definitely out of action. The last salvo got it, sir."

"B2 can do it then," John said.

He turned to Burton. His face looked purplish in the night-light. "Get to your men now, Captain," he said. "Be prepared to lead a boarding party from the midport side."

Burton saluted and sped down the spiral ladder. He got off at the hurricane deck and hurried down a corridor. His men and women were inside a large chamber outside the armory. Lieutenant Gaius Flaminius was outside the hatch with two guards. His face lit up when he saw Burton.

"We're going into action?"

"Yes," Burton said. "Very quickly. Get them out here into the corridor."

While Flaminius bawled orders, Burton stood at the corner of the two corridors. He would have to lead his force down the corridor going to the outside. They would have to wait there until the command came down to board the Not For Hire. Or, if the communication system wasn't working, he would have to judge for himself when to order the attack.

It was while the marines were being lined up in the corridor that the broadside from the Not For Hire struck. The explosions were deafening; they made Burton's ears ring. A bulkhead down the corridor bulged in. Smoke poured in from somewhere, setting everybody to coughing. There was another roar that shook the decks and deadened their ears even more.

Up on the bridge, John hung on to the railing and shuddered as the boat vibrated. At a range of only thirty feet, the portside rocket batteries of four decks of the Rex and the starboard rocket and ca

The great boats were wounded beasts, cut open, their insides exposed, bleeding heavily.

In addition, certain batteries on each craft had aimed volleys at the control rooms, the brains of the beasts. A number of missiles had shot by their marks, either splashing harmlessly into the water or striking elsewhere. A few plumped ashore, starting more fires. None had hit the pilothouses directly. How they could miss at that range was inexplicable, but this often happened in combat. Shots that should have gone astray did not, and dead-certain shots went awry.

The sharp nose of the Not For Hire turned, whether from design or accident, John could not know. Its prow sliced into the giant port wheelguard of the Rex, tearing it off, lifting its many tons up and off and precipitating it into The River. The prow continued on, crushing the paddles, bending the frame of the wheel, and then snapping off the massive wheelshaft. In the midst of the eardrum-shattering explosions, the screech of tearing metal, the screams of men and women, the roar of burning hydrogen, both boats stopped. The impact of the collision hurled everyone who wasn't strapped in to the deck. The prow crumpled in and up, and water poured in through several rents in the hull.

At the same time, the pilot house of the Not For Hire toppled forward. It seemed to those within it, Miller, Clemens, and Byron, the only ones left alive in the structure, that it fell slowly. But it did not, being attracted by gravity as fully as any other object. It crashed upon the foredeck of the hangar deck, and out of it hurled Clemens and Miller. Sam landed on top of the giant, whose own fall was softened somewhat by the padded and insulated uniform and helmet.