THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

He slid backward, his shoulder against the metal. His left hand felt behind him. When he touched the edge of the open hatch, he turned swiftly and went into it. He was in another unlit passageway which went straight to the hatch on the other side. This was open, showing a pale oblong lit only by starlight and a flickering from the burning flight deck. Sam decided to get to that side, and he started trotting. Then he stopped.

It was his duty to ascertain who the men were and what they were doing. He'd feel like a fool if they were his people. And if they weren't, he should determine what they were up to.

Of course, they would be looking into every open entrance before they went past it. He opened the door to a cabin and stepped inside, leaving the door partly open. From this angle, he could see them but they couldn't see him in the darkness.

He had opened another cabin door across the corridor so he could take refuge in that if he had to. He did not want to be trapped.

There was, however, nothing he could do about his situation now. The first of the party had bounded through the opening, stopped against the side of the hatchway, where he was barely visible, and pointed a pistol. A second man also leaped in and hurled himself toward the other side of the hatchway, his pistol ready.

Sam did not fire. If they would only be content to look along the passageway. They were. After several seconds, one said, "All clear!"

Both left for the walkway, and figures began filing past the oblong. The fourth one went by, and Sam gasped. The profile against the indirect light of the stairs was that of a short broad-shouldered man. The figure walked with John's gait. It had been thirty-three years since he had seen the ex-monarch, but he had forgotten little about him.

36

RAGE OVERCAME FEAR, A RAGE THAT WAS A COMPRESSION OF all the rages he'd felt on Earth and here. He did not even think about the consequences. At last! Here it was! Vengeance!

He stepped outside the cabin and went softly across the deck. Though he was so exuberant that he was almost dizzy, he still had not lost all discretion. He wasn't going to warn them so they could shoot him before he got to John.

The only bad part about this was that he'd have to shoot John in the back. The bastard would never know who had killed him. But you couldn't have everything. He desired passionately to call out John's name, identify himself, and then squeeze the trigger. But John's men would shoot him down the second they were aware of his presence.

Just as he reached the hatchway, hell exploded outside. There was a crash of gunfire that deafened him and made him pin himself against the bulkhead as if he were a two-legged butterfly. His fluttering heart was the wings.

More shooting. Cries and screams. A man reeled backward into the passageway. Sam leaped for the open door of the cabin, spun, shut it, then opened it again. He looked through the narrow opening in time to see others come into the passageway. One was the bulky form of John, no mistake about that, outlined briefly against the light.

Sam opened the door fully (thank God it was well oiled!), leaned out, and rapped John over the side of the head with his pistol barrel. John grunted and fell. Sam stooped, dropped the pistol on the chest of the fallen man, gripped him by his long hair, and pulled him into the cabin. Once the feet were past the entrance, he shut the door and pressed the locking button. Outside, the explosions of gunfire were loud, but nothing struck the door. Apparently, the snatching of their leader had happened so swiftly and in such confusion and dark that they had not yet noticed his absence. Perhaps, when they did, they would assume that he had been downed in the corridor.

Sam quivered with delight. He was in great danger, but at the moment that meant nothing. By the Providence that did not exist, events had worked out perfectly. Whatever he had suffered, it was worth it—well, almost worth it. To have his greatest enemy, the only person he had ever really hated, in his power! And in such strange circumstances! Even John, when he awoke, would not be more surprised than he. Truth was stranger than fiction, and he could go on quoting many more cliches.

He pressed the light switch plate with one hand, the pistol held in the other. The ceiling globes shed a flickering light. John groaned, and his eyelids fluttered. Sam tapped him not too lightly on the head again. He did not want to kill him or to damage his brain overly much. John had to have all his senses operating one hundred percent. Otherwise, he wouldn't appreciate to the fullest what had happened to him.

Sam opened the drawers of a chest attached to the bulkhead.

He withdrew some of the thin semitransparent cloths used as brassieres. With these he tied John's hands together behind his back and then bound his feet together. Puffing and grunting, he dragged the unconscious man to a chair bolted to the deck. Managing to get the heavy body onto the chair, he tied John's hands to the rungs of the back. Then he went into the head, drank two cups of water from the faucet, and filled a third cup. As this was done, the faucet rattled, and the flow thi

Sam returned to the main cabin and threw the water in John's face. John gasped, and his eyelids opened. For a minute, he did not seem to know where he was. Then, recognizing Samuel Clemens, his eyes opened fully, and he drew in his breath with a harsh noise as if he had been struck in the pit of his stomach. Where his skin was not covered with smoke, it became gray-blue.

"Yes, it's me, John."

Sam gri

"You can't believe it, can you? But you'll get used to the idea in a moment. Though you won't like getting used to it."

John croaked, "Water!"

Sam looked into the red-shot eyes. Despite his hatred, he felt sorry for John. Not sympathy, just pity. After all, he wouldn't let a rabid dog suffer, would he?

He shook his head. "The water is all gone."

"I'm dying of thirst," John said hoarsely.

Sam snarled, "Is that all you can think about after what you've done to me? After all these years?"

John said, "Satisfy my thirst, and I'll satisfy yours."

His skin had recovered its normal color, and his eyes looked steadily into Sam's. Knowing John, Sam could see what strategy the cu

The hell of it, Sam realized, was that John would succeed.

The anger was draining out of him now. The thirty-three years of vengeance fantasies were blown away like farts in a high wind.

What was left was a man who was basically Christian, though a howling atheist, to use a phrase applied to him by one of his Terrestrial enemies.

He should have shot John in the head the moment he had turned on the light. He should have known what would happen if he did not. But he could not kill a man who was unconscious. Not even King John, whose blood he had lusted for all these years and who had been tortured so ingeniously and so excruciatingly in his daydreams. Never in his night-time dreams. Then it was John who was about to do something to a paralyzed or hopelessly trapped Sam Clemens. Or, mostly, it was Erik Bloodaxe who was about to be revenged upon him.

Sam grimaced and went back into the head. As he suspected, the shower pipes contained enough water for several cupfuls. He drank one and filled a second. Returning to the cabin, he put the cup to his captive's lips and tilted it as the man drank. John smacked his lips and sighed.

"Another, please?"

"Another! Please?" Sam said loudly. "Are you crazy! I just gave you one so you'll be able to stand up to what I'm going to do to you!"