THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

The woman said, "What about this dirigible we've heard rumors of? Why didn't you go on that instead of the boat? You could have gotten to the headwaters in a few days instead of the thirty or forty years it'll take you on the boat."

That was a subject Sam didn't like to talk about. The truth was that no one had even thought of an airship until shortly before the Not For Hire was to set out. Then a German dirigible man named von Parseval had come along and asked why he hadn't built the ship.

Sam's chief engineer, Milton Firebrass, an ex-astronaut, had liked the suggestion. So he'd stayed behind when the Not For Hire left, and he'd constructed the floating vessel. He'd kept in radio contact with the boat, and when the ship did get to the tower, he'd reported that it was a little over a mile high and almost ten miles in diameter. The Parseval had landed on its top, but only one of its crew, a Japanese ex-blimp man and Sufi who called himself Piscator, had been able to enter. The others had been restrained by some invisible but tangible force. Before that, an officer named Barry Thorn had placed a bomb on the helicopter carrying Firebrass and some others on a scouting landing. He'd set the bomb off with a radio signal and then stolen a helicopter and flown off the dirigible. But he'd been wounded, and the copter had crashed at the base of the tower.

Thorn was brought back to the dirigible and questioned. He refused to give information, but he was visibly shocked when he heard that Piscator had gotten into the tower.

Clemens suspected that Thorn was either an Ethical or one of their subordinates, whom the X's recruits called agents.

He also had some suspicions that Firebrass had been one or the other. And perhaps the woman who'd died in the explosion of the helicopter, A

Sam had concluded from his examination of all available evidence that something had long ago stranded a number of agents and perhaps some Ethicals in The Valley. X was probably one of them. Which meant that agents and Ethicals would have to use the same means as the Valley-dwellers to get to the tower. Which meant that there were probably some disguised agents or Ethicals or both on his boat. Which meant that there were probably also some on the Rex.

Just why the Ethicals and agents hadn't been able to use their aircraft to return to the tower, he didn't know.

By now he'd reasoned that anyone who claimed to have lived after A.D. 1983 was one of the beings responsible for the Riverworld. It was his idea that the post-1983 story was false and was a code which enabled them to recognize each other.

He also reasoned that some of them might have figured that X's recruits suspected this story-code. Therefore, they would be dropping that story.

Clemens said to the woman, "The airship was supposed to be a scout, to find out the lay of the land. Its captain was under orders, however, to get into the tower if it was possible. Then he was to return to the boat and pick up myself and some others. But no one but a Sufi philosopher named Piscator could get in, and he didn't come back out. On the way back, its captain, a woman named Jill Gulbirra, who took over when Firebrass was killed, sent a raiding expedition in a copter against the Rex. King John was captured, but he escaped by jumping from the copter. I don't know whether or not he survived. The aircraft flew back to the Parseval and continued on its course to the Not For Hire. Then Gulbirra reported sighting a very large balloon and was heading for it when Thorn got loose again. He flew off in a copter. Gulbirra, suspecting he'd planted a bomb, searched for it. None was found, but she couldn't take a chance that there wasn't one. She dived the dirigible toward the ground. She wanted to get her crew off just in case there was a bomb.

"Then she reported that there was an explosion. That was the last we heard from the Parseval."

The woman said, "We've heard rumors that it crashed many thousands of miles up-River. There was only one survivor."

"Only one! My God, who was he? Or she?"

"I don't know his name. But I heard that he was a Frenchman."

Sam groaned. There was just one Frenchman on the airship. Cyrano de Bergerac, with whom Sam's wife had fallen in love. Of all the crew, he was the only one whom Sam would not have sorrowed over.

6

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN SAM SAW THE STRANGE BEING who was even more grotesque than Joe Miller. Joe was at least human, but this person had obviously not been born on Earth.

Sam knew at once that the being had to be one of the small group from a planet of Tau Ceti. His informant, the late Baron John de Grey stock, had known one of them. According to his story, the Tau Cetans, in the early twenty-first century, had put into orbit a smaller vessel around Earth before descending in the great mothership to the surface. They'd been welcomed, but then one of them, Monat, had said on a TV talk show that the Cetans had the means for extending their lives to centuries. The Earthpeople had demanded that this knowledge be given them. When the Cetans had refused, saying that the Terrestrials would abuse the gift of longevity, mobs had lynched most of the Cetans and then stormed the spaceship. Reluctantly, Monat had activated a sca

He had set the death-beams into operation because he feared that Terrestrials would use the spaceship as a model to build more ships and then would go to his native planet and war against it, perhaps destroy all his people. He didn't know whether or not they would actually do that, but he couldn't take the chance.

The Cetan was standing up somewhat precariously in a narrow dugout and waving frantically at the Not For Hire. Obviously, he wanted aboard. So did a lot of people, Sam thought, but they don't get their wish. This, however, was, if not a horse of a different color, a biped neither bird or man. So Sam told the pilot to make a circle and then come alongside the dugout.

Presently, while the gaping crew lined the exterior passageways, the Cetan climbed a short ladder to the boiler deck. His companion, an ordinary-looking human male, followed him. The dugout drifted away to be grabbed by whoever got to it first.

Escorted by two marines and General Ely S. Parker himself, the two were soon in the control room. Sam, speaking Esperanto, shook their hands, introduced himself and the others, and then they introduced themselves.

"I am Monat Grrautut," the biped said in a deep rich voice.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Sam said. "The very one!"

Monat smiled, exposing human-looking teeth.

"Ah, then you've heard of me."

"You're the only Tau Cetan whose name I know," Sam said. "I've been sca

"I'm not from a planet of Tau Ceti," Monat said. "That was the story we gave when we came to Earth. Actually, I'm from a planet of the star Arcturus. We misled the Terrestrials just in case they proved to be warlike and then..."

"Good thinking," Sam said. "Though you were a little tough on Earthpeople, as I understand. However, why did you stick to that story when you were resurrected here—without your permission?"

Monat shrugged. How humanlike, Sam thought.

"Habit, I suppose. Also', I wanted to make sure the Terrestrials still didn't represent a danger to my people."

"I can't blame you."

"When I knew positively that Earthpeople were no danger, I told the true story of my origin."