THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

47

THE CHAIR WAS OVERSTUFFED/AND COVERED WITH A SOFT MAterial marked with thin alternating pale-red and pale-green zigzagging lines. Burton brushed the bones from the seat with a callousness which drew a protest from Croomes. He sat down, noting aloud that the chair fitted itself to his body. On the top of each massive arm, near the end, was a wide metal circle.

He gingerly pressed down on the black center of the white disc on his right. Nothing happened.

But when he pressed on the fingertip-thick center on the left, a long thin metal rod slid out.

"Aha!"

He pulled back slowly on the rod.

Nur said, "There's a light coming from beneath the chair."

The chair lifted soundlessly from the floor for a few inches.

"Press on the forward edge of the disc on your right," Frigate said. "Maybe it controls the speed."

Burton frowned because he did not like anyone telling him what to do. But he did use a fingertip to push the metal as suggested. The chair moved toward the ceiling at a very slow rate.

Ignoring the exclamations and several more suggestions, he pushed the lever to dead center. The chair straightened out at a horizontal level, continuing to move forward. He increased its speed, then moved the left-hand rod toward the right. The chair turned with the rod, maintaining its angle—no banking as in an airplane—and headed for the faraway wall. After making the chair go up to the ceiling and then down to the floor, whirling it a few times, and speeding it up to an estimated ten miles per hour, Burton landed the chair.

He was smiling; his black eyes were shiny with eagerness.

"We may have a vehicle to lift us up the shaft!" he cried.

Frigate and some of the others weren't satisfied with the demonstration.

"It must be capable of even greater speed," the American said. "What happens if you have to stop suddenly? Do you hurtle on out of the chair?"

"There's one way of finding out," Burton said. He made the chair lift a few inches, then accelerated it toward the wall, half a mile distant. When he was within twenty yards of the wall, he removed pressure from the right-hand disc. The chair at once slowed down but not so quickly that its passenger was in danger of being ejected. And when it was within five feet of the wall, it stopped.

When he returned, Burton said, "It must have built-in sensors. I tried to ram it into the wall, but it wouldn't do it."

"Fine," Frigate said. "We can try to go through the shaft. But what if the Ethical is observing us now? What if he can cut off the power by remote control? We'd fall to our deaths or at least be stuck halfway between floors."

"We'll go one at a time. Each one will stop off at a floor before the next one goes. He won't be able to catch more than one of us, and the others will be warned."

Though Burton thought that Frigate was too cautious, he had to admit to himself that his speculations were well founded.

"Also," Frigate said, "The two chairs must have been moving when their occupants died. What made the chairs stop?"

"Obviously, the sensors in the chairs," Burton drawled.

"Fine. Then we'll each get a chair and find out how to get used to handling it. After that, what? Up or down?"

"We'll go to the top floor first. I feel that the headquarters, the nerve center of these operations, must be there."

"Then we should go down instead," Frigate said, gri

The fellow had his way of getting back at him. He knew too much about Burton's Earthly life, knew all his faults and failings.

"No," Burton said, "not true. I warned the British government two years before the Sepoy Mutiny happened that it was coming. I was ignored. I was Cassandra then, not Moseilima."

"Touche!" Frigate said.

Gilgamesh pulled up his chair alongside Burton's a few minutes later. He seemed troubled and not well.

"My head still hurts bad. I see things double now and then."

"Can you make it? Or do you wish to stay here and rest?"

The Sumerian shook his massive taurine head.

"No. I wouldn't be able to find you. I just wanted you to know that I'm sick."

Alice must have struck him harder than she'd intended.

Tom Turpin called to Burton then. "Hey, I found out how they get their food here. Look!"

He'd been fiddling around with a big metal box which had many dials and buttons on it. It was set on a table and was co

Turpin opened the glass-fronted door. Within were dishes and cups and cutlery, the dishes full of food and the cups full of liquid.

"This is their equivalent of the grail," Tom said, his pale yellow face smiling. "I don't know what any of the controls except this does, but I punched all the buttons and in a few seconds the whole meal formed before my eyes." He opened the door and removed the contents. "Wow! Smell that beef! And that bread!" Burton thought it would be best to eat now. There would probably be other devices like this elsewhere, but he couldn't be sure. Besides, they were famished.

Turpin tried another combination of buttons and dials. This time, the meal was a melange of French and Italian and Arabic cooking. All items were delicious, though some were under-cooked, and the filet of camel's hump was too highly spiced for most of them. They tried other combinations with some surprising results, not all delightful. By experimentation, Turpin found the dial which regulated the degree of cooking, and they were able to get the meal well-done, medium, medium-rare, or rare. All except Gilgamesh ate voraciously, drank some of the liquor, and lit up the cigarettes and cigars also provided by the box. There was no lack of water; faucets were all over the place.

Afterward, they looked for toilets. These were in some nearby giant cabinets which they'd presumed had contained machinery. The toilets didn't flush; they were holes into which the urine and excrement disappeared before they hit the bottom. Gilgamesh ate some of the bread, then vomited it up. "I can't go with you," he said. He wiped his chin and squirted water from his mouth into a sink. "I'm just too sick." Burton wondered if he were as ill as he said he was. He could be an agent and waiting until he could slip away.

"No, you go with us," he said. "We might not be able to find our way back to you. You'll be comfortable in your chair." He led the others to the shaft. When he took the chair out over the emptiness, he extended a foot to touch below it. His toes met no slight springiness as in the other shaft. Perhaps the presence of the chairs automatically removed the field.

He pulled the rod back and tipped the disc. The chair moved slowly upward, then swiftly as Burton depressed the disc even more. At each bay he saw more corridors and some rooms. The latter were full of strange equipment, but there were no skeletons until he came to the tenth floor. The chamber he looked into was small compared to the one he'd left. It contained twelve large tables on each of which were twelve plates and twelve cups and some skulls and bones. Other bones lay on the chairs or at their feet.

A huge food-box was on a table in the corner.

Burton went on up, stopping now and then, until he arrived at the top of the shaft. The trip had taken fifteen minutes. On one side was another bay with a corridor outside. On his left was a small corridor which quickly opened into a giant one, at least one hundred feet square. After setting the chair down in the larger hallway, he leaned over the shaft and blinked his lantern three times. The answering flashes were tiny but sharp. Nur, the next one, would not make any stops and so would get to Burton in about twelve minutes.

Burton had never been patient except when it was absolutely necessary and often not then. He got back into the chair and moved down the hall. He'd take a six-minute tour and then return to the shaft.