A Maze of Death

10

As the raft drifted downstream, Ned Russell stood staring off in the distance, cloaked by his own thoughts.

“What are you looking for?” Seth Morley asked him.

Russell pointed. “There, I see one.” He turned to Maggie. “Isn’t that one of them?”

“Yes,” she said. “The Grand Tench. Or else one almost as large as he.”

“What kind of questions have you asked them?” Russell said.

Showing surprise, Maggie said. “We don’t ask them anything; we have no way of communicating with them—they don’t have a language or vocal organs insofar as we can determine.”

“Telepathically?” Russell said.

“They’re not telepathic,” Wade Frazer said. “And neither are we. All they do is print duplicates of objects… which puddle in a few days.”

“They can be communicated with,” Russell said. “Let’s steer this raft over into the shallows; I want to consult with your tench.” He slid from the raft, into the water. “All of you get off and help me guide it.” He seemed determined; his face was relatively firm. So, one by one, they slid into the water, leaving only B .J. ‘s silent body aboard the raft.

In a matter of minutes they had pushed the raft up against the grass-covered shore. They moored it firmly—by shoving it deep into the gray mud—and then crawled up onto the bank.

The cube of gelatinous mass towered over them as they approached it. The sunlight danced in a multitude of flecks, as if caught within it. The interior of the organism glowed with activity.

It’s bigger than I expected, Seth Morley said to himself. It looks—ageless. How long do they live? he wondered.

“You put articles in front of it,” Ignatz Thugg said, “and it pushes a hunk of itself out, and then that hunk forms into a duplicate. Here, I’ll show you.” He tossed his wet wristwatch onto the ground before the tench. “Duplicate that, you jello,” he said.

The gelatin undulated, and presently, as Thugg had predicted, a section of it oozed out to come to rest beside the watch. The color of the production altered; it became silver-like. And then it flattened. Design appeared in the silver substance. Several more minutes passed, as if the tench were resting, and then all at once the excreted product sank into the shape of a leather-bound disk. It looked exactly like the true watch beside it… or rather almost exactly, Seth Morley noted. It was not as bright; it had a dulled quality. But—it was still basically a success.

Russell seated himself in the grass and began to search through his pockets. “I need a dry piece of paper,” he said.

“I have some in my purse that’re still dry,” Maggie Walsh said. She rummaged in her purse, handed him a small tablet. “Do you need a pen?”

“I’ve got a pen.” He wrote darkly on the top sheet of paper. “I’m asking it questions.” He finished writing, held the sheet of paper up, and read from it. “‘How many of us will die here at Delmak-O?’” He folded the paper and placed it before the tench, next to the two wristwatches.

More of the tench’s gelatin burbled out, to come to rest in a mound beside Russell’s piece of paper.

“Won’t it simply duplicate the question?” Seth Morley asked.

“I don’t know,” Russell asked. “We’ll see.” Thugg said, “I think you’re barmy.” Eyeing him, Russell said, “You have a strange idea, Thugg, of what’s ‘barmy’ and what isn’t.”

“Is that meant to be an insult?” Thugg flushed an angry red.

Maggie Walsh said, “Look. The duplicate piece of paper is forming.”

Two folded sheets of tablet paper rested directly in front of the tench. Russell waited a moment, then, evidently deciding that the duplicating process had finished, took the two sheets, unfolded both of them, studied them for a long time.

“Did it answer?” Seth Morley said. “Or did it repeat the question?”

“It answered,” Russell handed him one of the sheets of paper.

The note was short and simple. And impossible to misinterpret. You will go out onto your compound and not see your people.

“Ask it who our enemy is,” Seth Morley said. “Okay.” Russell wrote again, placed the sheet of paper, folded, before the tench. “‘Who is our enemy?’” he said. “That’s so to speak the ultimate question.”

The tench fashioned an answering slip, which Russell at once grabbed. He studied it intently, then read it aloud. “Influential circles.”

“That doesn’t tell us much,” Maggie Walsh said.

Russell said, “Evidently that’s all it knows.”

“Ask it, ‘What should we do?’” Seth Morley said. Russell wrote that, again placing the question before the tench. Presently he had the answer; again he prepared to read aloud. “This is a long one,” he said apologetically.

“Good,” Wade Frazer said. “Considering the nature of the question.”

Russell read, “There are secret forces at work, leading together those who belong together. We must yield to this attraction; then we make no mistakes.” He pondered. “We shouldn’t have split up; the seven of us shouldn’t have left the settlement. If we had stayed there Miss Berm would still be alive. It’s obvious that from now on we must keep one another in visual sight all the—” He broke off. An additional glob of gelatin was extruding from the tench. Like those before, it formed into a folded slip of paper. Russell took it, opened and read it. “Addressed to you,” he said, and handed it to Seth Morley.

“Often a man feels an urge to unite with others, but the individuals around him have already formed themselves into a group, so that he remains isolated. He should then ally himself with a man who stands nearer to the center of the group and can help him gain admission to the closed circle.” Seth Morley crumpled up the slip of paper and dropped it onto the ground. “That would be Belsnor,” he said. “The man who stands nearer to the center.” It’s true, he thought; I am outside and isolated. But in a sense all of us are. Even Belsnor.

“Maybe it means me,” Russell said.

“No,” Seth Morley said. “It’s Glen Belsnor.”

Wade Frazer said, “I have a question.” He held out his hand and Russell passed him the pen and paper. Frazer wrote rapidly, then, finished, read them his question. “‘Who or what is the man calling himself Ned Russell?’” He placed that question in front of the tench.

When the answer appeared, Russell took it. Smoothly and without effort; one moment it lay there and the next he had it in his hand. Calmly, he read it to himself. Then, at last, he passed it to Seth Morley and said, “You read it aloud.”

Seth Morley did so. “Every step, forward or backward, leads into danger. Escape is out of the question. The danger comes because one is too ambitious.” He handed the slip over to Wade Frazer.

“It doesn’t tell us a damn thing,” Ignatz Thugg said.

“It tells us that Russell is creating a situation in which every move is a losing move,” Wade Frazer said. “Danger is everywhere and we can’t escape. And the cause is Russell’s ambition.” He eyed Russell long and searchingly. “What’s your ambition all about? And why are you deliberately leading us into danger?”

Russell said, “It doesn’t say I’m leading you into danger, it just says that the danger exists.”

“What about your ambition? It’s plainly referring to you.”

“The only ambition I have,” Russell said, “is to be a competent economist, doing useful work. That’s why I asked for a work-transfer; the job I was doing—through no fault of my own—was insipid and worthless. That’s why I was so glad to be transferred here to Delmak-O.” He added, “My opinion has somewhat changed since I arrived here.”

“So has ours,” Seth Morley said.

“Okay,” Frazer said fussily. “We’ve learned a little from the tench but not much. All of us will be killed.” He smiled a mirthless, bitter smile. “Our enemy is ‘influential circles.’ We must stay in close proximity to one another, otherwise they’ll knock us off one by one.” He pondered. “And we’re in danger, from every direction; nothing we can do will change that. And Russell is a hazard to us, due to his ambition.” He turned toward Seth Morley and said, “Have you noticed how he’s already taken over as leader of the six of us? As if it’s natural to him.”

“It is natural to me,” Russell said.

“So the tench is right,” Frazer said.

After a pause, Russell nodded. “I suppose so, yes. But someone has to lead.”

“When we get back,” Seth Morley said, “will you resign and accept Glen Belsnor as the group’s leader?”

“If he’s competent.”

Frazer said. “We elected Glen Belsnor. He’s our leader whether you like it or not.”

“But,” Russell said, “I didn’t get a chance to vote.” He smiled. “So I don’t consider myself bound by it.”

“I’d like to ask the tench a couple of questions,” Maggie Walsh said. She took the pen and paper and wrote painstakingly. “I’m asking. ‘Why are we alive?’” She placed the paper before the tench and waited.

The answer, when they had obtained it, read:

To be in the fullness of possession and at the height of power.

“Cryptic,” Wade Frazer said. “‘The fullness of possession and the height of power.’ Interesting. Is that what life’s all about?”

Again Maggie wrote. “I’m now asking, ‘Is there a God?’ She placed the slip before the tench and all of them, even Ignatz Thugg, waited tensely.

The answer came.

You would not believe me.

“What’s that mean?” Ignatz Thugg said hotly. “It doesn’t mean nothing; that’s what it means. Doesn’t mean.”

“But it’s the truth,” Russell pointed out. “If it said no, you wouldn’t believe it. Would you?” He turned questioningly toward Maggie.

“Correct,” she said.

“And if it said there was?”

“I already believe it.”

Russell, satisfied, said, “So the tench is right. It makes no difference to any of us what it says in answer to a question like that.”

“But if it said yes,” Maggie said. “then I could be sure.”

“You are sure,” Seth Morley said.

“Sweet Jesus,” Thugg said. “The raft is on fire.” Leaping up they saw flames billowing and leaping; they heard now the crackle of the wood as it heated up, burned, became glowing ash. The six of them sprinted toward the river… but, Seth Morley realized, we’re too late.

Standing on the bank they watched helplessly; the burning raft had begun to drift out into the center of the water. It reached the current and, still engulfed by fire, it drifted downstream, became smaller, became, at last, a spark of yellow fire. And then they could no longer see it.

After a time Ned Russell said, “We shouldn’t feel badly. That’s the Norse way of celebrating death. The dead Viking was laid on his shield, on his boat, and the boat was set on fire and sent drifting out to sea.”

Meditating, Seth Morley thought, Vikings. A river, and, beyond it, a mystifying building. The river would be the Rhein and the Building would be Waihalla. That would explain why the raft, with Betty Jo Berm’s body on it, caught fire and drifted away. Eerie, he thought, and shivered.

“What’s the matter?” Russell asked, seeing his face.

“For a moment,” he said, “I thought I understood.” But it couldn’t be; there had to be another explanation.

The tench, answering questions, would be—he could not remember her name, and then it came to him. Erda. The goddess of the earth who knew the future. Who answered questions brought to her by Wotan.

And Wotan, he thought, walks among the mortals in disguise. Recognizable only by the fact that he had but one eye. The Wanderer, he is called.

“How’s your vision?” he asked Russell. “Twenty-twenty in both eyes?”

Startled, Russell said, “No—actually not, as a matter of fact. Why do you ask?”

“One of his eyes is false,” Wade Frazer said. “I’ve been noticing. The right one is artificial; it sees nothing, but the muscles operate it, moving it as if it were real.”

“Is that true?” Seth Morley asked.

“Yes.” Russell nodded. “But it’s none of your business.” And Wotan, Seth Morley recalled, destroyed the gods, brought on die Gotterdammerung, by his ambition. What was his ambition? To build the castle of the gods: Walhalla. Well, Walhalla had been built, all right; it bore the legend Winery. But it was not a winery.

And, at the end, he thought, it will sink into the Rhein and disappear. And the Rheingold will return to the Rhein Maidens.

But that has not happened yet, he reflected.

Specktowsky had not mentioned this in his Book!

Trembling, Glen Belsnor laid the pistol down on the chest of drawers to his right. Before him on the floor, still clutching the great golden sword, lay Tony Dunkelwelt. A tiny flow of blood from his mouth trickled down his cheek and drip-dripped onto the handmade rug which covered the plastic floor.

Having heard the shot, Dr. Babble came running up. Puffing and wheezing he halted at Bert Kosler’s body on the porch, turned the withered old body over, examined the sword wound… then, seeing Glen Belsnor, he entered the room. Together the two of them stood gazing down.

“I shot him,” Glen Belsnor said. His ears still rang from the noise of the shot; it had been an ancient lead slug pistol, part of his collection of odds and ends that he carried everywhere he went. He pointed out onto the porch. “You saw what he did to old Bert.”

“And he was going to stab you, too?” Babble asked.

“Yes,” Glen Belsnor got out his handkerchief and blew his nose; his hand shook and he felt satanically miserable. “What a hell of a thing,” he said, and heard his voice wobble with grief. “To kill a kid. But Christ—he would have gotten me, then you, and then Mrs. Rockingham.” The thought of anyone killing the distinguished old lady… that, more than anything else, had prompted him to act. He could have run away; so could Babble. But not Mrs. Rockingham.

Babble said, “Obviously, it was Susie Smart’s death that made him psychotic, that brought on his break with reality. He undoubtedly blamed himself for it.” He stooped, picked up the sword. “I wonder where he got this. I’ve never seen it before.”

“He always was on the verge of a breakdown,” Glen Belsnor said. “With those goddam ‘trances’ he went into. He probably heard the voice of God telling him to kill Bert.”

“Did he say anything? Before you killed him?”

“‘I killed the Form Destroyer.’ That’s what he said. And then he pointed at Bert’s body and said, ‘See?’ Or something like that.” He shrugged weakly. “Well, Bert was very old. Very much decayed. The handiwork of the Form Destroyer was all over him, God knows. Tony seemed to recognize me. But he was completely insane anyhow. It was all crap he was saying, and then he went for the sword.”

They were both silent for a time.

“Four dead now,” Babble said. “Maybe more.”

“Why do you say ‘maybe more’?”

Babble said, “I’m thinking of those who left the settlement this morning. Maggie, the new man Russell, Seth and Mary Morley—”

“They’re probably all right.” But he did not believe his own words. “No,” he say savagely, “they’re probably all dead. Maybe all seven of them.”

“Try to calm down,” Babble said; he seemed a little afraid. “Is that gun of yours still loaded?”

“Yes.” Glen Belsnor picked it up, emptied it, handed the shells to Babble. “You can keep them. No matter what happens I’m not going to shoot anyone else. Not even to save one of the rest of us or all of the rest of us.” He made his way to a chair, seated himself, clumsily got out a cigarette and lit up.

“If there’s a court of inquiry,” Babble said, “I’ll be glad to testify that Tony Dunkelwelt was psychiatrically insane. But I can’t testify to his killing old Bert, or attacking you. I mean to say, I have only your verbal report for that.” He added quickly, “But of course I believe you.”

“There won’t be any inquiry.” He knew it was an absolute verity; there was no doubt in him on that score. “Except,” he said, “a posthumous one. Which won’t matter to us.”

“Are you keeping a log of some sort?” Babble asked.

“No.”

“You should.”

“Okay,” he snarled, “I will. But just leave me alone, goddam it!” He glared at Babble, panting with anger. “Lay off!”

“Sorry,” Babble said in a small voice, and shrank perceptibly away.

Glen Belsnor said, “You and I and Mrs. Rockingham may be the only ones alive.” He felt it intuitively, in a rush of comprehension.

“Perhaps we should round her up and stay with her. So that nothing happens to her.” Babble cringed his way to the door.

“Okay.” He nodded irritably. “You know what I’m going to do? You go stay with Mrs. Rockingham; I’m going to go over Russell’s possessions and his noser. Ever since you and Morley brought him around last night I’ve been wondering about him. He seems odd. Did you get that impression?”

“It’s just that he’s new here.”

“I didn’t feel that way about Ben Tallchief. Or the Morleys.” He got abruptly to his feet. “You know what occurred to me? Maybe he picked up the aborted signal from the satellite. I want to get a good look at his transmitter and receiver.” Back to what I know, he pondered. Where I don’t feel so alone.

Leaving Babble, he made his way toward the area in which all the nosers lay parked. He did not look back.

The signal from the satellite, he reasoned, short as it was, may have brought him here. He may have been already in the area, not on his way here but preparing a flyby. And yet he had transfer papers. The hell with it, he thought, and began taking apart the radio equipment of Russell’s noser.

Fifteen minutes later he knew the answer. Standard receiver and transmitter, exactly like the others in all their other nosers. Russell would not have been able to pick up the satellite’s signal because it was a flea-signal. Only the big receiver on Delmak-O could have monitored it. Russell had come in on the automatic pilot, like everybody else. And in the way that everybody else arrived.

So much for that, he said to himself.

Most of Russell’s possessions remained aboard the noser; he had only carried his personal articles from the noser to his living quarters. A big box of books. Everybody had books. Glen Belsnor idly tossed the books about, prowling deep in the carton. Textbook after textbook on economics; that figured. Microtapes of several of the great classics, including Tolkien, Milton, Virgil, Homer. All the epics, he realized. Plus War and Peace, as well as tapes of John Dos Passos’ U.S.A. I always meant to read that, he said to himself.

Nothing about the books and tapes struck him as odd. Except …

No copy of Specktowsky’s Book.

Maybe Russell, like Maggie Walsh, had memorized it.

Maybe not.

There was one class of people who did not carry a copy of Specktowsky’s Book—did not carry it because they were not allowed to read it. The ostriches shut up in the planetwide aviary at Terra: those who lived in the sandpile because they had crumbled under the enormous psychological pressure suffered while emigrating. Since all the other planets of the Sol System were uninhabitable, emigration meant a trip to another star system … and the insidious beginning, for many, of the space illness of loneliness and uprootedness.

Maybe he recovered, Glen Belsnor reflected, and they let him loose. But they then would have made sure he owned a copy of Specktowsky’s Book; that would be the time when one really needed it.

He got away, he said to himself.

But why would he come here?

And then he thought, The Interplan West base, where General Treaton operates, is on Terra, tangent to the aviary. What a coincidence. The place, evidently, where all the nonliving organisms on Delmak-O had been constructed. As witness the inscription in the tiny replica of the Building.

In a sense it fits together, he decided. But in another sense it adds up to zero. Plain, flat zero.

These deaths, he said to himself, they’re making me insane, too. Like they did poor nutty Tony Dunkelwelt. But suppose: a psychological lab, operated by Interplan West, needing aviary patients as subjects. They recruit a batch—those bastards would, too—and one of them is Ned Russell. He’s still insane, but they can teach him; the insane can learn, too. They give him a job and send him out to do it—send him here.

And then a gross, vivid, terrifying thought came to him. Suppose we’re all ostriches from the aviary, he said to himself. Suppose we don’t know; Interplan West cut a memory conduit in our friggin’ brains. That would explain our inability to function as a group. That’s why we can’t really even talk clearly to one another. The insane can learn, but one thing they can’t do is to function collectively… except, perhaps, as a mob. But that is not really functioning in the sane sense; that is merely mass insanity.

So we are an experiment, then, he thought. I now know what we wanted to know. And it might explain why I have that tattoo stuck away on my right instep, that Persus 9.

But all this was a great deal to base on one slim datum: the fact that Russell did not possess a copy of Specktowsky’s Book.

Maybe it’s in his goddam living quarters, he thought all at once. Christ, of course; it’s there.

He departed from the assembly of nosers; ten minutes later he reached the common and found himself stepping up onto the porch. The porch where Susie Smart had died—opposite to the porch where Tony Dunkelwelt and old Bert had died.

We must bury them! he realized.—And shrank from it.

But first: I’ll look at Russell’s remaining stuff.

The door was locked.

With a prybar—taken from his rolypoly aggregate of worldly goods, his great black crowish conglomeration of junk and treasures—he forced open the door.

There, in plain sight, on the rumpled bed, lay Russell’s wallet and papers. His transfer, his everything else, back to his birth certificate; Glen Belsnor pawed through them, conscious that here he had something. The chaos attendant on Susie’s death had confused them all; undoubtedly Russell had not meant to leave these here. Unless he was not accustomed to carrying them… and the ostriches at the aviary did not carry identification of any sort.

At the door appeared Dr. Babble. In a voice shrill with panic he said, “I—can’t find Mrs. Rockingham.”

“The briefing room? The cafeteria?” She may have gone off for a walk, he thought. But he knew better. Roberta Rockingham could scarcely walk; her cane was essential to her, due to a long-term circulatory ailment. “I’ll help look,” he grunted; he and Babble hurried from the porch and across the common, hiking aimlessly; Glen Belsnor stopped, realizing that they were simply running in fear. “We have to think,” he gasped. “Wait a minute.” Where the hell might she be? he asked himself. “That fine old woman,” he said in frenzy and in despair. “She never did any harm to anyone in her life. Goddam them, whoever they are.”

Babble nodded glumly.

She had been reading. Hearing a noise, she glanced up. And saw a man, unfamiliar to her, standing in the entrance-way of her small, neatly-arranged room.

“Yes?” she said, politely lowering her microtape scanner. “Are you a new member of the settlement? I haven’t seen you before, have I?”

“No, Mrs. Rockingham,” he said. His voice was kind and very pleasant, and he wore a leather uniform, complete with huge leather gloves. His face gave off a near radiance… or perhaps her glasses had steamed up, she wasn’t sure. His hair, cut short, did gleam a little, she was positive of that. What a nice expression he has, she declared to herself. So thoughtful, as if he has thought and done many wonderful things.

“Would you like a little bourbon and water?” she asked. Toward afternoon she generally had one drink; it eased the perpetual ache in her legs. Today, however, they could enjoy the Old Crow bourbon a little earlier.

“Thank you,” the man said. Tall, and very slender, he stood at the doorway, not coming fully in. It was as if he were in some way attached to the outside; he could not fully leave it and would soon go back to it entirely. I wonder, she thought, could he be a Manifestation, as the theological people of this enclave call it? She peered at him in an effort to distinguish him more clearly, but the dust on her glasses—or whatever it was—obscured him; she could not get a really clear view.

“I wonder if you might get it,” she said, pointing. “There’a a drawer in that somewhat shabby little table by the bed. You’ll find the bottle of Old Crow in there, and three glasses. Oh dear; I don’t have any soda. Can you enjoy it with just bottled tapwater? And no ice?”

“Yes,” he said, and walked lightly across her room. He had on tall boots, she observed. How very attractive.

“What is your name?” she inquired.

“Sergeant Ely Nichols.” He opened the table drawer, got out the bourbon and two of the glasses. “Your colony has been relieved. I was sent here to pick you up and fly you home. From the start they were aware of the malfunctioning of the satellite’s tape-transmission.”

“Then it’s over?” she said, filled with joy.

“All over,” he said. He filled the two glasses with bourbon and water, brought her hers, seated himself in a straightbacked chair facing her. He was smiling.