The Magic Labyrinth (34 page)

Burton grimaced. He disliked beer.

In the morning the two groups went out along the base again. Burton was with the one that went eastward or what he thought was that way. It was difficult to tell direction in this misty twilight. They came to the bottom of the huge cataract. There was no way for them to get across to the other side.

When they got back, Burton spoke to Joe.

“Was the rope on the left or right side of The River?”

Joe, illumined in the beam of a lamp, said, “Thith thide.”

“It seems to me that X might have left another rope on the right side. After all, he wouldn’t know if his henchmen would come up the right or left side.”

“Vell, it theemth to me that ve came up the left thide. But it’th been tho many yearth. Hell, I can’t be thyure!”

The little big-nosed dark Moor, Nur el-Musafir, said, “Unless we can get to the other side—and it doesn’t seem possible—the question is irrelevant. I went westward, and I think that I may be able to get up to the plateau.”

After breakfast, the entire group walked five miles or so to the corner of the mountain and the cliff walls. These met at an approximately 36-degree angle as if they were the walls of a very badly built room, Nur tied a very slender rope around his waist.

“Joe says that it’s about a thousand feet up to the plateau. That’s his estimate based on his memory of its height, and at that time Joe didn’t know the English system of measurement. It might be less than he remembers. Let’s hope so.”

“If you get too tired, come back dovn,” Joe said. “I don’t vant you to fall.”

“Then stand back so I won’t strike you,” Nur said, smiling. “It would hurt my conscience if I hit you and both of us died. Though I think that you wouldn’t be injured any more than if an eagle defecated on you.”

“It vould hurt me a lot,” Joe said. “Eagleth and their crap were taboo to my people.”

“Think of me as a sparrow.”

Nur went to the angle and braced himself, his back against one wall and his feet against the other. He slowly worked his way up the angle, holding his feet against one wall, the left foot extended a few inches more than the right. When his footing was secure, he slid his back upward as far as he could before losing his bracing. Then he would slide one foot up until his knee was almost to his chin. Keeping the one foot against the wall, he would slowly work the other up. Then he would slide his back up, and repeat the same maneuvers.

It wasn’t long before he disappeared into the fog. Those below could tell his progress by the rate at which the slim rope was pulled up. It was very slow.

Alice said, “He’ll have to have tremendous endurance to get to the top. And if he doesn’t find a place to tie his rope to so he can haul up another, he might as well come back down.”

“Let’s hope the cliff isn’t that high,” Aphra Behn said.

“Or that the corner doesn’t widen out,” Ah Qaaq said.

When Burton’s wristwatch indicated that Nur had been up for twenty-eight minutes, they heard him shout.

“Good luck! There’s a ledge here! Large enough for two people to stand on, if you don’t count Joe! And there’s a projection I can tie the rope to!”

Burton looked at the titanthrop.

“Evidently the cliff isn’t glass smooth.”

“Yeah. Vell, I mutht have gone up on the right thide of The River, Dick. That’th thmooth all the vay up. At leatht, the part I vent up on vath ath thlick ath a cat’th athth.”

The Ethicals hadn’t bothered to make the cliff unscalable all the way. They’d made the lower part smooth but had left the upper part, invisible in the fog, in its original state.

Had X been responsible for that decision?

Had he also arranged it so that the corner here, and perhaps the corner across The River, was angled so that a small light person could use his back and legs to get up the angles?

It was very probable.

If he had done so, then he’d planned on arranging this angle before it had been formed. This was no natural formation. The Ethicals had designed and built these mountains with whatever vast machines they had used.

Nur called down for them to fasten a heavier rope to the end of the light one. They did so, and presently he called down that the second rope was secured.

Burton hauled himself up on it, bracing his feet against the cliff, his body extended almost at right angles to it. He was panting and his arms hurt by the time he reached the ledge. Nur, surprisingly strong for such a skinny little man, helped him get up onto the ledge.

Then they hauled up the backpacks.

Nur looked up through the fog.

“The face is rough,” he said. “It looks like I could climb up on the projections if I used the pitons.”

He removed a hammer and some pitons from the pack. The latter were steel wedges which he would drive into the surface of the rock wall. Some of them contained holes through which a rope could be passed.

Nur disappeared into the mists. Burton heard his hammer now and then. After a while, the Moor called down for Burton to come on up. Nur was on another ledge.

“Actually, the surface is so irregular that we might be able to climb just using our hands. But we won’t!”

By then Alice had climbed the rope up to the projection on which Burton stood. Burton kissed her and went on up after Nur.

Ten hours later, the entire group sat on top of the cliff. After they’d recovered, they walked on looking for a place to shelter them from the wind. They found none until they had traversed at least three miles. Here they came, as Joe said they would, to the base of another cliff. To their left The River, some miles away now, roared as it hurtled over the lip of the falls.

Joe played the beam of his lamp along the rock.

“Damme! If I did go up along the right thide of The River, then ve’re thcrewed. The tunnel ith on that thide, and ve can’t get acrothth The River!”

“If the Ethicals found X’s rope and removed it, then they must have found the tunnel,” Burton said.

They were too tired to search for the fissure which would be the gate to the tunnel. They walked along until they came to an overhang. Joe used some of his few remaining sticks to make a small fire, and they ate supper. The fire went out quickly. They piled heavy cloths on the rock floor and more over them and slept while The River thundered.

In the morning, while they were eating dried fish, pemmican, and bread, Nur said, “As Dick’s pointed out, X wouldn’t know which side his recruits would come up. So he must have left two ropes. Therefore, he must have made two tunnels. We should find one on this side.”

Burton opened his mouth to say that that tunnel, if it existed, would also have been plugged. Nur held up his hand to forestall him.

“Yes, I know. But if the plug is thin, we can locate it, and we have the tools to dig through it.”

One search party hadn’t gone more than twenty feet from the camp when it found the plug. It was a few feet inside a fissure broad enough for even Joe to enter.

Great heat had been applied to melt the round plug into the surrounding quartz.

“Hot dog!” Joe said. “Thimmety tham! Maybe ve got a chanthe after all!”

“Perhaps,” de Marbot said. “But what if the entire tunnel is plugged up?”

“Then we try the corner. If X was smart enough, he would’ve figured out that the tunnels might be found. So he would have arranged for a climbable angle here just as he did at the other place.”

Burton scanned the face of the cliff while his lamp poked a bright hole through the fog. Ten feet from the base, the rock was wrinkled and fissured. But it abruptly became as smooth as a mirror from there to as far as he could see.

Joe swung his hammer against the plug. Burton, his ear close to the rock, said, “It’s hollow!”

“Jutht great,” Joe said. He removed several tungsten-steel alloy chisels from his backpack and began hammering. When he’d cut out enough of the quartz to make six holes, he and Burton inserted plastic explosive into them. Burton would have liked to daub clay over the plastic, but there wasn’t any.

He stuck the ends of wires into the plastic and retreated along the face of the cliff, rolling out the wires. When the group was far enough away, he pressed one wire of his small battery against another. The explosions deafened them, and pieces of quartz flew out.

“Vell,” Joe said, “at leatht my burden’ll be lighter nov. I von’t have to carry thothe canth of plathtik and the battery anymore. That’th the end of them.”

They went back into the fissure. Burton shot his light across it. The holes made by Joe had been enlarged. Several of them were big enough for him to see the tunnel beyond it.

He said, “We’ve got about twelve hours more work, Joe.”

“Oh, thyit! Vell, here goeth nothing.”

Shortly after breakfast, the titanthrop hacked out the last piece of rock, and the plug fell out.

“Now cometh the hard part,” Joe said, wiping the sweat off his face and his grotesquely long nose.

The tunnel was just large enough for Joe to crawl up it, but his shoulders would rub against the sides and his head against the ceiling unless he lowered it. It went at an approximately 45-degree angle upward.

“Wrap clothth around your kneeth and handth,” Joe said. “Othervithe, you’re going to rub them bloody. You’ll probably do tho anyvay.”

Frigate, Alice, Behn, and Croomes returned just then with canteens refilled at The River. Joe half-emptied his.

“Now,” he said, “ve thyould vait avhile until everybody’th taken a good healthy thyit. Vhen I vath vith thothe Egyptianth, ve neglected that precauthyon. Halfvay up, I couldn’t thtand it no longer, tho I emptied my bowelth.”

He laughed thunderously.

“You thyould have heard thothe nothelethth little fellowth cuthth! They carried on thomething terrible. They vath hopping mad vith no room to hop! Haw, haw!”

He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Jethuth! Did they thmell bad vhen they finally crawled out! Then they got even madder when they had to vath themthelveth off in The River. That vater’th ath cold ath a velldigger’th athth, ath Tham uthed to thay.”

More tears flowed as he thought about Clemens. He snuffled, and he wiped off his proboscis on his sleeve.

Joe hadn’t exaggerated the hardships. The tunnel was at least one mile long, every inch forward was an inch upward, and the air became increasingly thinner, though it howled through the shaft, and they had to drag their very heavy packs behind them. Moreover, for all they knew, the other end might have been plugged also. If it were, they would have to return to the base of the cliff.

Their joy at finding that the tunnel wasn’t sealed renewed their strength for a while. However, the palms of their hands, their fingers, their knees, and their toes were skinned, bleeding, and hurting. They were unable to walk steadily for some time.

The wind was stronger and colder here despite its thinness. Joe sucked the oxygen-scarce air into his great lungs.

“Vone good thing about it. Ve only need one drink, and ve’re loaded out of our thkullth.”

They would have liked to make camp there, but the place was too exposed.

“Cheer up,” Burton said. “Joe says that it’s only a ten-mile walk to the next cataract.”

“The latht vone, the biggetht. You think the otherth vere noithy. Vait until you hear thith vone.”

Burton strapped on his pack and staggered on, his knees feeling as if they’d rusted. Joe came close behind him. Fortunately, the tableland was comparatively level and free of rock rubble. However, Burton had only the tremendous thunder of the falls to guide him through the fog. When the sound became stronger, he veered back to the left. When it was weaker, he went back to the right. Nevertheless, he was probably making a fifteen-mile hike out of a ten-miler.

All had to stop often because of the lack of oxygen and to make sure that no one straggled. Every fourth person in the line kept his lamp on until Burton stopped and swore.

“Vhat’th the matter?”

“We’re not thinking straight in this air,” Burton said, gasping. “We only need one light. We’re wasting electricity. We can use a rope for all to hang onto.”

With the line tied around his waist and the others grasping it, they went on into the cold grayness.

But after a while they were too weak to go a step more. Despite the wind, they lay down on and under cloths and tried to sleep. Burton awoke from a nightmare and turned his light on his watch. They’d been here ten hours.

He got them up, and they ate more than the rationing schedule allowed for. An hour later, the blackish face of a rock wall loomed out of the mists. They were at the foot of another obstacle.

Joe Miller hadn’t complained much though he had groaned softly for the last half of the hike. He was ten feet tall and weighed eight hundred pounds and was as strong as any ten of Homo sapiens put together. But his giantism had disadvantages. One was that he suffered from fallen arches. Sam often called him the Great Flatfoot, and with very good reason. It hurt Joe to walk much, and when he was resting his feet still often hurt.

“Tham alvayth thaid that if it hadn’t been for our feet, ve vould’ve conquered the vorld,” Joe said. He was rubbing his right foot. “He claimed that it vath our broken-down dogth that made uth ekthinct. He may have been right.”

It was obvious that the titanthrop needed at least two days of rest and therapy. While Burton and Nur, amateur but efficient podiatrists, worked on Joe, the others went out in two parties. They came back several hours later.

Tai-Peng, the leader of one, said, “I couldn’t find the place Joe told us about.”

Ah Qaaq, the other leader, said, “We found it. At least, it looks as if we could climb up there. It’s very near the falls, though.”

“In fact, it’s so close,” Alice said, “that it can’t be seen until you’re almost on it. It’ll be dreadfully dangerous though. Very slippery with the spray.”

Joe groaned, and said, “Nov I remember! It
vath
the right thide that ve vent up on. The Egyptianth vent on it becauthe the left vath unlucky. Thith path mutht be one Ekth plathed here in cathe…”

“I wouldn’t call it a path,” the Mayan said.

“Vell, if it’th like the other plathe, it can be climbed.”

It was, and it could be.

Seven days later, they were on top of the mountain. Snow and ice had made the dangers even greater than anticipated, and the air enfeebled them. Nevertheless, they had struggled up to another plateau. The River was far below, covered by fog.

After a few miles, they descended on a far easier slope. The air was thicker at the bottom and warmer, though still cold. They advanced through an ever-increasing and ever-louder wind until they came to another mountain.

“No uthe even thinking about climbing thith vone. Ve’re lucky, though. The big cave of the vindth thyould be to our right a few mileth. Vell, maybe not tho lucky. You’ll thee vhen ve get there. But that can vait avhile. I got to retht my thon-of-a-bitching feet again.”

The River poured out in a vast and thick stream to descend swiftly down a gentle slope. The roar of water and wind was deafening, but at least it was warmer here. Joe, the veteran of the passage through the cave, led the way. A rope was tied to his waist and tied to the wrists of the others.

Warned by Joe to hang on tight, they went around the corner into the Brobdingnagian hole. Alice slipped and fell off the ledge and was pulled, shrieking, back up. Then Nur, even smaller than she, was blown off, but he too was hauled to safety.

The torches of the Egyptians had been extinguished by the wind when Joe had led them through the bellowing cave. Now, he could see, though not very far. Also, he shouted back to Burton, this ledge was broader than the one on the right.

“Boy, ve’d have been thyit out of luck if the Ethicalth had melted down the ledgeth! I guethth they thought that no vone vould ever get thith far after they took the ropeth avay and plugged the tunnel!”

Burton only heard part of what Joe said but filled in the rest.

They had to stop twice to eat and sleep. Meanwhile, The River gradually dropped away and finally disappeared. Burton, curious to know how deep it was, sacrificed a spare lamp. He counted seconds as its beam turned over and over and became a thread of light before it plunged into the blackness. It had fallen at least three thousand feet.

At last, the grayness that heralded the end of the cave appeared. They came out into the open air, misty but brighter. Above them was a sky which blazed with a multitude of giant stars and gas sheets. The thin cloud closed around them but didn’t block their view of the mountain wall to their right. They were almost on the lip of the abyss at the bottom of which The River ran.

“Ve’re on the wrong thide here,” Joe said. “Ahead, on thith thide a mountain blockth uth. If ve could only get acrothth to the right thide. But then maybe the Ethical left a vay for uth on thith thide.”

“I doubt it,” Burton said. “If he did, we’d have to circle completely around the inner wall of the mountains ringing the sea to get to the cave at the bottom. Unless…”

“Unlethth vhat?”

“Unless X made two caves and put boats there, too.”

Nur said, “One rough ledge they might overlook. But two?”

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Tell you vhat. The two thideth of The Valley here get very clothe at the top. The vallth mutht arch over, lean out. There’th only about tventy feet betveen the edgeth at the top. Here. Let me thyow you.”

He walked slowly ahead and after about sixty feet stopped. His beam, added to theirs, clearly showed the other side of the gap.

“God Almighty!” Aphra said. “The Ethical surely didn’t expect us to jump across it?”

“The other Ethicals wouldn’t think anybody would dare it,” Nur said. “But I think X expected us to, yes. I mean, he knew that at least one, maybe more, of any party that got this far would be able to leap across. After all, he picked some very athletic people. Then that person or persons would tie a rope to a rock, and the rest would go over on it.”

Burton knew that he couldn’t jump that far. He might get close, but close wasn’t good enough.

Joe was stronger than two Hercules melded, but he was far too heavy. Ah Qaaq and Gilgamesh were also very strong but too squat and heavy. Good long jumpers weren’t built like them. Turpin was tall but too muscular. Nur was very light and had a surprising wiry strength, but he was too short. The two white women and de Marbot were also too short and weren’t good jumpers. That left Frigate, Croomes, and Tai-Peng.

The American knew what Burton was thinking. His face was pale. He was even better at long jumping than he’d been on Earth and had once leaped there to an unofficial distance of twenty-five feet during a practice jump but a wind had been behind his back. His normal distance was about twenty-two feet on Earth and twenty-three here. Nor had he ever jumped under such bad conditions.

“We should have brought along Jesse Owens,” he said faintly.

“Hallelujah!” Croomes shrieked, startling the others. “Hallelujah! The Lord saw fit to make me a great jumper! I’m one of His chosen! He saw to it that I could leap like a goat and dance like King David for His glory! And now He gives me a chance to jump over the pit of Hell! Thank you, Lord!”

Burton moved close to Frigate and said, softly, “Are you going to allow a woman to jump first? Show you up?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Frigate said. He shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I let her go first? The problem here is not one of sex but of ability.”

“You’re scared!”

“You bet I am. Anybody but a psychotic would be.”

He went to Blessed Croomes, though, and questioned her about her record. She said that she hadn’t done much jumping on Earth, but, when she was living in a state called Wendisha, she had made twenty-two feet a number of times.

“How did you know it was that?” Frigate said. “We had an exact system of measurement on the
Rex,
but very few places would have such.”

“What we did,” Croomes said, “was guess what a foot was. It looked pretty close to me. Anyway, I know that I can do it! The Lord will buoy me up on the wings of my faith, and I will skip over it like one of His sweet gazelles!”

“Yeah, and you’ll fall short, too, and smash your brains out against the edge of the gap,” Frigate said.

“Why don’t we mark out a distance?” Nur said. “Then you three can practice-jump, and we’ll see who’s the best.”

“On this hard rock? We need a sand pit!”

Croomes said that they should throw a lantern over to the other side to provide a marker. Frigate cast one attached to a rope, so that it lit near the edge, rolled back, then stopped on its side several inches from the dropoff. Its beam pointed at them over the black abysm.

He pulled it back with the rope and threw it again. This time it rolled, but by whipping the rope he got it to an upright position and the light shone at right angles to them.

“Okay, so it can be done,” Frigate said. “But I’ll pull it back now. Nobody can jump until he’s had a good night’s sleep. Anyway,
I’m
too tired now to try it.”

“Let’s line up the run path with lanterns,” Blessed said. “I’d like to get a good idea of how it’ll look.”

They did so, and Frigate and Croomes paced to where they would start their run, if they did. The marker for the leap was a lantern a few inches from the edge.

“It has to be a one-time thing,” Frigate said. “We’ll really have to warm up first. This cold air…On the other hand, the air is thinner and offers less resistance. That probably helped that black jumper—what’s his name? such is fame—make that fabulous twenty-seven feet and four and a half inches in the Olympics at Mexico City. But, back to the first hand, we haven’t really gotten acclimated yet to the high altitude. And we’re sure as hell not in training.”

Burton had said nothing to Tai-Peng since he wished to give him a chance to volunteer. The Chinese had been watching the procedure. Now he strode up to Burton and said, “I am a mighty jumper! I’m also sadly out of practice! But I will not allow a woman to be braver than I! I will make the first jump!”

His green eyes shone in the lantern beam.

Burton asked him what distance he’d cleared.

“More than that!” Tai-Peng said, pointing at the gap.

Frigate had been throwing pieces of paper up in the air to test the wind. He came up to Burton then, saying, “It blows on our left side and so it’ll carry us a little to the right. But the mountain blocks most of it. I’d say it’s a six- or seven-miles-an-hour wind.”

“Thanks,” Burton said. He kept his gaze on the Chinese. Tai-Peng was very good in athletics but not as good as he claimed to be. No one was that good. However, it was his life he was risking, and no one had asked him to do so.

Frigate spoke up loudly.

“Look! I’m really the most experienced jumper! So I should be the one to do it! And I will!”

“You’ve gotten over your fear?”

“Hell, no! What it is…I don’t have the guts to let someone else do it. You’d all think I was a coward, and if you didn’t, I would.”

He turned to Nur.

“I failed to act rationally and logically. I failed you.”

Nur smiled grimly at his disciple.

“You didn’t fail me. You failed yourself. However, there are so many aspects to consider…anyway, you
should
be the one to jump.”

The little Moor went up to the titanthrop and raised his head under Joe’s vast nose.

“It may not be necessary for anyone to jump. Joe, do you think that I weigh as much as your pack?”

Joe frowned, and he picked up Nur with one hand under his buttocks. He held him out at arm’s length and said, “Not by a long thyot.”

When Nur was back on the ground, he said, “Do you think you could throw your pack across to the other side?”

Joe fingered his receding chin. “Veil, maybe. Thay, I thee vhat you’re getting at! Vhy don’t I try it? It von’t make no differenth if the pack’th over there and ve’re over here. Ve got to get acrothth anyvay.”

He lifted the enormous pack above his head, walked to the edge, looked once, swung the pack twice, and heaved it. It fell a foot beyond the other edge.

Nur said, “I thought so. Joe, you throw me across now.”

The titanthrop picked up the Moor with one hand against the little man’s chest and one under his buttocks. Then he swung him back and forth, saying, “Vone, two, three!”

Nur arced across the abyss, landed on his feet a yard beyond the lip, and rolled. When he got up, he danced with joy.

Joe then cast Nur’s lantern at the end of a rope. Nur caught it though he staggered back a little.

Nur came back out of the fog a few minutes later.

“I found a big boulder to tie the rope to, but I can’t move it by myself! We’ll need about five strong men!”

“Over you go!” Joe said, and he swung Burton back and forth. Though Burton wanted to shout that he was much heavier than Nur, he refrained. The gap looked twice as broad as it had up to that moment. Then he was shot up and outward while Joe yelled, “Vatch your athth, Dick!” and his laughter bellowed. The many-thousand-feet abyss was beneath him for a frightening second, and then Burton struck on his feet and was propelled forward. He rolled, but even so the rock thumped him hard.

A moment later, his pack followed. Joe then threw all the packs across, and he lifted Frigate and hurled him on over.

One by one, they followed until Ah Qaaq and Joe were the only ones left. Shouting, “Tho long, fatty!” the titanthrop hurled the Mayan. He hit closer to the edge than anyone but had a foot to spare.

“Now vhat?” Joe yelled.

Burton said, “There’s a big boulder that must weigh almost as much as you, Joe. Go roll it up here, and then tie the end of the rope around it.”

“That’th half a mile back,” Joe said. “Vhy didn’t you all thtay here and help me before you vent over?”

“Didn’t want you to be too tired from moving the rock to throw us across.”

“Jethuth H. Chritht! I do all the hard vork.”

He disappeared with his lantern into the fog.

Some of them were bruised and with torn skin, but all were able to do their share. They followed Nur to the boulder and, after a long rest, they began rolling it over the flat stone surface of the plateau. It wasn’t easy since the rock was irregularly shaped and probably weighed more than all of them together. Rests were frequent because of the thin air. They finally got it near the edge and then collapsed for a while.

A minute later, Joe rolled the boulder from the mists.

“I vath hoping I could beat you runtth to it,” he shouted. “I vould’ve, too, if my boulder had been ath near ath yourth.” He sat down to pant.

Blessed Croomes complained that she had been cheated out of the chance to jump and so demonstrate her faith in the Lord.