“Who knows, Ned? They were aliens.”
“Aliens. Yes.”
15
Boardman remembered that the conversation was incomplete. He tried to be affable. They were comrades in the face of danger. He said, “And which has been the worst place for you so far?”
“That other screen farther back,” Rawlins said. “The one that shows you all the nasty, crawling stuff inside your own mind.”
“Which screen is that?”
“Toward the inside of Zone H. It was a golden screen, fastened to a high wall with metal strips. I looked at it and saw my father, for a couple of seconds. And then I saw a girl I once knew, a girl who became a nun. On the screen she was taking her clothes off. I guess that reveals something about my unconscious, eh? Like a pit of snakes. But whose isn’t?”
“I didn’t see any such things.”
“You couldn’t miss it. It was-oh, about fifty meters after the place where you shot the first animal. A little to your left, halfway up the wall, a rectangular screen—a trapezoidal screen, really, with bright white metal borders, and colors moving on it, shapes—”
“Yes. That one. Geometrical shapes.”
“I saw Maribeth getting undressed,” Rawlins said, sounding confused. “And you saw geometrical shapes?”
16
Zone F could be deadly too. A small pearly blister in the ground opened and a stream of gleaming pellets rolled out. They flowed toward Rawlins. They move with the malevolent determination of a stream of hungry soldier ants. They stung the flesh. He trampled a number of them, but in his annoyance and fervor he almost came too close to a suddenly flashing blue light. He kicked three pellets toward the light and they melted.
17
Boardman had already had much more than enough.
18
Their elapsed time out from the entrance to the maze was only one hour and forty-eight minutes, although it seemed much longer than that. The route through Zone F led into a pink-walled room where jets of steam blew up from concealed vents. At the far end of the room was an irising slot. If you did not step through it with perfect timing, you would be crushed. The slot gave access to a long low-vaulted passageway, oppressively warm and close, whose walls were blood-red in color and pulsated sickeningly. Beyond the passageway was an open plaza in which six slabs of white metal stood on end like waiting swords. A fountain hurled water a hundred meters into the air. Flanking the plaza were three towers with many windows, all of different sizes. Prismatic spotlights played against the windows. No windows were broken. On the steps of one of the towers lay the articulated skeleton of a creature close to ten meters long. The bubble of what was undoubtedly a space helmet covered its skull.
19
Alton, Antonelli, Cameron, Greenfield, and Stein constituted the Zone F camp, the relief base for the forward group. Antonelli and Stein went back to the plaza in the middle of F and found Rawlins and Boardman there.
“It’s just a short way on,” Stein said. “Would you like to rest a few minutes, Mr. Boardman?”
Boardman glowered. They went on.
Antonelli said, “Davis, Ottavio, and Reynolds passed on to E this morning when Alton, Cameron, and Greenfield reached us. Petrocelli and Walker are reconnoitering along the inner edge of E and looking a little way into D. They say it looks a lot better in there.”
“I’ll flay them if they go in,” Boardman said. Antonelli smiled worriedly.
The relief base consisted of a pair of extrusion domes side by side in a little open spot at the edge of a garden. The site had been thoroughly researched and no surprises were expected. Rawlins entered one of the domes and took his shoes off. Cameron handed him a cleanser. Greenfield gave him a food pack. Rawlins felt ill at ease among these men. They had not had the opportunities in life that had been given him. They did not have proper educations. They would not live as long, even if they avoided all of the dangers to which they were exposed. None of them had blond hair or blue eyes, and probably they could not afford to get shape-ups that would give them those qualifications. And yet they seemed happy. Perhaps it was because they never had to stop to confront the moral implications of luring Richard Muller out of the maze.
Boardman came into the dome. It amazed Rawlins how durable and tireless the old man was. Boardman said, laughing, “Tell Captain Hosteen he lost his bet. We made it.”
“What bet?” asked Antonelli.
Greenfield said, “We think that Muller must be tracking us somehow. His movements have been very regular. He’s occupying the back quadrant of Zone A, as far from the entrance as possible—if the entrance is the one he uses—and he swings around in a little arc balancing the advance party.”
Boardman said, “Hosteen gave three to one we wouldn’t get here. I heard him.” To Cameron, who was a communications technician, Boardman said, “Do you think it’s possible that Muller is using some kind of scanning system?”
“It’s altogether likely.”
“Good enough to see faces?”
“Maybe some of the time. We really can’t be sure. He’s had a lot of time to learn how to use this maze, sir.”
“If he sees my face,” said Boardman, “we might as well just go home without bothering. I never thought he might be scanning us. Who’s got the thermoplastics? I need a new face fast.”
20
He did not try to explain. But when he was finished he had a long sharp nose, lean, downcurving lips, and a witch’s chin. It was not an attractive face. But it was not the face of Charles Board-man either.
21
After a night of unsound sleep Rawlins prepared himself to go on to the advance camp in Zone E. Boardman would not be going with him, but they would be in direct contact at all times now. Boardman would see what Rawlins saw, and hear what Rawlins heard. And in a tiny voice Boardman would be able to convey instructions to him.
The morning was dry and wintry. They tested the communications circuits. Rawlins stepped out of the dome and walked ten paces, standing alone looking inward and watching the orange glow of daylight on the pockmarked porcelain-like walls before him. The walls were deep black against the lustrous green of the sky.
Boardman said, “Lift your right hand if you hear me, Ned.” Rawlins lifted his right hand. “Now speak to me.”
“Where did you say Richard Muller was born?”
“On Earth. I hear you very well.”
“Where on Earth?”
“The North American Directorate, somewhere.”
“I’m from there,” Rawlins said.
“Yes, I know. I think Muller is from the western part of the continent. I can’t be sure. I’ve spent only a very little time on Earth, Ned, and I can’t remember the geography. If it’s important, I can have the ship look it up.”
“Maybe later,” said Rawlins. “Should I get started now?”
“Listen to me, first. We’ve been very busy getting ourselves inside this place, and I don’t want you to forget that everything we’ve done up to this point has been a preliminary to our real purpose. We’re here for Muller, remember.”
“Would I forget?”
“We’ve been preoccupied with matters of personal survival. That can tend to blur your perspective: whether you yourself, individually, live or die. Now we take a larger view. What Richard Muller has, whether it’s a gift or a curse, is of high potential value and it’s your job to gain use of it, Ned. The fate of galaxies lies on what happens in the next few days between you and Muller. Eons will be reshaped. Billions yet unborn will have their lives altered for good or ill by the events at hand.”