THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

“The vhiskey dearth my kidneyth. Clear kidneyth; clear head. My head, I mean, not the boat’th head.”

“Both heads have a lot in common,” Sam said. “The toilet’s got pipes full of water, and you have water on the brain.”

“You’re chuth talking nathty becauthe you’re nervouth,” Joe said. He patted Sam on the shoulder with fingers the size of bananas.

“Don’t get familiar with the captain,” Sam said: But he felt better. Joe loved him, and he would always be at his side. Could anything bad happen to him while that monster was guarding him? Yes. The boat could be destroyed, Joe or no Joe.

31

THE REX GRANDISSIMUS WAS VISIBLE BY NOW, A WHITE INDIStinct mass moving toward him. As minutes passed, it became sharper. For a moment, Sam Clemens felt a pain in his breast. The Rex had been his first boat, his first love. He had fought to get the metal for it, killed, even slain one of his colleagues for it—where was Erik Bloodaxe now?—helped plan it down to the least bolt, and all that killing and battling and struggle had been negated when King John had stolen it. Now it was his greatest adversary. It was a pity to have to destroy that craft, one of the only two of its kind on the whole planet.

He hated John even more because he was forcing him to sink the beauty. Maybe, though, just maybe the Rex could be boarded and taken. Then both boats could sail on up The River to its headwaters.

Sam had always seesawed from deepest pessimism to wildest optimism.

“Two and a half miles now,” the radar operator said.

“Any blips on the Goosel”

“No… yes, sir! Got some! It’s three miles to the starboard, just above the hills!”

“Sir, the enemy vessel is turning to starboard,” the radarman said.

Sam looked out the fore port. Sure enough, the Rex was swinging around. And as the Not For Hire plowed toward it, the Rex presented its stern.

“Vhat in hell’th he doing?”

“He can’t be running away!” Sam said. “Whatever else the sneaky bastard is, he’s not a coward. Besides, his men wouldn’t let him. No, he’s up to something devious.”

“Perhaps,” Detweiller said, “the Rex has some mechanical difficulty?”

“If it does, we can catch it,” Sam said. “Radar, check its speed.”

“Enemy vessel is making thirty-five miles per hour, due west, sir.”

“Against the current and wind, that’s top speed,” Sam said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing I can see, anyway. Why in blue jumping blazes are they running? They haven’t got any place to hide.”

Sam paused, rolling his eyes as if they were looking for an idea. He said, “Sonar! Do you pick up any foreign object! Say, something that could be a mine?”

“No, sir. All clear underwater except for some schools of fish.”

“It’d be just like John to make some mines and scatter them in our path,” Sam said. “I’d do it myself if the situations were reversed.”

“Yeth, but he knowth ve have thonar.”

“I’d try it anyway. Sparks, tell Anderson to hold off until we’re engaged or until further orders.”

The radio operator transmitted the message to the pilot of the Goose, lan Anderson. He was a Scot who had flown a British torpedo-bomber during World War II. His gunner, Theodore Zaimis, was a Greek who had been a tail-gunner in an RAF Handley Page Halifax on its night raids over France and Germany in the same war.

Anderson reported that he understood. Radar followed the Goose as it maintained a more or less level course eastward.

As the sun slowly arced downward, the Not For Hire decreased the gap between it and the Rex.

“Maybe John doesn’t know how fast this boat can go,” Sam muttered as he paced back and forth. He looked at the crowds on both banks and on the spires and bridges. “Why do they stand around gawking? Don’t they know rockets and shells are likely to be landing among them? That’s the least John could have done, warn them!”

The great red-and-black stone temple came into view, loomed, then dwindled. Now the pursuer was only half a mile behind the pursued. Sam gave Detweiller orders to ease up on the speed.