THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

His flailing hand touched a rope, moved back, felt it, seized it. He was hanging on to a rope the other end of which was tied on to a stanchion from the main deck of his boat. He was near the stern. A few more seconds, and he would have found the boat out of reach.

He was lucky that he had come across the line at once. The River pulled at him, forcing him to clutch the line as tightly as he had the bridge. The Rex’was gone, but it was dragging along a broad and deep hollow, waters whirling and sinking. There was an even greater pull on him as the walls of the whirlpool collapsed.

What had sunk the Rex! A torpedo from the Post No Bills!

He looked up. He couldn’t see Joe’s body hanging from the rope. It could still be there, but the decks were set too far back for him to see Joe from the surface of The River. Was he still hanging? Or had the man who’d lassoed him cut the rope? If so, Joe might have fallen onto the deck below, a long hard fall but still better than plunging into the water. But he could be dead or dying already. That long swing inward, ending up against the metal bulkhead, could have smashed his ribs, caved in his skull.

Never mind Joe now. He had to save himself.

For some time, while the howling and blasting went on above, and occasionally a man or woman would topple over the railing and fall with a splash near him, he hung on to the line. When the sound of immediate battle died down rather suddenly, he started to climb up. It was not easy, since so much of his strength had been squeezed out of him. He finally got his feet against the hull and, leaning outward above the water, pulled himself up puffing and panting, his muscles hurting, until he was near the railing. He eased himself down until his face was against the hull, and he began hauling himself up by his arms alone. Now he wished that he had not avoided daily exercise so much. For several minutes, as he rested, unable to hitch himself up until he had regained his breath, he thought that his clenched hands would come apart. He would drop back into The River and all would be over.

Finally, he got one hand up to grip the upright to the railing. He got his other hand around it. The long painful pull began. Then it was over, and he had managed to throw one leg over the edge of the deck. Wheezing, he squirmed until he had half his body on the deck. Then he was able to roll onto the deck, to lie there face up while he tried to get all the air in the world inside his lungs.

After a while, his narrow chest quit rising and falling so hard, like a pair of worn-out blacksmith’s bellows. He rolled around to look back and up alongside the decks. He still could not see Joe.

Perhaps he was too far away and the angle of sight was too oblique. He needed to get further away, which he could not do, or get upon the same deck.

For that moment, he had to get weapons.- And he also had to get at least a kilt. During his struggle his magnetically attached cloths had come off. Naked I came into this world, and naked… nonsense. He was not leaving. Not yet.

He got unsteadily to his feet. Bodies and parts of bodies lay along the deck in both directions. The parts of bodies or legs stuck out from hatches. Weapons were everywhere. So were cloths.

Shivering from fatigue or fear or both, he stripped a body. The cloths he made into a long kilt and a short cape. A belt went around his waist, a bandolier, over his shoulder; a loaded pistol, into a holster; a cutlass, into his hand. He was armed, but that did not mean that he was ready for combat. He had had enough today to last him for the rest of his life, even if it were a thousand years long.