THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

“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 yhat. 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 then 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 heed 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.