THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

Purplish vapors poured out through the hole.

“Poison gas,” Loga said.

The screen shifted the view to the valve room. This was large and on the right-hand wall (from Hermann) a down-curving metal tube came out of the wall about ten feet above the floor. Near it was a small metal box on a table from which thin cables ran to another box. The front of the box had recesses from which the ends of modules stuck out.

Goring crawled to the cube as at least a hundred beamers poured their ravening energy into his suit.

His voice came to the watchers.

“I can’t stand it. I’m going to faint.”

“Hang on, Goring!” Loga said. “A minute more, and you’ll have done it!”

They saw the bulky gray figure grab the cube, turn it over, and let the card module drop out. They saw Hermann pick it up and crawl toward the module box. They heard his scream and saw him fall forward. The module fell from his fingers at the foot of the table.

The scarlet lines continued their fire and did not stop until the armor was riddled with holes.

There was a long silence.

Burton heaved a deep sigh and turned his equipment off. The others did the same. Burton went up onto the platform and stood behind Loga. His screen was still alive, but now it showed a pulsing many-colored figure, a globe-shape with extending and withdrawing tentacles.

Loga was bent forward, his elbows on the edge of the panel, his hands against his face.

Burton said, “What’s that?”

He knew it was the picture of a wathan, but he didn’t know why it was on the screen.

Loga removed his hands and stared at the screen.

“I put a frequency tracker on Goring.”

“That’s he?”

“Yes.”

“Then he didn’t Go On?”

“No. He’s with the others.”

What do we do now?

That was the question of all.

Loga wanted to kill the computer before it captured more wathans, and then he would duplicate it at its predata stage. But he also hoped hopelessly that someone might think of something which would solve the problem before the wathans were released. He was mentally paralyzed and would evidently do nothing unless an impulse broke through and he pressed the fatal button.

The others were thinking hard. They put their speculations, their questions, into their computers. Always, there was some flaw in their schemes.

Burton went down several times to the floor below and stood or paced for hours while he gazed at the splendid spectacle of the swirling wathans. Were his parents among them? Ayesha? Isabel? Walter Scott, the nephew of Sir Walter Scott the author, and a great friend of his in India? Dr. Steinhaeuser? George Sala? Swinburne? His sister and brother? Speke? His grandfather Baker, who’d cheated him out of a fortune by dropping dead just before he could change his will? Bloody-minded and cruel King Gelele of Dahomey, who didn’t know that he was bloody-minded and cruel since he was only doing what his society required of him? Which was no acceptable excuse.

He went to bed exhausted and depressed. He had wished to talk to Alice, but she seemed withdrawn, foundering in her own thoughts. Now, though, she didn’t seem to be in a reverie which would remove her from painful or distasteful reality. She was obviously thinking about their dilemma.

Finally, Burton slipped away. He awoke after six hours, if his watch was correct. Alice was standing over him in the” dim light.

“What’s the matter?” he said drowsily.

“Nothing. I hope. I just came back from the control room.”

“What were you doing there?”

Alice lay down beside him.

“I just couldn’t get to sleep. I kept thinking about this and that, my thoughts were as numerous as the wathans. I tried to keep my mind on the computer, but a thousand things pushed them aside, occupied me for a brief time, then slid away to be replaced by something else. I must’ve reviewed my whole life, here and on Earth.

“I remember thinking about Mr. Dodgson before I finally did sleep. I dreamed a lot, all sorts of dreams, a few good ones, some terrible. Didn’t you hear me screaming once?”