THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

Surprisingly, Mix blushed. When she had hip-swayed away, he said, “Too bold and brassy for me.”

Two days later, they were living together.

Burton was not content to admit that the resemblance of the two Frigates was just a coincidence. Whenever he had a chance, he talked to the fellow, delving into his background. What startled him was the discovery that this Frigate, like the other, had been a student of his, Burton’s, life.

The American, in his turn, had been watching Burton, though covertly. Every once in a while, Burton caught him staring at him. One night, Frigate cornered him in the grand salon. After looking around to make sure their conversation wasn’t overheard, the American said, without preamble and in English, “I’m familiar with the various portraits of Richard Francis Burton. I even had a big blowup of him when he was fifty on the wall in front of my desk. So I think I could recognize him without his mustachios and his forked beard.”

“Yaas?”

“I recall well a photograph of him taken when he was about thirty. He had only a mustache then, though it was very thick. If I mentally remove the lip-hair…”

“Yaas?”

“Burton looks remarkably like a certain Dark-Ages Welshman I know. The name he claims is Gwalchgwynn, which, translated into English, is white hawk. Gwalchgwynn is an early form of the Welsh name which became better known much later as Gawain. And Gawain was the knight who, in the earlier King Arthur cycles, was first to seek the Holy Grail. The metal cornucopias we call grails look remarkably like the tower that’s supposed to be in the middle of the north polar sea—from what I’ve heard. You might say it’s the Big Grail.”

“Very interesting,” Burton said after he’d sipped on his grog. “Another coincidence.”

Frigate looked steadily at him, disconcerting him a trifle. The devil take him. The fellow looked enough like the other to be his brother. Perhaps he was. Perhaps both were agents, and this one was playing with him as the other had.

“Burton would know all about the Arthurian cycles and the earlier folk tales on which they were based. It would be just like him, if he assumed a disguise—and he was famous on earth for assuming many—to take the name of Gwalchgwynn.

He would know that it signified a seeker after the Holy Grail, but he wouldn’t expect anyone else to.”

“I’m not so dense that I can’t see that you think I’m that Burton fellow. But I never heard of him, and I don’t care to have you pursue this matter even if it amuses you so much. I am not amused.”

He lifted the glass to his lips and drank.

“Nur told me when he was visited by the Ethical, the Ethical told him that one of the men he’d picked was Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, the nineteenth-century explorer.”

Burton was able to control himself enough to keep from spitting the drink out.

Slowly, he put the glass down on the bar.

“Nur?”

“You know him. Mr. Burton, the others are waiting in the stage-prop room. Just to show you how sure I am that you’re Burton, I’ll reveal something. Mix and London used to go under assumed names. But they recently decided to hell with ‘ it. Now, Mr. Burton, would you care to go with me there?” Burton considered. Could Frigate and his companions be agents? Were they waiting to seize and question him, turning the tables on him?

He looked around the crowded and noisy salon. When he saw Kazz, he said, “I’ll go with you if you insist on this nonsense. But I’ll take my good friend the Neanderthal with me. And we’ll be armed.”

When Burton entered the prop room ten minutes later, he was accompanied also by Alice and Loghu.

When Mix saw Loghu, his jaw dropped in astonishment. “You in on this, too?”

12

THEY HAD AGREED NEVER TO TALK ABOUT THE ETHICAL OR anything connected with him in their cabins. These might be bugged. Their next meeting was at a table where they played poker. Present were Burton, Alice, Frigate, Nur, Mix, and London. Loghu and Umslopogaas were on duty.