THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

Contents

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

SECTION 1

The Mysterious Stranger

1

SECTION 2

Aboard the Not For Hire

2

3

4

5

6

SECTION 3

Aboard the Rex: The Thread of Reason

7

8

9

10

11

12

SECTION 4

On the Not For Hire: New Recruits and Clemens’ Nightmares

13

14

SECTION 5

Burton’s Soliloquy

15

SECTION 6

On the Not For Hire: The Thread of Reason

16

SECTION 7

Goring’s Past

17

18

19

20

SECTION 8

The Fabulous Riverboats Arrive at Virolando

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

SECTION 9

The First and Last Dogfight on the Riverworld

28

29

SECTION 10

Armageddon: The Not For Hire vs. the Rex

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

SECTION 11

The Final Duel: Burton vs. Bergerac

38

SECTION 12

The Last 20,000 Miles

39

40

41

42

43

SECTION 13

In the Dark Tower

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

SECTION 14

Three-Cornered Play: Carroll to Alice to Computer

54

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

Now ends the Riverworld series, all loose ends tied together into a sword-resisting Gordian knot, all the human mysteries revealed, the millions of miles of The River and the many years of quests and The Quest completed.

Reason is Life’s sole arbiter, the magic Labyrinth’s single clue … Where ‘twill be man’s to see the whole of what on Earth he sees in part…

The Kasidah of Haji Abdu Al-Yazdi

SECTION 1

The Mysterious Stranger

1

“EVERYBODY SHOULD FEAR ONLY ONE PERSON, AND THAT PERson should be himself.”

That was a favorite saying of the Operator.

The Operator had also spoken much of love, saying that the person most feared should also be much loved.

The man known to some as X or the Mysterious Stranger neither loved nor feared himself the most.

There were three people he had loved more than he loved anybody else.

His wife, now dead, he had loved but not as deeply as the other two.

His foster mother and the Operator he loved with equal intensity or at least he had once thought so.

His foster mother was lightyears away, and he did not have to deal with her as yet and might never. Now, if she knew what he was doing, she would be deeply ashamed and grieved. That he couldn’t explain to her why he was doing this, and so justify himself, deeply grieved him.

The Operator he still loved but at the same time hated.

Now X waited, sometimes patiently, sometimes impatiently or angrily, for the fabled but real riverboat. He had missed the Rex Grandissimus. His only chance now was the Mark Twain.’

If he didn’t get aboard that boat… no, the thought was almost unendurable. He must.

Yet, when he did get on it, he might be in the greatest peril he’d ever been in, bar one. He knew that the Operator was down-River. The surface of his grail had shown him the Operator’s location. But that had been the last information he would get from the map. The satellite had kept track of the Operator and the Ethicals, except for himself, and the agents in The Rivervalley, beaming its messages to the grail which was more than a grail. Then the map had faded from the gray surface, and X had known that something had malfunctioned in the satellite. From now on he could be surprised by the Operator, by the agents, and by the other Ethical.

Long ago, X had made arrangements to track all those from the tower and the underground chambers. He had secretly installed the mechanism in the satellite. The others would have put in a device to track him, of course. But his aura-distorter had fooled the mechanism. The distorter had also enabled him to lie to the council of twelve.

Now, he was as ignorant and helpless as the others.

However, if anybody on this world would be taken aboard by Clemens, even if the complement was full, it would be the Operator. One look at him, and Clemens would stop the boat and hail him aboard.

And when the Mark Twain came along, and he, X, managed to become a crew member, he would have to avoid the Operator until he could take him by surprise.