A Maze of Death Read online

  “I hate your bloody guts,” Gossim said.

  Morley said, “I hate yours, too.”

  “A Mexican standoff,” Niemand said. “You see, Mr. Gossim, you can’t make us stay; all you can do is yell.”

  Making an obscene gesture toward Morley and Niemand Gossim strode off, parting the group gathered there, and disappeared somewhere on the far side. The office was quiet, now. Seth Morley immediately began to feel better.

  “Arguments wear you out,” his wife said.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “And Gossim wears me out. I’m tired just from this one interchange, forgetting the eight full years of it which preceded today. I’m going to go select a noser.” He rose, made his way from the office and into the midday sun.

  A noser is a strange craft, he said to himself as he stood at the edge of the parking field surveying the lines of inert vessels. First of all, they were incredibly cheap; he could gain possession of one of these for less than four silver dollars. Secondly, they could go but never return; nosers were strictly one-way ships. The reason, of course, was simple: a noser was too small to carry fuel for a return trip. All the noser could do was kick off from a larger ship or a planetary surface, head for its destination, and quietly expire there. But—they did their job. Sentient races, human and otherwise, flocked throughout the galaxy aboard the little pod-like ships.

  Goodbye, Tekel Upharsin, Morley said to himself, and made a brief, silent salute to the rows of orange bushes growing beyond the noser parking lot.

  Which one should we take? he asked himself. They all looked alike: rusty, discarded. Like the contents of a used car lot back on Terra. I’ll choose the first one with a name on it beginning with M, he decided, and began reading the individual names.

  The Morbid Chicken. Well, that was it. Not very transcendental, but fitting; people, including Mary, were always telling him that he had a morbid streak. What I have, he said to himself, is a mordant wit. People confuse the two terms because they sound similar.

  Looking at his wristwatch he saw that he had time to make a trip to the packaging department of the citrus products factory. So he made off in that direction.

  “Ten pint jars of class AA marmalade,” he said to the shipping clerk. It was either get them now or not at all.

  “Are you sure you’re entitled to ten more pints?” The clerk eyed him dubiously, having had dealings with him before.

  “You can check on my marmalade standing with Joe Perser,” Morley said. “Go ahead, pick up the phone and give him a call.”

  “I’m too busy,” the clerk said. He counted out ten pint jars of the kibbutz’s main product and passed them to Morley in a bag, rather than in a cardboard carton.

  “No carton?” Morley said.

  “Scram,” the clerk said.

  Morley got one of the jars out, making sure that they were indeed class AA. They were. “Marmalade from Tekel Upharsin Kibbutz!” the label declared. “Made from genuine Seville oranges (group 3-B mutational subdivision). Take a pot of sunny Spain into your kitchen or cooking cubicle!”

  “Fine,” Morley said. “And thanks.” He lugged the bulky paper bag from the building and out once more into the bright sun of midday.

  Back again at the noser parking area he began getting the pints of marmalade stored away in the Morbid Chicken. The one good thing this kibbutz produces, he said to himself as he placed the jars one by one within the magnetic grip-field of the storage compartment. I am afraid this is one thing I’ll miss.

  He called Mary on his neck radio. “I’ve picked out a noser,” he informed her. “Come on down to the parking area and I’ll show it to you.”

  “Are you sure it’s a good one?”

  “You know you can take my mechanical ability for granted,” Morley said testily. “I’ve examined the rocket engine, wiring, controls, every life-protect system, everything, completely.” He pushed the last jar of marmalade away in the storage area and shut the door firmly.

  She arrived a few minutes later, slender and tanned in her khaki shirt, shorts and sandals. “Well,” she said, surveying the Morbid Chicken, “it looks rundown to me. But if you say it’s okay it is, I guess.”

  “I’ve already begun loading,” Morley said.

  “With what?”

  Opening the door of the storage compartment he showed her the ten jars of marmalade.

  After a long pause Mary said, “Christ.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You haven’t been checking the wiring and the engine. You’ve been out scrounging up all the goddam marmalade you could talk them out of.” She slammed the storage area door shut with venomous ire. “Sometimes I think you’re insane. Our lives depend on this goddam noser working. Suppose the oxygen system fails or the heat circuit fails or there’re microscopic leaks in the hull. Or—”

  “Get your brother to look at it,” he interrupted. “Since you have so much more trust in him than you do in me.”

  “He’s busy. You know that.”

  “Or he’d be here,” Morley said, “picking out which noser for us to take. Rather than me.”

  His wife eyed him intently, her spare body drawn up in a vigorous posture of defiance. Then, all at once, she sagged in what appeared to be half-amused resignation. “The strange thing is,” she said, “that you have such good luck—I mean in relation to your talents. This probably is the best noser here. But not because you can tell the difference but because of your mutant-like luck.”

  “It’s not luck. It’s judgment.”

  “No,” Mary said, shaking her head. “That’s the last thing it is. You have no judgment—not in the usual sense, anyhow. But what the hell. We’ll take this noser and hope your luck is holding as well as usual. But how can you live like this, Seth?” She gazed up plaintively into his face. “It’s not fair to me.”

  “I’ve kept us going so far.”

  “You’ve kept us here at this—kibbutz,” Mary said. “For eight years.”

  “But now I’ve gotten us off.”

  “To something worse, probably. What do we know about this new assignment? Nothing, except what Gossim knows—and he knows because he makes it his business to read over everyone else’s communications. He read your original prayer… I didn’t want to tell you because I knew it would make you so—”

  “That bastard.” He felt red, huge fury well up inside him, spiked with impotence. “It’s a moral violation to read another person’s prayers.”

  “He’s in charge. He feels everything is his business. Anyhow we’ll be getting away from that. Thank God. Come on; cool off. You can’t do anything about it; he read it years ago.”

  “Did he say whether he thought it was a good prayer?”

  Mary Morley said, “Fred Gossim would never say if it was. I think it was. Evidently it was, because you got the transfer.”

  “I think so. Because God doesn’t grant too many prayers by Jews due to that covenant back in the pre-Intercessor days when the power of the Form Destroyer was so strong, and our relationship to him—to God, I mean—was so fouled up.”

  “I can see you back in those days,” Mary said. “Kvetching bitterly about everything the Mentufacturer did and said.”

  Morley said, “I would have been a great poet. Like David.”

  “You would have held a little job, like you do now.” With that she strode off, leaving him standing in the doorway of the noser, one hand on his row of stored-away marmalade jars.

  His sense of impotence rose within him, choking his windpipe. “Stay here!” he yelled after her. “I’ll leave without you!”

  She continued on under the hot sun, not looking back and not answering.

  For the remainder of the day Seth Morley busied himself loading their possessions into the Morbid Chicken. Mary did not show herself. He realized, toward dinnertime, that he was doing it all. Where is she? he asked himself. It’s not fair.

  Depression hit him, as it generally did toward mealtime. I wonder if it’s all worth
it, he said to himself. Going from one no-good job to another. I’m a loser. Mary is right about me; look at the job I did selecting a noser. Look at the job I’m doing loading this damn stuff in here. He gazed about the interior of the noser, conscious of the ungainly piles of clothing, books, records, kitchen appliances, typewriter, medical supplies, pictures, wear-forever couch covers, chess set, reference tapes, communications gear and junk, junk, junk. What have we in fact accumulated in eight years of work here? he asked himself. Nothing of any worth. And in addition, he could not get it all into the noser. Much would have to be thrown away or left for someone else to use. Better to destroy it, he thought gloomily. The idea of someone else gaining use of his possessions had to be sternly rejected. I’ll burn every last bit of it, he told himself. Including all the nebbish clothes that Mary’s collected in her jaybird manner. Selecting whatever’s bright and gaudy.

  I’ll pile her stuff outside, he decided, and then get all of mine aboard. It’s her own fault: she should be here to help. I’m under no mandate to load her kipple.

  As he stood there with an armload of clothes gripped tightly he saw, in the gloom of twilight, a figure approaching him. Who is it? he wondered, and peered to see.

  It was not Mary. A man, he saw, or rather something like a man. A figure in a loose robe, with long hair falling down his dark, full shoulders. Seth Morley felt fear. The Walker-on-Earth, he realized. Come to stop me. Shaking, he began to set down the armload of clothes. Within him his conscience bit furiously; he felt now the complete weight of all the baddoings he had done. Months, years—he had not seen the Walker-on-Earth for a long time, and the weight was intolerable. The accumulation which always left its mark within. Which never departed until the Intercessor removed it.

  The figure halted before him. “Mr. Morley,” it said.

  “Yes,” he said, and felt his scalp bleeding perspiration. His face dripped with it and he tried to wipe it away with the back of his hand. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’ve been working for hours to get this noser loaded. It’s a big job.”

  The Walker-on-Earth said, “Your noser, the Morbid Chicken, will not get you and your little family to Delmak-O. I therefore must interfere, my dear friend. Do you understand?”

  “Sure,” he said, panting with guilt.

  “Select another.”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding frantically. “Yes, I will. And thank you; thanks a lot. The fact of the matter is you saved our lives.” He peered at the dim face of the Walker-on-Earth, trying to see if its expression reproached him. But he could not tell; the remaining sunlight had begun to diffuse into an almost nocturnal haze.

  “I am sorry,” the Walker-on-Earth said, “that you had to labor so long for nothing.”

  “Well, as I say—”

  “I will help you with the reloading,” the Walker-on-Earth said. It reached its arms out, bending; it picked up a pile of boxes and began to move among the parked, silent nosers. “I recommend this,” it said presently, halting by one and reaching to open its door. “It is not much to look at, but mechanically it’s perfect.”

  “Hey,” Morley said, following with a swiftly snatched-up load. “I mean, thanks. Looks aren’t important anyhow; it’s what’s on the inside that counts. For people as well as nosers.” He laughed, but the sound emerged as a jarring screech; he cut it off instantly, and the sweat gathered around his neck turned cold with his great fear.

  “There is no reason to be afraid of me,” the Walker said.

  “Intellectually I know that,” Morley said.

  Together, they labored for a time in silence, carrying box after box from the Morbid Chicken to the better noser. Continually Morley tried to think of something to say, but he could not. His mind, because of his fright, had become dim; the fires of his quick intellect, in which he had so much faith, had almost flickered off.

  “Have you ever thought of getting psychiatric help?” the Walker asked him at last.

  “No,” he said.

  “Let’s pause a moment and rest. So we can talk a little.”

  Morley said, “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to know anything; I don’t want to hear anything.” He heard his voice bleat out in its weakness, steeped in its paucity of knowledge. The bleat of foolishness, of the greatest amount of insanity of which he was capable. He knew this, heard it and recognized it, and still he clung to it; he continued on. “I know I’m not perfect,” he said. “But I can’t change. I’m satisfied.”

  “Your failure to examine the Morbid Chicken.”

  “Mary made a good point; usually my luck is good.”

  “She would have died, too.”

  “Tell her that.” Don’t tell me, he thought. Please, don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to know!

  The Walker regarded him for a moment. “Is there anything,” it said at last, “that you want to say to me?”

  “I’m grateful, damn grateful. For your appearance.”

  “Many times during the past years you’ve thought to yourself what you would say to me if you met me again. Many things passed through your mind.”

  “I—forget,” he said, huskily.

  “May I bless you?”

  “Sure,” he said, his voice still husky. And almost inaudible. “But why? What have I done?”

  “I am proud of you, that’s all.”

  “But why?” He did not understand; the censure which he had been waiting for had not arrived.

  The Walker said, “Once years ago you had a tomcat whom you loved. He was greedy and mendacious and yet you loved him. One day he died from bone fragments lodged in his stomach, the result of filching the remains of a dead Martian root-buzzard from a garbage pail. You were sad, but you still loved him. His essence, his appetite—all that made him up had driven him to his death. You would have paid a great deal to have him alive again, but you would have wanted him as he was, greedy and pushy, himself as you loved him, unchanged. Do you understand?”

  “I prayed then,” Morley said. “But no help came. The Mentufacturer could have rolled time back and restored him.”

  “Do you want him back now?”

  “Yes,” Morley said raspingly.

  “Will you get psychiatric help?”

  ‘‘No.

  “I bless you,” the Walker-on-Earth said, and made a motion with his right hand: a slow and dignified gesture of blessing. Seth Morley bowed his head, pressed his right hand against his eyes… and found that black tears had lodged in the hollows of his face. Even now, he marveled. That awful old cat; I should have forgotten him years ago. I guess you never really forget such things, he thought. It’s all in there, in the mind, buried until something like this comes up.

  “Thank you,” he said, when the blessing ended.

  “You will see him again,” the Walker said. “When you sit with us in Paradise.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Exactly as he was?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will he remember me?”

  “He remembers you now. He waits. He will never stop waiting.”

  “Thanks,” Morley said. “I feel a lot better.”

  The Walker-on-Earth departed.

  Entering the cafeteria of the kibbutz, Seth Morley sought out his wife. He found her eating curried lamb shoulder at a table in the shadows of the edge of the room. She barely nodded as he seated himself facing her.

  “You missed dinner,” she said presently. “That’s not like you.”

  Morley said, “I saw him.”

  “Who?” She eyed him keenly.

  “The Walker-on-Earth. He came to tell me that the noser I picked out would have killed us. We never would have made it.”

  “I knew that,” Mary said. “I knew that—thing would never have gotten us there.”

  Morley said, “My cat is still alive.”

  “You don’t have a cat.”

  He grabbed her arm, halting her motions with the for
k. “He says we’ll be all right; we’ll get to Delmak-O and I can begin the new job.”

  “Did you ask him what the new job is all about?”

  “I didn’t think to ask him that, no.”

  “You fool.” She pried his hand loose and resumed eating. “Tell me what the Walker looked like.”

  “You’ve never seen it?”

  “You know I’ve never seen it!”

  “Beautiful and gentle. He held out his hand and blessed me.”

  “So it manifested itself to you as a man. Interesting. If it had been as a woman you wouldn’t have listened to—”

  “I pity you,” Morley said. “It’s never intervened to save you. Maybe it doesn’t consider you worth saving.”

  Mary, savagely, threw down her fork; she glowered at him with animal ferocity. Neither of them spoke for a time.

  “I’m going to Delmak-O alone,” Morley said at last. “You think so? You really think so? I’m going with you; I want to keep my eyes on you at all times. Without me—”

  “Okay,” he said scathingly. “You can come along. What the hell do I care? Anyhow if you stayed here you’d be having an affair with Gossim, ruining his life—” He ceased speaking, panting for breath.

  In silence, Mary continued eating her lamb.

  3

  “You are one thousand miles above the surface of Delmak-O,” the headphone clamped against Ben Tallchief’s ear declared. “Switch to automatic pilot, please.”

  “I can land her myself,” Ben Tallchief said into his mike. He gazed at the world below him, wondering at its colors. Clouds, he decided. A natural atmosphere. Well, that answers one of my many questions. He felt relaxed and confident. And then he thought of his next question: Is this a god-world? And that issue sobered him.

  He landed without difficulty… stretched, yawned, belched, unfastened his seat belt, stood up, awkwardly walked to the hatch, opened the hatch, then went back to the control room to shut off the still active rocket engine. While he was at it he shut off the air supply, too. That seemed to be all. He clambered down the iron steps and bounced his way clumsily onto the surface of the planet.