The Man in the Maze Read online

Rawlins stopped. "Whatever you say. Look, Dick, I don't want to cause troubles for you. I'm just trying to be friendly and helpful. If doing that in some way makes you uncomfortable—well, just say so, and I'll do something else. It doesn't do me any good to make things worse for you."

  "That came out pretty muddled, boy. What is it you want from me, anyhow?"

  "Nothing."

  "Why not leave me alone?"

  "You're a human being, and you've been alone here for a long time. It's my natural impulse to offer companionship. Does that sound too dumb?"

  Muller shrugged. "I'm not much of a companion. Maybe you ought to take all your sweet Christian impulses and go away. There's no way you can help me, Ned. You can only hurt me by reminding me of all I can no longer have or know." Stiffening, Muller looked past the tall young man toward the shadowy figures cavorting along the walls. He was hungry, and this was the hour to begin hunting for his dinner. He said brusquely, "Son, I think my patience is running out again. Time for you to leave."

  "All right. Can I come back tomorrow, though?"

  "Maybe. Maybe."

  The boy smiled ingenuously. "Thanks for letting me talk to you, Dick. I'll be back."

  4

  By troublesome moonlight Rawlins made his way out of Zone A. The voice of the ship's brain guided him back over the path he had taken inward, and now and then, in the safest spots, Boardman used the override. "You've made a good start," Boardman said. "It's a plus that he tolerated you at all. How do you feel?"

  "Lousy, Charles."

  "Because of the close contact with him?"

  "Because I'm doing something filthy."

  "Stop that, Ned. If I'm going to have to pump you full of moral reassurance every time you set out—"

  "I'll do my job," said Rawlins, "but I don't have to like it." He edged over a spring-loaded stone block that was capable of hurling him from a precipice if he applied his weight the wrong way. A small toothy animal snickered at him as he crossed. On the far side, Rawlins prodded the wall in a yielding place and won admission to Zone B. He glanced at the lintel and saw the recessed slot of the visual pickup and smiled into it, just in case Muller was watching him withdraw.

  He saw now why Muller had chosen to maroon himself here. Under similar circumstances he might have done the same thing. Or worse. Muller carried, thanks to the Hydrans, a deformity of the soul in an era when deformity was obsolete. It was an esthetic crime to lack a limb or an eye or a nose; these things were easily repaired, and one owed it to one's fellow man to get a shape-up and obliterate troublesome imperfections. To inflict one's flaws on society was clearly an antisocial act.

  But no shape-up surgeon could do a cosmetic job on what Muller had. The only cure was separation from society. A weaker man would have chosen death: Muller had picked exile.

  Rawlins still throbbed with the impact of that brief moment of direct contact. For an instant he had received from Muller a formless incoherent emanation of raw emotion, the inner self spilling out involuntarily and wordlessly. The flow of uncontrollable innerness was painful and depressing to receive.

  It was not true telepathy that the Hydrans had given him. Muller could not "read" minds, nor could he communicate his thoughts to others. What came forth was this gush of self: a torrent of raw despair, a river of regrets and sorrows, all the sewage of a soul. He could not hold it back. For that eternal moment Rawlins had been bathed in it; the rest of the time he had merely picked up a vague and general sense of distress.

  He could generate his own concretenesses out of that raw flow. Muller's sorrows were not unique to himself; what he offered was nothing more than an awareness of the punishments the universe devises for its inhabitants. At that moment Rawlins had felt that he was tuned to every discord in creation: the missed chances, the failed loves, the hasty words, the unfair griefs, the hungers, the greeds, the lusts, the knife of envy, the acid of frustration, the fang of time, the death of small insects in winter, the tears of things. He had known aging, loss, impotence, fury, helplessness, loneliness, desolation, self-contempt, and madness. It was a silent shriek of cosmic anger.

  Are we all like that? He wondered. Is the same broadcast coming from me, and from Boardman, and from my mother, and from the girl I used to love? Do we walk about like beacons fixed to a frequency we can't receive? Thank God, then. That's a song too painful to hear.

  Boardman said, "Wake up, Ned. Stop brooding and watch out for trouble. You're almost in Zone C now."

  "Charles, how did you feel the first time you came close to Muller?"

  "We'll discuss that later."

  "Did you feel as if you knew what human beings were all about for the first time?"

  "I said we'll discuss—"

  "Let me say what I want to say, Charles. I'm not in any danger here. I just looked into a man's soul, and I'm shaken by it. But— listen, Charles—he isn't really like that. He's a good man. That stuff he radiates, it's just noise. It's a kind of sludge that doesn't tell you a real thing about Dick Muller. It's noise we aren't meant to hear, and the signal's altogether different—like when you open an amplifier up to the stars, full blast, and you get that rasping of the spectrum, you know, and some of the most beautiful stars give you the most terrible noises, but that's just an amplifier response, it has nothing to do with the quality of the star itself, it—it—"

  "Ned?

  "I'm sorry, Charles."

  "Get back to camp. We all agree that Dick Muller's a fine human being. That's why we need him. We need you, too, so shut your mouth and watch your step. Easy, now. Calm. Calm. Calm. What's that animal on your left? Hurry along, Ned. But stay calm. That's the way, son. Calm."

  EIGHT

  When they met again the next morning it was easier for both of them. Rawlins, having slept well under the sleep wire, went to the heart of the maze and found Muller standing beside a tall flat-sided spike of dark metal at the edge of the great plaza.

  "What do you make of this?" Muller asked conversationally as Rawlins approached. "There are eight of these, one at each corner. I've been watching them for years. They turn. Look here." Muller pointed to one face of the pylon. Rawlins came close, and when he was ten meters away he picked up Muller's emanation. Nevertheless, he forced himself to go closer. He had not been so close yesterday except in that one chilling moment when Muller had seized him and pulled him near.

  "You see this?" Muller asked, tapping the spike.

  "A mark."

  "It took me close to six months to cut it. I used a sliver from the crystalline outcropping set in that wall yonder. Every day for an hour or two I'd scrape away, until there was a visible mark in the metal. I've been watching that mark. In the course of one local year it turns all the way around. So the spikes are moving. You can't see it, but they do. They're some kind of calendars."

  "Do they—can you—have you ever—"

  "You aren't making sense, boy."

  "I'm sorry." Rawlins backed away, trying hard to hide the impact of Muller's nearness. He was flushed and shaken. At five meters the effect was not so agonizing, and he stayed there, making an effort, telling himself that he was developing a tolerance for it.

  "You were saying?"

  "Is this the only one you've been watching?"

  "I've scratched a few of the others. I'm convinced that they all turn. I haven't found the mechanism. Underneath this city, you know, there's some kind of fantastic brain. It's millions of years old, but it still works. Perhaps it's some sort of liquid metal with cognition elements floating in it. It turns these pylons and runs the water supply and cleans the streets."

  "And operates the traps."

  "And operates the traps," Muller said. "But I haven't been able to find a sign of it. I've done some digging here and there, but I find only dirt below. Maybe you archaeologist bastards will locate the city's brain. Eh? Any clues?"

  "I don't think so," said Rawlins.

  "You don't sound very definite."

  "I'm not. I haven't taken
part in any of the work within the city." Rawlins smiled shyly. The quick facial movement annoyed him and drew reproof from Boardman, who pointed out over the monitor circuit that the shy smile always announced an upcoming lie and that it wouldn't be long before Muller caught on. Rawlins said, "Most of the time I was outside the city, directing the entry operations. And then when I got in, I came right in here. So I don't know what the others may have discovered so far. If anything."

  "Are they going to rip up the streets?" Muller asked.

  "I don't think so. We don't dig so much anymore. We use scanners and sensors and probe beams." Glibly, impressed with his own improvisations, he went on headlong. "Archaeology used to be destructive, of course. To find out what was under a pyramid we had to take the pyramid apart. But now we can do a lot with probes. That's the new school, you understand, looking into the ground without digging, and thus preserving the monuments of the past for—"

  "On one of the planets of Epsilon Indi," said Muller, "a team of archaeologists completely dismantled an ancient alien burial pavilion about fifteen years ago, and then found it impossible to put the thing back together because they couldn't comprehend the structural integrity of the building. When they tried, it fell apart and was a total loss. I happened to see the ruins a few months later. You know the case, of course."

  Rawlins didn't. He said, reddening, "Well, there are always bunglers in any discipline—"

  "I hope there are none here. I don't want the maze damaged. Not that there's much chance of that. The maze defends itself quite well." Muller strolled casually away from the pylon. Rawlins eased as the distance between them grew, but Boardman warned him to follow. The tactics for damping Muller's mistrust included a deliberate and rigorous self-exposure to the emotion field. Muller was not looking back, and said, half to himself, "The cages are closed again."

  "Cages?"

  "Look down there—into that street branching out of the plaza."

  Rawlins saw an alcove against a building wall. Rising from the ground were a dozen or more curving bars of white stone that disappeared into the wall at a height of about four meters, forming a kind of cage. He could see a second such cage farther down the street.

  Muller said, "There are about twenty of them, arranged symmetrically in the streets off the plaza. Three times since I've been here the cages have opened. Those bars slide into the street, somehow, and disappear. The third time was two nights ago. I've never seen the cages either open or close, and I've missed it again."

  "What do you think the cages were used for?" Rawlins asked.

  "To hold dangerous beasts. Or captured enemies. What else would you use a cage for?"

  "And when they open now—"

  "The city's still trying to serve its people. There are enemies in the outer zones. The cages are ready in case any of the enemies are captured."

  "You mean us?"

  "Yes. Enemies." Muller's eyes glittered with sudden paranoid fury; it was alarming how easily he slipped from rational discourse to that cold blaze. "Homo sapiens. The most dangerous, the most ruthless, the most despicable beast in the universe!"

  "You say it as if you believe it."

  "I do."

  "Come on," Rawlins said. "You devoted your life to serving mankind. You can't possibly believe—"

  "I devoted my life," said Muller slowly, "to serving Richard Muller." He swung around so that he faced Rawlins squarely. They were only six or seven meters apart. The emanation seemed almost as strong as though they were nose to nose. Muller said, "I gave less of a damn for humanity than you might think, boy. I saw the stars, and I wanted them. I aspired after the condition of a deity. One world wasn't enough for me. I was hungry to have them all. So I built a career that would take me to the stars. I risked my life a thousand times. I endured fantastic extremes of temperature. I rotted my lungs with crazy gases, and had to be rebuilt from the inside out. I ate foods that would sicken you to hear about. Kids like you worshipped me and wrote essays about my selfless dedication to man, my tireless quest for knowledge. Let me get you straight on that. I'm about as selfless as Columbus and Magellan and Marco Polo. They were great explorers, yes, but they also looked for a fat profit. The profit I wanted was in here. I wanted to stand a hundred kilometers high. I wanted golden statues of me on a thousand worlds. You know poetry? Fame is the spur. That last infirmity of noble mind. Milton. Do you know your Greeks, too? When a man overreaches himself, the gods cast him down. It's called hybris. I had a bad case of it. When I dropped through the clouds to visit the Hydrans, I felt like a god. Christ, I was a god. And when I left, up through the clouds again. To the Hydrans I'm a god, all right. I thought it then: I'm in their myths, they'll always tell my story. The mutilated god. The martyred god. The being who came down among them and made them so uncomfortable that they had to fix him. But—"

  "The cage-"

  "Let me finish!" Muller rapped. "You see, the truth is, I wasn't a god, only a rotten mortal human being who had delusions of godhood, and the real gods saw to it that I learned my lesson. They decided to remind me of the hairy beast inside the plastic clothing. To call my attention to the animal brain under the lofty cranium. So they arranged it for the Hydrans to perform a clever little surgical trick on my brain, one of their specialities, I guess. I don't know if the Hydrans were being malicious for the hell of it or whether they were genuinely trying to cure me of a defect, my inability to let my emotions get out to them. Aliens. You figure them out. But they did their little job. And then I came back to Earth. Hero and leper all at once. Stand near me and you get sick. Why? It reminds you that you're an animal too, because you get a full dose of me. So we go round and round in our endless feedback. You hate me because you learn things about your own soul by getting near me. And I hate you because you must draw back from me. What I am, you see, is a plague carrier, and the plague I carry is the truth. My message is that it's a lucky thing for humanity that we're shut up each in his own skull. Because if we had even a little drop of telepathy, even the blurry nonverbal thing I've got, we'd be unable to stand each other. Human society would be impossible. The Hydrans can reach right into each other's mind, and they seem to like it. But we can't. And that's why I say that man must be the most despicable beast in the whole universe. He can't even take the reek of his own kind, soul to soul!"

  Rawlins said, "The cage seems to be opening."

  "What? Let me look!" Muller came jostling forward. Unable to step aside rapidly enough, Rawlins received the brunt of the emanation. It was not as painful this time. Images of autumn came to him: withered leaves, dying flowers, a dusty wind, early twilight. More regret than anguish over the shortness of life, the necessity of the condition. Meanwhile Muller, oblivious, was peering intently at the alabaster bars of the cage.

  "It's withdrawn by several centimeters already. Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I tried to. But you weren't listening."

  "No. No. My damned soliloquizing." Muller chuckled. "Ned, I've been waiting years to see this. The cage actually in motion! Look how smoothly it moves, gliding into the ground. This is strange, Ned. It's never opened twice the same year before, and here it's opening for the second time this week."

  "Maybe you've just failed to notice a lot of the other openings," Rawlins suggested. "While you slept, maybe—"

  "I doubt it. Look at that!"

  "Why do you think it's doing it right now?"

  "Enemies all around," said Muller. "The city accepts me as a native by now. I've been here so long. But it must be trying to get you into a cage. The enemy. Man."

  The cage was fully open now. There was no sign of the bars except the row of small openings in the pavement.

  Rawlins said, "Have you ever tried to put anything in the cages? Animals?"

  "Yes. I dragged a big dead beast inside one. Nothing happened. Then I caught some live little ones. Nothing happened." He frowned. "I once thought of stepping into the cage myself to see if it would close automatically when it sensed a live
human being. But I didn't. When you're alone, you don't try experiments like that." He paused a moment, "How would you like to help me in a little experiment right now, eh, Ned?"

  Rawlins caught his breath. The thin air abruptly seemed like fire in his lungs.

  Muller said quietly, "Just step across into the alcove and wait a minute or so. See if the cage closes on you. That would be important to know."

  "And if it does," Rawlins said, not taking him seriously, "do you have a key to let me out?"

  "I have a few weapons. We can always blast you out by lasing the bars."

  "That's destructive. You warned me not to destroy anything here."

  "Sometimes you destroy in order to learn. Go on, Ned. Step into the alcove."

  Muller's voice grew flat and strange. He was standing in an odd expectant half-crouch, hands at his sides, fingertips bent inward toward his thighs. As though he's going to throw me into the cage himself, Rawlins thought.

  Boardman said quietly in Rawlins' ear, "Do as he says, Ned. Get into the cage. Show him that you trust him."

  I trust him, Rawlins told himself, but I don't trust that cage.

  He had uncomfortable visions of the floor of the cage dropping out as soon as the bars were in place: of himself dumped into some underground vat of acid or lake of fire. The disposal pit for trapped enemies. What assurance do I have that it isn't like that?

  "Do it, Ned," Boardman murmured.

  It was a grand, crazy gesture. Rawlins stepped over the row of small openings and stood with his back to the wall. Almost at once the curving bars rose from the ground and locked themselves seamlessly into place above his head. The floor seemed stable. No death-rays lashed out at him. His worst fears were not realized; but he was a prisoner.

  "Fascinating," Muller said. "It must scan for intelligence. When I tried with animals, nothing happened. Dead or alive. What do you make of that, Ned?"

  "I'm very glad to have helped your research. I'd be happier if you'd let me out now."

  "I can't control the movements of the bars."