A Maze of Death Read online

  “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.

  Next to the field a row of flat-roofed buildings: the tiny colony’s interwoven installations. Several persons were moving toward his noser, evidently to greet him. He waved, enjoying the feel of the plastic leather steering gloves—that and the very great augmentation of his somatic self which his bulky suit provided.

  “Hi!” a female voice called.

  “Hi,” Ben Tallchief said, regarding the girl. She wore a dark smock, with matching pants, a general issue outfit that matched the plainness of her round, clean, freckled face. “Is this a god-world?” he asked, walking leisurely toward her.

  “It is not a god-world,” the girl said, “but there are some strange things out there.” She gestured toward the horizon vaguely; smiling at him in a friendly manner she held out her hand. “I’m Betty Jo Berm. Linguist. You’re either Mr. Tailchief or Mr. Morley; everyone else is here already.”

  “Tallchief,” he said.

  “I’ll introduce you to everyone. This elderly gentleman is Bert Kosler, our custodian.”

  “Glad to meet you, Mr. Kosler.” Handshake.

  “I’m glad to meet you, too,” the old man said.

  “This is Maggie Walsh, our theologian.”

  “Glad to meet you, Miss Walsh.” Handshake. Pretty girl.

  “Glad to meet you, too, Mr. Tallchief.”

  “Ignatz Thugg, thermoplastics.”

  “Hi, there.” Overly masculine handshake. He did not like Mr. Thugg.

  “Dr. Milton Babble, the colony’s M.D.”

  “Nice to know you, Dr. Babble.” Handshake. Babble, short and wide, wore a colorful short-sleeved shirt. His face had on it a corrupt expression which was hard to penetrate.

  “Tony Dunkelwelt, our photographer and soil-sample expert.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Handshake.

  “This gentleman here is Wade Frazer, our psychologist.” A long, phony handshake with Frazer’s wet, unclean fingers.

  “Glen Belsnor, our electronics and computer man.”

  “Glad to meet you,” Handshake. Dry, horny, competent hand.

  A tall, elderly woman approached, supporting herself with a cane. She had a noble face, pale in its quality but very fine. “Mr. Tallchief,” she said, extending a slight, limp hand to Ben Tallchief. “I am Roberta Rockingham, the sociologist. It’s nice to meet you. We’ve all been wondering and wondering about you.”

  Ben said, “Are you the Roberta Rockingham?” He felt himself glow with the pleasure of meeting her. Somehow he had assumed that the great old lady had died years ago. It confused him to find himself being introduced to her now.

  “And this,” Betty Jo Berm said, “is our clerk-typist, Susie Dumb.”

  “Glad to know you, Miss—” He paused.

  “Smart,” the girl said. Full-breasted and wonderfully shaped. “Suzanne Smart. They think it’s funny to call me Susie Dumb.” She extended her hand and they shook.

  Betty Jo Berm said, “Do you want to look around, or just what?”

  Ben said, “I’d like to know the purpose of the colony. They didn’t tell me.”

  “Mr. Tallchief,” the great old sociologist said, “they didn’t tell us either.” She chuckled. “We’ve asked everyone in turn as he arrives and no one knows. Mr. Morley, the last man to arrive—he won’t know either, and then there will we be?”

  To Ben, the electronics maintenance man said, “There’s no problem. They put up a slave satellite; it’s orbiting five times a day and at night you can see it go past. When the last person arrives—that’ll be Morley—we’re instructed to remote activate the audio tape transport aboard the satellite, and from the tape we’ll get our instructions and an explanation of what we’re doing and why we’re here and all the rest of that crap; everything we want to know except ‘How do you make the refrig colder so the beer doesn’t get warm?’ Yeah, maybe they’ll tell us that, too.”

  A general conversation among the group of them was building up. Ben found himself drifting into it without really understanding it. “At Betelgeuse 4 we had cucumbers, and we didn’t grow them from moonbeams, the way you hear.” “I’ve never seen him.” “Well, he exists. You’ll see him someday.” “We’ve got a linguist so evidently there’re sentient organisms here, but so far our expeditions have been informal, not scientific. That’ll change when—” “Nothing changes. Despite Specktowsky’s theory of God entering history and starting time into motion again.” “If you want to talk about that, talk to Miss Walsh. Theological matters don’t interest me.” “You can say that again. Mr. Tallchief, are you part Indian?” “Well, I’m about one-eighth Indian. You mean the name?” “These buildings are built lousy. They’re already ready to fall down. We can’t get it warm when we need warm; we can’t cool it when we need cool. You know what I think? I think this place was built to last only a very short time. Whatever the hell we’re here for we won’t be long; or rather, if we’re here long we’ll have to construct new installations, right down to the electrical wiring.” “Some bug squeaks in the night. It’ll keep you awake for the first day or so. By ‘day’ of course I mean twenty-four-hour period. I don’t mean ‘daylight’ because it’s not in the daytime that it squeaks, it’s at night. Every goddamn night. You’ll see.” “Listen, Tallchief, don’t call Susie ‘dumb.’ If there’s one thing she’s not it’s dumb.” “Pretty, too.” “And do you notice how her—” “I noticed, but I don’t think we should discuss it.” “What line of work did you say you’re in, Mr. Tallchief? Pardon?” “You’ll have to speak up, she’s a little deaf.” “What I said was—” “You’re frightening her. Don’t stand so close to her.” “Can I get a cup of coffee?” “Ask Maggie Walsh. She’ll fix one for you.” “If I can get the damn pot to shut off when it’s hot; it’s been just boiling the coffee over and over.” “I don’t see why our coffee pot won’t work. They perfected them back in the twentieth century. What’s left to know that we don’t know already?”
“Think of it as being like Newton’s color theory. Everything about color that could be known was known by 1800. And then Land came along with his two-light-source and intensity theory, and what had seemed a closed field was busted all over.” “You mean there may be things about self-regulating coffee pots that we don’t know? That we just think we know?” “Something like that.” And so on. He listened distantly, answered when he was spoken to and then, all at once, fatigued, he wandered off, away from the group, toward a cluster of leathery green trees: they looked to Ben as if they constituted the primal source for the covering of psychiatrists’ couches.

  The air smelled bad—faintly bad—as if a waste-processing plant were chugging away in the vicinity. But in a couple of days I’ll be used to it, he informed himself.

  There is something strange about these people, he said to himself. What is it? They seem so … he hunted for the word. Overly bright. Yes, that was it. Prodigies of some sort, and all of them ready to talk. And then he thought, I think they’re very nervous. That must be it; like me, they’re here without knowing why. But—that didn’t fully explain it. He gave up, then, and turned his attention outward, to embrace the pompous green-leather trees, the hazy sky overhead, the small nettle-like plants growing at his feet.

  This is a dull place, he thought. He felt swift disappointment. Not much better than the ship; the magic had already left. But Betty Jo Berm had spoken of unusual life forms beyond the perimeter of the colony. So possibly he couldn’t justifiably extrapolate on the basis of this little area. He would have to go deeper, farther and farther away from the colony. Which, he realized, is what they’ve all been doing. Because after all, what else is there to do? At least until we receive our instructions from the satellite.

  I hope Morley gets here soon, he said to himself. So we can get started.

  A bug crawled up onto his right shoe, paused there, and then extended a miniature television camera. The lens of the camera swung so that it pointed directly at his face.

  “Hi,” he said to the bug.

  Retracting its camera, the bug crawled off, evidently satisfied. I wonder who or what it’s probing for? he wondered. He raised his foot, fooling momentarily with the idea of crushing the bug, and then decided not to. Instead he walked over to Betty Jo Berm and said, “Were the monitoring bugs here when you arrived?”

  “They began to show up after the buildings were erected. I think they’re probably harmless.”

  “But you can’t be sure.”

  “There isn’t anything we can do about them anyhow. At first we killed them, but whoever made them just sent more out.”

  “You better trace them back to their source and see what’s involved.”

  “Not ‘you,’ Mr. Tallchief. ‘We.’ You’re as much a part of this operation as anyone here. And you know just as much—and just as little—as we do. After we get our instructions we may find that the planners of this operation want us to—or do not want us to—investigate the indigenous life forms here. We’ll see. But meanwhile, what about coffee?”

  “You’ve been here how long?” Ben asked her as they sat at a plastic micro-bar sipping coffee from faintly-gray plastic cups.

  “Wade Frazer, our psychologist, arrived first. That was roughly two months ago. The rest of us have been arriving in dribs and drabs. I hope Morley comes soon. We’re dying to hear what this is all about.”

  “You’re sure Wade Frazer doesn’t know?”

  “Pardon?” Betty Jo Berm blinked at him.

  “He was the first one here. Waiting for the rest of you. I mean of us. Maybe this is a psychological experiment they’ve set up, and Frazer is running it. Without telling anyone.

  “What we’re afraid of,” Betty Jo Berm said, “is not that. We have one vast fear, and that is this: there is no purpose to us being here, and we’ll never be able to leave. Everyone came here by noser: that was mandatory. Well, a noser can land but it can’t take off. Without outside help we’d never be able to leave here. Maybe this is a prison—we’ve thought of that. Maybe we’ve all done something, or anyhow someone thinks we’ve done something.” She eyed him alertly with her gray, calm eyes. “Have you done anything, Mr. Tallchief?” she asked.

  “Well, you know how it is.”

  “I mean, you’re not a criminal or anything.”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You look ordinary.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean, you don’t look like a criminal.” She rose, walked across the cramped room to a cupboard. “How about some Seagram’s VO?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he said, pleased at the idea.

  As they sat drinking coffee laced with Seagram’s VO Canadian whiskey (imported) Dr. Milton Babble strolled in, perceived them, and seated himself at the bar. “This is a second-rate planet,” he said to Ben without preamble. His dingy, shovel-like face twisted in distaste. “It just plain is second rate. Thanks.” He accepted his cup of coffee from Betty Jo, sipped, still showed distaste. “What’s in this?” he demanded. He then saw the bottle of Seagram’s VO. “Hell, that ruins coffee,” he said angrily. He set his cup down again, his expression of distaste greater than ever.

  “I think it helps,” Betty Jo Berm said.

  Dr. Babble said, “You know, it’s a funny thing, all of us here together. Now see, Tallchief, I’ve been here a month and I have yet to find someone I can talk to, really talk to. Every person here is completely involved with himself and doesn’t give a damn about the others. Excluding you, of course, B.J.”

  Betty Jo said, “I’m not offended. It’s true. I don’t care about you, Babble, or any of the rest. I just want to be left alone.” She turned toward Ben. “We have an initial curiosity when someone lands … as we had about you. But after-ward, after we see the person and listen to him a little—” She lifted her cigarette from the ashtray and inhaled its smoke silently. “No offense meant, Mr. Tallchief, as Babble just now said. We’ll get you pretty soon and you’ll be the same; I predict it. You’ll talk with us for a while and then you’ll withdraw into—” She hesitated, groping the air with her right hand as if physically searching for a word. As if a word were a three dimensional object which she could seize manually. “Take Belsnor. All he thinks about is the refrigeration unit. He has a phobia that it’ll stop working, which you would gather from his panic would mean the end of us. He thinks the refrigeration unit is keeping us from—” She gestured with her cigarette. “Boiling away.”

  “But he’s harmless,” Dr. Babble said.

  “Oh, we’re all harmless,” Betty Jo Berm said. To Ben she said, “Do you know what I do, Mr. Tallchief? I take pills. I’ll show you.” She opened her purse and brought out a pharmacy bottle. “Look at these,” she said as she handed the bottle to Ben. “The blue ones are stelazine, which I use as an anti-emetic. You understand: I use it for that, but that isn’t its basic purpose. Basically stelazine is a tranquilizer, in doses of less than twenty milligrams a day. In greater doses it’s an anti-hallucinogenic agent. But I don’t take it for that either. Now, the problem with stelazine is that it’s a vasodilator. I sometimes have trouble standing up after I’ve taken some. Hypostasis, I think it’s called.”

  Babble grunted, “So she also takes a vasoconstrictor.”

  “That’s this little white tablet,” Betty Jo said, showing him the part of the bottle in which the white tablets dwelt. “It’s methamphetamine. Now, this green capsule is—”

  “One day,” Babble said, “your pills are going to hatch, and some strange birds are going to emerge.”

  “What an odd thing to say,” Betty Jo said.

  “I meant they look like colored birds’ eggs.”

  “Yes, I realize that. But it’s still a strange thing to say.” Removing the lid from the bottle she poured out a variety of pills into the palm of her hand. “This red cap—that’s of course pentabarbital, for sleeping. And then this yellow one, it’s norpramin, which counterbalances the C.N.S. depressive effect of the mellaril.
Now, this square orange tab, it’s new. It has five layers on it which time-release on the so-called ‘trickle principle.’ A very effective C.N.S. stimulant. Then a—”

  “She takes a central nervous system depressor,” Babble broke in, “and also a C.N.S. stimulant.”

  Ben said, “Wouldn’t they cancel each other out?”

  “One might say so, yes,” Babble said.

  “But they don’t,” Betty Jo said. “I mean subjectively I can feel the difference. I know they’re helping me.”

  “She reads the literature on them all,” Babble said. “She brought a copy of the P.D.R. with her—Physicians’ Desk Reference—with lists of side effects, contraindications, dosage, when indicated and so forth. She knows as much about her pills as I do. In fact, as much as the manufacturers know. If you show her a pill, any pill, she can tell you what it is, what it does, what—” He belched, drew himself up higher in his chair, laughed, and then said, “I remember a pill that had as side effects—if you took an overdose—convulsions, coma and then death. And in the literature, right after it told about the convulsions, coma and death, it said, May Be Habit Forming. Which always struck me as an anticlimax.” Again he laughed, and then pried at his nose with one hairy, dark finger. “It’s a strange world,” he murmured. “Very strange.”

  Ben had a little more of the Seagram’s VO. It had begun to fill him with a familiar warm glow. He felt himself beginning to ignore Dr. Babble and Betty Jo. He sank into the privacy of his own mind, his own being, and it was a good feeling.

  Tony Dunkelwelt, photographer and soil-sample specialist, put his head in the door and called, “There’s another noser landing. It must be Morley.” The screen door banged shut as Dunkelwelt scuttled off.

  Half-rising to her feet, Betty Jo said, “We’d better go. So at last, we’re finally all here.” Dr. Babble rose, too. “Come on, Babble,” she said, and started toward the door. “And you, Mr. Eighth-Part-Indian-Tallchief.”

  Ben drank down the rest of his coffee and Seagram’s VO and got up, dizzily. A moment later and he was following them out the door and into the light of day.