Robert Silverberg - The Man In The Maze

“I wish we didn’t have to do any of this, Dick. But we do. Come with us.”

“No.”

“You can’t refuse. The boy’s told you what’s at stake. We already owe you more than we can ever repay, Dick, but run the debt a little higher. Please.”

“I’m not leaving Lemnos. I feel no sense of obligation to humanity. I won’t do your work.”

“Dick—”

Muller said, “Fifty meters to the northwest of where I stand is a flame pit. I’m going to walk over and step into it. Within ten seconds there will be no more Richard Muller. One unfortunate calamity will cancel out another, and Earth will be no worse off than it was before I acquired my special ability. Since you people didn’t appreciate that ability before, I can’t see any reason for letting you make use of it now.”

“If you want to kill yourself,” Boardman said, “why not wait a few months?”

“Because I don’t care to be of service.”

“That’s childish. The last sin I’d ever imagine you committing.”

“It was childish of me to dream of stars,” Muller said. “I’m simply being consistent. The galactics can eat you alive, Charles. I don’t care if they do. Won’t you fancy being a slave? Somewhere under your skull you’ll still be there, screaming to be released, and the radio messages will tell you which arm to lift, which leg to move. I wish I could last long enough to see that. But I’m going to walk into that flame pit. Do you want to wish me a good journey? Come close, let me touch your arm. Get a good dose of me first. Your last. I’ll cease to give offense.” Muller was trembling. His face was sweaty. His upper lip quivered.

Boardman said, “At least come out to Zone F with me. Let’s sit down quietly and discuss this over brandy.”

“Side by side?” Muller laughed. “You’d vomit. You couldn’t bear it.”

“I’m willing to talk.”

“I’m not,” Muller said. He took a shaky step toward the northwest. His big powerful body seemed shrunken and withered, nothing but sinews stretching tighter over a yielding armature. He took another step. Boardman watched. Ottavio and Davis stood beside him to the left; Reynolds and Greenfield on the other side, between Muller and the flame pit. Rawlins, like an afterthought, was alone at the far side of the group.

Boardman felt a throbbing in his larynx, a stirring and a tickle of tension in his loins. A great weariness possessed him, and at the same time a fierce soaring excitement of a kind he had not known since he had been a young man. He allowed Muller to take a third step toward self-destruction. Then, casually, Boardman gestured with two flicking fingers.

Greenfield and Reynolds pounced.

Catlike they darted forth, ready for this, and caught Muller by the inner forearms. Boardman saw the grayness sweep over their faces as the impact of Muller’s field got to them. Muller struggled, heaved, tried to break loose. Davis and Ottavio were upon him now too. In the gathering darkness the group formed a surging Laocoon, Muller only half visible as the smaller men coiled and wound about his flexed battling body. A stungun would have been easier, Boardman reflected. But stunguns were risky, sometimes, on humans. They had been known to send hearts into wild runaways. They had no defibrillator here.

A moment more, and Muller was forced to his knees.

“Disarm him,” Boardman said.

Ottavio and Davis held him. Reynolds and Greenfield searched him. From a pocket Greenfield pulled forth the deadly little windowed globe. “That’s all he seems to be carrying,” Greenfield said.

“Check carefully.”

They checked. Meanwhile Muller remained motionless, his face frozen, his eyes stony. It was the posture and the expression of a man at the headsman’s block. At length Greenfield looked up again. “Nothing,” he said.

Muller said, “One of my left upper molars contains a secret compartment full of carniphage. I’ll count to ten and bite hard, and I’ll melt away before your eyes.”

Greenfield swung around and grabbed for Muller’s jaws.

Boardman said, “Leave him alone. He’s joking.”

“But how do we know—” Greenfield began.

“Let him be. Step back.” Boardman gestured. “Stand five meters away from him. Don’t go near him unless he moves.”

They stepped away, obviously grateful to get back from the full thrust of Muller’s field. Boardman, fifteen meters from him, could feel faint strands of pain. He went no closer.

“You can stand up now,” Boardman said. “But please don’t try to move. I regret this, Dick.”

Muller got to his feet. His face was black with hatred. But he said nothing, nor did he move.

“If we have to,” Boardman said, “we’ll tape you in a webfoam cradle and carry you out of the maze to the ship. We’ll keep you in foam from then on. You’ll be in foam when you meet the aliens. You’ll be absolutely helpless. I would hate to do that to you, Dick. The other choice is willing cooperation. Go with us of your own free will to the ship. Do what we ask of you. Help us this last time.”

“May your intestines rust,” said Muller almost casually. “May you live a thousand years with worms eating you. May you choke on your own smugness and never die.”

“Help us. Willingly.”

“Put me in the webfoam, Charles. Otherwise I’ll kill myself the first chance I get.”

“What a villain I must seem, eh?” Boardman said. “But I don’t want to do it this way. Come willingly, Dick.”

Muller’s reply was close to a snarl.

Boardman sighed. This was an embarrassment. He looked toward Ottavio.

“The webfoam,” he said.

Rawlins, who had been standing as though in a trance, burst into sudden activity. He darted forward, seized Reynolds’ gun from its holster, ran toward Muller and pressed the weapon into his hand. “There,” he said thickly. “Now you’re in charge!”

Muller studied the gun as though he had never seen one before, but his surprise lasted only a fraction of a second. He slipped his hand around its comfortable butt and fingered the firing stud. It was a familiar model, only slightly changed from those he had known. In a quick flaring burst he could kill them all. Or himself. He stepped back so they could not come upon him from the rear. Probing with his kickstaff, he checked the wall, found it trustworthy, and planted his shoulderblades against it. Then he moved the gun in an arc of some 270°, taking them all in.

“Stand close together,” he said. “The six of you. Stand one meter apart in a straight row, and keep your hands out where I can see them at all times.”

He enjoyed the black, glowering look that Boardman threw at Ned Rawlins. The boy seemed dazed, flushed, confused, a figure in a dream. Muller waited patiently as the six men arranged themselves according to his orders. He was surprised at his own calmness.

“You look unhappy, Charles,” he said. “How old are you now, eighty years? You’d like to live that other seventy, eighty, ninety, I guess. You have your career planned, and the plan doesn’t include dying on Lemnos. Stand still, Charles. And stand straight. You won’t win any pity from me by trying to look old and sagging. I know that dodge. You’re as healthy as I am, beneath the phony flab. Healthier. Straight, Charles!”

Boardman said raggedly, “If it’ll make you feel better, Dick, kill me. And then go aboard the ship and do what we want you to do. I’m expendable.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes.”

“I almost think you do,” Muller said wonderingly. “You crafty old bastard, you’re offering a trade! Your life for my cooperation! But where’s the quid pro quo? I don’t enjoy killing. It won’t soothe me at all to burn you down. I’ll still have my curse.”