Robert Silverberg - The Man In The Maze

Now the alien seized him. There was no doubt. The drop-capsule was programmed for a minimum-expenditure orbit that would bring it skimming past the alien in due time, but Muller swiftly discovered that he was deviating from that orbit. Deviations are never accidental. His capsule was accelerating beyond the program, which meant that it had been grasped and was being drawn forward. He accepted that. He was icily calm, expecting nothing and prepared for everything. The drop-capsule eased down. He saw the gleaming bulk of the alien satellite now.

Skin to metal skin, the vehicles met and touched and joined.

A hatch slid open.

He drifted within.

His capsule came to rest on a board platform in an immense cavernous room hundreds of meters long, high, and broad. Fully suited, Muller stepped from it. He activated his gravity pads; for, as he had anticipated, gravity in here was so close to null that the pull was imperceptible. In the blackness he saw only a faint purplish glow. Against a backdrop of utter silence he heard a resonant booming sound, like an enormously amplified sigh, shuddering through the struts and trusses of the satellite. Despite his gravity pads he felt dizzy; beneath him the floor rolled. Through his mind went a sensation like the throbbing of the sea; great waves slammed against ragged beaches; a mass of water stirred and groaned in its global cavity; the world shivered beneath the burden. Muller felt a chill that his suit could not counteract. An irresistible force drew him. Hesitantly he moved, relieved and surprised to see that his limbs still obeyed his commands though he was not entirely their master. The awareness of something vast nearby, something heaving and pulsating and sighing, remained with him.

He walked down a night-drowned boulevard. He came to a low railing—a dull red line against the deep darkness—and pressed his leg against it, keeping contact with it as he moved forward. At one point he slipped and as he hit the railing with his elbow he heard the clang of metal traveling through the entire structure. Blurred echoes drifted back to him. As though walking the maze he passed through corridors and hatches, across interlocking compartments, over bridges that spanned dark abysses, down sloping ramplike debouchments into lofty chambers whose ceilings were dimly visible. Here he moved in blind confidence, fearing nothing. He could barely see. He had no vision of the total structure of this satellite. He could scarcely imagine the purpose of these inner partitions.

From that hidden giant presence came silent waves, an ever-intensifying pressure. He trembled in its grip. Still he moved on, until now he was in some central gallery, and by a thin blue glow he was able to discern levels dwindling below him, and far beneath his balcony a broad tank, and within the tank something sparkling, something huge.

“Here I am,” he said. “Richard Muller. Earthman.”

He gripped the railing and peered downward, expecting anything. Did the great beast stir and shift? Did it grunt? Did it call to him in a language he understood? He heard nothing. But he felt a great deal: slowly, subtly, he became aware of a contact, of a mingling, of an engulfment.

He felt his soul escaping through his pores.

The drain was unrelenting. Yet Muller chose not to resist; he yielded, he welcomed, he gave freely. Down in the pit the monster tapped his spirit, opened petcocks of neural energy, drew forth from him, demanded more, drew that too.

“Go on,” Muller said, and the echoes of his voice danced around him, chiming, reverberating. “Drink! What’s it like? A bitter brew, eh? Drink! Drink!” His knees buckled, and he sagged forward, and he pressed his forehead to the cold railing as his last reservoirs were plumbed.

He surrendered himself gladly, in glittering droplets. He gave up first love and first disappointment, April rain, fever and ache. Pride and hope, warmth and cold, sweet and sour. The scent of sweat and the touch of flesh, the thunder of music, the music of thunder, silken hair knotted between his fingers, lines scratched in spongy soil. Snorting stallions; glittering schools of tiny fish; the towers of Newer Chicago; the brothels of Under New Orleans. Snow. Milk. Wine. Hunger. Fire. Pain. Sleep. Sorrow. Apples. Dawn. Tears. Bach. Sizzling grease. The laughter of old men. The sun on the horizon, the moon on the sea, the light of other stars, the fumes of rocket fuel, summer flowers on a glacier’s flank. Father. Mother. Jesus. Mornings. Sadness. Joy. He gave it all, and much more, and he waited for an answer. None came to him. And when he was wholly empty he lay face downward, drained, hollow, staring blindly into the abyss.

When he was able to leave, he left. The hatch opened to pass his drop-capsule, and it rose toward his ship. Shortly he was in warp. He slept most of the way. In the vicinity of Antares he cut in the override, took command of the ship, and filed for a change of course. There was no need to return to Earth. The monitor station recorded his request, checked routinely to see that the channel was clear, and allowed him to proceed at once to Lemnos. Muller entered warp again instantly.

When he emerged, not far from Lemnos, he found another ship already in orbit and waiting for him. He started to go about his business anyway, but the other ship insisted on making contact. Muller accepted the communication.

“This is Ned Rawlins,” a strangely quiet voice said. “Why have you changed your flight plan?”

“Does it matter? I’ve done my job.”

“You haven’t filed a report.”

“I’m reporting now, then. I visited the alien. We had a pleasant, friendly chat. Then it let me go home. Now I’m almost home. I don’t know what effect my visit will have on the future of human history. End of report.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Go home, I said. This is home.”

“Lemnos?”

“Lemnos.”

“Dick, let me come aboard. Give me ten minutes with you—in person. Please don’t say no.”

“I don’t say no,” Muller replied.

Soon a small craft detached itself from the other ship and matched velocities with his. Patiently, Muller allowed the rendezvous to take place. Rawlins stepped into his ship and shed his helmet. He looked pale, drawn, older. His eyes held a different expression. They faced one another for a long silent moment. Rawlins advanced and took Muller’s wrist in greeting.

“I never thought I’d see you again, Dick,” he began. “And I wanted to tell you—”

He stopped abruptly. “Yes?” Muller asked.

“I don’t feel it,” said Rawlins. “ I don’t feel it!”

“ What?”

“You. Your field. Look, I’m right next to you. I don’t feel a thing. All that nastiness, the pain, the despair—it isn’t coming through!”

“The alien drank it all,” said Muller calmly. “I’m not surprised. My soul left my body. Not all of it was put back.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I could feel it soaking up everything that was within me. I knew it was changing me. Not deliberately. It was just an incidental alteration. A byproduct.”

Rawlins said slowly, “You knew it, then. Even before I came on board.”

“This confirms it, though.”

“And yet you want to return to the maze. Why?”

“It’s home.”

“Earth’s your home, Dick. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t go back. You’ve been cured.”

“Yes,” said Muller. “A happy ending to my doleful story. I’m fit to consort with humanity again. My reward for nobly risking my life a second time among aliens. How neatly done! But is humanity fit to consort with me?”

“Don’t go down there, Dick. You’re being irrational now. Charles sent me to get you. He’s terribly proud of you. We all are. It would be a big mistake to lock yourself away in the maze now.”