Andre Norton - Sargasso of Space

“How many miles do we have to go, anyway?” Kosti’s voice arose.

He was answered by another snicker from their prisoner. “What difference does it make, Trader? From this there is no way out—once you smashed that switch.”

Did the Rigellian really believe that? If he did why wasn’t he more alarmed himself? Or was he one of those fatalistic races to whom life and death wore much the same face?

There was a surprised grunt from Mura and a second later Dane piled up tight against the steward while Ali and the two following him ploughed up in a tangle. To Dane there was only one explanation for that barrier before them—somewhere Mura had miscounted and taken a wrong turn in the dark. They were lost!

“Now where are we?” Kosti asked.

“Lost—” the Rigellian’s voice crackled dryly with a cold amusement crisping its tone.

But Dane’s hand was on the wall which had brought them up short and now he moved his fingers across its surface. This was not fashioned of the smooth material manufactured by the Forerunners, instead it had the grit of stone. They had reached the native rock of the cave! And Mura confirmed that discovery.

“This is the rock—the end of the maze.”

“But where’s the way out?” persisted Kosti.

“Locked—locked when you broke the switch,” the Rigellian replied. “All openings are governed by the installation—”

“If that is so,” Ali’s voice rose for the first time since they had begun that march, “what happened in the past when you shut off the machine? Were you locked in then until it was turned on once more?”

There was no reply. Then Dane heard a rustle of movement, and queer choking noise, and hard on it the jetman’s husky tone:

“When we ask questions, snake man, we get answers! Or take steps. What happened when you shut off that switch before?”

More scuffling sounds. And then a hoarse answer: “We stayed in here until it was switched on again. It was only off occasionally.”

“It was off for days while Survey was poking about here,” Dane corrected.

“We didn’t come near here then,” returned the Rigellian promptly—a little too promptly.

“Someone must have stayed in here—to turn it on again when you wanted that done,” Ali pointed out. “If the doors were locked you couldn’t have got in or out—”

“I’m not an engineer,” the Rigellian had lost some of his detachment, he was sullen.

“No, you’re just one of Rich’s lieutenants. If there’s a way out of here, you’ll know it.” That was Kosti.

“How about your pipe?” Dane asked Mura, whose continued silence puzzled him.

“That I have been trying,” the steward answered.

“Only it doesn’t work, eh? All right, snake man, spill—!” More sounds of a scuffle and then Ali’s voice across them—

“If this is rock, and it is the right place—how about using a blaster?”

To cut through! Dane’s hand went to his holster. A blaster could cut rock, cut it with greater dispatch than it had shorn through the tougher material of the maze. The idea struck Kosti too—the muffled noise made by his “persuasion” methods ceased.

“You’ll have to pick just the right spot,” Ali continued. “Where is the door—”

“That can be found by this old snake here, can’t it?” purred the jetman.

There was an inarticulate whimper in answer to that. Kosti must have heard it as an assent for he pushed past Dane, shoving the captive before him.

“Right there eh? Well, it better be, blue boy, it just better be!”

Dane nearly lost his balance as the Rigellian was thrust back upon him. He elbowed the man back against the wall and stood waiting.

“That you, Frank? Get back man—all of you get back!”

A second body was pushed against Dane and he gave ground, retreating with the Rigellian and the other.

“Look out for a back wash, you fool!” Ali called out. “Give it low power ‘til you see how that cuts—”

Kosti laughed. “I was flipping a polishing rag, son, when you were learning how to walk. You let the old man show his stuff now. Up ship and out!” With that wild slogan which had resounded in countless bars when the Traders hit dirt after long voyages, blazing light spewed out, blinding them all.

Dane peered between the fingers of a shielding hand and watched that core of brilliance centre on the rock, saw the stone glow red and then white before rippling in molten streams to the floor. Heat, waves of roasting heat blasted back at them, forcing retreat for all except that one big figure who stood his ground, pointing the weapon at the rock, his helmet, its protecting visor snapped into place, nodding a little in time with the force bolts which jerked his arm and body as they burst from the weapon in his hand to crash against the disintegrating wall. How could Kosti stand up to that back wash? He was taking more than was possible for a man to endure.

But the beam held steady on the point and hole grew as stone flaked away in patches, the inner rot spreading. The stink of the discharge filled their throats, gave them hacking coughs, cut at their eyes until tears wet their cheeks. And still Kosti stood in his place, with the stability of a command robot.

”Karl!” Ali’s voice rose to a scream, “Look out—Let up!”

There was a crash as a piece of rock gave way, bashing down into the corridor of the maze. Just in the last instant the jetman had moved, but he did not give more than the few feet necessary to preserve the minimum safety.

With his free hand he beat at a smouldering patch on his breeches. But his grip on the blaster did not waver and the beam of destruction continued to bore in just where he had aimed it.

By the flame Dane saw the Rigellian’s face. His wide eyes centred on Kosti and there was a kind of horror mirrored in them. He edged away from the inferno at the portal, but more as if he feared the man who induced it than if he were afraid of the blaster work.

“That does it!” Kosti’s voice was muffled in his helmet.

As yet they dared not approach the glowing door he had cut for them. But since he had holstered his arm it was plain that he thought the job done. Now he came back to join them, pushing up his visor so by the glow of the cooling rock they could see his face wet and shiny. He pounded vigorously with his gloved hands at places on the front of his tunic and breeches and carried with him the taint of singed leather and fabric.

“What’s out there?” Dane wanted to know.

Kosti’s nose wrinkled. “Another hallway as black as outer space. But at least we can get of this whirly-round!”

Impatient as they were to be on their way, they must wait until it was safe to cross that cut which radiated heat. Adjusting helmets, improvising a protection for Ali from the Rigellian’s tunic, they made ready. But before they went Kosti gave a last attention to their captive.

“We could pull you through,” he observed. “But you might fry on the way, and besides you’d be a dead jet breaking our speed if we tangle with any of your friends outside. So we’ll just store you in deep freeze—to be called for.” He fastened the man’s ankles as well as his wrists and rolled him away from the heated portion of the corridor.

Then with Ali in their midst they hurried through the cut and out into the hall. Darkness closed about them once more, and an experiment proved that here, as well as in the maze, the torches could not fight the blackness. But at least the way before them was smooth and straight and there were no openings along it to betray them into wrong turnings.

They slowed their pace to accommodate Ali, and went linked together by touch as they had in the maze.

“Worm’s eye view—” Kosti’s grumble came through the sable quiet. “Did the Forerunners have eyes?”