A Maze Of Death Part 4

After a pause Ignatz Thugg guffawed.

"What is it, Glen?" Tony Dunkelwelt said.

Belsnor said thickly, "There are only two tape-heads used in transmitters such as are aboard the satellite. An erase head, mounted first on the transport, then a replay-record head. What has happened is that the replay-record head has switched from replay to record. So it is erasing the tape an inch ahead automatically. There's no way I can switch it off; it's on record and that's where it'll probably stay. Until the whole tape is erased."

"But if it erases," Wade Frazer said, "then it'll be gone forever. No matter what you do."

"That's right," Glen Belsnor said. "It's erasing and then recording nothing. I can't get it out of the record mode. Look." He snapped several switches open and shut. "Nothing. The head is jammed. So much for that." He slammed a major relay into place, cursed, sat back, removed his gla.s.ses and wiped his forehead. "Christ," he said. "Well, so it goes."

The speakers twittered briefly with cross talk, then fell silent again. No one in the room spoke. There was nothing to say.

5.

"What we can do," Glen Belsnor said, "is to transmit to the relay network, transmit so it'll be carried back to Terra, and inform General Treaton at Interplan West of what's happened, that our briefing of his instructions has failed to take place. Under the circ.u.mstances they'll undoubtedly be willing-and able-to fire off a communications rocket in our direction. Containing a second tape which we can run through the transport here." He pointed to the tape deck mounted within the radio gear.

"How long will that take?" Susie Smart asked.

"I haven't ever tried to raise the relay network from here." Glen Belsnor said, "I don't know; we'll have to see. Maybe we can do it right away. But at the most it shouldn't take more than two or three days. The only problem would be-" He rubbed his bristly chin. "There may be a security factor. Treaton may not want this request run through the relay network, where anyone with a cla.s.s one receiver can pick it up. His reaction then would be to ignore our request."

"If they do that," Babble spoke up, "we ought to pack up and leave here. Immediately."

"Leave how?" Ignatz Thugg said, grinning.

Nosers, Seth Morley thought. We have no vehicles here except inert and fuel-zero nosers, and even if we could round up the fuel-say by syphoning from every fuel tank to fill up one-they don't have tracking gear by which we could pilot a course. They would have to use Delmak-O as one of two coordinates, and Delmak-O is not on Interplan West charts-hence no tracking value. He thought, Is this why they insisted on our coming in nosers?

They're experimenting with us, he thought wildly. That's what this is: an experiment. Maybe there never were any instructions on the satellite's tape. Maybe it all was planned.

"Make a sample try at picking up the relay people," Tailchief said. "Maybe you can get them right now."

"Why not?" Belsnor said. He adjusted dials, clamped an earphone to the side of his head, opened circuits, closed others down. In absolute silence the others waited and watched. As if, Morley thought, our lives depend on this. And-perhaps they do.

"Anything?" Betty Jo Berm asked at last.

Belsnor said, "Nothing. I'll switch it on video." The small screen jumped into life. Mere lines, visual static. "This is the frequency on which the relay operates. We should pick them up."

"But we're not," Babble said.

"No. We're not." Belsnor continued to spin dials. "It's not like the old days," he said, "when you could tinker with a variable condenser until you got your signal. This is complex." All at once he shut off the central power supply; the screen blanked out and, from the speakers, the s.n.a.t.c.hes of static ceased.

"What's the matter?" Mary Morley asked.

"We're not on the air," Belsnor said.

"What?" Startled exclamations from virtually all of them.

"We're not transmitting. I can't pull them and if we're not on the air they sure as h.e.l.l aren't going to pull us." He leaned back, convulsed with disgust. "It's a plot, a friggin' plot."

"You mean that literally?" Wade Frazer demanded. "You mean this is intentional?"

"I didn't a.s.semble our transmitter," Glenn Belsnor said. "I didn't hook up our receiving equipment. For the last month, since I've been here, in fact, I've been making sample tests; I've picked up several transmissions from operators in this star system, and I was able to transmit back. Everything seemed to be working normally. And then this." He stared down, his face working. "Oh," he said abruptly. He nodded. "Yes, I understand what happened."

"Is it bad?" Ben Tallchief asked.

Belsnor said, "When the satellite received my signal to activate the audio tape construct and complying transmitter, the satellite sent a signal back. A signal to this gear." He indicated the receiver and transmitter rising up before him. "The signal shut down everything. It overrode my instructions. We ain't receiving and we ain't transmitting, no matter what I tell this junk to do. It's off the air, and it'll probably take another signal from the satellite to get it functioning again." He shook his head. "What can you do but admire it?" he said. "We transmit our initial instruction to the satellite; in response it sends one back. It's like chess: move and respond. I started the whole thing going. Like a rat in a cage, trying to find the lever that drops food. Rather than the one that transmits an electric shock." His voice was bitter, and laden with defeat.

"Dismantle the transmitter and receiver," Seth Morley said. "Override the override by removing it."

"It probably-h.e.l.l, undoubtedly-has a destruct component in it. It's either already destroyed vital elements or it will when I try to search for it. I have no spare parts; if it's destroyed a circuit here and there I can't do anything toward fixing it."

"The automatic pilot beam," Morley said. "That I followed to get here. You can send out the message on it."

"Automatic pilot beams work for the first eighty or ninety thousand miles and then peter out. Isn't that where you picked up yours?"

"More or less," he admitted.

"We're totally isolated," Beslnor said. "And it was done in a matter of minutes."

"What we must do," Maggie Walsh said, "is to prepare a joint prayer. We can probably get through on pineal gland emanation, if we make it short."

"I can help on preparing it, if that's the criterion," Betty Jo Berm said. "Since I'm a trained linguist."

"As a last resort," Belsnor said.

"Not as a last resort," Maggie Walsh said. "As an effective, proven method of getting help. Mr. Tallchief, for example, got here because of a prayer."

"But it pa.s.sed along the relay," Belsnor said. "We have no way to reach the relay."

"You have no faith in prayer?" Wade Frazer asked, nastily.

Belsnor said, "I have no faith in prayer that's not electronically augmented. Even Specktowsky admitted that; if a prayer is to be effective it must be electronically transmitted through the network of G.o.d-worlds so that all Manifestations are reached."

"I suggest," Morley said, "that we transmit our joint prayer as far as we can through the automatic pilot beam. If we can project it eighty or ninety thousand miles out it should be easier for the Deity to pick it up ... since gravity works in inverse proportion to the power of the prayer, meaning that if you can get the prayer away from a planetary body-and ninety thousand miles is reasonably away-then there is a good mathematical chance of the various Manifestations receiving it, and Specktowsky mentions this; I forget where. At the end, I think, in one of his addenda."

Wade Frazer said. "It's against Terran law to doubt the power of prayer. A violation of the civil code of all Interplan West stages and holdings."

"And you'd report it," Ignatz Thugg said.

"n.o.body's doubting the efficacy of prayer," Ben Tallchief said, eyeing Frazer with overt hostility. "We're merely disagreeing on the most effective way of handling it." He got to his feet. "I need a drink," he said. "Goodbye." He left the room, tottering a little as he went.

"A good idea," Susie Smart said to Seth Morley. "I think I'll go along, too." She rose, smiling at him in an automatic way, a smile devoid of feeling. "This is really terrible, isn't it? I can't believe that General Treaton could have authorized this deliberately; it must be a mistake. An electronic breakdown that they don't know about. Don't you agree?"

"General Treaton, from all I've heard," Morley said, "is a thoroughly reputable man." Actually, he had never heard of General Treaton before, but it seemed to him a good thing to say, in order to try to cheer her up. They all needed cheering up, and if it helped to believe that General Treaton was definitely reputable then so be it; he was all for it. Faith in secular matters, as well as in theological matters, was a necessity. Without it one could not go on living.

To Maggie Walsh, Dr. Babble said, "Which aspect of the Deity should we pray to?"

"If you want time rolled back, say to the moment before any of us accepted this a.s.signment," Maggie said, "then it would be to the Mentufacturer. If we want the Deity to stand in for us, collectively to replace us in this situation, then it would be the Intercessor. If we individually want help in finding our way out-"

"All three," Bert Kosler said in a shaking voice. "Let the Deity decide which part of himself he wishes to use."

"He may not want to use any," Susie Smart said tartly. "We better decide on our own. Isn't that part of the art of praying?"

"Yes," Maggie Walsh said.

"Somebody write this down," Wade Frazer said. "We should start by saying, 'Thank you for all the help you have given us in the past. We hesitate to bother you again, what with all you have to do all the time, but our situation is as follows.'" He paused, reflecting. "What is our situation?" he asked Belsnor. "Do we just want the transmitter fixed?"

"More than that," Babble said. "We want to get entirely out of here, and never have to see Delmak-O again."

"If the transmitter's working," Belsnor said, "we can do that ourselves." He gnawed on a knuckle of his right hand. "I think we ought to settle for getting replacement parts for the transmitter and do the rest on our own. The less asked for in a prayer the better. Doesn't The Book say that?" He turned toward Maggie Walsh.

"On page 158," Maggie said, "Specktowsky says, 'The soul of brevity-the short time we are alive-is wit. And as regards the art of prayer, wit runs inversely proportional to length.' "

Belsnor said, "Let's simply say, 'Walker-on-Earth, help us find spare transmitter parts.' "

"The thing to do," Maggie Walsh said, "is to ask Mr. Tallchief to word the prayer, inasmuch as he was so successful in his recent previous prayer. Evidently he knows how to phrase properly."

"Get Tallchief," Babble said. "He's probably moving his possessions from his noser to his living quarters. Somebody go find him."

"I'll go," Seth Morley said. He rose, made his way out of the briefing chamber and into the evening darkness.

"That was a very good idea, Maggie," he heard Babble saying, and other voices joined his. A chorus of agreement went up from those gathered in the briefing room.

He continued on, feeling his way cautiously; it would be so easy to get lost in this still unfamiliar colony site. Maybe I should have let one of the others go, he said to himself. A light shone in the window of a building ahead. Maybe he's in there, Seth Morley said to himself, and made his way toward the light.

Ben Tallchief finished his drink, yawned, picked at a place on his throat, yawned once again and clumsily rose to his feet. Time to start moving, he said to himself. I hope, he thought, I can find my noser in the dark.

He stepped outdoors, found the gravel path with his feet, began moving in the direction which he supposed the nosers to be. Why no guide lights around here? he asked himself, and then realized that the other colonists had been too preoccupied to turn the lights on. The breakdown of the transmitter had ensnared the attention of every one of them, and justly so. Why aren't I in there? he asked himself. Functioning as part of the group. But the group didn't function as a group anyhow; it was always a finite number of self-oriented individuals squalling with one another. With such a bunch he felt as if he had no roots, no common source. He felt nomadic and in need of exercise; right now something called to him: it had called him from the briefing room and back to his living quarters, and now it sent him trudging through the dark, searching for his noser.

A vague area of darkness moved ahead of him, and, against the less-dark sky, a figure appeared. "Tallchief?"

"Yes," he said. "Who is it?" He peered.

"Morley. They sent me to find you. They want you to compose the prayer, since you had such good luck a couple of days ago."

"No more prayers for me," Tallchief said, and clamped his teeth in bitterness. "Look where that last prayer got me-stuck here with all of you. No offense, I just mean-" He gestured. "It was a cruel and inhuman act to grant that prayer, considering the situation here. And it must have known it."

"I can understand your feeling," Morley said.

"Why don't you do it? You just recently met the Walker; it would be smarter to use you."

"I'm no good at prayers. I didn't summon the Walker; it was his idea to come to me."

"How about a drink?" Tallchief said. "And then maybe you could give me a hand with my stuff, moving it to my quarters and like that."

"I have to move my own stuff."

"That's an outstanding cooperative att.i.tude."

"If you had helped me-"

Tallchief said, "I'll see you later." He continued on, groping and flailing in the darkness, until all at once he stumbled against a clanking hull. A noser. He had found the right area; now to pick out his own ship.

He looked back. Morley had gone; he was alone.

Why couldn't the guy have helped me? he asked himself. I'm going to need another person for most of the cartons. Let's see, he pondered. If I can turn on the landing lights of the noser I'll be able to see. He located the locking wheel of the hatch, spun it, tugged the hatch open. Automatically the safety lights came on; now he could see. Maybe I'll just move in my clothes, bathroom articles and my copy of The Book, he decided. I'll read The Book until I get ready to go to sleep. I'm tired; piloting the noser here took everything out of me. That and the transmitter failing. Utter defeat.

Why did I ask him to help me? he wondered. I don't know him, he hardly knows me. Getting my stuff moved is my own problem. He has problems of his own.

He picked up a carton of books, began to lug it away from the parked noser in the general direction-he hoped-of his living quarters, I've got to get a flashlight, he decided as he waddled along. And h.e.l.l, I forgot to turn on the landing lights. This is all going wrong, he realized. I might as well go back and join the others. Or I could move this one carton and then have another drink, and possibly by that time most of them would have come out of the briefing room and could help me. Grunting and perspiring, he made his way up the gravel path toward the dark and inert structure which provided them with their living quarters. No lights on. Everyone was still involved in pasting together an adequate prayer. Thinking about that he had to laugh. They'll probably haggle about it all night, he decided, and laughed again, this time with angry disgust.

He found his own living quarters, by virtue of the fact that the door hung open. Entering, he dropped the carton of books to the floor, sighed, stood up, turned on all the lights ... standing there he surveyed the small room with its dresser and bed. The bed did not please him; it looked small and hard. "Christ," he said, and seated himself on it. Lifting several books from the carton he rummaged about until he came onto the bottle of Peter Dawson scotch; he unscrewed the lid and drank somberly from the bottle itself.

Through the open door he gazed out at the nocturnal sky; he saw the stars haze over with atmospheric disturbances, then clear for a moment. It is certainly hard, he thought, to make out stars through the refractions of a planetary atmosphere.

A great gray shape merged with the doorway, blotting out the stars.

It held a tube and it pointed the tube at him. He saw a telescopic sight on it and a trigger mechanism. Who was it? What was it? He strained to see, and then he heard a faint pop. The gray shape receded and once more stars appeared. But now they had changed. He saw two stars collapse against one another and a nova form; it flared up and then, as he watched, it began to die out. He saw it turn from a furiously blazing ring into a dim core of dead iron and then he saw it cool into darkness. More stars cooled with it; he saw the force of entropy, the method of the Destroyer of Forms, retract the stars into dull reddish coals and then into dust-like silence. A shroud of thermal energy hung uniformly over the world, over this strange and little world for which he had no love or use.

It's dying, he realized. The universe. The thermal haze spread on and on until it became only a disturbance, nothing more; the sky glowed weakly with it and then flickered. Even the uniform thermal disburs.e.m.e.nt was expiring. How strange and G.o.ddam awful, he thought. He got to his feet, moved a step toward the door.

And there, on his feet, he died.

They found him an hour later. Seth Morley stood with his wife at the far end of the knot of people jammed into the small room and said to himself, To keep him from helping with the prayer. To keep him from helping with the prayer.

"The same force that shut down the transmitter," Ignatz Thugg said. "They knew; they knew if he phrased the prayer it would go through. Even without the relay." He looked gray and frightened. All of them did, Seth Morley noticed. Their faces, in the light of the room, had a leaden, stone-like cast. Like, he thought, thousand-year-old idols.

Time, he thought, is shutting down around us. It is as if the future is gone, for all of us. Not just for Tallchief.

"Babble, can you do an autopsy?" Betty Jo Berm asked.

"To a certain extent." Dr. Babble had seated himself beside Tallchief's body and was touching him here and there. "No visible blood. No sign of an injury. His death could be natural, you all realize; it might be that he had a cardiac condition. Or, for example, he might have been killed by a heat gun at close range ... but then, if that's the case, I'll find the burn marks." He unfastened Tallchief's collar, reached down to explore the chest area. "Or one of us might have done it," he said. "Don't rule that out."

"They did it," Maggie Walsh said.

"Possibly," Babble said. "I'll do what I can." He nodded to Thugg and Wade Frazer and Glen Belsnor. "Help me carry him into the clinic; I'll start the autopsy now."

"None of us even knew him," Mary said.

"I think I probably saw him last," Seth Morley said. "He wanted to bring his things from his noser here to his living area. I told him I'd help him later on, when I had time. He seemed to be in a bad mood; I tried to tell him we needed him to compose a prayer but he didn't seem interested. He just wanted to move his things." He felt acutely guilty. Maybe if I had helped him he'd still be alive, he said to himself. Maybe Babble's right; maybe it was a heart attack, brought on by moving heavy cartons. He kicked at the box of books, wondering if this box had done it-this box and his own refusal to help. Even when I was asked I wouldn't give it, he realized.

"You didn't see any indication of a suicidal att.i.tude at work, did you?" Dr. Babble asked.

"No."