The Spiral Labyrinth

by Matthew Hughes

Many prospective buyers had leaped to reply to the ship's integrator each time the attractive offer had been made. My assistant had to identify each of them, then discover each's whereabouts by following the tracks left by subsequent activity on the connectivity. Some of the subjects, wishing to maintain their privacy, used shut-outs and shifties to block or sideslip just such attempts to delineate their activities. So the business took most of a minute.

  "Two of the earlier respondees show no further traces after contacting the Gallivant," the integrator reported, "one for each of the first two occasions the ship was offered for sale."

  "Did anyone report them missing?"

  Another moment passed while it eased its way past Bureau of Scrutiny safeguards and subtly ransacked the scroot files, then, "No."

  "Why not?" I wondered.

  A few more moments passed as it assembled a full life history on each of the two missing persons. Then it placed image and text on the screen. I saw two men of mature years, both slight of build but neither showing anything extraordinary in his appearance.

  "The first to disappear," my assistant said, highlighting one of the images, "was Orlo Saviene, a self-employed regulator, although he had no steady clients. He lived alone in transient accommodations in the Crobo district.

  "He had, himself, earlier posted a notice. He sought to purchase a used sleeper. It seems that he desired to travel down The Spray to some world where the profession of regulator is better rewarded. But no one had offered him a craft he could afford."

  Sleepers were the poor man's form of space travel, a simple container just big enough for one. Once the voyager was sealed inside, the craft's systems suppressed the life processes to barest sustainability. Then the cylinder was ejected into space, for a small fee, by an outward bound freighter or passenger vessel. The utilitarian craft slowly made its way across the intervening vacuum until it entered a whimsy and reappeared elsewhere. It then aimed itself at its destination and puttered toward it, broadcasting a plea for any passing vessel to pick it up in return for another insignificant fee.

  It was a chancy way to cross space. If launched from a ship with insufficient velocity, the sleeper might lack enough fuel to reach its targeted whimsy. Sometimes the rudimentary integrator misnavigated and the craft drifted away. Sometimes no vessel could be bothered to answer the pick-up request before the near-dead voyager passed the point of reliable resuscitation. Sometimes sleepers were just never heard from again.

  "It must be a desperate life, being a regulator on Old Earth," I said. "So many of us prefer to choose our own destinies."

  "Indeed," said my assistant. "Thus there is no surprise that, offered an Aberrator for the price of a used sleeper, Orlo Saviene hurried to the spaceport."

  "And met what end?"

  "No doubt the same as was met by Franj Morven," the integrator replied, highlighting the second life history. "He was trained as an intercessor but lost his business and even his family's support after he joined the Fellowship of Free Ranters. Neither his clients nor his relatives appreciated the constant harangues on arbitrary issues and soon he was left addressing only the bare walls.

  "He had decided to seek a world where his lifestyle was better appreciated," the grinnet continued, "though his funds were meager. As with Saviene, the offer of Ewern Chaz's spaceship would have seemed like the Gift of Groban."

  "Except in that story," I said, "the recipients did not vanish into nowhere." I analyzed the information and found a discrepancy. "Orlo Saviene and Franj Morven were solitaires. No one has yet noticed their absence, though weeks have passed. Chup Choweri was reported missing the next day."

  "Indeed," said my assistant, "it appears that whoever is doing the collecting has become less selective."

  "Perhaps more desperate," I said. "Let us now look at the field from which Choweri was chosen. Were any of the other respondees to the third offer as socially isolated as Saviene and Morven?"

  "No," said the grinnet. "Loners and ill-fits have been leaving Old Earth for eons. The present population is descended from those who chose to remain, and thus Old Earthers tend toward the gregarious."

  "So whoever is doing the choosing prefers victims who won't be missed," I said, "but he will abandon that standard if none such presents himself. What else do the missing three have in common?"

  "All three are male. All have passed through boyhood but have not yet reached an age when strength begins to fade. All were interested in leaving the planet."

  I saw another common factor. "Each is slighter than the average male. Compare that to the field."

  My assistant confirmed that Saviene and Morven were among the smallest of those who had responded to the offers. Choweri was the smallest of his group.

  "What do we know of Ewern Chaz's stature?" I said.

  "He, too, is a small man."

  "Ahah," I said, "a pattern emerges."

  "What does it signify?" said the grinnet.

  Having my assistant present before me in corporeal form, instead of being scattered about the workroom in various components, meant that I could reply to inappropriate questions with the kind of look I would have given a human interlocutor. I now gave the grinnet a glance that communicated the prematurity of any pronouncement as to the meaning of the pattern I had detected.

  "Here is what you will do," I said. "Unobtrusively enfold that advertisement node in a framework that will let it operate as normal, until the Gallivant returns and again makes its offer. But as soon as the offer is made, you will ensure that it is received only by me."

  The grinnet blinked. "Done," it said. "You are assuming that there will be a fourth offer."

  "I think it likely that whoever is luring small men and taking them offworld will accept a larger specimen, if that is all that is available. Even one with a curious creature on his shoulder."

  I would have passed the supposition over to Osk Rievor for his intuitive insight, but he was immersed in too deep a mull. Instead, I told my assistant, "Make me a reservation at Xanthoulian's. One should dine well when a long trip is in the offing."

  #

  The Gallivant was a trim and well tended vessel, its hull rendered in cheerful, sunshiny yellow and its sponsons and aft structure in bright blue. It stood on a pad at the south end of the port in a subterminal that catered mostly to private owners whose ships spent more time parked than in space. All the craft on adjacent pads were sealed and no one was in sight as I approached the Aberrator. Its fore hatch stood open, allowing a golden light to alleviate the gloom of evening that was dimming the outlines of the empty ships crowded around its berth.

  I had already contacted the spaceport's integrator and learned that the Gallivant had arrived from up The Spray, that it had been immediately refueled and provisioned, and that all port charges had been paid from a fund maintained by an agency that handled such details for thousands of clients like Ewern Chaz. The ship was ready to depart without notice.

  The protocols that governed the boarding of space ships were long established. Vessel owners were within their rights to use harsh measures against trespassers. Therefore, after climbing the three folding steps I paused in the open hatch to call, "Hello, aboard! May I enter?"

  I was looking into the ship's main saloon, equipped with comfortable seating, a communal table and a fold-down sideboard that offered a collation of appetizing food and drink. Ewern Chaz was not in view.

  "You may," said a voice from the air, "enter and refresh yourself."

  Yet I hesitated. "Where is the owner?" I said, still standing on the top step. "I have come to discuss the purchase of this vessel."

  "You are expected," said the voice. "Please enter. The crudités are fresh and the wine well breathed."

  "Am I addressing the ship's integrator?"

  "Yes. Do come in."

  "Where is the owner?"

  "He is detained, but I am sure he is anxious to see you. Please step inside."

  "A moment," I said. "I must adjust my garment."

>   I stepped down from the entrance and moved off a few paces, tugging theatrically at the hem of my mantle. "Well?" I said to my assistant, perched on my shoulder.

  "No charged weapons, no reservoirs of incapacitating agents. The food and drink do not reek of poisons, but I would need to test them properly to say they are harmless."

  "Any sign of Ewern Chaz?"

  "None, though the ship's cleaning systems could account for the absence of traces. He may be hiding in a back cabin, its walls too thick to let me hear the sound of his breathing."

  There was nothing for it but to go inside. I had advised Colonel-Investigator Brustram Warhanny of the Bureau of Scrutiny that I was going out to the space port to board the Gallivant and that if I did not return he might assume the worst. He had pulled his long nose and regarded me from droopy eyes then wondered aloud if my definition of "the worst" accorded with his. I had taken the question as rhetorical.

  I paused again in the hatch then stepped inside. The ship's integrator again offered refreshments but I said I would wait until my host joined me.

  "That may be a while," it said and asked me to take a seat.

  I sat in one of the comfortable chairs, remarking as I did so that the asking price was substantially below what the ship must be worth. "Is the owner dissatisfied with its performance?"

  I heard in the integrator's reply that tone of remote serenity that indicates that offense has been taken, though no integrator would ever admit to the possibility that such could ever be the case. "My employer and I are in complete accord as to the Gallivant's maintenance and operation," it said, then inquired solicitously, "Is the evening air too cool for you? I will close the hatch."

  The portal cycled closed even as I disavowed any discomfort. A moment later, I felt a faint vibration in the soles of my feet. I looked inquiringly at my integrator and received the tiniest confirmatory nod.

  "I believe we have just lifted off," I said to the ship.

  "Do you?" it replied.

  "Yes, and I would prefer to be returned to the planet."

  I heard no reply. I repeated my statement.

  "I regret," said the Gallivant, "that I am unable to accommodate your preference. But please help yourself to a drink."

  Chapter Two

  "I will be the last of your employer's collection," I said. "You may inform him that the Archonate's Bureau of Scrutiny has been alerted to his activities. If I am not returned safe and whole, this ship risks arrest wherever it touches down, as does Ewern Chaz." The risk was actually less than my statement implied, but one must seek to bargain from strength.

  The ship's integrator made no reply. We had not managed much communication since the Gallivant had left Old Earth and, presumably, set course for the whimsy that would take us up The Spray. I had made it clear that I would not be tasting the food and drink, my assistant having determined on closer inspection that both were laden with a powerful, though otherwise harmless, soporific. The refreshments were reabsorbed into the sideboard, to be replaced with ship's bread and improved water, both of which my integrator pronounced wholesome.

  "It would go best for Ewern Chaz if he presents himself now and gives a full account of this business," I continued. "I am a licensed intercessor, experienced in wresting the optimum outcome from unhappy situations. If no actual harm has come to Orlo Saviene, Franj Morven and Chup Choweri, I am sure we could achieve some kind of settlement."

  There was no response.

  "Has any harm come to those three?" I said.

  "Not to my certain knowledge," said the Gallivant.

  "Where are they?"

  "I could not say exactly. I have not seen them for a while."

  "And your employer? Where is he?"

  To that question I received the same answer. My own integrator confirmed, after we had searched the ship, that Ewern Chaz was not aboard. Nor were the three missing men. I returned to the saloon and questioned the ship's integrator as to the purpose of this trip but received no satisfactory response.

  "Why should I stress your imagination," it said, "with descriptions or predictions of what may happen? The situation will be revealed in all its stark simplicity when we arrive, and events will unfold as they must."

  It is rare for integrators to go mad, I mused to myself. Ancient specimens can lapse into odd conditions if they are left too long to their own devices, but those maladies are largely self-referential: the integrator slips into a circular conundrum, endlessly chasing its own conclusion. But there had been instances of systems that had sustained unnoticed damage to key components, skewing the matrix off the vertical. I recalled the case of an Archonate integrator whose deepest components suffered the attentions of a family of rodents. It began to issue a stream of startling judgments and peculiar ordnances that brought unhappiness to many innocent folk.

  Space ship integrators, though largely immune to rodent incursions, were particularly vulnerable to impacts from high-energy cosmic particles. As well, on rare occasions, transits through whimsies could, figuratively speaking, rattle integrative bones out of alignment.

  I could not discuss this question with my own assistant. For one thing, it would have disavowed the possibility -- integrators always did. For another, if the Gallivant's motivating persona had gone lally-up-and-over, it was not a subject to be discussed while imprisoned in its belly.

  I did quietly put the question to Osk Rievor, earning myself a short berating for having bothered him with inconsequentials when he had weighty matters to mull. "Everything will be fine," he said, and turned his attention elsewhere.

  Shortly thereafter, the ship's chimes sounded to advise me that we would soon enter a whimsy. I went to the cabin that was allocated to me, lay down on the pallet and prepared the medications that would ease us all through the irreality. Osk Rievor grumbled at the interruption, but I paid no attention.

  #

  The world was called Bille, a small but dense orb perhaps thrown out by the white dwarf it circled, perhaps captured as it wandered by. It was a dry and barren speck, uninhabited even by any of the hardy solitaries whose spiritual practices, or objectionable personalities, led them to the sternest environments. The highest forms of life that had managed to establish themselves, according to the Gallivant's copy of Hobey's Guide to Lesser and Disregarded Worlds, were several kinds of insects that lived within dense mats of lichen, off which they fed. The simple plants themselves came in various forms and fought a slow vegetative struggle for mastery of any place in which they could sprout.

  Bille's sky was always black, though one horizon was lit by the carelessly strewn glitter of The Spray, while the other showed a stygian void broken only by the last few outlying stars, here at the end of everything, and the dim smudges of unattainable galaxies. The Gallivant sat on a plain of basaltic rock swept by a constant knife of a wind that had carved outcrops of softer stones into eerie spires and arches. As I looked out at the unwelcoming landscape through the viewer in the saloon, the ship announced that its interior would soon be filled by a caustic vapor. "You will be more comfortable outside," it concluded.

  "Where I will do what?" I said.

  "At the base of that nearby slope there is a crevice that leads down into a cavern. You might go to it and see if you can fit yourself within."

  "Why would I do that?" I said.

  "Because there is nowhere else to go," it said.

  "I see."

  "And while you are in there, perhaps you could look about for Ewern Chaz and tell him that I have grown concerned for his absence."

  My integrator and I exchanged a look. The situation had become clear.

  "I will need some warm clothing," I said.

  "The colder you are, the more inclined you will be to seek shelter from the wind." The hatch cycled open and admitted a blast of icy air. The sourceless voice of the ship began counting down from thirty.

  Every planet has its own smell, I thought, not for the first time, as I stepped down onto the surface. Bille's w
as a weak sourness, like that of a mild acid that has been left to evaporate. After a few breaths, I ceased to notice it.

  My integrator shivered on my shoulder, its fur unable to compensate adequately for the rapid heat loss occasioned by its lack of mass and the ceaseless wind. I opened my mantle and placed it inside, supported by my arm pressed against my side. I ducked my head against the withering passage of cold air and made my way to the slope the ship had indicated. It was the base of a broad upheaval of dark rock, veined in gray, that swept up to a ridge topped by wind-eroded formations that resembled some madman's concept of a castle.

  I moved along the base of the slope and soon came upon a vertical crevice. My eye warned me that it was too narrow to admit me, as I found for sure when I sought to slip sideways through the gap. My assistant resumed his place on my shoulder while I made the attempt, then crawled back inside my clothing, shivering as I stood back and considered my options.

  They were scant. "Can you contact the ship?" I asked my integrator, peering down the neck of my garment. Its small face took on the familiar momentary blankness then it said, "Yes," followed by, "it wants to know if you have found its employer."

  "Tell it that it would be premature to say."

  "It has broken the connection."

  I brought a lumen from my pocket and shone it into the opening while I peered within. After an arm's length the crack widened into a narrow passage, its dusty floor sloping down. I saw no bodies, though I did see several sets of footprints descending into the darkness. None returned.

  I shut off the lumen then looked again. At first I saw nothing, but as my eyes accustomed themselves to the blackness I detected a faint glow from deeper inside the hill. I sniffed and caught a stronger whiff of sour air.

  I set my assistant to the same task and its more powerful sensory apparatus confirmed both the odor and the dim light. "The passage turns a short distance in," it said. "The light comes from around the corner."

  "I smelled no putrefaction," I said.

  "Nor do I."

  "Do you hear anything?"

  It cocked its head. "I believe I hear breathing. Very shallow. Something at rest."