The Cross of Gold Affair - Davies Fredric. Страница 16

He threw himself into a leap that carried him back over the dreaded knives, rolling safely into the futuristic room. The chill of outdoors hit him again but it soothed him after the soundless oven he’d crossed. His strength returned, and he faced back to the trapdoor room, staring bitterly into the inferno beyond. He heard the steel shutter open, tauntingly, tempting him to try again.

“You had better wait a couple more minutes, Solo,” came the voice from above. Napoleon stared up at the ceiling. “It will take a few minutes to clear the gas, and for the next room to cool down. You did remarkably well for a first try. We’re betting on you to get all the way up to the laser beam next time.”

“I suppose you’re watching the whole thing?” Napoleon asked conversationally, wishing he had something to drink.

“I’m monitoring the maze on our console. Each room lights up as you enter it, and if you trigger any of the traps I read their signals, so you might say I’m watching the whole thing.”

“Too bad. If you were getting a real strong picture, I could manage some shuffle-off-to-Buffalo at the end of each skit, to brighten your evening viewing. How about some second-boy-from-the-right kicks? I’ve got a whole raft of vaudeville routines available, which you can record for presentation at a more convenient time.”

“No, I’ll just enjoy thinking about it. The viewscreen is unfortunately tied up right now by Mr. Porpoise. He’s making some calls to ensure that your investigations don’t get any of our other people upset. And later he’ll want to watch us dispose of Gambol off the pier end, so probably you’ll just be a bunch of lights to me.”

“Sorry I can’t delight you with my glass-dodging hootch dance, then. I’m just beginning to enjoy this maze. High hopes for high times to come. Do you toast me in champagne if I make it all the way through?”

“You get a winner’s horseshoe of flowers, just like at the races. But how did you beat the exploding mirror? I saw it trigger, and I thought that would get you for sure, unless U.N.C.L.E. agents come sheathed in steel.”

“As the robot actress said to the bishop,” said Napoleon, “I wouldn’t want you to overestimate me, Arnold. Your ultrasonics heated my small change, and skill and science did the rest. With your maze working for me like that, I may get through yet.”

“You really have me worried, Solo.” Arnold’s voice had turned harsh. “There are over thirty ways for you to kill yourself in that maze, and I don’t think you’ll luck your way past all of them. Oh, by the way, since you sank his drink, Mr. Porpoise told me to tell you that you can have all you want to drink.” Napoleon couldn’t help but be interested in this offer. “All you have to do is step into the next room. Ha!” The floor over the knives slid open again, revealing the cold Atlantic and the many-bladed platform reaching up through the water. “Just step in there, and you can have all the water you’ll ever want.” The floor, triggered from Arnold’s console, snapped shut again.

Knives had held a special horror for Napoleon ever since his encounter with the mad Dr. Adams who had nearly succeeded in getting him to perform his own execution in a nightmare room full of kitchen cutlery. Sitting tailor-fashion in the Space Ship Room, Napoleon felt the memory of that piercing, stomach churning day run through him. He wasn’t blindfolded now, and his hands weren’t tied, but he still had no great urge to fall into the Atlantic through a jungle of foot-long rusted steel blades.

His thirst grew as he sat, staring at the floor of the next room, seeing the knives beyond it. What use was there in trying the maze again, with Arnold monitoring his every move, and with bigger and better traps to come? “Out of the frying pan and into the fire, for real,” he muttered glumly as he lifted his gaze to the furnace room. “Hey, wait one. Why not into the water? Out of the frying pan and into the water would be a new twist.”

“You ready to try again, Solo?” Arnold broke in from above. “The ultrasonics room is cooled off now, and I’ve triggered a second line of traps in the exploding mirror room. You ought to have a real ball this time.”

Napoleon ignored the intrusion. He reached into his pockets, but the furnace-room hadn’t left him any small change. His belt, he thought; the buckle might do to trigger the trap.

Swiftly he took off both belt and pants, pressing the latter out flat. He took one pantsleg and folded it over once and then started rolling the leg up toward the inseam. He smoothed the waist and seat into the roll and then continued down the other leg until he got to the knee. Holding the coil of pants, he snapped it out straight in one easy motion. The pants unrolled perfectly, and Napoleon quickly rolled them back into a tight coil. The remaining ‘foot and a half he wrapped tightly around his left arm. He laced his shoes tightly, for the protection he hoped they would give him in the climb to come.

He leaped across the deadly trap again; pausing not at all in the furnace-room, he passed into the room of shattered mirror. The glass nozzles started hissing, but Napoleon, holding his breath, picked up as many of the large shards as he could find and made of them two piles. He tossed the first pile onto the glowing walkway. Sparks danced over the slivered glass. The second pile he took back with him into the ultrasonics room.

Let’s hope these will keep enough of Arnold’s lights flashing to keep him confused, he thought as he scattered the mirror fragments around the heating walls. He faced the trapdoor room and prepared himself for the final step in his plan.

“I hope it doesn’t insist on copper quarters,” he said aloud, hoping to cause Arnold just that much more confusion, as he flipped the belt into the adjoining room. The electricity flickered briefly, and once again the floor yawned to reveal a sea spiked with ugly death.

In that instant that the electric charge turned off, just as the trapdoor slammed apart to empty his belt into the brine, he dived through the opening in a whiplash twist that had to be invented as it was being performed. Before his body was fully through the trap, he brought his left arm full around, sending the rolled trousers whipping straight up into the room above.

The trap closed, catching the last few inches of out-flung pantsleg. Napoleon hung in a curled ball, scant inches above a crisscross of razor-edged death. “I wish cuffs were in style this year,” he muttered as he swung himself in a growing arc on his improvised trapeze. A ripping sound, and a sudden lack of pull on the supporting left arm sent him spinning above the knives. He reached madly for the piling that had been his target.

“This hairbreadth stuff has got to stop.” Again, he was scant inches above death, but this time with both arms and legs wrapped tightly around the wet, slimy, algae covered, most welcome piling in the whole world. Napoleon climbed, shinny style, up and around the piling, only to find that Arnold’s field of knives extended for another dozen feet, clear to the edge of the pier. The next closest piling was at least ten feet away, just inside the border of the blades, and far outside his leaping range under the circumstances.

“Now what, o miraculous magi? Do you disappear in a puff of smoke? Or walk across the ceiling? Or maybe hang by your thumbs? The ceiling?” Napoleon tentatively reached out to an eight-inch beam transversing the pier. Just maybe he could support himself between the beams. The remains of the pants he wrapped more tightly around his left arm. The right would have to make do with the protection of the jacket he still wore.

Twisting once more to a face down position, and keeping himself supported on the piling with his back and bare legs, he reached both arms as far out along the beams as he dared. The knives, well below him now, had never looked closer or more hungry. The sweat of fear stung his eyes and froze him in a spider posture, already uncomfortable to his straining limbs.