The Cross of Gold Affair - Davies Fredric. Страница 20

One by one various devices performed their appointed tasks, freeing the vessel from its mooring and placing it lightly on the edges of the metallic eggshell. It rested there, ready for use, while it hummed and responded in the careful check-out procedures Apis controlled. When the consoles ready-lights flashed, Porpoise had good reason to relax and chuckle up at Apis. He was prepared to flee the amusement pier on any alarm in his two-man submarine, a 1966 French design that would just hold his bulk. It looked like a flying saucer, and no nation’s underwater program had developed a swifter search-and-recovery vessel. At depths to 200 feet, the saucer cut through the sea faster than man had ever been able to travel in the ocean. Its master could now cheerfully plan to escape any unwelcome callers.

A smile broke Apis’ craggy features as his master burbled for joy in the water. Suddenly the signals from below were interrupted by a slow bell ringing. Apis twisted back to scan the board, and lashed out one long arm to press a button.

Light swam over the ceiling televideo screen again and resolved into the side view of a man’s face. Care and cat-alertness furrowed the brow. One hand reached up to push back straight blond hair.

“That’s the camera in Hawk Carse’s pistol,” said Apis, hoping his temperamental boss wouldn’t blame him for the intruder.

He needn’t have worried. Porpoise leaned back to make himself comfortable, and locked his pudgy fingers together in an embrace of Oriental luxuriousness over his tummy. He smiled with deep warmth at the face on the ceiling. “Now fancy that,” he said, more to himself than to Apis. “Long before Napoleon Solo could have alerted U.N.C.L.E., Mr. Illya Kuryakin has followed that wight into our lair. Direct a parabolic mike over here, Apis, and let me speak to our visitor.”

A sign in the center of the room told Illya he was in the future’s hall of fame, and he straightened up to look around at the shapes nearby. Directly in front of him a figure labeled captain future was aiming a ray-pistol at a Bug Eyed Monster carrying off a frightened bikini-clad girl in a transparent spacesuit. Nearby, a Gemini astronaut posed upside-down in a contortion that was meant to seem like free-fall. Side by side, the “Hall of Fame” paid tribute to Virgil Grissom, Kimball Kinnison, Von Braun and Robbie the Robot.

Illya stepped back warily to scan the rest of the room, and received a rude prod from another figure. He turned and found himself in the middle of a tableau showing the exploration of an alien planet, face to face with a somber individual who frowned right back at him. 1 bet when Mr. Waverly was younger he looked a lot like that, he thought, examining the serious, analytical set of the statues eyes. That is, if he had pointy ears, green skin and black bangs.

The statue of “Space Hawk” Carse pointed to an exit from the museum with his ray-gun, and Illya paused before him to scout the next room. All looked safe, and he brushed his hair back from his eyes before stepping in.

As he stepped through the opening, a blur of motion beside the door triggered every suspicious reflex in his body. The U.N.C.L.E. Special spat twice as he rolled across the floor, ending in a crouch against the opposite wall. The hulk by the door pulled back, and Illya fired again.

Papier mache crumpled, and the animated B.E.M. shuddered in a mechanical death-rattle.

“Wonderful!” said Illya. “Now I’ve killed an alien creature, without even knowing what planet it came from. Napoleon, if you aren’t in here somewhere, I’m never going to forgive you.”

Beyond the defunct hulk were more aliens. What might have been overgrown potato bugs or magnified lizards wore labels proclaiming them grulzak, fontema, and space unicorn. Some moved as he tripped electric eyes, others flashed lights at him, and one purred. He was quite happy to leave the Alien Room behind. With a casual “Sorry to shoot and run” directed to the defunct B.E.M., he stepped into the mirrored Space Maze.

“If you stand perfectly still, Mr. Kuryakin, you will be in no danger.”

The Russian skipped quickly behind a partition, looking for the speaker, and twisted angrily when he realized he’d been duped. His first step had been enough to take him wholly into the maze, and as he turned again a steel door snapped across the opening.

“Tut, tut,” said the voice, so finely projected that Illya had trouble believing the words weren’t being spoken next to him. “Now you’ve done it. Before you move again, you should know that the mirror directly to your left will explode on slightest contact.”

Illya glanced left, to see his reflection glancing right. A hundred fine lines cut eerily across his image. A hundred fine wires embedded in the glass, each carrying enough energy to hurl glass splinters completely through him. He now had reason enough for believing the voice.

“Now then. We have established that you cannot go backwards, and you can only progress through the maze by careful attention to directions. For instance, step carefully on the runner strip dividing the rooms before you go forward, or you will be cut down by a crisscross of laser beams. Be sure to step into each new room exactly when I tell you to. I’m turning off such traps as I control before you, and I’m turning them on again directly.

Step by step Illya followed his unseen guide through the

maze. It was a bit testy, tiptoe edging through the glass Space-Warp Room, and jumping across a trapdoor advertised to drop him into the 356th Chorp Dimension-or perhaps into the ocean. In a chamber of see-through futuristic machines his left-ring finger accidentally brushed a Cosmic Energy Spacedrive. The Spacedrive was wired for energy considerably beyond house current, and the shock threw him violently against a wall. Gas spewed out, doubling him up in a coughing spasm.

“You have been distressingly clumsy,” said the voice, “but perhaps we can save you from your own mistakes. Keep low, and walk straight ahead quickly.” With minute care to each step Illya followed directions, finally emerging into a safe room, wiping tears from his eyes. The coughing stayed with him, but fans started working near the Spacedrive exhibit, and the gas was dispersed.

“Mr. Kuryakin, you must be more careful. You must not touch anything you aren’t explicitly ordered to touch. If you are recovered, please step along the curved walkway before you.”

Beneath his feet ran the rings of Saturn, sprinkled generously with shards of mirror, an illusion created on glass flooring by projection from below. Meteorites sped by silently, and the walls were darkened to give the illusion of limitless space. The maze was tricky enough in the summertime without the death-laden pitfalls, but in the off-season for tourists it was sweaty palms all the way.

While balancing on the “rings” and trying to keep from touching the walls or tripping over the broken mirror, Illya covertly reached into his jacket and turned on his U.N.C.L.E. communicator. He raised his voice well above conversational level, hoping the Thrush monitoring him would assume the maze was upsetting him.

“Is this right?” he half-shouted. “It’s dark in here. Am I on the open channel?” With any luck, the U.N.C.L.E. switchboard would recognize a distress call and relay him through Enforcement without answering.

“Take the communicator out of your pocket,” said the voice from above. “Hold it up so I can see it plainly.”

He sighed, stopped walking in the darkness and held out

his communicator. He must have been seen turning it on, even in the pitch-black of outer space.

“We can’t let you call for help, I’m afraid. That is a compact little instrument, however; I congratulate your technicians.” With that, a beam burned out from a wall and the fountain-pen communicator became scorchingly hot. It clattered to the floor as Illya’s burned fingers recoiled. “If you’d been holding it just a bit differently, I’d have had to drive the beam through your hand. It’s just a touch more complicated destroying those things than it is building them.”