Текст книги "The Cross of Gold Affair"

Автор книги: Fredric Davies

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 10 страниц)

“It’s Greek,” said Andy, answering Napoleon’s unasked > question. “It means love. No hot pants, just love, with flowers and kissing each other on the eyes.”

Napoleon held the word in his mouth, and looked at the two boys, who shifted their gaze away. Three syllables, a-gah-pay, and these two rangy, muscled would-be hoods would rather be beaten. Charlie pushed at his sun-bleached straight hair, and said, “We made nice with her, and planned no bruises or cuts, no stealing, just a little sharing the wealth. What could be simpler?”

“And I got ready to break anything they let me get 1 hold of,” she said in a flat voice, with her eyes shining out bright, “when suddenly the light turned on. I knew what 1 the hippies were after, and I had it.”

Andy scuffed his bare foot against cement. “She took me by the shoulders and said, T love you,’ and kissed my eyes.” He spat in the street.

Charlie turned and lit a cigarette, muttering about preferring to be murdered.

Then a taxi came, and Malista had time for just one more thing. “I adopted them,” she said through the car window, “and there’s lots more room on the beach. Get yourself some clothes and a bouquet, and I’ll adopt you, too.” She leaned in, kissed him on both eyes, and then all three kids were lost in the night.

“What was that?” asked the cabbie.

“I was a guest of honor,” said Napoleon. “Ah-at a fraternity party. That was the send-off committee. How soon can we get to Manhattan?” He leaned back in the worn seat, thankful for the cab’s heater, and mumbled short answers to the drivers stream of helpful conversation about college rowdies, race problems and cops, until warmth and exhaustion pulled sleep down around him like a falling cloud.

As Mai and her pair of foster-children moved through the city back to her beach, they kept on the bounce, watching for roving groups of men in black, knowing that it would be as hard to get back through Thrush as it had been to get out. But, moving quickly, they went right past the Thrush named Arnold, who saw them coming and stepped into hiding.

“You’re outa your gourd,” said Andy softly as they passed Arnold, “picking up a guy out of the wet and risking all our necks to get him away.” Arnold’s ears perked up, and he decided he didn’t need to hear any more. Rather than follow, he turned aside and found two of his men patrolling another street.

“Solo has gotten away,” he said, and told them what he’d heard the boy say. “They must have gotten him safely off somehow, or he’d still be with them. You know those three; let’s catch up on them, and find out what we can about their connection with U.N.C.L.E.”

The Thrushes found their quarry at the beach, crouching on the boardwalk and whispering to each other. Across the strip of sand a figure moved toward the fun house, and Charlie spoke.

“It isn’t one of them; you can see he’s wearing a sweater or something light-colored, and they’re always in

black. Besides, the way he came up from our fire and is looking around, you can see he doesn’t belong here. What say he’s a friend of Napoleon’s?”

“If he is,” answered Mai worriedly, “we’ve got to tell him he’s in the middle of a search party from the pier. They might not object to picking up two for the price of one, even if they don’t know Napoleon got away.”

They stood upright and began to clamber over the railing, when suddenly Arnold and his men sprang. There was no warning this time, and all three kids were smothered in strong grips. Mai twisted, pummeling Arnold, using every trick she knew to get free. But with an almost equal balance of dirty in-fighting ability, age and weight told. In a trice, each Thrush was sitting on one flower-child, handkerchiefs smothering their yells, while all six watched the amusement pier and Porpoise’s men chuckled.

Illya Kuryakin, unaware of his audience, decided once more on a direct assault and walked boldly through the fun house’s main entrance. The beach wind died behind him as he stepped into the lighted foyer of ‘The Future’s Hall of Fame,” wondering how far he could get invading a house of glass, lights and mirrors.

Behind him, Arnold and his men picked up their prisoners and began the long trek to the Space House. Mai, Charlie and Andy refused to go quietly, and couldn’t be held still enough to be sapped safely. Three grown men found it harder work than they wished, dragging three struggling youngsters across the beach toward an unattractive interview with Porpoise.

Chapter 10

“I’m not Sanforized!”

A throbbing pain in the back of his head brought Illya awake and forced his eyes open. In one sour moment of sight he took in a ghastly picture. Water filled his nose and mouth, and his choking reaction closed his eyes tight.

Mentally he played back the vision of a violet chair, upside down, encasing the nude underparts of a ridiculously fat man. Two legs, plump and wiggling, attached to a bloated trunk by thighs as disgustingly soft white as they were huge. Coughing and spitting, he finally managed to clear the water from his nose, only to breathe in another mouthful, half air, half water.

I seem to be underwater; he thought, as reflex emptied his mouth again. He bucked and struggled to bring his head up into the air. His feet seemed to be locked in some sort of vise, and his hands, as usual under this type of circumstance, were tied at his back. Some unknown agency raised him into the air, coughing and spewing water as he came. His first pure breath met a lusty belch coming in the other direction, and he almost strangled again.

He tilted his head forward and opened his eyes. He was being held like a prize fish, his ankles gripped by the biggest man he’d ever seen. In a back-wrenching half twist, Illya looked from pool deck to ceiling, following upwards the frame of the Thrush named Apis. Before he could fully assimilate that worthy’s size, he was swung back head down, and brought face to upside-down face with the top portion of his underwater hallucination.

“Good evening, Mr. Kuryaldn,” said the hallucination, and Illya instantly recognized the voice as that of his guide through the death maze. He opened his mouth to reply, and Apis lowered him swiftly into the water. Illya choked and strangled on another mouthful of warm chlorinated water.

“Hey!” he yelled, spouting water like an Italian fountain, “don’t do that without warning me!”

“Mr. Kuryakin, you will please conduct your share of our little dialogue with a bit more control. I abhor noise, and if you do not lower your voice, Apis will. About two feet and for about ten minutes. Do we understand one another?”

“Excuse me. I don’t seem to be completely in control of my etiquette when the blood is pounding down into my head like this. I wouldn’t want to cause you any discomfort,

not when you’ve gone to so much trouble to make me feel at home here.”

Porpoise raised one finger, and Illya sucked in sufficient air to hold him for another brief dunking. Apis held him under until the blobbish underparts of Porpoise started to waver before his eyes. Coughing and spitting seemed to be the signal the giant was waiting for, so Illya exhaled underwater and prayed that he had guessed right. Apis brought him up for another mouthful of air, and then gave him another short bath, just to let him know who was boss.

“Too loud, still?” he asked in a much subdued voice.

“Excellent, Mr. Kuryakin. Now let us get one thing straight. I have all the information I want or need about U.N.C.L.E. from Solo, except for some small details. Those details are only a nuisance; you can enlighten me, and live, or you can refuse, and drown. I’d be slightly disappointed if you chose the latter, but let me assure you you are of no value to me, dead or alive. If you guide your answers to my questions with this in mind, I’m sure we will get along famously.”

Illya managed to smile through the water running down his face, and answered softly, “I’d love to help, really I would, but I’m more an idea man. Napoleon handles all the details.” The speech was finished underwater, and Illya immediately began to buck and kick as if he were drowning again. Apis pulled him to the surface before he even really began to feel uncomfortable. He sprayed out the mouthful of water he’d been saving, and was pleased to see Porpoise back off out of range.

“Once more, Apis; I feel Mr. Kuryakin is not yet convinced.” After a repeated series of dunkings, Illya was beginning to doubt that he was going to live long enough to refuse to answer anything.

“Hey, I’m not Sanforized!” he gargled next change he got, and immediately regretted it as Apis started to dunk him again.

“Let’s stop this foolishness, shall we? I’ll ask a question or two, and you will answer, and then we can both be about our business.” Porpoise sounded slightly hurt that

Illya wasn’t cooperating. Illya was too busy breathing to answer, so Porpoise went on.

“Now, how did U.N.C.L.E. get Napoleon Solo out of here?”

Illya opened his eyes in amazement. “Out of here?” Before he could say aught else he was in the pool again, and then hauled roughly up, gasping. He shook his head, trying to clear the water from his eyes and nose, but it didn’t help, for just as he was about to speak again, Apis dunked him.

“This is ridiculous,” he finally managed to gasp. “Even if I could answer you, your tame derrick here wouldn’t let me. How about if I sit in the chair and he dangles you for a while? I don’t know what happened to Napoleon. I just followed him in here, and you clobbered me. What am I supposed to know?”

“That won’t do, Mr. Kuryakin. That won’t do at all. We destroyed Solo’s tracer device, and searched him thoroughly for another. We took a variety of no doubt useful devices from his person, just as we have from yours. We shut him up in the very maze you so recently walked through with my help, and he managed to escape. Now you will tell me how!” Porpoise raised his voice to a squeak on the last sentence, and Apis took that as a command to plunge Illya into the pool almost to the ankles, head foremost.

Illya digested the information about Napoleon, wishing fervently that there had been just a whit more coordination on this project. Finally he could hold his breath no longer and was forced to exhale. Apis snatched him from the depths and snapped him once, clearing the water from his throat, and nearly popping the eyes out of his head. Illya managed a strangled breath before his next dip.

“Do you have the answers I desire, Mr. Kuryakin? Or shall I let Apis continue his little game?” Porpoise had once more regained full control of himself, and Illya was losing his own swiftly.

“I suppose I must tell you. Napoleon traveled through the far east as a young man. While there he saved the life of an ancient Guru, who among other things taught him

full mental control of his surroundings.” The completely incredulous look on Porpoises face so confused Apis that he allowed Illya to continue uninterrupted. “When Napoleon returned to this country he had the power to cloud men’s minds, and so I suspect he didn’t actually escape your maze. He’s probably-”

The rest of Illya’s answer was interrupted by more water. Porpoise had finally reacted sufficiently to give Apis the proper cue. Illya, caught short of breath, kicked and bucked while small pinwheels went off behind his eyes. The trouble with Porpoise was definitely linked to an atrophied sense of humor. Finally, bending at the middle into an upright position, he managed to get enough air to keep alive. He spat a mouthful of water straight into Apis’s eyes, and miraculously was dragged completely free of the water while the giant regained his sight. Illya took a deep breath and was plunged back under the surface; he was learning how to breathe safely, even with a mouthful of chlorine. Despite the growing discomfort, he was far from drowned when Porpoise signaled for a stop to the dunking.

“You are probably trying to wait until Apis tires, so you can use a change of hands to kick away free.” The fat man smiled broadly up at the giant. “I trust you are. willing to wait quite a while. You see, Apis just doesn’t tire.” There followed a rapid succession of immersions, which proved that Apis could move the Russian’s weight around with no more trouble than Illya would have had turning the pages of a book. Illya would have congratulated him on the workmanlike display of strength, had he had the breath. Water and air seemed to run together, and it hardly mattered which he breathed. By the time his seesaw ground to a temporary halt, half the swimming pool was in his lungs and stomach, his eyes were ready to burst with the continued strain of holding his breath when there was no breath, and he’d built up a violent, grinding cough.

“Now if you please,” said his host, “can we get down to business? You U.N.C.L.E. people all seem to take us of Thrush for dunces. I assure you that I am not a dunce, and that if you once more play the fool with me, Apis will continue dunking you until your head turns soft. Have I made myself clear?” The he managed to escape to float before his eyes like a rubber vall, and despite his half drowned condition, Illya wanted to laugh.

“We will table the question of Solos escape for the moment. You might know no more about it than I do, but you did not just follow Mr. Solo in here on speculation, not with this newspaper in your coat pocket.”

The first part of the tirade had gone into Illya’s ears through a great deal of water, and the playful Apis had punctuated his chiefs main points with more dips, so Illya wasn’t quite sure if he had been asked another question or not. He opened his mouth to ask, when his eyes finally cleared and he recognized the newspaper waving back and forth over the floating mound of humanity. Illya closed his mouth with a snap, remembering the fire below the pier, and wishing he had succumbed to the temptation of warming himself over it. The paper, open to the crossword puzzle, was probably going to cost him his life.

“Hey,” he managed at last, “that’s my crossword puzzle. I haven’t finished it yet. Don’t get it all soggy, or I’ll never get ‘The longest word’ in six letters.”

“You simple idiot, you don’t expect me to believe that you have half worked my puzzle, have circled my name, and to put the tin cap on it, have underlined the chief clues all by accident?” Porpoise bobbed before the Russian like a pink cork, getting more and more agitated as he spoke. “Between you and Solo I have learned enough to tell me that U.N.C.L.E. knows a lot and still very little. You can’t hope to stop my operation, even if you should manage to capture me. If you don’t show a bit more sense than you have shown to date, I feel we can dispense with you entirely.”

“I didn’t come here to be insulted,” Illya answered with a straight face. “What’s this about half working your puzzle? -that’s my puzzle, paid for with my dime. I’ll mark it up any way I see fit, if I get enough of it back to mark on.” He was trying to convince Porpoise that, despite all evidence to the contrary, his possession of the puzzle was quite innocent. With a less vain man it would have been a ludicrous attempt, but Porpoise snapped at the bait.

“I am sure you spent your good money for this copy of my puzzle, Mr. Kuryaldn,” Porpoise explained as if to a child. “I am Avery D. Porpoise. I constructed this puzzle for my own purposes, as I am quite sure you know.” Despite his words, his tone and expression belied him. Porpoise wanted to believe that his communications system was too clever to be discovered, and Illya was perfectly willing to let him convince himself that it was so.

“You are Avery D. Porpoise?” Apis, suddenly aware that Illya was drying out, managed to drown out the last few syllables. Porpoise signaled him to let Illya continue, and the Russian came up spluttering, “You write the most fiendishly difficult puzzles in the world. There have been times when I have tom my hair trying to get past one of your strange definitions.”

“Oh, bother the compliments,” said Porpoise, obviously pleased. “You didn’t come here to talk puzzles. Solo’s try to crack one of our brokers in Manhattan and your own follow-up moves are obviously too hostile to me and my project to make me believe that U.N.C.L.E. is unaware of my puzzle.” Porpoise was almost pleading to be reassured.

“What do you mean? What sort of weapon is a crossword puzzle? Outside of causing U.N.C.L.E. to lose maybe a hundred or so man hours daily while we try to solve them, I don’t see that your puzzles can be much of a threat to us at all.” Illya was pulling out all stops, and Porpoise was beginning to doubt the evidence of his own eyes. The Russian completed the ruse by asking in his most innocent tone, “What is the secret of your puzzle? I’m not likely to tell anyone from here, and you’ve certainly got me curious enough to ask.”

Porpoise waved him silent, and Apis took the opportunity to get in some really versatile dunking and dipping. When Illya finally came to a rest once more, the cough he was developing had to compete with a violent set of the hiccups. What little air he managed to drag into his sodden lungs was either sprayed or strangled out of him, and Porpoise was starting off on a whole new subject for discussion.

“You must be aware of U.N.C.L.E.‘s plan to get me out of here. I want you to tell me what sort of plan you

have in mind, when you plan to spring it, and how I can evade capture. If we get all these points settled, I will instruct Apis to give you a rest, a dry rest.”

“The plan is simple,” Illya choked and coughed, interspersing the words with loud hiss. “I was to come in here and tell funny stories, get you laughing, then when you were helpless I was to roll you out-”

Apis outdid himself in a frenzy of dunking. Illya tried to hold his breath, but the cough and the hiccups wouldn’t let up even though he was underwater. Finally the lights behind his eyes went out, and the bucking body went limp.

Illya was unconscious, lying on the pool deck with Apis bent over him injecting a few minutes’ controlled sleep, when Arnold and his two henchmen entered, dragging three angry flower-children.

“Arnold,” said Porpoise with undisguised annoyance, “why are you bringing those three in here again? I thought we agreed to ignore their pranks until they caused us some real trouble, and then to just shoot them out of hand. Why must you continue to annoy me with them?”

“This was no prank,” said little Arnold, holding Malista with both hands and avoiding her frantic kicks at his shins. “It was one thing for them to pose as rotten kids, breaking and stealing. It’s another entirely for them to be U.N.C.L.E. agents, helping Solo and your friend here.” All eyes turned to Illya as he hiccuped violently, but the spasm was over before Apis could move, and sleep took over again.

“I found them out on the beach, trying to flank our search party, talking about how they just helped Solo into a taxi. They probably also helped Kuryakin slip past the searchers, and for all we know they helped Solo escape my maze.”

“You couldn’t build anything Napoleon couldn’t escape!” said Mai, twisting to try and get Arnold with her teeth. He already had reddening tooth-marks on his nose, and drew back quickly enough to show he didn’t want a repeat.

“We didn’t help anybody out of anything,” said Andy belligerently, still trying to break the armlock holding him. “We found this cat out in the water, and dried him off. We got him past your fumble-foots and into a taxi. So what are you gonna do about it?”

The discussion promised to be a lively one, but the small chime in the wall sounded its gentle note, bringing all debate to a close. Porpoise levered himself into an erect sitting position in his chair. “You will all be much quieter. Arnold, hand over your prisoners to Apis, and then be about your tasks. Apis, you will lock our four guests in the Spaceship Room, and make sure that all of the devices are live. Don’t bother them with the usual warnings; if they want to go through the maze I’m sure that none of them will be missed. You two aid Apis.” The flurry of orders finished, the rotund villain set his floating chair into motion.

Apis scooped Illya up in one hand, and lifted the kicking Malista up by the back of her jeans. Illya hiccuped again, dribbling water, and for a moment all was deathly quiet in the room. Mai looked from Andy to Chuck, and then swung around to look at Porpoise. “It must be twenty of or twenty after!” For no reason in the world this took all three of them into a fit of laughter, and the combination of a meaningless joke and Porpoise’s aversion to noise raised their voices to a roar. Apis and his men quickly ushered them out, and Porpoise jiggled his way across the room to the hidden entrance to the radio room.

Coincident with the sounding of the chime, an electric wristwatch set off a small alarm on the wrist of a tall, lean blond individual. He glanced at the watch, reset the alarm, and reached into a pocket for a small gold case. Four men watched as he opened the case, shook it gently, and then snapped it shut. Two small red pills remained resting in a large-boned, muscular hand. The tall man excused himself and left the room, pills in hand. Once out of sight of the others, he replaced the pills in the gold case and lifted the handset of a telephone.

“Quoth the Raven. Code, O.N.E., repeat one. Plans proceeding exactly on schedule. Tell Mr. Porpoise that Breelen’s is on its last legs,” he whispered into the phone. Without waiting for an answer he replaced the handset and returned to the group in the adjoining room, where the Board of

Directors of Breelen’s was meeting to decide the probable fate of their company. ,

“Gentlemen, we must hold out for a few days more. If we can swing the loan with Bristol we can crush those who would have crushed us,” the tall man said upon his return. “I will deal with the Bristol people personally, and I assure you, there isn’t a man in this room who is more aware of the outcome of this struggle if I fail.” He smiled for an instant, and then five grim men exited.

Three hundred miles away, a government radio operator was keying up two non-government sideband transmitters to pass on the message, “Code ONE, all is well.”

Chapter 11

“Where have all the Thrushes gone?”

“HEY, YOU GONNA sack out all night?”

Illya hiccuped into Malista’s frowning face, as she bent over him and forced him to open one eye. She let the eyelid drop, and he sank back into the drug Apis had injected. After an almost sleepless night before and a day of uninspiring flatfoot work capped by Porpoise’s water games, he was easily able to rationalize six to eight hours of peaceful, noble slumber.

The girl didn’t see it the same way. For one thing, she didn’t like the way he lay crookedly on the Spaceship Rooms wooden floor, one arm beneath him so that he’d wake with no circulation in it; for another, she wanted to know what was going on, and Illya looked like her only source of answers. “Wake up,” she said, prodding him and shaking his shoulder. “Wake up, fella. You’re uncomfortable.” That struck his funny bone, and called him up out of the velvet black pit where he’d been trying to nestle down. He belched, spewing a feeble half-mouthful of water on the floor, and twisted into a half-sitting position. “You’re opposed to the pursuits of night,” he muttered at Mai.

She leaned back on her haunches and laughed lightly. “No way” she said. “No way, Mr. Man. I am the most night-pursuit thing that ever happened to Long Island. I just didn’t like the idea of amputating your arm in the morning, when you finally rolled off it yourself.”

“Well, IT1 consider you the savior of my good right arm. If Thrush doesn’t take it off for me anyway; if they do we’ll have to call the whole thing off, right?”

“Thrush? What kind of a Thrush is gonna take off an arm?”

“Thrush stands for the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity.” Illya looked around at the three youngsters and the room they were trapped in. “From the looks of things, the four of us are Undesirables, and the last time I heard, Thrush had some very efficient methods of Removal. They don’t just call up the D.S.C. and send folks off to the Hudson.”

“Come on, Mai. This kook is some kind of a nut,” Andy said, rising. “Let’s split before someone comes back. Imagine trying to hold us prisoner in this dumb maze-you’d think we hadn’t memorized it or somethin’.” He started for the open alcove.

Illya grabbed an ankle and brought the boy down. “Hold it, speed kills, what’s the hurry? This room is only wired for sound, but the rest of the place is wired for death. Take it easy.”

Andy sat up, rubbing his bruised pride, and gave Illya a very strange look. “You serious? About Thrush and Removal, and wired for death and all?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I guess Fatso is one of them, because I never saw anybody with more gadgets around to puff himself up in my life; looks pretty sick to me, but he never really bugged us before tonight. He messed Napoleon up good, though.”

“You know Napoleon?” Illya sat all the way up. “Where is he?”

“We found him on the beach, soaking wet and tom up one side and down the other. Messed up like that, he didn’t say word one about how he got that way,” Mai answered.

no

“Charlie here, Andy and I, we took him out past the boardwalk and caught him a cab. You a friend of his?”

Tm Illya Kuryakin; we sort of work together.”

Andy spoke up again. “You sure-god aren’t Good Humor Men, to get these Thrush buggers mad at you.” All three sat patiently, letting the implied question hang in the air. Illya leaned his head to one side, then the other, hitting himself to empty the water from his ears, before answering.

“We work for a kindly old gentleman who sends us out to get chopped to pieces, drowned, or shot up, for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.”

“U.N.C.L.E.,” said Charlie, and Mai laughed at the acronym.

“Well,” said Illya, “that is what we call ourselves. Napoleon and I are Enforcement Agents; we get sent out to clean up the sort of messes local police can’t handle.”

“Super fuzz,” said Charlie.

All three were looking at him in awe, and Illya began to feel uncomfortably the center of attention. Finally Malista spoke, breathing her words throatily.

“You’re a spy,” she said lovingly.

“Hey,” said Andy, “you got a fistful of superkill gizmos, like little bombs and wire dinghies?”

“I had, until Porpoise had me frisked. They took away all my weapons, radios, lockpicks, everything.”

“Napoleon is a spy, too,” said Mai, “and he didn’t even tell us.”

“It’s not the sort of thing you talk about, not if you plan to go on being a spy,” Illya explained. “The only reason I mentioned it is that we’re all prisoners together. You’ve got a right to know why Thrush is going to kill you.”

“Kill us,” spat Charlie, “is gonna take more than Arnold and Big Fats. I’d take on any three of that bunch. Any way. Fists, knives, bottles, chairs, or a long-range spitball contest.”

Andy chorused in, “No bunch of tweety-birds bugs us. We woulda laid them out on the beach, if they didn’t take us by surprise. At that, Charlie almost creamed the punk who jumped him, and you shoulda seen Mai hanging from Arnold’s nose by her teeth.”

Mai raised both hands, palms outward, and the boys quieted down. She talked to herself for a minute, smiling, her eyes focusing miles away, and then she chanted to the tune of Where Have All the Flowers Gone?:

“Where have all the Thrushes gone?

Long time passing.

Where have all the Thrushes gone? 1

Long time ago.

Where have all the Thrushes gone?”

Plucked by U.N.C.L.E. every one.

When will they ever learn?

When will they ever learn?”’

The two boys applauded, and Illya smiled at her, then looked down at the floor. “It certainly must be a wonderful thing,” he said, “to expect to take on these plug-uglies with bare hands. They aren’t even going to give us that chance. Most likely, Porpoise will tell Arnold to shoot us through a hole in the wall, and then float our bodies out over the billowing waters. He’s scared right now, finding that you three knew about Napoleon, but any minute he’ll realize the smart move is to get rid of us.”

“Well, why are we just sitting here?” snapped the girl. “You’re a secret agent, even if you haven’t got all your gim-crack special skeleton keys and decoder badges. Can’t you get us out of here?”

“Out of here? There may not be any way out. Thrush doesn’t usually lock people in cages with exits provided, although Napoleon and I have occasionally made exits where they didn’t expect them.” Illya’s eyes lost their look of intensity for a moment as his mind followed a slippery clue; he focused hard on Mai, then. “You said you met Napoleon on the beach, soaking wet, didn’t you?” She nodded dumbly at him as he turned to look through the room.

A quick scan of the room convinced Illya that it had possibilities. “There’s no telling what the devices on that spaceship’s console can do,” he said. He moved close to the three, speaking quietly.

“Napoleon was locked up in this maze, and found a way

out that dumped him in the water. All we really know is that they had him, and he got away, ending up by swimming ashore, With power on, I doubt he found his way through that Space Maze, so I intend to look for a way out right here. Sit where you are, and don’t set foot into the next room. Ill vouch for the mazes deadliness.”

He turned to the mock-up of a spaceship console, and started spinning the control wheels and pushing levers from position to position. His first achievement was to black out the view of stars in the porthole nearby, and then the stars came back, spinning wildly.

“I think I’ve snapped us through hyper-space” he said, “and flipped into a tailspin, probably heading into the maw of a dead star.” x

Another lever slowed the stars, and made them march grandly past the opening. He pushed a button, and all the stars went away except one, which turned out to be the sun Earth revolves around. Suddenly there were planets around old Sol, and the kids and Illya watched as they seemed to approach the solar system. They flashed past Pluto, Neptune and Uranus quickly, and Illya found a switch to slow down the motion as they came near Saturn. The big ringed planet filled all of visible space, and then they went on, catching Jupiter and Mars, then Venus and Mercury, and skipping across the sun to find Earth. .