Labyrinth of Night

by Allen Steele

  It was a tasty little number and for a moment it seemed as if the Room was going to mime him, repeating the bars twice. Then, in the middle of the second bar, it warbled a shrill, discordant note which arced upwards into infinity before flattening out again and resuming the near-random pattern it had begun in the first place.

  Cute, he thought. But again, this particular pattern of notes inspired him. ‘So you like that sixties stuff, huh?’ he murmured to the Room. ‘Okay, try this one, you fucking old hippy.’

  Switching to the bass program, he rammed out the first metronomic riffs of the Grateful Dead’s The Other One. Again, it seemed for a minute as if the Room was catching it; around him, the sound followed the spooky, fast-time beat of the music, adding to the weird Halloween feel of the song. Then, just as Cassidy was beginning to relax and make his slide into the refrain, there was a loud explosion of disjointed sound, reminiscent of a bad-tempered music student whose fingers can’t keep up with the tempo and thrashes at his guitar strings in frustrated anger. Sure. Except most novice musicians can’t drop one-ton stone blocks on their teachers when they get pissed off…

  ‘This is getting a little difficult,’ Cassidy remarked.

  ‘Yes. Right.’ This time it was Paul Verduin who spoke to him. ‘We don’t want to distress you, Ben, but we’re seeing something rather unusual down there. Will you please look at the walls and tell us what you see?’

  Cassidy looked up from his instrument at the walls and sucked in his breath. Slowly, yet noticeably, the patterns on the walls were rearranging themselves. The grooves and intricately curved lines were flowing, squirming as if they were worms jammed together in a fisherman’s bait bucket, or pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which were exchanging places. The bulges and planes moved in an organic, living fashion, as if something behind them had been revived and was struggling to get out.

  ‘You gotta be kidding me,’ Cassidy breathed.

  It was as if he was flashing back to one of his worst drug hallucinations: the time when he had been onstage at a club in the Soulard neighborhood of St Louis, his mind warped after he had just mainlined, and had glanced out into the audience to see them, in the twilight darkness beyond the stage lights, transformed into a hideous tangle of moray eels, gaping jaws screaming silently at him from the Room.

  That was the night he had torn off his guitar, rushed backstage, and had been found by his band curled up next to the toilet in the restroom. It was much like that now: claustrophobia, nausea, the abrupt suspicion that his mind was about to snap. He stared at the walls; the overwhelming urge was to do the same thing now. Get rid of the Yamaha, bolt for the airlock, pound on the hatch and scream for Boggs and Sasaki to rescue him before the walls moved in on him.

  ‘I have to get out of here,’ he whispered.

  ‘Don’t look at it,’ Kawakami said. ‘Concentrate on your music.’

  ‘Goddammit, I’m not kidding!’ he shouted. ‘Get me out of here!’

  ‘No! Forget your songs! It wants you to communicate!’ Kawakami insisted.

  ‘Communicate? What the hell am I supposed to tell it?’

  ‘Just play! Or you’ll never get out of there alive!’

  Cassidy tore his eyes away from the undulating walls, focused on his guitar as he listened to the Room and its coruscating chaotic music. Perhaps it only wanted him to improvise. He tried harmonics, holding his fingers down on the twelfth fret while turning the pitch up slowly. The speakers yowled with the feedback, and the Room responded with high-pitched squeals and rumbles which culminated in a reverberating roar.

  ‘Okay, you liked that,’ he said aloud. He heard his voice shake; he fought down his panic. Play or die: those were the house rules tonight. ‘All right, let’s try this.’

  Cassidy thrust his right hand into his pocket and found the bottleneck slide he had grabbed from his kitbag before heading down to the chamber. He fitted the slide over the middle finger of his left hand, then pushed it against the fretboard as he adjusted the pitch wheel to its highest level. He ran the slide up the frets; the sound was like stainless-steel fingernails running down the world’s longest blackboard, a painful screech which made his teeth ache. He ran the slide back down the frets, pausing to jiggle it on the eighth and third frets, then shot it back up the board again, at the same time touching the chord sequencer to repeat the backbeat he had programmed a couple of minutes earlier.

  No lyrics, no tune, no pre-set pattern: straight improvisation, like John Coltrane wailing on his sax on a muggy night at the old Village Vanguard, or Roy Buchanan bending strings the way they had never been bent before in a London studio, or Brent Mydland making netherworldly music on his keyboards before a stadium-crowd at one of the Dead’s legendary late-eighties concerts. Drugs had killed Coltrane and Mydland, Buchanan had hanged himself when his depression became more than he could stand, but in their time they had pushed the outer reaches of the envelope, creating sounds not before heard by human ears. Music for aliens…

  The Room responded with another protracted reverberation, then began adding to a not-so-random set of delicate, tinny notes of its own which sounded oddly like a xylophone being played by a hyperactive child. It became a distinct rhythm, and without thinking, Cassidy touched the rhythm control and the conga key, then used the keyboard to add his own percussion backdrop, joining but not miming the xylophone sound. The Room wailed and crashed, but the xylophonic rhythm continued as Cassidy worked to keep up, matching then surpassing the Room’s playing as he sought to anticipate its next moves.

  Cassidy lost track of time. He was beginning to enjoy himself, savoring the experience, imagining himself as Miles Davis playing free-form jazz. For the hell of it, he ran a couple of bars from the late master’s Sketches of Spain; the Room responded, imitating him note for note. He segued cleanly into the Twilight Zone theme song, and the Room began to improvise on that, sending the eerie ripple of notes higher and higher until Cassidy brought it back into the opening bars from The Star-Spangled Banner, again concentrating on the twelfth fret, which the Room improvised upon in a way that sounded remarkably like Jimi Hendrix’s famous Woodstock jam.

  The fear and nervousness were completely gone now. He was having fun. He hadn’t realized that his eyes were closed until something brushed against his calves. He opened his eyes, looked down past his guitar at the floor, and saw a small Cootie standing in front of him.

  It looked almost like a toy: a detailed miniature, metal model of a Cootie, a cross between a praying mantis and a termite. While the real Cooties had been about the size of a collie, though, this one was only as large as a dachshund. At first Cassidy again thought he was hallucinating, until the pseudo-Cootie scuttled away on its six multijointed legs, its scimitar-like pincers delicately held aloft.

  Cassidy panicked and jumped back a few inches, his hands almost deserting his instrument. ‘Don’t stop,’ Kawakami urged softly. ‘Keep playing. They’ve been there for a few minutes now.’

  ‘They’ve been here a few minutes?’ Cassidy repeated. Keeping with The Star-Spangled Banner, he slowly raised his head and looked around.

  The metal walls were gone, laying bare red stone inner walls like those in every other Room in the Labyrinth, and moving around him were dozens of the small metallic robots. They crawled quickly and deliberately around the chamber, climbing over each other, swiftly and carefully exploring the TV cameras, the RTG generator, the air tanks, the sensor pod, his soundboard and monitors, but otherwise keeping a respectful distance from Cassidy himself.

  He stared at them, mesmerized by their coordinated motions. Their pincers were briskly rubbing together, like chirruping crickets. The music was all around him now. ‘They were in the walls,’ he whispered.

  ‘They were the walls,’ Kawakami explained. ‘We couldn’t see them because they were folded over each other. They came out while you were playing.’

  ‘They were what killed Moberly,’ Cassidy said.

  ‘They won’t hurt you. You’re giving them
what they…wait. What are they doing?’

  Now the robots were scuttling toward the sides of the chamber. Their sharp little pincers began digging into the walls, finding the hairline cracks between the blocks, gaining leverage. Suddenly, at the far end of the chamber, two of the Cooties pulled a block loose from the wall.

  There was a loud, muffled whuff! of air escaping from the pressurized chamber; a windstorm broke loose in Room C4-20, whipping red dust from the walls and the floor. ‘Get out of there!’ Kawakami yelled. ‘Get in the airlock!’

  Grit in his eyes, his clothes tearing against his body, Cassidy turned and ran toward the airlock. The Cootie-robots did not try to stop him as he struggled into the tiny chamber. He pulled off his guitar and dropped it on the floor, then grabbed the hatch lever and, bracing his legs against the sill and putting his back into the effort, managed to shove the hatch shut against the escaping atmosphere.

  It was quiet inside the airlock. As soon as the hatch was closed, Cassidy began to shimmy into his skinsuit, trying to remember the procedure. ‘I’m in, I’m in, I’m in,’ he babbled. ‘I’m safe. Just get me out of here. What’s going on out there?’

  ‘Easy there, hoss,’ he heard Boggs say. ‘Just get your clothes on and depressurize nice and easy-like. We’ll get you out of there in no time.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Cassidy demanded.

  ‘Nobody knows,’ Boggs replied, ‘but it’s something.’ Cassidy heard him chuckle. ‘Hey, that cootie-catcher worked just fine, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’ He let out his breath and closed his eyes, feeling the sweat freezing on his face. ‘Why don’t you go in there and try it yourself?’

  From the Associated Press (online edition): June 17, 2030

  ANNAPOLIS, MD—The controversial former captain of the US Navy attack submarine Boston said today that a United States military presence on Mars is justified, not by the current Russian crisis, but because of the potential of ‘almost-certain extraterrestrial hostilities.’

  Comm. Terrance C. L’Enfant made his remarks while speaking before cadets at the United States Naval Academy, from which L’Enfant graduated in 1998. It was the first time L’Enfant had lectured at Annapolis since his much publicized court-martial in 2019.

  While speaking on the necessity of maintaining ‘eternal vigilance’ against ‘enemies whose nature may even yet be unknown,’ L’Enfant alluded to the recent showdown in the Cydonia region of Mars between Russian and American military space forces. Although he did not remark on whether Operation Steeple Chase was a justifiable response to the deployment on Mars of Soviet munitions by the CIS, L’Enfant told an audience of 600 cadets and officers that the US had an obligation to protect itself against ‘adversarial alien forces.’

  ‘Let’s face it,’ said L’Enfant. ‘What used to be sheer science-fiction is on the verge of becoming stark reality. We now know that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, that they know where we are in the galaxy, and that they are capable of doing us grave harm. So the question is not so much what do we do about the Russians, it’s about what do we do to counter almost-certain extraterrestrial hostilities.’

  Lt. Wyatt Shippey, a spokesman for the Naval Academy, denied that L’Enfant’s remarks reflected the philosophy of Annapolis or the US Navy. ‘Commander L’Enfant was invited to speak to the cadets on the subject of general preparedness,’ Lt. Shippey said in a press conference following the lecture. ‘Anything he had to say about the Mars crisis is his own opinion.’ L’Enfant was removed from active sea duty by the Secretary of the Navy following his court-martial acquittal on charges of disobedience and gross negligence, which resulted from the torpedoing of the Japanese freighter Takada Maru by the Boston in 2019. Although he retained his rank as a commissioned officer, L’Enfant became a member of the general staff at the US Naval Institute.

  7. Beyond the Labyrinth

  CASSIDY LEANED over Kawakami’s shoulder to peer at the TV monitors. ‘So what are they doing now?’

  He didn’t really need to ask. On the TV screens in the monitor center they could see that the pseudo-Cooties were still disassembling the inner stone wall of Room C4-20. They had left all the equipment in the Room intact, including the TV cameras, the lights and the sensor pod, but the tiny robots were busily cutting away stones and piling them near the airlock.

  Next to Shin-ichi Kawakami’s workstation, Paul Verduin, Arthur Johnson, Tamara Isralilova, and Sasha Kulejan were crowded around Verduin’s console, studying the first data to be transmitted from the sensors. The computer was already constructing an incomplete three-dimensional model of the new chamber at the bottom of the Labyrinth, as the pod’s radar painted a vague picture of a seemingly endless Room which the lights only barely exposed. The far wall ended in a dotted line, showing that the radar was unable to penetrate the depths of the chamber.

  ‘It’s not empty space, either.’ Kawakami pointed at the TV monitor in front of him, where vague shapes lay tantalizingly just out of reach of the floodlights. ‘See? We can barely make out something back there. Perhaps machinery. Past that may be the beginning of another tunnel or even a series of catacombs. We’re not going to know until someone else goes down there.’

  ‘Not me, I hope.’

  ‘We thought we were at the end of the mystery,’ Kawakami said as he took a deep breath. ‘Seems as if we’ve only begun.’ He glanced over his shoulder at Cassidy. ‘And how are you, my friend? Still screaming obscenities at me?’

  ‘If you had been down there, you would have been screaming obscenities, too.’ Arthur Johnson turned to Cassidy. ‘Good work, pal,’ he said softly, holding out his hand. ‘How’re your nerves?’

  ‘Shot, but I’ll survive.’ Cassidy absently shook Johnson’s hand, then looked around the module. ‘Where’s Dickie? I thought he might have been here with you.’

  Johnson’s eyebrows rose as he parodied a look of complete surprise. ‘Oh, you must mean Dr. Richard Jessup. I believe he got delayed in the wardroom. He went there about…how long ago was it, Dr. Kawakami?’

  Kawakami leaned back in his chair and checked his wrist-watch. ‘Ummm…about an hour and a half ago.’ He smiled. ‘I thought I heard someone pounding on the hatch, but I can’t be sure.’

  Johnson shook his head mournfully. ‘It’s terrible how the handle jams sometimes.’ His brief grin disappeared as he turned to look around at the others. ‘Gentlemen, lady, I think we’ve reached the moment of decision. All in favor, please signify by raising your hands.’

  Johnson put up his own hand. Kawakami and Verduin immediately followed suit. After a moment Kulejan and Isralilova reluctantly put up their hands as well. Johnson nodded his head. ‘I discussed this with Miho about two hours ago. She’s still wrapping up things in the Labyrinth, but she added her affirmative vote in absentia, so I guess it’s unanimous. Tamara, if you’ll please go rescue the unfortunate Dr. Jessup? Sorry. I don’t think I should be the first person to see him just now.’

  Isralilova squeezed past the men to leave the crowded module. As she did so, Paul Verduin touched a couple of keys on his board, waited a few moments, then removed two CD-ROM disks from slots in his console. He solemnly handed them to Arthur Johnson. ‘Audiovisual record is on One, sensor scan and mission history is on Two,’ he said. ‘I made backups about an hour ago, but this is the complete record.’ He thought for a moment. ‘The pilot, captain D’Agostino. Is he…?’

  Johnson smiled. ‘Disarmed. He had a pistol as a side-arm, but it made a disappearance while he was sleeping off his hangover. Since his craft is out of fuel, he won’t be able to take it aloft. I think Katsu’s out there now, making some more permanent changes.’ He chuckled and shook his head. ‘He and Boggs have been bitching about not having enough spare parts for the Burroughs, so I guess they’re getting them now.’

  Kawakami still looked worried. ‘Richard might still try to get the captain to intercede.’

  ‘We’ll have to take that chance,’ Arthur said. ‘Bu
t at least he’s outnumbered. One combat-trained Marine against a half-dozen wimpy scientists…?’ He shrugged. ‘Well, if it gets too serious, we can always knock him over the head and threaten to toss him out the airlock. My bet is that he gets a ride back to the Shinseiki when the lander takes off again.’

  Verduin was looking at the CD-ROMs in Johnson’s hands. ‘Don’t worry, Paul. They’re in good hands.’ Johnson slipped the two silver disks into his shirt pocket and zipped it shut, then took a deep breath. ‘Okay, people, let’s shut it down. Paul and Shin-ichi, remember to erase everything from the memory. Leave nothing they can use.’

  ‘What are you…?’ Cassidy began.

  Johnson held up a finger. ‘Wait. Just wait.’

  Around them, the scientists were busily working their keyboards. One by one, the TV and computer screens blinked out as the electronic hum of computer drives grunted and died. All the equipment that had recorded every hard-fought inch of the journey through the Labyrinth slowly died. Within a minute, Module Eight was completely silent. All the instruments were dead, the screens completely dark.

  Johnson let out his breath. ‘I never thought it could get so quiet in here.’ He put his hand on Kawakami’s shoulder. ‘Any second thoughts, Kawakami-san?’

  The exobiologist was staring at a blank screen. After a moment, he shook his head. ‘It’s the only way,’ he said. He touched his upper lip meditatively. ‘Wasn’t there something one of your founding fathers said about hanging together or hanging separately?’

  When Jessup entered the control module a few moments later, the first thing he noticed was the inactivity. His eyes roved over dead consoles, then focused on the science team, who in turn were silently watching him. ‘If this is what I think it is,’ he said evenly, ‘you’re all making a grave mistake.’

  Arthur Johnson shook his head. ‘No, we don’t believe so. This is a strike, Dick. Maybe you could call it a revolution. Everybody here is in on it, and nothing gets done until our non-negotiable demands are met.’