The Magic Labyrinth

by Philip José Farmer

  Barker and Okabe crossed, almost hitting each other, so close they saw each other's faces.

  It was a mad scramble now, each climbing with all the power of his motor, at an angle just short of a stall. Their motors sang with the labor.

  Then Okabe slid off, dropping, and as his sight crossed Guynemer, he triggered a burst of four bullets.

  The Frenchman ducked involuntarily as a hole was punched in his windscreen. Banking, he followed Okabe down, hoping to get on his tail. The plane displaying the red ball had taken a chance and almost succeeded. But now he was lower than Guynemer, and he must pay.

  The Japanese came back up in a tight loop which almost stood the plane on its tail. It fell back, and Okabe, upside down, fired as Guynemer came into his sights again. The Frenchman was rolling then. Bullets stitched across the fuselage, just missing him. His fuel tank was hit, but it was self-sealing, a feature he didn't have in his old Spad. Okabe straightened the plane out and climbed again. Guynemer curved his machine around, sped up, hung it on its nose for several seconds, and loosed four bullets. One shot through the cockpit, burning the Japanese's hand on the stick. Grunting with pain, Okabe snatched his hand away. His plane fell off to the right, out of control for a moment.

  Guynemer had fallen into a spin, though he brought it out quickly.

  The Frenchman and the German were, without planning it, for a few seconds side by side, both climbing. Then Guynemer banked toward Voss, and, to prevent a collision, Voss also banked. Instead of turning away, as Guynemer had expected, Voss turned toward him but went down instead of up.

  Voss' wingtip missed Guynemer's tail elevator by a half-inch.

  The German drove down and then up in a loop, a maneuver not recommended when the enemy was on your tail. At its top, he rolled over and then dived.

  Guynemer had thought, when Checkerboard turned into him, that it was all over. Quickly recovering, no time for thought about narrow escapes here, he started to climb, looking over his shoulder. For a moment he could not see Checkerboard. Then both it and Barker's machine flashed by him. His friend was behind Checkerboard, having somehow gotten on his tail. Checkerboard went into a barrel roll, lost speed in the maneuver, and then did a flat half-spin. Voss was quick as a cat at the controls. Suddenly, he was pointed in the opposite direction. Barker's plane shot by him, their wingtips almost touching.

  Guynemer had no time for further looking except for the plane with the red ball. Now the fellow was behind him but below, climbing as fast as he but still unable to decrease the distance between them. His foe was about seven hundred feet, Guynemer estimated. Close enough to reach him with his fire but too distant for accurate shooting in the air.

  Nevertheless, Red Ball did give him a burst. Holes walked across Guynemer's right wing as he raised it to turn. Red Ball also turned, jockeying his machine so that he could zero in on the man in the cockpit. Guynemer pushed in on the throttle until it was flat against the panel. If only his motor had more power than Red Ball's, he could pull away slowly even in this steep climb. But there was no use wishing. They were evenly matched in this respect.

  He pulled the stick back with a smooth savagery. He decreased the angle of his climb, thus allowing Red Ball to narrow the gap between them. But Guynemer could not curve up and over onto his back without more power. To try that without flattening out his inclination to the horizon would send his ship into a stall. For about thirty seconds, he had to take a chance that his enemy's fire would miss vital parts of his target.

  Okabe closed up, wondering why Vieux Charles had slowed down. By now he assumed that its pilot was Guynemer. Like all airmen, he knew Guynemer's history well. For some moments after seeing the name, he had felt strange. What was he doing up here trying to kill the famous Frenchie, to shoot down Old Charlie!

  Okabe looked through the sight. When he came within fifty yards, he would shoot. Now, now he was in range. He depressed the button on top of the joystick; his craft shook as the machine gun spat. He wasn't close enough to see if he had hit, but he doubted it. And now the white ship emblazoned with the red stork was pulling its nose up. Now, it was standing on its tail, and now, it had flipped over and was shooting at him.

  But Okabe had kicked rudder and pushed the stick. At this altitude, the plane did not respond as swiftly as in straight flight. But it performed the half-roll and then he was diving away. He looked back and saw that Old Charlie was coming out of the dive in the opposite direction.

  He turned steeply and headed toward it, hoping to catch it before it could get above him.

  Voss, finding the plane marked with the dog's head behind him, had little time to determine which maneuver might shake it off his tail. He doubted that any conventional aerobatics would do it. This man would just perform the same or would hang back a little and pounce on him when he came out of it.

  Savagely, he yanked the throttle half-back.

  Barker was surprised to come so close so suddenly. But he did not stop to think. Checkerboard was in his sight; the range was fifty yards and becoming less. Then the helmet of the pilot was inside the ring of his sight. He pressed on the trigger button.

  Checkerboard, as if reading his mind, suddenly increased power and at the same time half-rolled. Barker's bullets sped by where the head had been, scorching the bottom of the fuselage, knocking off the tail skid.

  Immediately, the Canadian half-rolled. If he had to shoot while on his side, he would do so.

  Checkerboard righted itself but continued into a half-roll to the right. Doghead followed it. Checkerboard regained horizontal attitude, and Doghead pressed on the trigger button again.

  But Checkerboard slid on into a turning dive. He must be desperate, Barker thought. I can turn and dive as fast as he. He also thought that Checkerboard must be Voss. He had to be.

  But Checkerboard pointed his nose up quickly, barrel-rolled, and fell down again. Barker refused to emulate the maneuver. He pushed on the stick, his thumb ready to press, sticking to Checkerboard as closely as a duckling to its mother.

  Guynemer, coming out of the dive, was in Checkerboard's line of fire. And Voss, estimating in a flash the vectors of his plane and Old Charlie's, the wind and the range, let loose a burst. There were only six bullets fired, and Guynemer was gone by. But one struck the Frenchman in the thigh, penetrating it at a downward angle.

  Barker did not know that Voss was shooting until he saw Georges throw up an arm and snap his head backward. Then he closed his thumb on the button, but Voss had zoomed up and into a flat half-spin, suicidally throwing his wings around so that Barker had to bank away to keep from collision.

  But he was around, turning as swiftly as a leopard fearing a hamstringing by a wild dog. Voss had momentarily escaped him, though at a cost. Forced to dive again to regain speed before Barker could get to him, he was below him again.

  Barker slid down toward him, looking around at the same time for Red Ball.

  He saw it. It was headed for him from above, coming to aid its fellow, now that Guynemer was momentarily, perhaps permanently, hors de combat.

  It was vital to abandon Voss for the moment. Barker turned his plane up, its nose pointed on the same plane and in the same direction as Okabe's. Collision course.

  But having to climb put him at a disadvantage. The enemy did not have to stay at the same level, nor did he. He banked slightly, turning to the left. Barker banked to the left. Okabe rolled to the right and then flattened out the dive. Evidently, he was trying to circle around to get on his tail. The Canadian looked down on both sides. Guynemer was climbing away now. He wasn't so badly wounded he was out of the fight. And the German was heading toward the Frenchman, who was almost at the same level. He was underneath him, in a perfect position for Barker to attack him. Unfortunately, Barker was in the same situation as Voss with respect to Okabe.

  Barker turned his plane while still climbing. Within about thirty seconds, Okabe would come screaming down and around and behind him.

  To hell with Oka
be. He was going to attack Voss anyway.

  Barker's plane dived in a long curve.

  The wings shook with the speed of the descent. He glanced at his speedometer. Two hundred and sixty miles per hour. At ten miles per hour more, the wings would be under an intolerable strain.

  He glanced back. Okabe was following him now but not that closely. Probably his wing's had about the same tolerance as his own plane. Barker flattened out a little, decreasing the rate of descent. This would allow Okabe to narrow the gap between him and Barker. But Barker wanted to come up on Voss at a speed which would give him time for a long burst.

  Now Voss, seeing Barker diving, the only target himself, turned his machine toward the swooping nemesis. For a few seconds, they were on the same line, and the muzzles of Voss' guns spat flame. He was taking a long chance, the odds high against success, since the range was four hundred yards. But there was little else he could do.

  If the plane had been miraculously hit, Barker himself was untouched. Now he banked away, altering slightly the curve. He throttled back, looking backward at the same time. Okabe was getting closer, but he was still too far away to use his weapon.

  Barker's machine, the wind howling over the edge of the windscreen, came around and behind Voss. The German did not look back, but he would see Barker in his rear-view mirror.

  Evidently, he had, since he half-rolled and dropped back and away. Barker performed the same maneuver, and then he saw that Guynemer was going to be in Voss' line of fire as Voss leveled out. For a second or two, Guynemer's plane would be broadside to Voss's guns. Twice, the Frenchman had been in the line of fire of Voss, both times by accident.

  Barker still did not know whether or not his buddy had been hit. He and Voss zoomed past Guynemer; the back of Voss' head was in Barker's sight, the range only fifty yards, and he was closing the gap.

  A glance in the mirror. Okabe was behind him by about fifty yards. And he was coming up fast. So fast that he would have only some seconds to fire unless he throttled back. Which he would do, of course, unless he was very sure of his marksmanship.

  Barker pressed the trigger. Holes danced down the length of the fuselage from the tail, passed over the pilot, whose head exploded in a gout of blood, and danced along the motor.

  The spectators on the shore now saw a strange sight. There were three airplanes in a line, and then, suddenly, four. Guynemer had come up behind Okabe. He was not above, the best position, and he did not have the speed which Okabe had gained in his dive. But as Voss' skull disintegrated, as Barker's spine was severed and the top of his head removed, Guynemer fired three rounds. One struck Okabe in the small of his back from below, angling up, ricocheting off the backbone, moving out toward the front of the body, and rupturing the solar plexus.

  After that, Guynemer's vision failed, and he dropped forward, shoving the stick down though not knowing it, while blood poured from his arm and his side. Two of Voss' bullets had found their mark.

  The checkerboard plane spun in, just missing the top of a rock spire on the bank, crashing through level after level of the bamboo bridges, and smashed into a hut. Flame gouted from it, burning alcohol splashed over neighboring huts and the wind took the flames to other buildings.

  The first of many fires that was to become a holocaust had started.

  The plane marked with the dog's head smashed into a spire and fell burning along its length, breaking through levels of bridges and huts, scattering pieces of hot metal and flaming fuel for many yards around.

  The machine marked with the red ball whirled like a corkscrew into the beach, struck scores of screaming spectators as they dashed for safety, plowed through scores more, and ended up against the great dance hall. The fire danced, too, leaping and whirling along the front and quickly enmeshing the entire structure in unquenchable scarlet and orange.

  Old Charlie descended in a shallow steep dive, turning over just before impact. It struck the edge of the bank of The River, dug a trench through the grass-covered earth while it flamed, smashed five people fleeing for their lives, and stopped at the base of an irontree trunk.

  Göring, pale and shaking, thought matt nobody had proved anything except that courage and great skill were not guarantees of survival, that Dame Fortune plays an invisible hand, and that war is fatal to soldiers and civilians, belligerents and neutrals alike.

  SECTION 10

  Armageddon: The Not For Hire vs. the Rex

  30

  * * *

  King John had jumped the gun.

  Just before the four aviators formed their bucket brigade of death, he spoke into the microphone on the pilothouse control panel.

  "Taishi!"

  "Yes, Captain."

  "Attack! And may God ride with you."

  Fifteen minutes before, the huge hatch at the stern had opened. A large two-seater plane with folded wings had slipped down a runway into the water. Floating on its pontoons, it had waited while its wings were extended and locked. Then Sakanoue Taishi, sitting in the pilot's seat forward of the wings, had started the two motors. While Taishi watched the aerial battle from the open cockpit, he warmed up the motors. Behind the wings, in the gunner's station, stood Gabriel O'Herlihy.

  Both were veterans, the Japanese of World War II, the Irish-Australian of the Korean police action. Taishi had flown torpedo bombers for the Imperial Navy and had met his end in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. O'Herlihy had been a machine-gunner for the infantry. Despite his lack of aerial experience, he had been chosen for this post because of his superb marksmanship. It was said he could play a machine gun like Harpo Marx played the harp.

  Suddenly, though not unexpectedly, the captain had told Taishi to get into action as arranged. Taishi spoke through the intercom headphones, and O'Herlihy sat down. The Japanese revved the motors and they headed up-River into the wind. It was a long takeoff, since they were carrying ten rockets, each with a hundred-pound warhead, under the wings and a torpedo under the fuselage. This was electrically driven and carried seven hundred pounds of cordite in its head.

  At last, the big craft left the surface. Taishi waited until they were fifty feet up and pressed the pontoon release button. The gear and the two large pontoons fell off, and the machine picked up speed.

  O'Herlihy, looking back and upward, saw the four fighter planes fall and crash, but he did not tell Taishi. The pilot was too busy turning the machine toward the left bank, keeping it at a low altitude. He flew it between two rock spires just above the topmost wooden bridges. The plan was to skim across the top of the trees and, where possible, fly between the hills. Once they got close to the mountains, they would turn downwind. Still keeping close to the treetops, they would fly along the mountains. Then they would wheel right and shoot across the hills and come down just above the bamboo complexes. And they would strike at the Not For Hire which would be broadside to them.

  Taishi knew that Clemens' radar had picked them up the moment they left The River. But he hoped to elude it until he appeared suddenly from behind the hills.

  The noncom had been trying to get Sam Clemens' attention for a minute. The captain, however, seemed not to hear him. He was standing up by the chair now, a burning cigar in his mouth, his eyes filmed with tears. He was murmuring, over and over, "Georges! Bill!"

  Joe Miller stood near him. The titanthrop was clad in battle armor, a steel helmet with a heavy wire basket over the face, a sausage-shaped extension to guard his nose, a chain-mail shirt, fishskin leather gloves, plastic loin protection, and aluminum thigh and shin guards. In his mammoth right hand was the shaft of a double-bladed steel axe-head weighing one hundred pounds.

  Joe's eyes were moist also.

  "They vath nithe guyth," he rumbled.

  "Captain!" the noncom said. "Radar says a big plane has taken off from the Rex!"

  Sam said, "What?"

  "A two-motored plane, pontoon type, has taken off. Radar reports that it's heading for the north."

  Sam came to full attention then. "North?
Why the hell . . .? Oh! It's going to swing around and try to catch us broadside!"

  He yelled at the others to get below. In a minute he had scrambled down the ladder onto the bridge. He shouted at the executive officer, John Byron.

  "Did you order the Goose to take off?"

  Byron said, "Yes, sir. The moment radar spotted their torpedo plane leaving! They broke the agreement!"

  "Good man," Sam said. He looked out the port window. The Goose, a big twin-motored torpedo plane, was past the boat, heading into the window. Even as he caught sight of it, it lifted, water falling from the white pontoons. A minute later, the two pontoons fell, struck The River, glanced upward and ahead, then fell, were caught by the current, and drifted away.

  "Battle stations!" Clemens said.

  Byron punched a button. Sirens began howling, but the crowd on the decks had already started toward its posts.

  "Full speed ahead!"

  Detweiller, sitting in the pilot's chair, pushed his two control sticks as far as they would go. The giant electrical motors began turning; the huge paddle wheels attached to them dug into the water. The boat almost seemed to leap forward.

  "That's a smart trick old John's pulled," Clemens said. "Radio the Goose and tell them to come in on the Rex's broadside."

  Byron hastened to obey. Sam turned to de Marbot. The little fellow wore a coal-scuttle helmet of duraluminum, a chain-mail shirt and kilt, and leather jackboots. A leather belt held a holster in which a Mark IV pistol was couched and a scabbard in which a cutlass was sheathed.

  "Tell your men to bring up the SW," he said. "On the double!"

  The Frenchman punched a button which would put him on the intercom to the storage room.

  "Is the enemy plane still on the radar?" he said to the operator.

  "Not at the moment," Schindler replied. "It's behind the hills, too close to the mountains."

  "It'll come hellbent for election right over the tops of the trees," Clemens said. "We won't have much time."