03. The Maze in the Mirror (13 page)

To my surprise, a young girl emerged with the drinks. She was small and quite pretty, and clearly of the same race as the two men who'd brought me here. Like them, she was virtually naked except for the leather-like thongs and a bit of padding in the genital area, but she was more naked than anything on the Playboy Channel, that was for sure. She, too, had a heck of a nose but it was more than offset by her other attributes.

She bore a tray with two highball glasses filled with gin and tonic, complete with little plastic swizzle stick. I took one and sipped it, knowing that no matter how thirsty I was, I didn't dare chug it down in this climate. Never, never get high on a case and particularly not in enemy territory. One of the oldest rules, and, as tired and thirsty as I was, one of the toughest to keep. I
needed
a couple of doubles right then.

Voorhes took his, said, "Thank you, my dear," and the girl-she looked perhaps sixteen-smiled and turned and went back into the house.

"You seem to have quite a setup here, Mister
Voorhes," I noted. "Is there any civilization in this world or are these people the norm?"

"Oh, there's civilization here, although not the sort that you would fancy, I'd wager. The bulk of this world is pretty much stuck in the Stone Age, with the few Bronze Age tribes having fairly decent empires. Oh, they had cracks at things, but cyclical plagues and famines seemed to have knocked much of the world back so many times that they don't even try much any more. Most of where you go in this world it appears that curiosity, even ambition, has just died out in the people. I tried to introduce a few simple labor-saving concepts here and they saw and understood but rejected them. Said such things would poison their way of life! Just from me being here they've learned a lot about what is potentially available and it horrifies them. They want none of it. Their culture is almost entirely spiritual in nature. These people don't even understand the concept of property or competition. They live short lives, but rather happy ones overall. Sometimes I wonder if they didn't take the better track. They have no crime, no social hangups or inhibitions, and are relatively non-violent. A bit sexist, of course, but all primitive societies are-women and children first, of necessity, you see."

I sat back on the steps and tried to relax. This wasn't exactly what I'd been expecting, although I wasn't quite sure what I
had
been expecting.

"You want to tell me now what this is all about?"

Voorhes looked surprised. "Why, dear boy, I thought that was obvious! We are having a bit of a problem here and we need the services of a detective."

I frowned. "Come again? What kind of problem?"

Voorhes sighed. "I'm afraid we've got more than a bit of a murder on our hands, and it's impossible for anyone within our organization to investigate the matter properly. One by one, someone is polishing off our Board of Directors."

"Now, hold it," one of the other interrogators put in. "You mean they went to all this trouble to
hire
you? That's pretty damned hard to believe."

"How long you been off the gooseberry lay, son?" Sam asked sourly.

"Huh? What the hell. . . ?"

"Never mind. I don't care what you believe." Sam told him, aware now that these weren't just ordinary muscle but local Company boys. Not too experienced with the Labyrinth but not as ignorant as they let on, either. "I'm telling you exactly what happened, as near as I can remember it."

The aspirin were starting to kick in and he was feeling better but tired. "Now, you want me to tell it before I keel over or not?"

"Go ahead, Sam." Bill Markham urged. "I'm all ears."

I stared at the man. "You mean this was all an elaborate attempt to hire me?"

Voorhes cleared his throat nervously. "Well, not entirely, but it became so, yes. You see, we had a serious problem. Anyone well qualified to do it who worked for us simply couldn't be trusted in this matter for a number of reasons. Doing it ourselves was simply out of the question since we might be hiring someone working for the fox to
guard our henhouse. And since it was our own lives at stake, we couldn't take the chance. But whoever we got had to understand both the Labyrinth and its complexities completely. The greatest detective in any world was no good to us because he'd have to spend months just learning the rules and procedures and tables of organization and the like and getting comfortable with the concept. That left someone from the Company; someone well-connected enough to find out if indeed we were compromised, but anyone we got from there would have a vested interest in cheerfully stalling until we were all dead. You can understand our dilemma."

I could at that. "So you decided to kidnap me and my son and hold my son as the price of solving your problem. I'm surprised you didn't just take Brandy."

"Oh, we couldn't do that. Even if we thought she was fully qualified to do it and hadn't been, as it were, out of circulation and practice for years now, she could hardly be objective. I mean, she has good reason to hold grudges against us for past- unpleasantries-and even if she tried to do it she would be understandably blind prejudiced enough to go after certain members of the Board, guilty or not of what we wanted. You, on the other hand, have an excellent reputation for this sort of thing, have kept your hands and head in the business consistently, and you, along with your wife, are responsible for doing us in the last time and in actually trapping and convicting a member of the Company's board. Your clearances and contacts within the Company are impeccable. You see?"

I nodded. "I see, all right, and I suppose in a way
it's flattering, but you don't seem to have my own interests covered. If I took on your case, and remained as objective as I could be under the circumstances, I would have to know as much about your own top organization as I do about the Company." I would know who all your leaders were, where they were, and many of the details of your operation. In the end, I would know too much."

"True enough," Voorhes agreed, "but you know that there are many rather easy ways around that sort of thing. Otherwise, in this sort of technology, none of us could feel any measure of security."

I thought of those two opposition security men, like little children, drooling and blank. "I don't think I'd like a little explosion in my head and a life trying to figure out how to tie my own shoelaces."

"Well, there are other ways than that. In fact, I don't mind telling you flat out that we are better than ninety percent complete on our grand and final project. The Company will be destroyed, Mister Horowitz. We know how to do it and we will do it. We tried gentler ways and you and your wife blocked that. There are some who think you should be thanked for that. Had we succeeded in hooking the leadership of the Company on that nasty little drug we would have come to run it, and near absolute power would have changed hands from them to us. There are many, including myself, who wonder if we would have been any better at it than they over the long run. We are all human, Mister Horowitz. Such power would have proven -irresistible."

There was a rumbling of thunder in the distance and Voorhes looked up at the sky. "Come," he
said. "You are rested now. Come inside the house before the storm breaks and we will discuss it further."

The house was larger than it appeared, and quite comfortable-looking, although it lacked modern amenities. It was an eighteenth-century house in a Stone Age world, with oil lamps for light and much of the furnishings having that handmade look. It was as good as you might expect in a non-technological world, though, and there were some concessions. Screens on the windows, netting over the doors to keep out the bugs, that sort of thing. The stone construction kept it cooler, although with a perpetually damp smell and feel to it.

In a back room, I could hear two women's voices speaking to one another in the native language, and while I could make nothing out, the light tone and occasional giggles reminded me of two schoolgirls playing hooky. I took a seat on a hard couch in the living room and Voorhes sank into a padded rocker that looked well used.

"Where do you get the ice?" I asked him.

"Huh? Oh, there is power and some amenities in the substation control room, including a small freezer. Every day I go down there and collect some things, like the ice, and bring them up here in an insulated cooler until used. The natives were fascinated by clear ice. Other than hail and snow on the distant mountains they'd never seen the like. They like cold drinks, but they are actually rather smart. They immediately saw how making ice could lead to the preservation of food and that this would be a major threat to their lifestyle and values. They'll accept an iced drink now and again,
but won't hear of using it outside of the house here."

I looked around. "Why are you here, Mister Voorhes?" I asked, genuinely curious. "Is your opposition system so extensive that they can afford to have men like you stuck here as mere station masters?"

Voorhes was silent for a moment, then replied, "No, not as extensive as all that. Oh, this abandoned spur has its uses, not the least of which is that the station itself is so different in design and operation from the standard one that it's nearly impossible to detect, but, yes, you're right, it could be run by almost anyone. I live here because I choose to. Because not only is this world unpolluted, but it steadfastly rejects our pollution. There is a purity, a simplicity about this place that I have found nowhere else. These people have nothing but an attitude. If we could export it, even its basic essence, we would give humanity something it truly needs and lacks, or has forgotten. I myself am so much a victim of our modern technological societies that I have to have this house and many of the creature comforts. Our ancestors knew how to farm and hunt and gather but we ourselves have lost that. We are dead without our technology, at least at some least common denominator level. So, I am as minimalist as I can force myself to become here, and I find a measure of peace."

I nodded, understanding the man even though I wasn't sure that what he saw as the idyllic life was anything I, personally, would pick. Sort of an extreme version of what Brandy and I had experienced when we moved from our dense, urban
environment to the mountains of rural central Pennsylvania. You had no idea how much pressure you lived under, just day to day, in the city, until it was removed. But I had a real fondness for central heating and air conditioning and cable TV and supermarkets, and I'd gone about as rural as I wanted to get.

"You are not what I expected on the opposition," I noted, not trying to be coy or anything other than honest.

"Indeed? And what did you expect? Oh, yes- the drug business. Ugly business, that. We're not all philosophers, Mister Horowitz, and we're not even all very nice people. Most of us were, once, but not any more. We've been made bitter and cynical and cruel. The irony of conflict with an enormous and evil institution is that you can effectively fight it only by adopting its morals and its methods. Sooner or later, you become as corrupt and evil as they, and you tell yourself your ideals are still intact, but they become mere excuses for the highest forms of barbarism. It's the curse of the modern revolutionary, I fear, and I am as guilty of this as any of the others. Perhaps more so, since I am the group theoretician-the fellow who soothes consciences if there are really any left. I am a bit more sane when I am in this environment and in these surroundings, that's all. And yet, even in the worst of us there is that glimmer of purpose, of conscience, of some sort of moral imperative. That is why we have agreed now that half measures simply do not wash. The Company must be destroyed-utterly. The Labyrinth must be shut down, the stations dismantled, the atmospheric systems and switch points rendered
permanently inoperative. Each world must continue ignorant of and deprived of the fruits of the others, free to find its own destiny, good or bad. If the Labyrinth remains open, it will be used and abused, if not by the Company then by us, and if not by us then by someone else. And, like us and our mirror image of the Company, the vast bulk of humanity will be protected from anything except itself."

I thought it over. I wanted to know more. I wanted the whole picture. Besides-there were other factors. I shifted in my seat and then said, "I suppose I should tell you now that my son is no longer under your control, and I made arrangements that he'll be much more difficult and costly to get again."

Voorhes was definitely startled. "Really? And yet you came anyway? Telling no one?"

I nodded. "I came, and nobody except Brandy knows my real purpose. I did, of course, lay in some insurance, but so long as I'm alive the Company knows nothing. I think that in at least one respect you misread me, maybe more. You see, if you had still had my son, I would not be here now."

The storm broke, rather dramatically timed to my great inner satisfaction, and there was suddenly a windstorm inside the house as well, causing Voorhes to jump up and struggle to close the immediate windows against the already pounding rain.

The fellow is too devious for his own good,
I reflected as I watched the show and did nothing to help.
He makes a plan much too complicated and much more costly than need be just to lure me here
and yet, with sure signs of a storm coming, he makes no move to close the windows before it actually hits.
It said a lot about Voorhes' personality and character.

The bearded man was in the other room, shouting at the girls in the native tongue, and when he came back in he was clearly winded, again to my devilish delight. Served the old bastard right for running me ragged through that damned jungle.

Voorhes took a couple of minutes to settle himself, mumbled a lot of dark phrases glaring at the rain and the doorway in a Germanic tongue, then got himself back together and sat back down and stared at me for a few seconds, getting back on track.

"Fascinating," he said at last. "I mean you, Horowitz. Naturally, we established a difficult but possible trail to see if indeed you could do it. If you hadn't been able to track and liberate your own son on your own world, then you wouldn't have been considered for the more difficult task."