Free The Magic Labyrinth by Philip José Farmer Page A

during other social activities. Loghu liked one of the suspected agents, a huge man named Arthur Pal who claimed to have been a Hungarian electrical engineer, so she moved in with him after his mate left him. Burton’s suspicions were increased when Loghu noted that Pal spent much time with Podebrad. Her efforts to trip him up on his story were fruitless, but Burton said that if enough time elapsed she was bound to do so. If the agents had a common story, they would have memorized it. However, they were (presumably) human and so would make mistakes. One contradiction would be enough.
    Alice still had not been able to bring herself to force the split with Burton. She kept hoping that he would change his attitude toward her enough to justify staying with him. That their duties kept them apart most of the day helped ease matters. He seemed so glad to see her at the end of the day that she felt better, and she talked herself into believing that they would get back to their original passionate state. They were like an old married couple in many ways. They still had a certain fluctuating affection but were increasingly irritated by character traits they could have once easily overlooked.
    In one sense, they were old though their youthful bodies had been restored. She had lived on Earth to be eighty-two and he to sixty-nine. (“Considering my sexual preferences, a significant age at which to die,” Burton had once drawled.) A long life tended to ossify more than the arteries; it also ossified habits and attitudes. It made it much more difficult to adjust, to change one’s self for the better. The impact of the resurrection and the Riverworld had shattered many people’s beliefs and helped set them up for change. It had decalcified many, though in some the fragmentation was only slight, in others much more, and many had been unable to adjust at all.
    Alice had suffered a metamorphosis in many respects, though her basic character remained. It was down there in the abysm of the soul, the deeps which make the spaces between the stars seem a mere step over a puddle. It was the same with Burton.
    So Alice stayed with him, hoping what she knew was hopeless.
    At times, she dreamed of finding Reginald again. But she also knew that that was even more hopeless. She would never go back to him whether he had remained the same or changed. It was doubtful that he had changed. He was a good man, but, like all the good, he had faults, some grave, and he was too stubborn to change.
    The thing was that no caterpillar could ever effect a metamorphosis in another. The other, if it is to become a butterfly, must do it itself. The difference between man and caterpillar was that the insect was preprogrammed and the human had to reprogram himself.
    Thus the days passed for Alice, though there was much more to them than thinking such thoughts.
    And then one day, when the Rex connected its batacitor and grail lines to a stone on the right bank, the stone failed to discharge.

10
    Shock and panic.
    Fifteen years ago, the grailstones on the left bank had quit operation. Twenty-four hours later, they had resumed functioning. King John had been told by Clemens that the line had been severed by a great meteorite but that it had been reconnected and all damage restored in that amazingly short period. It must have been done by the Ethicals, though anybody in the area to witness the reforming had been overcome by something—probably a gas—and slept through the whole project.
    Now the question was: Would the line be repaired again?; the lesser question: What caused this disaster? Another meteorite? Or was it one more step downward in the breakdown of this world?
    King John, though stunned, rallied swiftly. He sent his officers to calm down the crew, and he gave orders to serve everybody the mixture of lichen alcohol, water, and powdered irontree blooms called grog on the Rex.
    After all were soaked enough in the drink that gives good cheer and courage, he