But no. That would spoil everything. You have to live, Charles. To go back to Earth and admit that you let the indispensable man slip through your grasp. What a blotch on your career! To fail your most important assignment! Yes. Yes. My pleasure. Falling dead here, leaving you to pick up the pieces.”
His finger tightened on the stud.
“Now,” he said. “Quickly.”
“Man,” said Muller, and laughed, and did not fire. His arm relaxed. He tossed the weapon contemptuously toward Boardman. It landed almost at his feet.
“Foam!” Boardman cried. “Quick!”
“Don’t bother,” said Muller. “I’m yours.”
3
Rawlins took a long while to understand it. First they had the problem of getting out of the maze. Even with Muller as their leader, it was a taxing job. As they had suspected, coming upon the traps from the inner side was not the same as working through them from without. Warily Muller took them through Zone E; they could manage F well enough by now; and after they had dismantled their camp, they pressed on into G. Rawlins kept expecting Muller to bolt suddenly and hurl himself into some fearful snare. But he seemed as eager to come alive out of the maze as any of them. Boardman, oddly, appeared to recognize that. Though he watched Muller closely, he left him unconfined.
Feeling that he was in disgrace, Rawlins kept away from the others on the nearly silent outward march. He considered his career in ruins. He had jeopardized the lives of his companions and the success of the mission. Yet it had been worth it, he felt. A time comes when a man takes his stand against what he believes to be wrong.
The simple moral pleasure that he took in that was balanced and overbalanced by the knowledge that he had acted naively, romantically, foolishly. He could not bear to face Boardman now. He thought more than once of letting one of the deadly traps of these outer zones have him; but that too, he decided, would be naive, romantic, and foolish.
He watched Muller striding ahead—tall, proud, all tensions resolved, all doubts crystallized. And he wondered a thousand times why Muller had given back the gun.
Boardman finally explained it to him when they camped for the night in a precarious plaza near the outward side of Zone G.
“Look at me,” Boardman said. “What’s the matter? Why can’t you look at me?”
“Don’t toy with me, Charles. Get it over with.”
“Get what over with?”
“The tonguelashing. The sentence.”
“It’s all right, Ned. You helped us get what we wanted. Why should I be angry?”
“But the gun—I gave him the gun—”
“Confusion of ends and means again. He’s coming with us. He’s doing what we wanted him to do. That’s what counts.”
Floundering, Rawlins asked, “And if he had killed himself—or us?”
“He wouldn’t have done either.”
“You can say that, now. But for the first moment, when he held the gun—”
“No,” Boardman said. “I told you earlier, we’d work on his sense of honor. Which we had to reawaken. You did that. Look, here I am, the brutal agent of a brutal and amoral society, right? And I confirm all of Muller’s worst thoughts about mankind. Why should he help a tribe of wolves? And here you are, young and innocent, full of hope and dreams. You. remind him of the mankind he once served, before the cynicism corroded him. In your blundering way you try to be moral in a world that shows no trace of morality or meaning. You demonstrate sympathy, love for a fellow man, the willingness to make a dramatic gesture for the sake of righteousness. You show Muller that there’s still hope in humanity. See? You defy me, and give him a gun and make him master of the situation. He could do the obvious, and burn us down. He could do the slightly less obvious, and burn himself. Or he could match your gesture with one of his own, top it, commit a deliberate act of renunciation, express his revived sense of moral superiority. He does it. He tosses away the gun. You were vital, Ned. You were the instrument through which we won him.”
“You make it sound so ugly when you spell it out that way, Charles. As if you had planned even this. Pushing me so far that I’d give him the gun, knowing that he—”
Boardman smiled.
“Did you?” Rawlins demanded suddenly. “No. You couldn’t have calculated all those twists and turns. Now, after the fact, you’re trying to claim credit for having engineered it all. But I saw you in the moment I handed him the gun. There was fear on your face, and anger. You weren’t at all sure what he was going to do. Only when everything worked out could you claim it went according to plan. I see through you, Charles!”
“How delightful to be transparent,” Boardman said gaily.
4
The maze seemed uninterested in holding them. Carefully they traced their outward path, but they met few challenges and no serious dangers. Quickly they went toward the ship.
They gave Muller a forward cabin, well apart from the quarters of the crew. He seemed to accept that as a necessity of his condition, and showed no offense. He was withdrawn, subdued, self-contained; an ironic smile often played on his lips, and much of the time his eyes displayed a glint of contempt. But he was willing to do as they directed. He had had his moment of supremacy; now he was theirs.
Hosteen and his men bustled through the liftoff preparations. Muller remained in his cabin. Boardman went to him, alone, unarmed. He could make noble gestures too.
They faced each other across a low table. Muller waited, silent, his face cleansed of emotion. Boardman said after a long moment, “I’m grateful to you, Dick.”
“Save it.”
“I don’t mind if you despise me. I did what I had to do. So did the boy. And now so will you. You couldn’t forget that you were an Earthman, after all.”
“I wish I could.”
“Don’t say that. It’s easy, glib, cheap bitterness, Dick. We’re both too old for glibness. The universe is a perilous place. We do our best. Everything else is unimportant.”
He sat quite close to Muller. The emanation hit him broadside, but he deliberately remained in place. That wave of despair welling out to him made him feel a thousand years old. The decay of the body, the crumbling of the soul, the heat-death of the galaxy… the coming of winter… emptiness… ashes…
“When we reach Earth,” said Boardman crisply, “I’ll put you through a detailed briefing. You’ll come out of it knowing as much about the radio people as we do, which isn’t saying a great deal. After that you’ll be on your own. But I’m sure you’ll realize, Dick, that the hearts and souls of billions of Earthmen will be praying for your success and safety.”
“Who’s being glib now?” Muller asked.
“Is there anyone you’d like me to have waiting for you when we dock Earthside?”
“No.”
“I can send word ahead. There are people who’ve never stopped loving you, Dick. They’ll be there if I ask them.”
Muller said slowly, “I see the strain in your eyes, Charles. You feel the nearness of me, and it’s ripping you apart. You feel it in your gut. In your forehead. Back of your breastbone. Your face is going gray. Your cheeks are sagging. You’ll sit here if it kills you, yes, because that’s your style. But it’s hell for you. If there’s anyone on Earth
