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and if I can find out where he did come from, and how he wound up as one of
your group of survivors, I'll have the last major piece in this puzzle."
Maria had been quite busy, and I didn't know now how I would have coped
without her. I now had a fair amount of information on Carlos's lair,
including a general map and layout, the basic security systems built in, and
the general routine of the place. There were, however, also an awful lot of
people living
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20-%20The%20Maze%20in%20the%20Mirror.txt and working there, all of whom were
in thrall to Carlos and not to regular security no matter what their personnel
files said and any of which, no matter what they thought of him, would still
have no choice but to blow away anybody threatening his cozy situation.
On the other hand, my client, when he made another remote control appearance,
decided he no longer liked the deal.
"I have decided that the risk to putting your interests first makes the odds
of successfully accomplishing my own interests almost prohibitive. First you
must stop the project in the only permanent way possible, by using the flaw
built into the basic plan. Then I will give you entry and aid to Carlos."
"No deal!" I shot back to him on the keyboard. "I assume that what you want is
neither easy nor safe and that my odds there aren't so hot, either. I also
assume that the only way to accomplish your own goal is to trigger something
nasty before its time. Otherwise they'd just bide their time and start over.
The only way to insure things is to destroy one of the key sidings, and I
suspect I
know which one is the most likely candidate to permanently disable the plan by
making the odds too prohibitive and the new setup too complex to have a decent
chance of success."
"You do not disappoint me, Horowitz."
"Well, I am now. If I blow that it'll have to be from the universe side. I'm
not too certain what will happen, but I have the idea that it'll make some of
the
Labyrinth uninhabitable for a while, and that means that even if I live I'll
be cut off. On top of that, the Company will know as soon as I come through
the gate. They would have to. So, no matter what, I will fall into their hands
and probably by now they have classified me as Benedict Arnold, Jr. And to top
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it all off, this crew here will have nothing to do for a while but revenge
itself on me and mine, not to mention blowing that world they threatened. No,
no deal."
"There will be a way to use the Labyrinth even after. The calculations have
been checked and double-checked. If it were not so, there would be no purpose
to this, now, would there? You know only part of his security. I can give you
all of it and the bypass procedures. I can also provide a way to bypass the
Company and exit your world. Considering your resources and your familiarity
with it and with the Company, you should be able to make it there. And if the
Company catches you, tell them the truth. The information you require will
still be in your hands-before you do what I want but after you are irrevocably
committed to that course of action. When the Company people understand what
you have done and why and what you still have to do, and considering you can
promise them Carlos in the bargain, I do not think they would hesitate to aid
you. You will need the
Company's services anyway
-after your business is done. That fact alone jeopardizes what I require. If
they learn about what I wish before it is done they will prevent it. They
would have to. And that means this is all for nothing."
"What is the rush on this?" I asked it via the terminal keyboard. We have
months, maybe a year, don't we?"
"You are brilliant, Horowitz, in some things, but foolish in others. Yours was
the only Company-held and Company-controlled point they had not already
secured and prepared. It is still the most vulnerable
-it is Markham's home world and a busy one. Do you think they would move
against you and then hope to maintain the fiction for months or years? And
they are more nervous now yet more confident, too. They have speeded things
up. All is in place. They need only to hook up and test the timing computers
now. We are talking days, Horowitz."
Unfortunately, the cavalier attitude they'd taken with me had hinted at this,
but I didn't like to see it confirmed. "Can't you knock off one or two of them
and send the rest scurrying to deeper cover?"
"I already tried that with Pandross. You can see how successful I was. Perhaps
I
should have killed one a few days later, and one more later still, but I was
loathe to do it. They are my soul-mates, after all. If I do it now I believe I
will have the opposite effect of rushing them into doing it, perfectly
prepared and tested or not. The more rush and the less testing, the higher the
odds of it generating just the sterilizing surge we both fear. You are due to
see Valintina
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file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20G.O.D.%20Inc%203%
20-%20The%20Maze%20in%20the%20Mirror.txt next. When you leave her, you must be
prepared to act. My associates will move in and provide all you need. It must
be done then-and quickly-while you would not be missed here. If you do it,
then they will be powerless to carry out their threat against the world they
selected, and by the time they are it will be empty and irrelevant to them.
They will have to go to ground for years."
I thought about this new wrinkle. "And what about Maria?" I typed to my absent
client, thinking it through. For all her problems, I had come to like her, and
she'd been of great use, as I said.
"I thought it was obvious. If you get away and live, she is dead in a horrible
and slow manner. If she is not killed, then she must hunt you and use all
methods to get you, and she will. It has been so from the start of this. Face
the truth. One of you must die."
He was right, of course, but I didn't like this new order of things. I was
being pushed into it now, trapped in a corner before I was ready, just as he'd
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figured all along. I didn't like being pushed, and I liked being trapped into
doing somebody else's bidding even less.
"I'll think about it." I told the client, and didn't wait for a reply. I
grabbed the pencil and paper and stalked away.
Maria was reading something in a language I couldn't begin to guess over on a
mat on the floor, and she looked up and must have read my expression.
"Something the matter?" she asked. "You do not look happy. What were you
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