CHAPTER 22
the Maze
In vain Krimshaw searched the floor for crumbs.
Standards had long since been lowered to the eating off the floor of any random morsel that slightly resembled a particle of what was once in another lifetime food.
They had been inside the maze for a long time, and for good reason.
An Abducted-Ship Maze does not exist on the surface of a planet. Mazes are free-floating in space, being the combined size of 3.7 medium quadra-level planets.
Over the many ages since its inception, Abducted-Ship Mazing has risen and fallen in popularity. To ensure the public is still getting fresh entertainment, Mazes are carefully designed to be the definitive representation of danger. Nowadays a maze consists of thousands of deadly, twisting corridors branching out like brain synapses from a spherical centre. There is only one exit, hidden deep in the outer realms. Most ships are unsuccessful, as along the way to the impossible-to-find exit are innumerable traps like time-travelling wormholes, squadrons of well-funded Plutonian nuclear-eels, or the recently invented Dementia-Mirrors (drive through one of those and you’re only able to make a right turn for six weeks). It has reached the point where being the victim of a Maze is probably the greatest fear in the galaxy. Every time the average Joe Alien starts up his space-cruiser his brain flashes on the very real possibility that he might suddenly vanish from his proper dimension and reappear inside a Maze surrounded by jeering spectators and Plutonian nuclear-eels.
Miraculously, only one Obotron ship had, as of yet, perished in the Maze. 13 fleet ships followed the main crew down corridor 973L.
Scores of spectators were gathered on viewing platforms scattered around the exciting parts of the maze. Galactic Wranglers & Wobblers were in charge of selling the crazily overpriced tickets. Tickets were especially popular for the area in front of the monstrous minotaur that devours ships in a single bite. The minotaur then regurgitates mechanical shrapnel over top of a cheering crowd that abruptly stops cheering when it begins getting rained on by mechanical shrapnel.
Another prominent platform was the headquarters for The Trilateral Commission on Hearings of Importance. Nothing much occurs here except the repeated hammering out of The Treaty of Manderbatt, followed by hostile disputes over what is meant by the cryptic and vague language it was written in. The arguments are simultaneously resolved and renewed by yet another good hammering out of the Treaty.
Directly beside the platform for The Trilateral Commission on Hearings of Importance is an area sanctioned off for those who wish to protest and boycott everything contained within The Treaty of Manderbatt. This group is better known as the Civilian Organized Militia For The Restoration of Peace, Order and Civility to the Kroonum System. Placing these two platforms beside each other inevitably causes a state of miniature warfare. Members of each side are constantly being bombed into space, all of which is part of the master plan devised by the Kroonum Civility, Order & Peace Agency to have both parties wiped out while avoiding scandalous involvement charges. When things get too heated, the Council of Eleven and a Half Thousand Different Coloured Robes is called in from their sitting perch located at the only exit of the maze. There are only two possible verdicts one can receive while facing trail with the Robes. Execution, or be put inside the maze. So it’s really just one possible verdict.
The same exact person who designed the impossible-to-navigate mazes had also designed the legal treatise of the Kroonum System. Each system was more labyrinthine and convoluted than the last. Successful navigation is not meant to be a viable option. These mind-bending, logic-defying structural designs were from the painfully twisted imagination of the Grand KULMOOG Commander Flook. We will hear about him again later in the story.
The corridors of the maze act as a sort of one-way window. The ships inside the maze cannot see outward, yet the spectators can see inside the maze with the aid of x-ray glasses (should you choose to visit a Maze Shop and purchase the glasses at a price so astronomical that you will assuredly have no money left over for the fuel home, effectively stranding you and forcing you to rent your crew and ship out as Maze participants, with the promise of a decent pay cheque that would never arrive even in the rare chance that you escaped anyway).
“How long have we been here?”
“Check the calendar,” said Wilx as he hit the brakes, barely avoiding collision with a minefield of boiled proto-stars placed at the end of corridor 973L.
“Looks like corridor 973L is another perilous dead-end,” groaned Krimshaw.
The words of the now familiar sounding phrase ‘Looks like corridor blank is another perilous dead-end’ passed into the nearby ears of the languid Dr. Rip. His brain processed the meaning behind these words, yet he didn’t understand what was said at all. This type of phrase had been spoken so many times by everyone in the last 19 months (being the approximate amount of earth time they’d spent in the Maze so far) that Rip wouldn’t listen to any more of it. He’d gone through all the stages of insanity and mental breakdown one can go through, and was now currently reverting to a state of catatonic silence.
“Were you listening?” said Wilx to Rip. “Add 973L to the list of corridors we’ve tried.”
Rip wrote down some miscellaneous letters and numbers, none of which were 973L. In a moment of poor life decisions, the task of writing down the names of the perilous dead-end corridors was specifically delegated to Rip. It was understood he couldn’t handle anything more difficult. Wilx and Krimshaw sat him down in a chair, gave him a clipboard, a few pencils and a stack of blank paper, and told him to merely write down exactly whatever they told him. It was a task he had miserably failed at from the very beginning. Not one of the numbers or the vitally important corresponding letters of the corridor names had been marked down properly, the result of which being that the fleet of Obotrons had needlessly gone through many corridors more than once each. It is likely they would have escaped the maze in a matter of sheer weeks if anyone else had been writing down the numbers. Wilx was completely unaware that he had steered the ship around the same time-travelling wormhole at least 11 times.
Writing down the names of the perilous dead-ends may have been the easiest task on the ship, but it was also the most important. Assigning such an essential job to Rip was a more insane act than anything Rip himself had done, including the time he bolted all the furniture to the roof in an attempt to flip the universe upside down.
Dwellers of Earth may be interested to know that almost every single boat or airplane that has vanished while in the area known as ‘The Bermuda Triangle” has in fact been the victim of Abducted-Ship Mazing. Any other reported vanishing from that area is merely a sinking caused by drunken pilots. The Wranglers & Wobblers enjoy seeking out species that haven’t invented vehicles qualified to operate in a space-maze, and in an act of mockery transport whatever primitive vehicles they do happen to have into the maze anyway. Spectators love seeing an earthbound vessel appear midair in space, only for the vessel to immediately spin out of control and crash. If you wasted your money and are wearing x-ray glasses, the explosions and the writhing of the victims will be made much more exciting through automatic digital-enhancement. The floors of all the maze corridors are lined with the ancient wreckage of missing WWII bomber-submarines and tourist filled float-planes. Back on earth (in a moment of far too common irony) it is considered ridiculous and ruinous to your reputation to go around saying that aliens are the cause of the Bermuda disappearances, whereas the respected individuals who receive government grants and media coverage are the truly ridiculous lot, being the ones to have foolishly named it “The Bermuda Triangle”, when in fact it is blatantly rectangular in shape.
“Hey!” yelled Wilx. “Do you see that up ahead?”
“See what?” asked Krimshaw.
“Those two ships in front of us.”
“What about them? Fire a couple bombs at them and get them out of the way.”
Krimshaw’s idea to blow up the unknown ships did not shock anyone. Competition between fellow ships is a frequent part of life inside the maze. Long ago a rumour had been spread that if you destroyed a ship you would later be granted a clue about the Maze exit. The rumour is completely false. Help is never given to a Maze-goer. Being that ship battles are among the most exciting things to happen inside a Maze, the Trilateral Commission on Hearings of Importance were perfectly happy when the rumour permanently stuck around. After all, they were the ones who started the rumour and continually worked to maintain its upkeep.
“Don’t fire any bombs!”
“Why not?” asked Krimshaw. “You know the rules. Anyone who destroys another ship will later be granted a clue. Just think about when all our clues finally arrive... we’ll have no problem finding the exit.”
“There’s no clues.”
“You don’t know that. Fire the bombs!”
“Look,” said Wilx, “those two ships are Obotrons!”
Krimshaw looked out the window and saw he was right.
“How did they get ahead of us? I thought all the fleet ships were programmed never to go faster than Obotron 1?”
“That’s correct,” said Wilx. “Those two Obotrons were already in the maze without us.”
Krimshaw took a moment to add everything up. “You mean those are the two ships that never made the hyper-spacial jump into the Kroonum system?”
“Yes. Two of the slower ships in convoy. They must have fallen behind during hyperspace, allowing them to be picked off by the net-wave of the Wranglers. Nobody seemed to notice, probably because the slower Obotrons have always been considered highly expendable. Then the Wranglers caught up with the rest of us after we left Lincra.”
“How have they survived all this time without us?” asked Krimshaw. “I thought you said without our guidance system the rest of the ships would be destroyed by the nearest object of dangerous proportions.”
“Normally, yes. These two ships are lucky. It looks like their system went into shock upon the sudden disconnection with the guidance program of Obotron 1. The ships were somehow locked in place the minute they appeared inside the Maze. I don’t think they’ve moved an inch the entire time they’ve been here.”
“Good thing they got stuck in an empty corridor,” said Krimshaw aptly.
‘Keep Moving’ is probably the best survival motto one can have regarding a Maze. ‘Never, Ever Remain Motionless For Longer than 3 seconds’ would be a more helpful elaboration on the previous vital piece of knowledge. To stop your ship in the maze is to assuredly be chomped by a monstrous minotaur or gravitate into a solar whirlpool.
Obotron 1 accessed the rusty databases of the missing ships and re-programmed them to follow along with the fleet. Soon enough the number of Obotrons was increased from 13 to 15. It wasn’t a proper fleet, but it was still a belligerently high-priced set of technological waste. Wilx was delighted at having found the missing ships.
“I feel as if we’ve already passed that wormhole,” said Krimshaw.
“Check the list. We’re on corridor 193P.”
Krimshaw consulted the list. Corridor 193P was not there, despite this being the 12th time the fleet had passed this particular wormhole.
“It’s not on the list. I guess I’m hallucinating.”
“Good chance.”
Suddenly a broadcast appeared on the telescreen. It was showing a large group of Obotron crew members facing the camera.
Wilx was startled by the appearance of the image, especially considering it now blocked his view of the Maze corridor.
“Who are you?” asked Wilx.
“We are the crew members of the two Obotron ships that have until recently been missing,” replied Ralph, one of the night-time janitors who suddenly took it upon himself to be spokesman for the group. It was not known whether Ralph had been voted into leadership, made himself leader because he genuinely felt he deserved the job, or fell into the gig by chance having been conveniently standing both nearest the microphone and best framed in the foreground of the camera.
“We’re busy,” said Wilx.
Ralph felt the pressure to skip to the point. “We just wanted to express our sincere and heartfelt thanks for the recent rescue of our two vessels, as well to send our regretful apologies that we were ever lost in the first place. We dread to think what would happen to us without the guidance system of Obotron 1. We look forward to sustaining a lifelong career out of following you around on your adventures. We would also like to say---“
Wilx cut off the broadcast. “That’s enough.”
“About the wormholes in the Maze,” said Krimshaw, “aren’t they time-travelling wormholes?”
“Of course they are,” replied Wilx. “Have you ever known a wormhole not to be a time-traveller? Fly into one of those and you’ll be transported to any random time in the past or the future.”
“So isn’t that our way out?”
“What?”
“This maze tours around the galaxy. It’s constantly moving. So if we fly into one of those wormholes we’ll reappear outside the maze no matter what, because during any other time it won’t be here.”
Wilx thought this over for a minute. It seemed like a foolish plan, but they had nothing else.
“It’s a brilliant plan!” he said.
It actually was a brilliant plan. Flying into a time-travelling wormhole is the only way to escape the Maze. Even the official outer exit is not at all a means of escape. As mentioned before, the official exit is also the sitting perch for the Council of Eleven and a Half Thousand Different Coloured Robes. Anyone who finds the exit is put under trial by the Robes to decide if they are truly worthy of leaving the Maze. No one is ever deemed worthy. The ships are placed back at the starting point instead of being set free like the usual logical rules of finding the exit of a Maze.
“Time-travel is frightening. Everyone prepare yourself,” said Wilx as he set the guidance system for the nearest wormhole. He then roped himself down with unbreakable Tjurdian Rope.
“Hey, where’s our magically unbreakable rope?” asked Krimshaw.
“There isn’t any more. You’ll have to prepare yourself for the horrid act of time-travel in some other less logical way.”
Krimshaw prepared himself by gnashing his teeth, even breaking some of them. Rip didn’t move at all. The fleet of Obotrons flew directly into the center of a time-travelling wormhole. When they re-emerged on the other side of the obligatory mind-bending psychedelic light-show, the Maze and all of its war-faring spectators were nowhere to be seen.
“It worked! We’re free!”
“But where did we travel to?” asked Krimshaw. “Or when?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Wilx. “So far all I know is that two of the Obotron ships are no longer with us. They’re either still inside the maze or they’re forever trapped in the purgatory of the wormhole. One thing is certain, we’ll probably never mention or think of them again.”
TIME WARP
of Things that are neither the Beginning
nor the Middle, nor the End… Sort of