The Magic Labyrinth by Philip José Farmer Page A

best with Podebrad. And Burton was waiting for Strubewell to make a slip.
    Several days after the voyage had started again, John decided that he would do some recruiting. He stopped the Rex during the noontime meal and went ashore to make it known that he had empty berths to fill.
    Burton, as Sergeant Gwalchgwynn, had the duty with others of wandering through the crowd looking for possible assassins. When he came across an obvious early paleolithic, a squat massive-boned fellow who looked like a pre-Generalized Mongolian, and started to talk to him, he forgot his job for a while. Ngangchungding didn’t mind giving him a quick lesson in the fundamentals of his native speech, one which Burton had never encountered before. Then Burton, speaking Esperanto, tried to get him to sign up on the Rex. Not only would he be a desirable marine, he would give Burton the opportunity to learn his language. Nganchungding refused his offer. He was, he said, a Nichirenite, a member of that Buddhist discipline which stressed pacifism as strongly as its chief rival, the Church of the Second Chance. Though disappointed, Burton gave him a cigarette to show that there were no hard feelings, and he went back to King John’s table.
    John was interviewing a Caucasian whose back was partially blocked from Burton’s view by a tall, skinny-legged, long-armed, broad-shouldered Negro. Burton walked by them to place himself behind John.
    He heard the white man say, “I am Peter Jairus Frigate.”
    Burton whirled, stared, glaring and then he leaped at Frigate. Frigate went down under him, Burton’s hands around his throat.
    “I’ll kill you!” Burton shouted.
    Something struck him on the back of the head.

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    When he regained his senses, he saw the Negro and the four men who’d been behind him struggling with John’s bodyguards. The monarch had leaped on top of the table, and, red-faced, was shouting orders. There was some confusion for a minute before everybody settled down. Frigate, coughing, had gotten to his feet. Burton pulled himself up, feeling pain in the back of his head. Evidently, he’d been hit with the knobkerrie the black had carried suspended from a thong on his belt. It lay on the grass now.
    Though not entirely clearheaded, Burton realized that he had, somehow, erred. This man looked much like the Frigate he knew, and his voice was similar. But neither his voice nor his features were quite the same, and he wasn’t as tall. Yet…the same name?
    “I apologize, Sinjoro Frigate,” he said. “I thought…you looked so much like a man whom I have good reason to loathe…he did me a terrible injury…never mind. I am truly sorry, and if I may make amends…”
    What the devil, he thought. Or perhaps it should be, Which the devil?
    Though this was not his Frigate, he couldn’t help looking around for Monat.
    “You almost scared the piss out of me,” the fellow said. “But, well, all right. I accept. Besides, I think you’ve paid for your error. Umslopogaas can hit hard.”
    The black said, “I only tapped him to discourage him.”
    “Which you did,” Burton said, and he laughed, though it hurt his head.
    “You and your friends were fortunate you weren’t slain on the spot!” John bellowed. He got down from the table and sat down. “Now, what is the difficulty?”
    Burton explained again, secretly elated since under the circumstances the “almost” Frigate couldn’t reveal to John that Burton was using an assumed name. John got assurances from Frigate and his four companions that they held no resentment against Burton and then ordered his men to release them. Before continuing the interviews, he insisted that Burton give him an account of why he had attacked Frigate. Burton made up a story which seemed to satisfy the monarch.
    He said to Frigate, “How do you explain this startling resemblance?”
    “I can’t,” Frigate said, shrugging. “I’ve had this happen before. Not the attack, I mean. I mean running across