The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wedge, by Horace Brown Fyfe

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Title: The Wedge

Author: Horace Brown Fyfe

Release Date: March 31, 2010 [EBook #31833]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEDGE ***

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[ Transcriber's Note:

This e-text was produced from the September 1960 issue of If.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
as possible.

Text that was _italic_ in the original is marked with _.]

The Wedge

Finding his way out of this maze was only half the job.

By H. B. FYFE

[Illustration]

When the concealed gong sounded, the man sitting on the floor sighed. He
continued, however, to slump loosely against the curving, pearly plastic
of the wall, and took care not to glance toward the translucent ovals he
knew to be observation panels.

He was a large man, but thin and bony-faced. His dirty gray coverall
bore the name "Barnsley" upon grimy white tape over the heart. Except at
the shoulders, it looked too big for him. His hair was dark brown, but
the sandy ginger of his two-week beard seemed a better match for his
blue eyes.

Finally, he satisfied the softly insistent gong by standing up and
gazing in turn at each of the three doors spaced around the cylindrical
chamber. He deliberately adopted an expression of simple-minded
anticipation as he ambled over to the nearest one.

The door was round, about four feet in diameter, and set in a flattened
part of the wall with its lower edge tangent with the floor. Rods about
two inches thick projected a hand's breadth at four, eight, and twelve
o'clock. The markings around them suggested that each could be rotated
to three different positions. Barnsley squatted on his heels to study
these.

Noting that all the rods were set at the position he had learned to
think of as "o