The Galaxy Builder (29 page)

            "It's Nicodaeus' old lab, isn't it?"
Roy interrupted, looking around curiously. "I remember the alchemy
department and the astrology section"—he indicated the star-charts on one
wall, and paused, looking puzzled—"but seems like there was a high-tech
electronic panel right next to it. When did he remodel?"

            "I don't think he did," Lafayette
persisted. "This is apparently a duplicate of an earlier stage of the lab.
The question is, why?"

            "Hard luck, Slim," Roy said mildly.
"If it was the real thing, we coulda used the homing box we just installed
a couple weeks ago."

            "What's a homing box?" Lafayette
demanded.

            "A new item in our line," Roy
explained. "One of Pratwick's best ideas—"

            "Sure, but what does it
do?"
Lafayette
cut in.

            "Well, Slim, it's what ya might say
versatile, is what it is," Roy explained in a leisurely way.
"Instantaneous transport is the main function, but it's also useful for
fast search-and-rescue jobs, you know? It's good as a substitute for a supply
warehouse; you can tune to whatever you happen to need—got a zillion megabit
storage capacity or something."

            "But how could
we
use it?"
Lafayette demanded, coming over to confront the Customer Service rep.

            "What's it matter?" Roy countered.
"After all, it ain't here. We onney installed it maybe a couple weeks
back, and like you said, this is a copy off a early stage, prolly not long
after Nick first set it up in Artesia."

            "Never mind, Roy, just answer me. How could
we use this gadget if we did have access to it?"

            "Shift us right to the Ajax main office on
Plane Two," Roy said. "Solid locus. From there we could gather in all
the clues and find out what's going on."

            "Why didn't you do it before?" O'Leary
pressed. "If you had that kind of capability, why were you out beating the
bushes in Aphasia I, instead of going right to the top?"

            "Shoulda, I guess," Roy conceded.
"But I had my orders. We didn't exactly realize how bad things were until
it was too late, anyways. I tole you they cut our power source."

            "Oh. Well, Roy, I think I'll try something:
I'm going to make a real try to focus the old Psychical Energies—"

            "What good's that gonna do, Slim?" Roy
queried, frowning. "It's OK for you to duck out, maybe— though it ain't
like ya—but how's about me and yer sheet-metal pal, here?"

            "Oh, Roy, this is Duke
Bother-Be-Damned," Lafayette made the intro hurriedly. "Your Grace,
Sprawnroyal, Customer Service rep from the Ajax Novelty Works, Melange branch.
And what do you mean 'duck out'?" Lafayette went on hotly. "If my
idea works, we're all home safe!"

            "Well, it won't hurt to try, maybe,"
Roy conceded. "Go ahead."

            "Just one thing first," Lafayette
demurred. "I'm going to find Henriette and get a few answers."

            "They'll all be 'no', Sir Lafayette,"
Bother told him. "Many's the wight who's assailed my lady's virtue, but
none, it's said, has scored."

            "That's not what I had in mind,"
O'Leary advised the duke. "At least, not exactly. And I could have told
you those local Romeos would bomb out. Daphne's true-blue—even if she's not
really Daphne."

            "I know, my boy," Bother said kindly.
"None can expect reason and logic from a man bewitched by a maid. Seek out
this witch, the while I search for the wily Frumpkin. He must have hid
hereabouts; no man can, after all, walk through a wall!"

            "Actually, Your Grace," Roy spoke up,
"the scamp is well-trussed and locked in a garde-robe at this moment.
We'll collect him in due course."

            "That reminds me," Bother said
testily. "Talking about walking through walls, how'd
you
get in
here? I never seen you come through the door."

            "That's just a little trick of mine,
Bother," Roy waved the query away. "Maybe later I can show you how
it's done."

            "You, small sir, may address me as 'Your
Grace', the nobleman said haughtily. "I overlook Sir Lafayette's informal
mode of address," he added, "because, after all, his wits are addled,
poor lad. In any case, tis 'neath my ducal dignity to perform tricks, like any
wandering
jongleur."

           
"No offense, pal," Roy
muttered.

            "Wish me luck," O'Leary said as he
paused at the door by which the Lady Henriette in the Hill had departed.
Nothing was visible but deep shadow. Lafayette took a cautious step, felt
cracked paving stone underfoot. He felt his way carefully to where the top step
should be, but the floor ended instead in loose rubble. Another step, and
O'Leary's feet went out from under him. He yelled and grabbed, succeeding only
in raking his palms across rusty metal; then he was falling.

            "You OK, Slim?" Sprawnroyal's voice
echoed from surprisingly far above, but before Lafayette had time to draw
breath to reply in the negative, he struck. Hard.

            Lafayette sat up, peered through dimness, and
made out the shape of a large easy chair. He groaned. "Not again," he
protested. "Not right now. I'm busy."

            "Enough," Frumpkin's oily voice said
above him. Then: "On your feet, fellow!" O'Leary got up shakily and
opened one eye to see the Man in Black standing before him, a sneer on his
pinched features. Before he could speak, Lafayette said:

            "I don't know what good this hide-and-seek
game is doing you. But you're going to do it once too often." He paused to
feel for the flat-walker in his pocket.

            "Don't bother," Frumpkin said curtly.
"Your little engine of confusion has been confiscated."

            "Fine," Lafayette came back promptly.
"I'm eager for you to use it. Just align it—"

            "I know all about that, O'Leary,"
Frumpkin cut him off. "All in good time." He turned away.

            "This is as good a time as any,"
O'Leary decided, and threw his best punch at the angle of the jaw of the Man in
Black; but something went wrong, he realized as he was swept up and away, then
dropped with an impact which was surely sufficient to break bones—all of them.

            For a moment, as he struggled to get his breath
going again, Lafayette was quite sure that this time he had Really Done It.
Then he found that he was hurting in too many places to be actually dead. He
groped, felt underfoot the heaped rubbish which had padded his fall, and became
aware of an almost tangible stink. Then he got his feet under him and stood up,
peering unavailingly into circumambient darkness. He made his way forward a few
steps and encountered rough masonry. Feeling over that, he soon discovered a
doorway, barred by a splintery wooden-plank door. At his touch, it swung
outward, and he stepped out into cool night air.

            "OK, that'll hafta do," a
half-familiar voice said nearby. "We got no time to be perfectionists
like, so just get it tied in any old way."

            "If it be ill-done, we'll blow ourselfs
into the next continuum, Yer Lordship," a sullen voice replied.

            "You think I don't know it?" the first
voice came back hotly. "No more of your lip now, fellow; just do as yer
told!"

            "Sheriff Tode!" O'Leary blurted,
recognizing the voice. "Where'd
you
come from? Look, I need help: I
thought Lady Henriette came this way, but she couldn't have; she'd be lying
here with a broken neck, because she doesn't have my knack of always landing on
my feet, figuratively speaking."

            "All right, Cease," Tode's voice spoke
tensely. "You know whatta do. So do it!" There was a scrape of feet
moving quickly on heaped rubble; Lafayette stepped aside, and someone slammed
against the wall where he had been a moment before.

            "Oh, Lordy," Cease's mellow baritone
sounded shocked. "I... I think I've fractured my skull ..."

            "That Cease," Tode said impatiently.
O'Leary heard him approach and feel his way over the fallen man. "Always
did have too soft a head for a deppity. Now, you, boy! Stand right where ye'r
at!" O'Leary heard the double click of a heavy revolver action being
thumbed back.

            "You messed me up some, boy," Tode
said ag-grievedly. "Like to cost me my job. Now this time there's not
going to be no slipups. You jest speak up to let me know jist where you're at,
now."

            "Where I am, you mean," O'Leary
corrected.

            "Sure: what I said. Now jest you don't move
a muscle—" Tode's voice cut off as a dull
thonk!
sounded, followed
by the crash of his body striking rubble.

            "Don't get excited, Sir Lafayette," a
voice Lafayette almost recognized said coolly. "Same orders, just a change
in jurisdiction. I'm going to hand you a pair of handcuffs, and you're going to
put them on," the voice went on, maddeningly familiar. Where, O'Leary
demanded of himself, had he heard it before? Not here, in
this
Aphasia,
he was sure. Then it came to him: Troglouse III, the Ajax deserter and sometime
boss of Aphasia I.

            "Where are ya at?" Trog demanded.
O'Leary sensed him groping his way past; carefully judging the distance and
angle in the dark, Lafayette directed his
ochi-dan
chop at the hairy
tyrant's neck, connected solidly, and heard Trog collapse, the handcuffs
rattling on the rubble underfoot. He followed the sound, found the cuffs, and
fitted them around Trog's thick wrists and closed them with a solid
clack.
Trog
snored. Behind him, Sheriff Tode was muttering to Cease:

            "Hope he never hit the sucker too hard;
din't like the sound o' that smack. Boss won't pay off for no dead body."

            "I never signt on to get mixed up in no
murder," Cease complained in reply. "Hey, Lousy," he called,
"you OK?" When there was no reply he backed away, muttering,
"What
is
this dern place anyways, Sheriff?"

            "Don't matter a hang what this place
is," Tode replied in the darkness. "We was tole to wait here, and I
guess we got no choice now. Boss'll be along purty soon, Cease, straighten
things out," he added more moderately. "Must be about done with the
job. Be home soon."

            "I whisht!" Cease said fervently.

            "Hey, Slim," Roy's hoarse voice called
from above. "Whyn't you take the stairs? You in a big hurry about
sumpin?" There was a rasp of shoe-leather on rusty iron, then a thump, and
Roy was at O'Leary's side, panting from the descent.

            "I didn't know about the stairs,"
Lafayette informed Roy. "I had quite a fall, but I lit on a heap of old
newspapers or something, and nothing broke."

            "You got off lucky, Slim. Say, din't I hear
voices down here? You talking to yerself? By the way, old Frumpie got outa that
closet; don't see how he done it, with the cuffs on. Tricky rascal. Where are
we at, Slim?"

            "Apparently this trash pile Henriette lives
on is hollow," O'Leary told his ally. "And it's full of suspicious
characters."

            "I heard that, son," Tode spoke up.
"Who you talkin' to, anyways? Tole us you was the only one here."

            "Where's 'here', Sheriff?" O'Leary
asked. "And why are you after me? I thought we had a truce going."

            "Sure, onney we got word from Boss. Hadda
get back onna job. Seems like you're in Big Trouble, son."

            "What did I do?" O'Leary demanded.
"Except try to stay alive and figure out what was going on?"

            "Seems like you got old Boss plenty mad,
son. Never heard him so worked up. Wants you dead or alive, and me and Cease
here aim to oblige."

            "Why?" O'Leary persisted. "I
haven't broken any law."

            Tode chuckled comfortably. "Law, boy? Don't
you know a big man like Boss can make up the laws to fit anything a feller like
you up and does? We got you on everything from a twelve-oh-five—that's
Expectorating Onto the Grass—to Cosmic Total. Put you away fer a few years, I
guess, happen we bring you in alive."

            Too late, O'Leary realized that Tode had been
steadily moving closer, zeroing in on his voice, no doubt. Even as he leaped
aside, Tode's iron-hand grip clamped on his arm, and both men went down, Tode
on top. Then the sheriff stood and heaved Lafayette to his feet.

            "Now, son, no use adding Resisting Arrest
to the charge sheet—" Tode broke off with a yell. Then O'Leary felt a tug
at his knee, and Roy's voice urging him to follow.

            "Now, how'd that feller kick me onna
shin?" Tode was demanding of the circumambient darkness. He blundered
away, calling to Cease.

            Lafayette's feet groped over the strewn rubble,
Roy tugging him along impatiently.