The Galaxy Builder

            It was a mild spring evening in the palace
gardens at Artesia, and Sir Lafayette O'Leary, late of Colby Corners, U.S.A.,
now the trusted confidant of Queen Adoranne, sat on his favorite bench, at the
end of the long mall with a view of the nymph fountain. Beyond stood the
glittering bulk of the pink quartz palace itself, its towers atwinkle like the
colored lights strung in the gardenia hedges.

            Lafayette reached for Daphne's warm little hand.
She responded with a squeeze and leaned her head on his shoulder with a sigh.

            "Lafayette, honey," she said
uncertainly. "Is something wrong?"

            Lafayette shook his head and nuzzled the smooth
cheek. "It's just that the big gala tonight reminds me of the night we
broke up the big affair where that light-fingered no-good Zorro, masquerading
as me, was just about to convince everybody that Adoranne and Alain were dead.
That lousy Zorro! Tell me, Daph: When that stinker was occupying my body and
pretending to be me, did he—that is, did you—did he try to get fresh with you
or anything?"

            "Why, Lafayette!" Daphne exclaimed.
"After all, it
was
your body, so what difference would it
make?"

            "So you
did
let the skunk take
liberties! Daphne, I'm surprised at you!"

            "Don't be silly, Lafayette," she
replied calmly. "I suppose things have just been quiet and peaceful for so
long that you just have to try to stir something up; next you'll be going up to
that dingy old magician's laboratory or whatever at the top of the east tower,
and fiddling about with all the old necromancy equipment Nicodaeus left there.
Please don't, Lafayette. I want you to promise me!"

            "That's ridiculous, Daphne," Lafayette
returned hotly. "You know perfectly well Nicodaeus was no sorcerer, he was
a perfectly ordinary Inspector of Continua, operating out of Central, just like
I was, once—"

            "That's what's bothering you, isn't it,
Lafayette?" Daphne said in a sympathetic tone. "You're remembering
all those wild times you had, and wishing you weren't just a humdrum married
man now, with a suppressor focused on you!"

            "That's not true, Daphne," Lafayette
protested. "Why, I'd be crazy not to appreciate the life I'm living here
in Artesia, with you." He looked earnestly into her big brown eyes,
thinking for the millionth time that hers was the prettiest face in all the
worlds. "Anyway," he added, "they lifted the suppressor."

            "Then promise," Daphne insisted,
pausing to nibble at his lower lip. "Promise me you won't start focusing
your psychic energies, or whatever it was you used to do."

            "Sure, I promise," Lafayette said
easily, after a prolonged smooch. "I have no intention of meddling; I've
learned my lesson." He looked up into the ink-black sky and its familiar
constellations which never changed, whether he was in Artesia, Melange, even
Colby Corners—or any of the other infinity of alternate realities.

            "Those old eyeball astronomers must have
had oversize imaginations," he commented idly, "seeing all those
animals and so on in the stars. Look at Orion: three stars for a belt and three
for his sword, and they see a full-length portrait, complete with his dog,
Spot. If it wasn't so boring, I could easily think up better ones that would
come closer to looking like something. Take Ursa Major over there; 'Big Bear',
nuts. The most lifelike part is the tail, and bears don't have tails. Now, if
that little bright star on the left was just shifted over to the right a little
..."

            "Lafayette!" Daphne cried, clutching
at his arm as if in panic. "What was that? Didn't you feel it?" she
urged, giving the arm a shake. "It was—as if the film slipped, or —"

            "Nonsense," O'Leary said laughingly.
"This isn't a film, Daph—it's living, breathing reality. You're thinking
about the times when I succeeded in shifting things around a little—I guess
you're hipped on that subject tonight. Forget it. I promised to stay out of
Nicodaeus' lab, after all—and I won't respond to any more notes from the Red
Bull."

            "Do you remember our first meeting,
Lafayette," Daphne cooed, "when you first came to Artesia? And
nothing's been the same since."

            "How could I forget?" O'Leary inquired
rhetorically. "There you were, wearing nothing but a few soapsuds and a
charming smile. I ordered up a hot bath ... and got one with you in it."

            "I thought I was dreaming," Daphne
murmured. "One minute I was alone in my garret quarters, and the next I
was in a strange apartment—with the cutest man looking at me—and you looked as
surprised as I felt."

            "That reminds me," O'Leary said.
"We don't have to go back to the party; since Adoranne and Alain have
already retired, we're free to do the same. Come on." He stood. A drop of
cold water spattered on his forehead. "We have to go in anyway," he
said, turning to Daphne, and offering his hand, which she failed to notice.

            "Lafayette!" she wailed. "It's
going to rain!"

            "Correction," he said as more drops
impacted on his face. "It
is
raining." Heads down, they
hurried along the gravel path, skirted the fountain, and made for the shelter
of the great elm trees lining the walk. Rain on the foliage was a roar now, and
cold rivulets were running down between Lafayette's shoulder blades. He
unclipped the throat-latch of his short cloak of deep blue velvet with the
argent device of the Axe and Dragon, and covered Daphne's shoulders and head.

            "We can't stay here, Lafayette!" she
cried over the drumming of the downpour. "Come on." Without awaiting
assent, she was off, dashing out into the nearly opaque downpour. Through it,
the palace lights were barely visible. In a moment O'Leary had lost sight of
her, though he plunged after her at once. He nearly fell then, as the full
force of the sudden storm struck. He stumbled ahead, calling, toward the blurry
glow, but heard no reply, and could see nothing of Daphne. The soaked turf
squished underfoot.

            "Daphne! Wait! Please!" he shouted.
But
that's silly, he added silently. Why should she stand out in the rain waiting
for me when she can just as well wait inside?
He stumbled again, splashing
through an ankle-deep puddle already formed in an unsuspected hollow at what he
estimated had to be the foot of the wide, shallow steps leading up to the
terrace. He felt loose stones underfoot.
Ye gods, it's already undermining
the pavement,
he thought with dismay.
But it's hardly surprising, under
a torrent like this; it's like massed fire hoses.
Totally soaked,
shivering, half-blinded by the water in his eyes, he groped his way up the
broken steps and across to the barely visible dark rectangle of an open
doorway. Still no glimpse of Daphne. He staggered, reached the entry in a final
lunge, and fell headlong.

            For a long time, it seemed, the roar of the
rain, from which he was now mercifully sheltered, went on. Lafayette wiped
water from his eyes and blinked into total darkness all around.

            "Daphne?" he called tentatively as he
got to his feet.

            "Not even an echo," he said aloud, and
shivered hard. It was strangely cold. And why so dark? The palace was always
kept warm, well-lit, and cosy in spite of its size. Maybe he had stumbled into
a storeroom, he reflected, though he didn't recall any such facility interrupting
the wide glass facade on the ballroom side— unless he had wandered off to the
far left, where he seemed to recall there was a cluster of service spaces in
the corner, across the corridor from the big party room. That must be it—and
poor Daph had blundered into one of them like himself, and was alone somewhere
now in the dark, wondering why he didn't come. He jumped as the door closed
with a
slam!
There was no latch on the inside.

            It took him five minutes to pace off the chamber
in which he now was, it appeared, trapped: The room was an unadorned rectangle
of rough-hewn stone, ten paces by six, with a crudely arched opening opposite
the doorway through which he had entered. The opening was securely barred by a
massive slab of iron-bound oak, abounding in splinters, one of which he removed
from his thumb with his teeth. At his next approach, he proceeded more
cautiously, paused before the door, set himself, and delivered a kick, partly
in revenge, he acknowledged to himself. To his surprise, the heavy panel swung
inward with a creak of rusty hinges. Lafayette took a tentative step inside and
found himself at the foot of a steep flight of chipped stone steps which
ascended into an even deeper blackness.

            "Daphne?" he called, but his voice
reverberated hollowly up the stairwell, eliciting no reply.

            "She's got to be up there," he assured
himself. "There's nowhere else she could have gone. So, here goes."
The sound of his own voice talking to himself was unnerving. He started slowly
up, then paused.

            "Wait a minute, O'Leary," he commanded
himself sternly. "This would be a good time to do something at least
half-smart. You don't know where you are now; why get in deeper?

            "Because if poor little Daphne is up
there," he replied doggedly, "I want to find her and tell her
everything's OK. But
is
everything OK?" He went on, unwillingly.

            "OK or otherwise, she went up, and I've
got-to go, too," he settled the dispute. He paused to listen. Other than
the faint keening of the wind, there was no sound at all—unless that was
cautious whispering down below ... On impulse, he turned and went back down,
pausing just inside the half-open door.

            "... tell ya it's
him,"
a
hoarse voice hissed urgently. "All we gotta do to cop the reward is lay
the scoundrel by the heels."

            "That's easy to say, Marv," another
raspy voice came back. "But if that's really the dread necromancer
Allegorus, all the more reason to stand pat and send for the cavalry."