The Galaxy Builder (11 page)

            "Trog," Roy said in a more kindly
tone, "do you ever regret the way you sold out Ajax and made off with
classified materials?"

            "Naw," Trog said firmly.
"Anyways, I never made off with no secret stuff, nor no plans and specs
neither."

            "Then, how'd you get here, three octaves
outside your own A-O zone?"

            "It was screwy," Trog said. "I
was onna trail, headin' for a big time in Port Miasma, and all of a sudden I
run smack into a swamp where no swamp oughta be."

            Lafayette's attention wandered, and he dropped
off into a sound sleep. It seemed hours later when Sprawnroyal's hoarse voice
at close range penetrated his lazy dreams of ease and comfort back home in
Artesia:

            "... you're too big to lug, Slim. So, come
on, wake up now while we got a chanct, and let's check this out. This could be
the break we been waiting for."

            O'Leary opened his eyes and winced at the throb
in his skull. He fingered a lump the size of a walnut above his ear. Slowly, he
got to his feet. Trog, trussed from neck to ankles in stout new hemp rope, lay
beside a small campfire. Around it Squirrely, Casper, and Rugadoon, bruised but
cheerful, sat eating enthusiastically from small cans.

            "I had a nice talk with old Trog,
here," Roy told Lafayette comfortably. "I think maybe we gotta way
outa this mess after all." He paused to hand Lafayette two of the small
cans from his bulky backpack. "Better chow down now, Slim," he
suggested. "Once we get moving, there won't be no time."

            "What are you going to do?" Lafayette
asked, dipping into a can of swamp-pheasant fricassee. "Good," he
commented.

            "Right; what we figger is a man on a tough
field job needs class eats to keep up the old morale," Roy confided.
"Now, you know how to triangulate, Slim, check out what parts of a locus
match up with your baseline, and calibrate how far out you are, locus-wise, from
where you was at when you begun."

            "I've never done the calculations,"
Lafayette replied, "but I understand the principle. For example, we can
figure Aphasia II is very close to Aphasia I, where Daphne's lost, on the basis
of the similarities in the landscape, plus personnel. Trog, for example."

            Roy shook his head. "Trog's a bad example,
Slim. This here's the
same
Trog you run into before, not a analog. But
you're right; you're still in the same A-range as where you lost Daphne at. But
where's
that
at? Huh? How close are we to the Artesia range? That's a
little tougher; we got to fall back on topography. Like, in Artesia, you got a
desert, a dry lake bed, west o' town. Then in Melange, it's still a lake, and
farther in the same direction, just in the next range, you got a bay, a arm o'
the sea: that's Colby Corners and all, your old home town before you came to
Artesia. So here we got a saltwater swamp. Looks like a little tectonic
activity has pushed up a ridge and cut the bay off, and here it's partly
drained. In Melange it's turned into a freshwater lake: The swamp never formed
because the ridge wasn't that high there; so with the springs at the bottom,
plus rainfall, you got a lake. In Artesia, it drained and there was a spillway
open in the ridge, so it went dry and you got a desert. The swamp here puts us
off on a tangent to our direct route back to the Artesia/Melange
wide-range."

            "How do we get back?" O'Leary cut in
impatiently. "At least to Aphasia I, if not to Artesia?"

            "There's things I can't tell you,
Slim—security, you know," Roy said apologetically. "Your best bet is
still the old psychical energies. Casper's got the emergency gear in his pack,
which we ain't allowed to use it except in case of what they call a 'dire
emergency'. But don't worry: If we hafta pull the chain, we'll get back to you
ASAP, and whip you outa here. So why don't you just go ahead and give it a try?
It'll be tricky, you being outside your primary range this time and all. But
what the heck: Maybe you can do it. Good luck, and I'll see you back at Ajax
which we'll hoist a few in memory o' this contretemps, which we'll have a good
laugh when it's over."

            "Yes, but what about Daphne?"
Lafayette countered.

            "One thing at a time, Slim." Roy fell
silent, cocking his head. "On your feet, boys," he ordered quietly.
"You can come too, Slim," he added. "Listen, they're tryna sneak
up on us. Hear that?"

            As a twig cracked loudly, the small foursome
shouldered packs and disappeared into the surrounding underbrush. Lafayette
picked up a club dropped during the brief battle with Trog's bodyguard and
waited, watching the spot whence the sounds had emanated, as the twilight
deepened.

-

            "Hi, Al," Marv's voice broke the
stillness. He pushed into view, brushing twigs and leaf mold from his tattered
garments.

            "I been laying low, waiting for a chanst to
duck in and rescue ya and all," he confided. "I guess now's the time,
huh, while them little devils is out of sight."

            Lafayette handed Marv the second can of food.
"Have some lunch," he said. "The little fellows are friends of
mine," he went on. "But that doesn't make your rescue efforts any
less appreciated."

            "Oh." Marv looked crestfallen.
"They looked pretty rough and tough," he explained. "And the way
they turned the tables and cleaned up on Fred and Lump-Lump and Omar was what
ya might say impressive."

            "A natural mistake," Lafayette agreed.
"But now we have to hurry up and catch up with them. They're my only link
to Artesia and Aphasia One."

            "Sure, Chief," Marv acceded, finishing
his can of food. He looked at the label doubtfully before tossing it aside.

            "No littering," Lafayette said
severely. "But with the whole kingdom in ruins, I don't suppose it really
matters."

            "Sure, boss," Marv said complacently.
"By the way, I never had peaner butter with olives before." He
belched comfortably. "Wondered what it was. Pretty good at that. O'
course, hungry as I was, boiled harness woulda tasted good."

            Lafayette led the way down the path, expecting
to catch sight of the pack-laden Ajax crew at the first bend. But rounding the
turn, he saw only more path stretching ahead into deep shade. He accelerated
his pace, his feet slipping on the damp soil underfoot. Marv, at his heels,
complained.

            "Fer crine inta yer homemade soup, Chief,
we can't keep up no gallop like this. Take it easy."

            Lafayette ignored him, intent on closing the
gap. There were puddles in the path now. Through gaps in the foliage pressing
close on the tunnellike path, Lafayette caught glimpses of moonlight reflected
on water. At the same time, the path underfoot had grown steadily soggier. He
splashed on, Marv trailing at a distance.

            An hour later, winded, he sat on a stump to wait
for Marv to catch up, wheezing and holding his short ribs.

            "Cripes, Mine Fewher," Marv
complained. "I think I busted sumpin'. I got a side-ache like a mule
kicked me. Okay if we rest awhile, bwana?"

            "We've lost them, Marv," Lafayette
said bleakly. "I was a fool not to follow at once. They probably
scattered, now that I think of it, and in this jungle we'll never find a sign
of them."

            Marv sighed with relief as he flopped down
full-length on the soggy path. "In that case, sahib, we can take it
easy," he commented and at once began to snore.

            O'Leary envied the simple fellow; he closed his
eyes, experienced a moment of disorientation, and was back in the big gray
room. He heard Frumpkin's angry voice:

            "... tell you what to do. I've explained
the consequences, you little idiot! If you'd any sense, you'd leap at my
generous offer!"

            There was a sudden flurry, and Daphne darted
past his chair; before he could get to his feet, she was gone. Lafayette dropped
back into the padded seat, which suddenly seemed harder than before. He
squirmed, failed to find a comfortable position, then realized he was sitting
on a rotting stump, his feet cold and wet.

            Dusk had deepened the gloom of the shaded path
to pitch-darkness; Marv awoke, fighting off an imaginary attack by spooks.

            "Geeze, Al, am I glad to see.yow!" he
cried as soon as he had dispersed his phantom foes. "I dreamed I was back
inna Dread Tower, onney I was lost, like. Couldn't find my way out, and these
here ghosts was coming at me from all directions; wanted something, but I
couldn't figger out what."

            "That's all right, Marv," Lafayette
soothed the excited fellow. "It was just a dream. I had one, too. But the
fix we're in is real. Since we can't expect any help now in getting back to
semi-civilization, we have to do something effective at once, before things get
any worse."

            "Sure, Cap'n," Marv agreed absently.
"Onney if we go back the way we come, we'll run into old Froddie; and if
we keep going, we'll be into quicksand and stuff pretty soon. We're in the
swamp, you know."

            "I'm going to have to try the old psychical
energies again, I guess," O'Leary said grimly. "This time it
has
to
work, because I'm all out of alternatives. Just be quiet for a moment while I
concentrate. And I thought the path skirted the swamp."

            At first Lafayette concentrated on his luxurious
palace suite in Artesia, vividly envisioning the marble floors, the view of the
gardens from the wide windows, the closet with his hundred-odd elegant
costumes, the big, wide bed ...

            His thoughts strayed to Daphne—dear, brave,
loyal, delightful little Daphne. Where was she now, poor kid? Lost in some
dismal swamp like this, or maybe dying of thirst in a desert in some locus
where the swamp had drained? Or was she really hanging around in the spooky
gray room he kept having visions of, waiting on Frumpy? Impossible, he decided.
Loyal little Daphne would never consent to be anybody's handmaiden.

            Lafayette pulled himself together.
"Concentrate," Professor Schimmerkopf had urged—and he had done it
before, so he could do it again. The suppressor that Central had once focused
on him had long since been lifted. He remembered the time in the jail-cell back
at Colby Corners when he had accidently shifted back there, under stress—but he
had gotten back to Artesia by concentrating all his psychical energies.

            The grayness closed in, and Daphne was standing
a few feet away in front of the big chair where Frumpkin lolled at ease.

            "This nonsense has gone on long
enough," the Man in Black was saying. "And I've decided—" He got
to his feet and paused, looking puzzled. Then he turned to face O'Leary
squarely, and at once showed his teeth in a snarl of rage.

            "Look here, you!" he muttered, then
coughed, as if attempting to conceal the byplay from Daphne, who was looking at
him wonderingly.

            "You've lied to me!" she said as
sharply as that dulcet voice could sound. "And that means you're not quite
as self-confident as you seem. Good-bye!" She turned and had gone two
steps when a pair of armed bruisers appeared and seized her arms. Lafayette
jumped to her assistance and met an invisible cushion which bounced him back,
while Frumpkin's eyes seemed to burn into him like laser beams.

            "Hey, Al, look out!" Marv yelled as he
jumped up and splashed for cover. A beam of brilliant white light lanced out
from above, whence also emanated a sudden din resembling a rock truck on a
steep grade, afflicted with the grandfather of all slapping fan-belts. A
miniature whirlwind whipped the treetops, then swirled muddy leaf mold and
other vegetable debris into Lafayette's face.

            "It's only a chopper, Marv," Lafayette
called, but his nervous ally was gone.

            "You down there," a PA-amplified voice
boomed out. "Stand fast! I got authorization to shoot." The rattle of
a machine gun sounded, emphasizing the point by making confetti of a swatch of
foliage and churning mud into froth only a few feet distant from the tree trunk
behind which Lafayette had groped his way. Moments later, a man in a bundlesome
combat suit, helmeted and goggled, appeared in midair, climbing down a
flexible-link ladder. He dropped the last few feet and swiveled smartly to
cover O'Leary's tree with a weapon of discouragingly effective appearance.
Clearing his eyes of debris at last, Lafayette blinked, but the commando failed
to disappear.

            "Don't shoot, I'm harmless," O'Leary
croaked, emerging. The armed man reslung his automatic weapon and drew a bulky
revolver.

            "Take it easy, chum," he said in a
hard voice. "I'm Sergeant Dubose, state cops. I'm going to put the cuffs
on you and then we're going for a little ride. Come over this way nice and
slow."

            "What's the charge, Sarge?" Lafayette
asked, immediately regretting his choice of words.