The Galaxy Builder (21 page)

            "We may as well," Lafayette replied.
"We haven't finished our dinner. Maybe we can get a nice haunch of venison
and a stoup of ale and a bath and a bed. Let's go."

            For the next quarter hour, while Bother hallooed
in the distance and villagers roamed at random carrying dim yellowish lanterns,
the two fugitives waded as silently as possible in a wide arc around the right
end, coming up to the fringe of huts on the outskirts of the settlement without
raising a halloo.

            "Wait," O'Leary said, as they paused
in the lee of the first shack. "It's time for me to make another try at
focusing the Psychical Energies. This is just like the time I had to take
refuge in the slums of Artesia City: I found an unprepossessing shed and sort
of rearranged things to make it cosier. Just a minute." Marv assented
silently. Lafayette cleared his mind of preconceptions and pictured the
interior of the little structure as it would be revealed when he opened the
door—a rudely nailed-up affair slung on rotted leather hinges.

           
Nothing fancy,
he specified.
Just your
standard Holiday Inn room, but with a counter-top fridge, well-stocked, and a
hot plate.
As he held the image confidently in mind, Marv nudged him impatiently
... Or did the world jiggle ever so slightly? He brushed aside Marv's
importunities, unsure.

            Where was he? He seemed to have lost his place,
thanks to Marv's interruption. Oh, yes, it was the room: a first-class
USA-style motel. He envisioned it clearly and in detail; then the image faded,
became misty and gray, and Frumpkin was there, working frantically at his
oversize control panel. Without pausing to consider, O'Leary leaped, knocking
the Man in Black away from the array of switches and instrument faces.

            FLIP! The grand ballroom at Artesia, crowded
with gorgeously gowned or uniformed people, among whom Lafayette recognized
Lord Archie, an old ally. He called out to him and, FLIP! he was watching
haggard people in gray rags, picking objects out of rubble.

            FLIP! A star exploded in blackness. As the shock
wave struck he was thrown back, back, tumbling end-over-end. He grabbed for
support, felt a soft squishy surface underfoot. He concentrated on deducing
which way was up.

            "Hey, Al!" Marv's voice boomed out.
"Where ya got to? You was going to fix us up with a flop, remember?"

            "Don't bother me when I'm concentrating,
Marv!" O'Leary hissed in annoyance, still dizzy from his wild ride through
delirium. "Well, here goes." He tugged at the leather strap which
served as door-handle, and a blackened slat fell away to flop into the
ankle-deep mud. Through the slit thus opened light gleamed. Squinting,
Lafayette peered through, saw wall-to-wall carpeting, the corners of two double
beds, and a table-lamp which shed its warm glow on the flowered wallpaper.

            "We're in, Marv," he said exultantly,
and tugged at the door. This time it yielded. Pausing only to kick off his
mud-laden boots, O'Leary stepped inside.

            "Hold it right there, feller!" the
familiar hoarse voice of Sheriff "Hoppy" Tode growled. "Been
settin' up ever night fer a week, waitin' on you, boy. What taken you so
long?"

            " 'What took you so long', O'Leary
corrected at once.

            "Me?" Tode yelled indignantly.
"Didn't I get on the job jest as soon's I got things straight with that
Clyde feller? Been right here ever since they carried me here and told me how
you'd be showin' up soon—and yer sidekick, too," he finished as Marv poked
a wondering expression through the doorway. "Said to keep a eye on him;
tricky, they said."

            "Whom, I?" Marv said in a tone of
wonder, edging away.

            "Inside, you," Tode barked. "Got
the both of ye; old Cease'll be glad o'
that,
I betcha." The
sheriff motioned with the nickle-plated frontier-model hog-leg he carried.

            After the two adventurers had placed their hands
behind their heads as ordered, Tode frowned at their muddy footprints.

            "Dern shame to mess up these here
rugs," he said. "Strip whur you're at, and get in yonder and take a
bath," he ordered. Marv complied at once, disappearing into the tiled
bathroom.

            "Fine," O'Leary agreed. "And
while we're cleaning up, perhaps you could rustle up some bacon and eggs, or
whatever's in the icebox. By the way, Sheriff, how did
you
get in here
without getting muddy?" He dropped his clothes on top of the black mound
of Marv's discarded garments.

            "Tole you they carried me here. Some kind
of seat on wheels it was, only it, like, flew or sumpin'. Beats me. One minute
I was back at Headquarters, the next one here I was."

            At the door, Lafayette paused to say, "By
the way, Marv here is an agent of Central, Sheriff. If you're working for Prime
now, that makes you colleagues of a sort, doesn't it?"

            "Ain't been tole nothing about no jailbird
bein' my boss," Tode replied shortly.

            "I was really surprised to see you here,
Sheriff," O'Leary said. "The last I saw you, Clyde's boy Archie was
pulling your arms off. Then I heard your voice in the fog, wherever
that
was."

            "When you taken and slipped out," Tode
explained, "they forgot me and run after you. I started to ast the gal
back o' the desk whereat I was and what the heck was going down; but she taken
to yellin' her fool head off, so I taken a quick powder out the side door, and
my-oh-my, wasn't them fellers excited! Taken me for somebody named Alligator or
like that. Started offerin' me bribes if n I'd let up. Couldn't figger it out.
Then some other big officials come in and told 'em something, and next thing I
knew I was on the way here. Thought that part about the fog and all was jest
dreamin'. After a while they come for me, and here I am. Told me to nab you and
I'd get a big ree-ward, and a gold medal and a stay of execution. So I'm holdin'
you until somebody comes to take you off'n my hands."

            "That sounds so dreary," Lafayette
said sympathetically. "Why not put the revolver away and sit down? We're
as innocent as yourself—and we have one advantage."

            "Oh, yeah? What would that be?" Tode
inquired cautiously.

            "Would you like to go home?" O'Leary
asked.

            "Who, me?" the sheriff demanded,
surprised. "Tell you the truth, I don't even know whereat Colby City is.
Don't know nothin' about no mudflats noplace in the county. Sure, I'd like to
go home. How?"

            Steaming gently, Marv tugged at O'Leary's
sleeve. "Next man," he said.

            "Not now, Marv." Lafayette shook him
off. "All we have to do," he told the sheriff, "is find my old
pal the duke. He's from back home, or almost. We'll find out what he knows, and
then I've got a couple of other ideas, too. Remember when I walked right
through your jail wall?"

            "I been kinda wonderin' about that,"
Tode conceded. "You tellin' me you sure-nuff done that? Wasn't no trick?"

            "Right," Lafayette confirmed.
"Now, put up the gun and we'll stick together and break out of this."

            In the taut silence that followed his proposal,
there was a quick tap at the door. Before anyone could respond, it opened and a
mud-blackened figure stepped through.

            "Hi, fellas," Mickey Jo's voice said.
"Say, you got a shower-bath in here?" she cried in a delighted tone,
looking past Lafayette into the pale-green tiled cubicle.

            "Come on, I'll race ya." Her sodden
garments fell to the floor with a heavy thump, revealing a slim but
well-rounded girlbody with muddy face, hands, and ankles. She thrust past
O'Leary and Marv, who tried in vain to preserve the conventions by wrapping
himself in the shower curtain.

            "Don't bother, honey," Mickey Jo said.
"I reckon I seen it all before." She stepped into the stall and
disappeared in a deluge of hot water and soapsuds.

            "Who's the gal?" Sheriff Tode asked
weakly.

            "Mickey Jo," O'Leary told him.
"She's a Prime agent, like you."

            "Jest part-time, is all," Tode
reminded Lafayette. He holstered his weapon. "Reckon we better get
started," he added. "You got any clothes to put on?" he inquired
vaguely.

            "In the closet," O'Leary improvised,
mentally picturing a row of natty outfits in both his size and Marv's, plus an
assortment of Western costumes for Mickey Jo. There was a faint
bump,
he
thought—or was it a distant explosion?

            There was a moment of disorientation; then the
gray room was back. This time, O'Leary told himself, crouching behind the nearest
chair, he'd play it a little smarter. No jumping out and yelling BOO! If he
just laid low and listened ... there were faint voices. Lafayette peeked out
from behind the chair and saw Frumpkin clad in a wine-colored bathrope, deep in
conversation with Special Ed and a paunchy, sly-faced fellow in a dowdy alpaca
suit and worn cowboy boots.

            "... no danger of that; he's a
simpleton," Frumpkin was saying.

            "I dunno, Chief," Ed countered.
"He made the takeout slicker'n owl-do, and I tole you he had them
pitchers."

            "He couldn't have," Frumpkin snapped.
"You'd been sampling your stock again, Ed." He scribbled a note in a
small pad and turned to the other man.

            "Now, Chuck, I don't like your coming here
like this without specific instructions," Frumpkin said in a sharp tone.
The paunchy man threw up his hands.

            "Don't go getting riled, boss. I cun't help
it. I and the missus had just went out for a bite, and"—he paused to
gulp—"and it jest happened. Makes me nervous." He looked around,
failing to note O'Leary as he ducked back.

            "No matter," Frumpkin dismissed the
subject. "All can yet be retrieved. These aberrant inputs have kept me a
bit off-balance, I'll admit. It's time to recalibrate. Just follow along,
gentlemen."

            Lafayette poked his head out to watch, and it
struck a large gong which someone had put there while he wasn't looking. The
clang echoed and reechoed, louder and softer, on and on ...

            Sheriff Tode's meaty face seemed to be hanging
disembodied before him. "Easy, Shurf," Lafayette said soothingly.
"As soon as I can get the world slowed down to a slow whirl—or whirled
slowed down to a world, I'll explain everything—except possibly the moose in
the bedroom."

            "You're a-foolin' me," Tode accused,
but he turned and watched as O'Leary went to the closet door and opened it on
precisely the gaudy wardrobe he had envisioned, plus a row of well-shined boots
on a rack below.

            "I can see somebody's been a-funnin'
me," Tode remarked. O'Leary ignored the comment and invited Marv, now pink
from a vigorous toweling, to pick out a suitable outfit for himself.

            "Oh, boy," Marv purred appreciatively
as he looked over a scarlet doorman's uniform with gold epaulets, but passed it
up in favor of a powder-blue confection with silver braid and buttons. A drawer
at one end of the closet supplied socks and undergarments.

            The roar of the shower ceased, and Mickey Jo, a
towel around her hair and another held carelessly before her, emerged and
uttered a yelp of joy at sight of the closet.

            "I always wanted one o' them cowgirl
getups," she cried, "just like Dale used to wear." She hurried
over and suited up while Marv struggled with his tie, lingering before the
full-length mirror on the back of the closet door.

            "Marv," Mickey Jo cooed, "I never
dreamed you were so handsome! But how about a shave to go with it? Or do you
want me to just shape it a little?"

-

            O'Leary finished dressing in a well-fitted
hussar's tunic and breeches, complete with nickle-plated helmet and sword-hilt,
a costume selected for him by Mickey Jo, who had transferred the contents of
his pockets to his new finery; there came a peremptory knock at the door,
followed at once by a pounding as with a pistol-butt; then an authoritative
voice yelled:

            "Open up, you in there! Police
business!"

            "Why, fur as that goes, I'm a police
orfiser myself," Sheriff Tode began as he opened the door, only to be
thrust aside by a bulky fellow in greasy rags which may have been the remains
of a regulation dark-blue city-cop suit. He looked from Mickey Jo to Marv to
O'Leary, then planted his feet solidly before the latter and barked:

            "You'd be the boy I want, I don't doubt.
Are you coming quiet, or do I hafta cuff ya up?" He jingled a set of rusty
bracelets at his belt and shifted his cigar butt to the other corner of his
mouth.

            "No need for force, Chief," Lafayette
assured the intruder. "I'll come quietly. And perhaps you can tell me
something about just what it is that's going on here."