The Galaxy Builder (28 page)

            "Just a minute," Roy said, and went
across to stare at a large star-chart pinned to the wall.

-

            "Funny thing, Slim," he said,
pointing. "This here chart has been here since Prince Krupkin's time
anyways; here's the Great Unicorn, just as big as life. The star at the tip o'
the horn is, uh, looks like a dim galaxy, Slim. NGC-51a, it says. A irregular
galaxy of the Local Group."

            "It wasn't there at first," Lafayette
insisted. "Too bad I don't have a witness—"

            "What about Daphne?" Sprawnroyal
suggested. "You said she was with you."

            "But I don't know where she is, Roy,"
O'Leary moaned. "I've been trying to pick up some trace of her, but it's
no use. For a minute or two, I thought this Henriette was Daph, but she
betrayed me, just lured me there to her place to turn me over to Frumpkin
here." O'Leary prodded the black-clad leg of the red-nosed but still
haughty Frumpkin, who responded with a cold smile.

            "But, don't you understand, poor fool, the
wench
was
indeed this Daphne of yours. But when I explained to her the
consequences that would result if you were allowed to run loose any longer, she
at once fell in with my plan."

            "Prolly done it just to save you from
something worst," Roy suggested sympathetically. "And maybe he
tortured her—you can't expect a female to stand up to no PPS, even if she
is
over five foot high."

            Lafayette groaned, "If even Daphne's
against me, what's the use of going on?"

            "Precisely, Lafayette," Frumpkin
seconded eagerly. "Just relax now and let events take their course—and
I'll still cut you in for a share."

            "Maybe you oughta talk to the kid first
before you go condemning her out of hand, like," Roy suggested.

            "Sure, but how?" O'Leary returned.
"She's not here. I should have brought her along, but I was pretty busy
with Frumpkin here."

            "Sure, Slim, nobody could fault you,"
Roy agreed. "But we could find her—or give it a try, anyways."

            O'Leary turned to the little man gratefully.
"Then you'll help me, Roy? With your Ajax gear we can get something done.
Come on. Let's get started. We can truss Frumpkin up and leave Casper and
Rugadoon to watch him."

            "Sure." Roy gave quick instructions to
his two helpers, who bustled off to procure ropes.

            "Now," Roy said gravely, "we
gotta figure our next move. How do we get back to Aphasia?"

            "Easy," O'Leary assured him. "The
room where I left her is just on the other side of the wall here. So—we use the
flat-walker again and go back."

            "Slim," Roy said, wagging his head
heavily. "I guess I never tole you, but tryna use a one-man unit to merge
two guys is risky. Fact is," he went on, turning to look at Frumpkin,
still hunkered down on his haunches, watching blankly as Casper came back with
a coil of fine white line, "... fact is, I'm surprised you got away with
it that once without leaving old Skin's innards strung out in half-phase."

            "Can't you rustle up another one?"
Lafayette asked.

            "That ain't too easy," Roy told him.
"We had our problems here at Ajax too, Slim. This here
troublemaker"—he jerked a thumb at Frumpkin—"has put a crimp in
operations. We managed to trace the interference to him before our energy tap
was cut."

            "He cut your energy tap?" O'Leary
echoed in alarm. "That means you're out of business, for all practical
purposes, according to what Flimbert told me about how you manage all your
tricks."

            "Bert always did have too big of a
mouth," Roy said. "Anyways, you see how it is. Fact is," he
added, "the only thing we can do, is I take the flat-walker and see what I
can do on my own."

            "Nonsense," O'Leary came back at once.
"If only one of us can go, it'll be me. After all, Daphne's my wife."

            "Sure," Sprawnroyal concurred,
"and the whole future of Ajax is riding on us now, Slim—or on me, rather.
I got to take some prompt and effective action, or all Melange will revert to
unrealized status, and b'lieve me, Slim, that'll be a poor way to go."

            "Struggle as you will, poor fools,"
Frumpkin contributed with a note of triumph, "you and your petty entropic
level are doomed. The wheels I have set in motion cannot now be stopped, short
of a cataclysm which will destroy the Prime Postulate itself."

            "Ignore him, Roy," O'Leary advised his
old comrade. "He's cracked."

            Roy nodded. "Sure he is. But unfortunately,
Slim, the data we recorded before everything shut down confirms what he's
saying. Still, you might as well go on and try to see Daph one last time.
S'long, kid." Roy thrust out his hard square hand. "We had a few
kicks together, din't we? Good luck—and you better try the same spot, so's to
catch the aura of temporarily enhanced permeability before it fades. Only lasts
about ten minutes."

            "I've been here nearly that long
already," O'Leary said hastily. "And don't look so glum, Roy. Things
have looked bad before, and we got out of it somehow."

            "Do good, Slim," Roy urged solemnly.
"Looks like you're the only chance we got. Make it count."

            O'Leary nodded and stepped to the wall to stand
facing it, the flat-walker in his hand.

            "Little to the left, Slim," Roy
advised from behind him. Lafayette nodded and stepped forward.

-

            He felt the momentary resistance of the masonry,
then thrust impatiently forward, ignoring the display of darting points of
light which moved together and coalesced into a uniform dim grayness. Lafayette
looked quickly toward the central panel; Frumpkin was nowhere near it. He went
over, looked at the safety-locked knife-switch the Man in Black had been about
to throw the last time he was here. O'Leary looked around carefully for the
first time, saw nothing but an immense room like the deserted lobby of an
out-of-date hotel, its walls dim with distance through the grayish air. A
blinking light on the panel caught his eye. It was one of a row of amber, blue,
and white indicators, directly beneath which were tiny dials. They were cryptically
marked: MAYHAP, CINCH, GET READY, THIS IS IT, FORGET IT. The one under the
flashing amber lens read LET'S FACE IT.

            "Good idea," Lafayette said aloud.
"I'm wasting time. I need to get out of wherever I am, and back to
work." He started forward, met resistance, pushed harder, and was abruptly
clear, standing in another dim light looking at the dangling skeleton. He
turned at a clanking sound to his right to see Duke Bother-Be-Damned coming
toward him.

            "What—where's the scoundrel got to?"
Bother demanded. "My eyes play tricks on me. It almost seemed you were
gone for an instant, lad. But as I started forward to search for a hidden
panel, here you are. But where is the wretch Frumpkin?"

            "Take it easy, Bother," O'Leary
suggested. "He's in good hands, under guard. Excuse me; I have to find
Daphne—I mean Lady Henriette." He strode past the man in armor and went to
the open doorway through which Her Ladyship had disappeared. His eyes strayed
en
passant
to the hardwood wall cabinet beside the dark opening. On impulse,
he paused to open the door. There, amid dust curls and spider webs, was the
tall, old-fashioned black dial telephone which linked the lab to Central.
O'Leary hesitated, then lifted the receiver and put it to his ear. A feeble
dial tone sounded. He frowned, wondering if he could remember the ten-digit
number after so long a time ... He dialed: nine five three four nine zero zero
two one one, and waited, not even breathing. Then he heard the tinny rattle of
the ring signal.
Bawp—bawp ... bawp-click, rattle.

           
"Central," a tired-sounding
voice said.

            "Uh," O'Leary said, "Central—this
is an emergency! I'm Sir Lafayette O'Leary, part-time agent, and I'm calling
from a locus known as Aphasia. We've got big trouble here. A nut-case named
Frumpkin from some far-out plane claims to be reshaping all Greater Reality,
and he doesn't care what he runs over in the process. I need help to
interrogate him and find out what we can do to save what's left, if anything.
Artesia's gone, and so is Aphasia I by now; and Melange is in deep trouble—even
Ajax doesn't have any ideas—so get somebody in here fast to straighten things
out!"

            "Please note," a tinny voice said,
"that this line is for limited official use only. Please cite your
priority and classification code."

            "No time," O'Leary cut in briskly.
"Listen: This is an emergency! The world—several of them—is, or are,
coming to an end! We have to do something!"

            "Yes, yes, Sir, ah, I'm sure things can't
be as bad as all that. We at Central—" The voice stopped as a deafening
barr-room!
blasted in O'Leary's ear. He rattled the receiver hook frantically.

            "... Please note this line is for limited
official use," the mindless voice parroted again. "Please cite—"

            "Shut up, brainless!" Lafayette
yelled. "Listen to me!"

            There was no reply. O'Leary groaned. "It's
a recording," he called over his shoulder to Bother, and tried again:

            "Hello, Central!" he yelled into the
instrument. "Are you still there? What happened—" Then an ironclad
hand closed on his arm, tugging him gently away.

            "Easily, lad, be calm," Bother urged
him. "Hast lost thy wits, Sir Knight? Why talketh thou to this ugly object
here?" Gingerly, he moved the receiver from Lafayette's hand and let it
fall to swing from its cord, uttering quacking sounds.

            "It's a telephone, Bother!" O'Leary
protested. "You're
supposed
to talk to it! Listen, somebody's on
the line now. Let me hear what they're saying!"

            "... Your supervisor," a cold voice
snapped. "I repeat: This is a limited access line. Identify yourself,
please."

            "I already told that dumb broad,"
O'Leary said, suppressing a desire to yell and choke the telephone. "Do I
have to start all over? This is a crash emergency! Everything's coming apart,
or it will if a screwball named Frumpkin has his way! Get me a squad of your
best harness bulls in here double pronto. And no tricky undercover types like
Mickey Jo and Lard-Ass! Plain old uniformed coppers with big billy clubs and
packing plenty of iron—and ready to use it! Got me?"

            "This is your final warning, sir," the
unyielding supervisory voice said. "Do not attempt to make use of this
classified circuit for personal calls. You will be traced and service
discontinued."

            "Discontinued?" Lafayette yelled.
"What service have I gotten that you can discontinue? AH I've had is a
dumb recording and a dumber bureaucrat! This is disaster, I'm telling you. Do
something!" He was cut off by a click and a prolonged buzz.

            "No use, Your Grace," Lafayette told
Bother dispiritedly. "It's up to us. I should have known better." He
hung up the phone, then leaned close to examine the heavy black-insulated cable
which ran from the base of the instrument through a hole in the cabinet.

            "This is strange," he told the
uncomprehending duke. "Back in Aphasia I, this line had been cut and the
phone was gone. Now it's back again." O'Leary's eyes went to the gilded
skeleton dangling in the gloom above. "And Mr. Bones hasn't been here for
years. Something's funny here. Somebody's been tampering ..." O'Leary sat
in the decrepit chair beside the marble-topped counter, deep in thought.

            "What troublest thee, Sir Lafayette?"
Bother inquired.

            Lafayette slapped the counter-top. "This isn't
really the lab," he stated. "It's a fake someone rigged up for some
reason. Probably Frumpkin's work. If I'm right that leaves the upstairs room
back in town! You see, the lab is so firmly grounded that even though the loci
come and go around it, it stays forever the same. That's why it's fifty feet
above the ground level, and they had to build that scaffolding up to it. So
let's go back, and this time I'll get inside!" As he concluded, Lafayette
noticed a tiny vibration from the flat-walker still in his hand. He raised it
to his ear:

            "OK, Slim," Roy's voice came through,
more clearly than before, "I'm going to try that area of permeability. If
I don't make it in the next ten seconds, call out a strainer squad to look for
me. Here goes!" The last words, spoken in full voice, came from behind
O'Leary; he whirled to see the stumpy figure of Sprawnroyal standing by the
wall, looking shaken.

-

            "Wow," the Ajax rep said feelingly,
"for a hour or two there, I thought I wasn't gonna make it. But then I
thought to home in on the field from the flat-walker, and here I am."

            "Glad to see you, Roy," O'Leary said.
"But it's been only a second or two since you said you were on the way—but
I know time gets all distorted in half-phase. Roy, it just dawned on me that
this room is a fake—"