The Galaxy Builder (34 page)

            "Fine," Lafayette agreed impatiently.
"But let's
do
something."

            "I'm getting to it, lad," Allegorus
said soothingly. "It is, after all, a rather heavy realization with which
you are about to be confronted, and it can't be simply dumped on you all
unprepared."

            "I'm prepared to do whatever I have to do
to get Daphne out of that hole," Lafayette rapped out. "If there
really is anything I can do ..."he finished doubtfully.

            "There is, Lafayette," Nicodaeus
reassured him. "Very well. Considering the fallacious nature of the
conviction we all hold that only now is real, and the only reality, it should
be clear to you that while in nature the flow of entropic energy must follow
some specific course, there is no predetermined pattern which must of necessity
be followed. Water will surely run downhill, but by precisely what path is a
matter of random in-determinability. Thus, a pebble placed to block a potential
outlet—a new channel cut across the route—and the trickle will be diverted. So
it is with the realization of one chosen actuality among the myriad
potentialities. Reality is, after all, not a sheet of paper. It is a book of
infinitely numerous leaves, an endless library. The page we turn to is a matter
of choice. With a small movement of the fingers, we can turn a page, or select
another volume. So it was when our Lord Marvelous found himself free to reset
the equipment in his care so as not only to monitor the entropic flow, but to redirect
it. His plans were grandiose, complex—and even as he saw their fulfillment at
hand, something went wrong, aborting his grand pattern, forcing the mainstream
of actualization into channels not of his choosing. He took desperate measures,
even altering the role of spontaneous conversion of energy to protons in the
general area to which he had tentatively traced the mysterious counterforce.
Inevitably, the new matter thus generated coagulated into galaxies, in turn
influencing adjacent galaxies, all of course on the locus where he imagined his
rival existed. Local observers who noted the resultant phenomenon of the
diffuse X-ray background, attributed it to something they called
bromsstrehlung,
and ignored it, even as the newly created matter, created, as it must, a
new galaxy."

-

            "You mean," O'Leary cut in, "that
I
didn't put a new star in the constellation Ursa Major?"

            "You mean Unicornis Maximus, I suppose,
Lafayette," Allegorus corrected gently. "My boy, the Great Unicorn
has been well-known from antiquity. It is in only a few anomalous loci that
Marv's galaxy-building eliminated C-51, thereby producing the pattern usually
called the Great Wain, or wagon. See for yourself." Allegorus/Nicodaeus
indicated the sky visible through the open French doors to the balcony. There,
upside down against blackness, he saw the familiar Great Bear.

            "It's not there!" he blurted.
"There's no horn for the unicorn!"

            "In any case, Lafayette, it was Lord
Marvelous, and not you, who tampered with the stars in the sky. You saw the
results in the aborted loci to which your recent travels took you: the presence
of a new major galaxy relatively near at hand—only twenty million lights
distant, and thus an intruder in the Local Group—had massive repercussions in
our familiar Milky Way, which perforce was distorted in response to the
gravitational pull of the newly created universe. This distortion placed Sol in
unexampled juxtaposition to a minor sun we may call Nova Centauri, at a
distance of only a fractional light; thus the Solar System was perturbed and
forced to strike a new equilibrium. Luna was thrust from its orbit by the
approach of Ceres to within half a million miles of Sol, and began to fall,
passed within Roche's Limit, and disintegrated. Thus the spectacular phenomena
you saw during your sojourn in that clump of loci—and of course, in some loci
the effects were even more drastic. You drifted for a while in matterless
space, Lafayette, on a locus where Earth herself had fallen into the sun.
Luckily, your passage in half-phase did not expose you to the local influences,
to which you owe your survival. Ajax will be embarrassed to learn that it was
due only to a malfunction of one of their devices that reality as we know it
was preserved—or will be—as soon as we face up to the moment of truth. Are you
ready, my boy?"

            "Ready?" Lafayette echoed
incredulously. "I don't know what you're talking about! What's all this
stuff got to do with getting Daph out of that trap?"

            "There is a force, lad,"
Nicodaeus/Allegorus said solemnly, "greater than the vast, blind workings
of entropy: the force of human aspiration: the dreams of perfect harmony.
Harmony, justice, peace, order, love, loyalty, truth, and beauty—these all are
human inventions, Lafayette, along with honesty, decency, courage,
integrity—all the qualities we think of as virtues. None exist in the
impersonal extra-human universe. You, Lafayette, dreamed a dream that shattered
the master plan of Lord Marvelous. Not that you knew; you merely opposed what
you considered wrong, and thus aborted the false destiny of the madman."

            "Gosh," Lafayette said dully,
"and I was getting myself all psyched up to step up and do something
dramatic."

            "Drama aside, Lafayette, your moment is at
hand." Nicodaeus/Allegorus rose and went to the wall cabinet housing the
telephone. He lifted the receiver and spoke briefly, then hung up and turned
back to Lafayette.

            "You'll recall," he said grimly,
"that when you first encountered Frumpkin here in this room—so to speak—
he was accompanied by one Belarius V, whom he deserted to his fate. Belarius is
an official not without power, and due to his marooning in half-phase by his
treacherous subordinate Frumpkin, he escaped the general dissolution of the existing
power structure known as GHQ. He alone of the Presidium of the so-called
Masters of Destiny, the not notably modest council controlling the Probability
Laboratory at Prime—I myself am a member—survived. I found Belarius and showed
him the route by which he could return here. He should be along at any
moment."

            "So
he's
going to put everything
back the way it ought to be," O'Leary said contentedly. "And I can
relax."

            "Not quite, Lafayette," Nicodaeus said
sternly. "Belarius V can assist you, but ultimately it is you versus Lord
Marvelous."

            "Some match," a harsh voice spoke from
the balcony. Frumpkin, once again immaculate and arrogant in his black costume,
swaggered into the room. "It took me a few moments to marshal my resources
so as to nullify the vacuole into which you tricked me, Allegorus. Now I shall
dispose of you at leisure."

            Another black-clad man came through the door
behind Frumpkin. He took a grip on the latter's shoulder and spun him around.

            "You didn't listen to this defector's lies,
I hope, Belarius!" Frumpkin blurted, attempting to pull free of the
slightly larger man's grasp. "Why, I was planning to turn back for you
just as soon as I'd dealt with this saboteur." He jerked a thumb at
O'Leary, who came up behind him.

            "Where's Daphne?" Lafayette demanded.
"You got out and left her there to be crushed, I suppose."

            "Never mind, Lafayette," Belarius said
smoothly. "All his fell deeds are about to be relegated to the realm of
might-have-been. Help me now: Focus your Psychical Energies as you've never
focused them before!"

            O'Leary paused only to cast an imploring look at
Nicodaeus; then he closed his eyes and concentrated:

            "Daphne's all right," he told himself
firmly. "And Roy, too. In fact, Roy got her out and they're in the
Yggdrasil Room at Ajax, having a nice lunch. Come to think of it, that's where
I am." He visualized the cheery dining room at the novelty works, the
rose-cheeked diminutive waitresses, the view from the wide window, the heavenly
aroma of bacon-and-eggs. It was all there pictured in his mind, clear in every
detail. The clock on the wall said one-thirty. Daphne was smiling at him. He
monitored the passing moment, remembering Nicodaeus' dictum that now is
nonexistent. "But this is real," he told himself, believing it. There
was a gentle tremor, as from a distant explosion. He opened his eyes and
blinked against the glare. Nicodaeus was just coming through a door across the
room, surrounded by waist-high Ajax personnel, all vying to be foremost to
welcome him. He came across to Lafayette.

            "So far, so good, my lad," he said
briskly. "Can you keep it up under stress?"

            "What stress?" Lafayette demanded
genially. "I guess everything's just about perfect. Sit down, have a cold
beer—"

            "Lafayette," Nicodaeus said gently.
"Look behind you."

-

            Puzzled, O'Leary turned, saw the Man in Black,
Marv at his side, guns in hand, both weapons aimed at his head.

            "Here, now," Allegorus/Nicodaeus
expostulated, rising. "There's no need for any show of primitive
violence."

            "Not so primitive," Frumpkin grated.
"This nothing-gun will annihilate the wretch's ego-gestalt over an entire
manifold. Tell me one good reason I shouldn't use it—and put an end to this
nuisance."

            "That's an easy one," Lafayette said
with a show of nonchalance. "You can't." He concentrated on the
appearance of the part of the weapon which was out of sight in Frumpkin's fist.
The firing stud was almost concealed under a mound of crudely applied brass
welding rod, he assured himself.

            "Never mind, Frumpy," Marv spoke up.
"There's other ways." He looked past O'Leary to the table.

            "All right, sister, Lady H, or
whatever," he snarled. "On yer feet. Get over here and put the cuffs
on yer ex-boyfriend, and put some snap in it!"

            "Aroint thee, sirrah!" Duke
Bother-Be-Damned's voice cut in. Coming around from behind Marv, he struck the
gun from his hand, then knocked Frumpkin down with a backhanded swipe. "I
took no oath to treat ungently with a lady." Bother executed a courtly bow
and extended a hand to Daphne, who stepped forward to Lafayette's side.

            "Oh, Lafayette," she cried.
"Can't we go home now? I'm so tired of struggling." As Lafayette took
her tenderly in his arms, Roy's hoarse voice spoke in the silence:

            "OK, Slim, better late than never, eh, kid?
I guess I and the boys can try the old transfer box now. We got it remoted, you
know, so we don't have to fetch it back from the lab to use it. Good thing,
too: with our power cut, the lab's direct line to the Primary Event is the only
reliable power source around. Ready to go?"

-

            While O'Leary was rather dazedly framing his
reply, an intangible force gripped him, ripped Daphne from his embrace, sent
him tumbling head over heels. He yelled and grabbed, feeling fine fibers like
spiderwebs that broke as he clutched them.

            "Easy, Slim," Roy's voice spoke in his
ear. "Get out the flat-walker, and orient it ninety degrees out of phase
—quick." Lafayette complied hurriedly. At once, with a shriek like a silk
tent ripping open, the blackness which had folded around Lafayette split to
reveal bright sunlight on pink rubble. Rose bushes, trampled flat, still bore
fat pink blooms which raised their fragrant heads above the mowed grass stems.

            "Roy!" O'Leary gasped. "What's
wrong? It looks like Aphasia I!"

            "Just a little problem of calibration, my
lad," Nicodaeus supplied. "Curious; I personally guided and amplified
the effect of the transfer box, drawing on my own emergency power-tap. It appears
Lord Marvelous has managed to hold a bit of ground, after all. Now, let's look
around." Allegorus/Nicodaeus came forward from behind Lafayette and nodded
to Daphne who resumed her place hugging Lafayette. Roy trotted at the side of
the First Secretary of the Prime Postulate, talking with both hands.

            "—way I see it," he was exhorting
Nicodaeus, "Slim's gotta get him on the carpet, eyeball to eyeball, and
shrink him down to size. Otherwise, he'll have that one last-ditch hope to hang
onto: that Slim can't really beat him in a showdown."

            "Very well," Nicodaeus said and
halted. He was muttering under his breath, his eyes closed, his face strained.
Roy came over to O'Leary and Daphne.

            "He's gotta try to link up with HQ,"
he told them seriously. "A guy like old Al, he's got connections—but only
if he can punch through. What you got us to here," he added, glancing
around at the ruins, "is a fair approximation of
Artesia-that-would-have-been; it's all Frumpkin could hold onto when you put
everything you had into shifting the energy flow from the pseudo-realized
version back to the recollected aspect. You almost made it, Slim. Like looking
in the rearview and putting yourself back on the road before the accident that
kilt you—speaking figurative, o'course. You're still alive, but we were pretty
well marooned on the other side of the Primal Front in this almost-Artesia.
Uh-oh, here's Frumpy now, and Marv, too." Roy fell back and Lafayette was
alone, facing the conspiratorial pair across a yard of rubble-littered turf.
Daphne had slipped away.