The Galaxy Builder (10 page)

            "So you are, lad, but on such a mission as
yours, perhaps a trifle of brain-fever will be more help than hindrance."
He waved carelessly, nearly nicking Mike, who had regained his feet and was
muttering to himself, scowling after Lafayette.

            "Oh, hi, boss," Marv's voice called
blurrily as Marv himself staggered from a side path to fall in beside O'Leary.
"I give Percy a bum steer," he confided. "Tole him you could
turn yourself into a big bird, and all. Sure you don't wanta try it?" His
tone was wheedling. Lafayette ignored the suggestion and forged ahead along the
poorly defined trail.

            As O'Leary rounded a sharp turn in the rude
path, he heard voices ahead—high pitched, almost squeaky voices:

            "... only got a lousy one-percent droppage
allowance."

            "... three jumps and a slide outside our
A-O Zone, and how we're gonna get back—"

            "Never mind all that, Squirrely, I'm in
charge o' this detail," a deeper voice cut in. "Hold it. We're
closing fast."

            Lafayette and Marv ducked aside into the
concealment of a mass of foliage. At first he thought it was Trog: a stocky
little man in worn leathers, carrying an immense backpack and wearing a jaunty
red cap adorned with a bedraggled white owl's feather, appeared on the path
ahead. He was frowningly studying a compass, which he shook repeatedly in an
irritated manner.

            "Damn that know-all Pinchcraft," he
muttered. "I told him he was weak on theory on this one. 'Don't give it a
thought, Roy', he says to me. 'I personally guarantee the tagalong out to six
parameters, anyway'. Nuts and bolts! According to this thing, we're practically
falling over him right now—and all I see is more o' this lousy poison-ivy
patch!"

            "Sprawnroyal!" O'Leary cried and burst
forth squarely in the little man's path. The dwarf recoiled; then, seeing
Lafayette's face, grinned from one oversized ear to the other and advanced to
embrace him.

            "Slim O'Leary, as I live and breathe!"
he gasped. Then, turning to his companions who now formed a huddle like a
cluster of gargoyles, "Boys, meet my old pal Sir Lafayette, which he's a
right guy even if he is built like a beanpole." He gave Lafayette an
abashed look. "Sorry, Slim, you know it ain't like me to, like, draw
attention to a fella's build and all. I know there's some might think us boys
from Ajax were a little on the sawed-off side our own selfs. Glad to see you,
Slim! But what are you doing in this neck o' the woods? Meet the boys:.
Squirrely, Casper, and Rugadoon—Security Section, you know."

            O'Leary shook three calloused hands and asked
how things were back at the Ajax Novelty Works.

            "Slow," Roy admitted gravely.
"Frankly, Slim, we ain't never really what ya might say recovered from the
trimming Prince Krupkin gave us on the Glass Tree job. Which reminds me—"
He slapped pockets, found and extracted a small note pad which he rifled, then
applied a stubby forefinger to a well-scribbled page.

            "Slim, you remember old Flimbert, our
security boss. Well, he's got a bee in his bonnet you still got equipment
issued on a short-turn trial basis. He's nuts, I told him so myself. I remember
when you turned in the two-man rug and the blackout cloak and all. Still,
Flimbert says we're spose to bring you in. Pretty silly, eh?"

            "Not really," Lafayette admitted.
"It seems I advertently failed to turn in the flat-walker—left it in an
inside pocket of a garment I don't wear much."

            "Oh, no sweat, Slim. Hand it over and we'll
be on the way." Roy studied the compasslike device in his hand. "This
thing is still giving us a bum steer," he said. "According to this,
I'm face-to-face with Commercial Enemy Number One, Slim, and there's nobody here
but you." Sprawnroyal scratched his head, his lumpy features registering
deep puzzlement. He turned to his friends. "Well boys, I'm stumped,"
he admitted. "Any ideas?"

            "Sure, Roy," Squirrely replied
promptly. "Put the arm on this old pal of yours, and we can be back in
time for late chow."

            "What, me pinch my own old comrade?"
Roy demurred in a shocked tone.

            "Actually," Lafayette said, "the
idea isn't wholly reprehensible, Roy; I could use some chow myself—and frankly,
I'd like to get out of this silly 'mission' I'm supposed to be on."

            "That's very reasonable of you, Slim,"
Roy said. "Better a cosy cell back at the plant than this wilderness, eh?
Let's go." He turned to Casper. "How's it look, Cas old boy?"

            Casper shook his head dolefully. "Still
can't get a reading, Roy," he reported glumly. "We must be outa
emergency range, too." He pocketed the instrument he had been holding in
his hand, its dials all frozen at null reading.

-

            Roy turned to Lafayette. "We got a little
problem area here, Slim," he said sorrowfully. "We shifted out with
the new Mark II phase coordinator, a tagalong, you know. Spose to stick like a
burr. Brand-new model. Frankly, the Mark I had bugs, and now it looks like
maybe the Mark II ain't much better. Shifted us out OK, but now it acts like it
don't wanta work—like, no power—and it drawing direct from the Primary grid,
too. Don't figger."

            "Things are screwy all over,"
Lafayette replied. "I was just sitting in the garden with Daphne—you
remember Daphne—and suddenly we were here, and I haven't seen her since."

            "Tough," Roy commiserated. "Swell
looker, too, if you like 'em that high—and I know you do. Built, too. Well, why
not look around for her. She probably just went back inside the palace,
eh?"

            "There's no palace," Lafayette
reported. "Just ruins. Except for the tower—"

            "That's it!" Roy cut in. "We duck
up to the old lab and get Central on the hook."

            "No go." Lafayette shook his head.
"It's guarded by two or more sets of morons that are afraid to go near it
and won't let anybody inside."

            "This ain't good, Slim," Roy conceded.
"When I seen you, I figgered we were home safe, but if you're as lost as
we are ..."

            "Same here," Lafayette agreed. "I
assumed you could use one of those neat Ajax gadgets you fellows manufacture
and get me out of here—but I can't really leave until I've found Daph, and I've
already lost track of Aphasia I, the locus I last saw her in. This is Aphasia
II."

            "Have you tried focusing the old psychical
energies, like you usta?" Roy cut in eagerly. "Maybe you could get
back and get word to HQ to work up a Mark III and get us outa here."

            "I've pulled off a few small tricks,"
Lafayette said. "I
think.
They could have been coincidences. But I
can give it a try."

            "Atta boy," Sprawnroyal said
enthusiastically, clapping O'Leary on the back. "Go to it, kid, which me
and the boys will wait right here for the relief party." He paused,
frowning thoughtfully. "While you're there, maybe you could pass the word
to Chief Pratwick that this Duke Whateveritis is as good as cuffed. As soon as
we know we got a route outa here, we'll close in on him."

            "Wait a minute," Lafayette
interrupted. "What was that name again? Duke who?"

            "Lessee." Roy pulled at his chin.
"Kind of a screwy name: I guess I don't remember exactly. But the boys
back at the lab have pinned enough on him to keep him on the treadmill for the
next two glacial epochs."

            "It wouldn't be Duke Bother-Be-Damned, I
suppose," O'Leary offered.

            "That's it! How'd you know, Slim? Lemme
guess: you're on the same job, which is how you come to be out here outside o'
your regular jurisdiction, like. No offence: we can use all the help we can
get."

            "Hold it," Lafayette cut in. "I
wasn't sent here to nail this duke; that's something a local boss who calls
himself General Frodolkin dreamed up. I'm supposed to lay this Duke
Bother-Be-Damned by the heels, single-handed, and I don't even know where to
find him."

            "Frodolkin, huh? Seems to me like I heard
the name." Roy got out his notebook and ran through it quickly. "Yep,
here it is: ... a mythical figure known in many loci, regarded by some scholars
as a personification of the antisocial impulse!"

            "This one's real," Lafayette
corrected. "He's a medium-tall cutthroat wearing a beatup Artesian
uniform."

            "Artesian, eh?" Roy looked thoughtful.
"From your old stamping ground, eh, Slim? Maybe he came along when you
switched lines."

            "I doubt it," Lafayette replied.
"First there was an even raunchier character named Trog. While I was in
the Tower, Frodolkin ran him off, apparently."

-

            "I heard that, Al!" the familiar voice
of Trog cried from the underbrush. "Get them hands up, all you guys!"
Trog swaggered into view, a gang of unshaven louts twice his height at his
heels. He halted at the sight of Roy and his entourage.

            "Well, if it ain't my old pal, Sprawnie
hisself," he declaimed, striding forward to offer a calloused palm to the
astonished Ajax rep, who jumped back.

            "You!" Roy exclaimed. "Troglouse
III! A deserter! Grab him, boys!" As the three little men leaped to seize
the other little man, the latter's troops stepped in and laid about them with
knouts, driving them back. Lafayette grabbed the club from the hands of one of
the attackers and laid it across its owner's head; then the world exploded in
white light. The light faded to a featureless gray. "Not again,"
Lafayette groaned, getting to his feet long enough to. collapse into the chair
Frumpkin had occupied on his last ghostly dream-visit. Then Daphne approached
out of dimness, carrying a bulldog pipe in one hand, a pair of outrageously
beaded scarlet slippers in the other. She came close, hardly glancing at
O'Leary. He started up, calling her name. She seemed not to hear, but looked
around in a confused way.

            "If you're looking for Frumpkin, Daph, he
just stepped out," O'Leary said harshly. "What's the matter? Why
won't you look at me?" Lafayette caught a glimpse of a tear on her cheek
as she turned away. Then the dimness deepened into full dark, and Lafayette was
sitting up, muttering her name and shaking his head to clear it. An unshaved
lout loomed before him and swung a hamlike fist. Thereafter, Trog's men quickly
surrounded their diminutive chief, holding Squirrely, Roy, Casper, and Rugadoon
at bay.

            "I guess
we'll
do all the grabbing
that's gonna be done around here," Trog yelled when order had been
restored. He eyed O'Leary sourly where he lay on the grass, his head still
spinning.

            "Whatta you doin' loose, Al?" he
inquired aggrievedly. "I tole Marv to lock you in the slammer."

            "He did, milord, he did," Lafayette
reassured the irate fellow. "But I got bored, so I left."

            "And all the time you had a meet set up
with this bunch of spoilsports," Trog accused.

            "No, we just happened to meet here on the
trail," Lafayette corrected.

            "I don't believe in coincidences,"
Trog declared, looking around defiantly. His eye fixed on Roy. "How about
it, Sprawnie, do you say you just happened to meet this character by
accident?"

            "Well," Roy said reluctantly.
"Not entirely. You see, we were following a new Mark II tagalong, and it
led us right to him."

            "Ha!" Trog barked. "The way I remember
the Mark 1, it had more bugs than a four-bit flop. Old Doc Pinchcraft goofed on
that one!"

            "Right," Roy agreed, "but the
Mark II is a great improvement."

            "You small-timers still scratching a living
working for rubes like old Krupkin?" Trog inquired genially.

            "Only as a sideline," Roy corrected.
"We've recently entered into a wide-scope contract with a personage of
vast importance, like they say, to handle state security. That's why we're
here, actually—on a bum lay, it looks like. We were after the Number One Public
Enemy of all times, and all we found was Slim here, which he's a nice
kid," he added in a lower, more confidential tone. "Only he ain't got
the brains to be Big Time."

            "Don't tell
me
about the fabled
Allegorus," Trog huffed. "I'm the one nailed him coming outa his
tower, ain't I? So he belongs to me. You boys'll hafta find yourselfs another
pigeon."

            O'Leary was taking deep breaths to clear his
head. He was only half-feigning semiconsciousness now, meanwhile listening to
the dispute between the two diminutive men.

            "... big shot around here!" Trog was
declaring.

            "I heard some fellow named Frodolkin had
thrown you out of office," Roy countered.

            "That crum-bum!" Trog snarled.
"After I set things to rights again, I'll string him up by his heels and
esplain the arrow of his ways to him with the cat-o'-nine-tails— two teams
working in relays. He'll be worry he ever
seen
this place."