The Universe Twister (46 page)

"That sounds like Lorenzo . . ."

Lafayette trotted along to the cell from which the shouts had come. A nattily Vandycked and moustached fellow with an Edgar Allan Poe haircut and a high, stiff collar by Hoover out of Napoleon was gripping the bars with well-manicured hands.

"You, there . . ." His voice trailed off. "Say, don't I know you?"

"Lorenzo?" Lafayette eyed the other. "Got caught after all, eh? The last I saw of you, you were leaving me in the lurch with a free run ahead, but of course you blew it. And where'd you get the beaver and the fancy outfit?"

"Don't babble," the prisoner snapped in the same annoying fashion Lafayette had listened to in the dark cell under the Glass Tree. "My name's Lafcadio, not that it's any of your business. Say, who are you, anyway? I'd swear we've met somewhere . . ."

"This is no time to play games," Lafayette snapped. "Crunch and I broke out. I'm going to make a try for the Lady Andragorre, but—"

"You mean Cynthia, I suppose. Are you in on this fantastic plot too? Well, you won't get away with it! And stay away from my fiancée—"

"I thought her name was Beverly. But let's skip that. If I get you out, will you help create a diversion to cover my movements?"

"Just get me out," the bearded inmate yelped. "We can talk about terms later."

"Crunch!" Lafayette called. "See to this door, will you?" He went on along the passage. Most of the prisoners slumped on their straw pallets, but a few watched him with alert eyes.

"Listen, men," he called. "We're breaking out! If I free you, will you promise to run amok in the corridors, attack the guards, smash things, yell, and generally commit a nuisance?"

"Hey—you're on, mister!"

"That's for me!"

"Count me in!"

"Swell." Lafayette hurried back to instruct Crunch. Moments later the giant was busily dismantling the cellblock. Bushy-bearded villains of all degrees of dishevelment crowded into the torture chamber. Lafayette caught a glimpse of Lorenzo, now minus his disguise. He pushed through to him.

"Listen, why don't you and I work together . . ." He paused, staring at his former roommate, who was staring back with a puzzled expression on his features—features which O'Leary was seeing clearly in an adequate light for the first time.

"Hey," Crunch boomed. "I thought you went thataway, palsy . . ." He broke off. "Uh . . ." He hesitated, looking from Lafayette to the other man. "Say, maybe I'm losing my bite—but which one o' youse birds is my pal which we just sprung out together?"

"I'm Lafayette," O'Leary spoke up. "This is Lorenzo—"

"Nonsense, my name is Lothario—and I never saw
this
pithecanthropus before in my life." He looked Crunch up and down.

"Why'n'cha say youse had a twin brother?" Crunch inquired.

"Twin brother?" both men said as one.

"Yeah. And listen, little chum: what was you doing dressed up in buckskins and knee boots? What are youse, a quick-change artist?"

Lafayette was staring at Lorenzo's—or Lothario's—clothing: a skin-tight doublet and hose, topped by a brocaded tailcoat and a ruffled shirt, all much the worse for wear.

"He doesn't look like me," he said indignantly. "Oh, there might be some superficial resemblance—but I don't have that feckless look, that irresponsible expression—"

"Me look like you?" the other was exclaiming. "You haven't known me long enough to be handing out insults. Now, where's the nearest imperial transfer booth? You can depend on it, I'm turning in a report to my PR rep that will clean out this whole nest of hebephrenics before you can say 'noblesse oblige!'"

"You there!" A shout cut through the hubbub. "Lafayette!" He turned. A man identical but for clothing to the one with whom he was conversing was pushing through the press toward him, waving his arm. Lafayette whirled. The man who had called himself Lothario was gone in the milling crowd.

"How did
you
get here?" Lorenzo was demanding as he came up. "I'm glad to see you got clear. Say, I never got a chance to thank you for saving me from Krupkin's men. Beverly told me what happened, poor kid. She was so confused by everything that she didn't even remember my name—"

"What
is
your name?" Lafayette cut in with a rising sense of imminent paranoia.

"Huh? Why, it's Lorenzo, of course!"

Lafayette stared at the face before him, noting the set of the blue eyes, the untamed lock of brownish-blond hair over the forehead, the well-shaped mouth marred by a certain petulance . . .

"What's . . ." He stopped to swallow. "What's your last name?"

"O'Leary, why?" Lorenzo said.

"Lorenzo O'Leary," Lafayette mumbled. "I should have known. If Adoranne and Daphne and Yokabump and Nicodaeus all had doubles here—why not me?"

"Hey, chums!" Crunch's subcellar voice shattered the paralysis that gripped the two O'Learys. "It's time to blow, if we don't want to miss all the fun." Lafayette looked around, saw that the room was rapidly emptying as the shouting mob of released prisoners streamed away along the passage, brandishing rude implements pressed into service from the array racked around the walls.

"Look, Lorenzo—we can sort out who's who later," he said over the fading clamor. "Right now the important thing is to save poor Swinehild and the Lady Andragorre from Goruble—Krupkin, to you. He's hatched a mad plot to take over Artesia, and the lousy part of it is, it looks as though he may be able to do it. No wonder he didn't care much whether I helped him or not: He can ring you in for me and force Swinehild to cooperate, and—but never mind that. I'm going to try to reach Rodolpho's apartment and tell him what's going on. Maybe it's still not too late to nip the whole thing in the bud. Why don't you come with me? Maybe between the two of us, one will get through. I'll brief you on the way. How about it?"

"Well—since you seem to have some notion of what's going on in this cackle factory, I may as well—but keep your meat hooks off Beverly!"

"I thought her name was Cynthia," Lafayette muttered as they selected stout clubs from a handy club stand and set off behind Crunch in the wake of the mob. Ahead, startled yells and a rising roar of enthusiasm indicated first contact with the palace guard.

"Down here," Lafayette called, indicating a side passage. "We'll go around, try for the back stairs."

"Look here, where do you fit into all this?" Lorenzo panted as they raced along the winding corridor.

"I don't," Lafayette assured his double. "I was back in Artesia, minding my own business, when suddenly here I was in Melange. The next thing I knew, I was up to my neck in accusations—" He veered aside into a stairway leading up. "I guess that was your doing; they mistook me for you, apparently. You must have been pretty busy, judging from the way the cops jumped me."

"It looked like a fairly straightforward proposition," Lorenzo puffed, keeping pace as they bounded up the steps, Crunch slogging along in the rear. "Krupkin . . . offered me a free trip home . . . plus other inducements such as staying alive . . . if I'd carry out a mission for him. I was supposed to sneak myself into . . . this Lady Andragorre's chamber . . . and set up a tryst. Well . . . I climbed a few walls . . . and paid a few bribes . . . I got in, all right. But then . . . I saw it was Beverly. We didn't have time to talk much . . . but I did slip her a note . . . proposing a rendezvous at the cottage—as Krupkin had planned. But from there on I intended to introduce . . . some changes . . . in the script . . ."

"He suckered you," Lafayette panted. "I don't know how he got you here . . . but I doubt if he had any intention . . . of sending you back to your United Colonies . . ."

They emerged from the stairhead into a wide corridor, from both ends of which sounds of mob violence rose.

"Let's see—I think it's that way," Lafayette pointed. As they sprang forward, there was a bellow from behind them. Crunch was rubbing his head and looking back down the stairway.

"Why, the lousy bums—" he roared, and dived back down the steps.

"Crunch!" Lafayette yelled, but the giant was gone. A moment later, a tremendous crash sounded from the stairwell, followed by sounds of hand-to-hand combat.

"Let's get out of here," Lorenzo proposed, and dashed for the grand staircase ahead. Lafayette followed. A guard in crimson popped into view above, brought up a blunderbuss to firing position—

"Don't shoot that thing, you idiot!" Lorenzo yelled. "You'll louse up the wallpaper!" While the confused sentry was still blinking, the two fugitives struck him amidships; as he went down, the piece discharged a load of birdshot into the floral-patterned ceiling.

"I
told
you not to spoil the wallpaper," Lorenzo said as he bounced the man's head on the floor and bounded on. They ascended another two flights, pelted along a carpeted passage happily deserted of guards, to the door Lafayette remembered from his last visit. The sounds of battle were faint here. They skidded to a halt, drew a few gulps of air.

"Now, let me do the talking, Lorenzo," Lafayette panted. "Rodolpho and I are old drinking buddies—"

A door twenty feet along the hall flew open; flanked by four burly crimson-uniformed men, the short, imperious figure of Krupkin/Goruble strutted forth, turned to speak back over his shoulder: "That's an order, not a suggestion, Rudy! Present yourself and your chief ministers in the Grand Ballroom in half an hour, prepared to rubber-stamp my mobilization, curfew, rationing, and martial-law proclamations, or find yourself dangling from your own castle walls!" The former usurper of Artesia twitched his ermine-edged robes into line and strode off along the passage, conveyed by his bodyguard.

"So much for Rodolpho's help," Lorenzo muttered. "Any other ideas?"

Lafayette frowned, nibbled his lip. "You know where this ballroom is?"

"Two flights up, on the south side."

"It would be; that's where the riot's centered, to judge from the sounds of shattering glass."

"So what?" Lorenzo inquired. "It sounds like a swell place to stay clear of. We can dodge around to Beverly's apartment and grab her off while the big shots are playing politics."

"I have reason to believe Daph—I mean Lady Andragorre will be in the ballroom, along with Swinehild. It's all part of Goruble's big plan. We have to stop him now, before things go any farther."

"How? There's just the two of us. What can we do against a whole palace of armed men?"

"I don't know—but we have to try! Come on! If we can't get through one way, we'll find another—and time's a-wasting!"

Twenty-five of the allotted thirty minutes had passed. Lafayette and Lorenzo crouched on the palace roof, thirty feet above the high windows of the ballroom two floors below. Already the murmur of nervous conversation rose to them from the chamber where great events were about to occur.

"All right," Lafayette said. "Who goes first, you or me?"

"We'll both be killed," Lorenzo said, peering over the parapet. "The cornice overhangs about three feet. It's impossible—"

"All right, I'll go first. If I . . ." Lafayette paused to swallow. "If I fall, take up where I left off. Remember, Lady Andragorre—I mean Beverly's counting on you." He mounted the low wall rimming the roof, and carefully avoiding looking down, prepared to lower himself over the edge.

"Hold it!" Lorenzo said. "That metal edging looks sharp. It might cut the rope. We'll have to pad it . . ."

"Here, use my coat." Lafayette stripped off the gaudy garment given to him by the employees of the Ajax works, folded it, tucked it under the rope they had purloined from a utility room under the eaves.

"And we really need some stout leather gauntlets," Lorenzo pointed out. "And shin guards. And spiked shoes would help."

"Sure—and it would be nice if we had large insurance policies," Lafayette cut him off. "Since we don't, we'd better get moving before our resolve stiffens up on us." He gripped the rope, gritted his teeth, and slid down into windy darkness.

The wind clawed at his coatless back. His feet pawed for nonexistent purchase on the wall three feet away. The fibers of the heavy rope rasped at his palms like barbed wire. The lighted window below slid closer. His foot touched the wall with a noise which seemed loud enough to rouse the county. Ignoring the ache in his arms, the quivering in his stomach, the sense of bottomless depths yawning below, Lafayette inched down the last few feet, came to rest dangling against the four-foot section of blank wall between two windows. From inside came a restless susurrus of voices, the shuffle of feet.

" . . . can't imagine what it's about," a male tenor was exclaiming. "Unless it's my investiture as Squire of Honor to the Ducal Manicure coming through at last . . ."

"Gracious knows it's about time
my
appointment as Second Honorary Tonsorial Artist in Attendance on the Ducal Moustache was confirmed," a fruity baritone averred. "But what a curious hour for the ceremony . . ."

"Since his Grace has no moustache, you may be waiting quite a while, Fauntley," an acid voice suggested. "But—hark—they're coming . . ."

"Sst! Are you all right?" Lorenzo's call hissed from above. Lafayette craned upward, could see nothing but the dark bulk of the overhanging cornice.

From inside sounded a flourish of trumpets. There was a spatter of polite handclapping, followed by a sonorous announcement in an incomprehensible nasal. Then Duke Rodolpho's reedy voice spoke up faintly: " . . . gathered here . . . this auspicious occasion . . . pleasure and honor to present . . . a few words . . . careful attention . . ."

More polite applause, then a sudden hush.

"I'll not mince words," Goruble's voice rang out. "A state of dire emergency exists. Prompt measures are called for . . ." As the voice droned on, the rope to which O'Leary clung began to shake. Seconds later, Lorenzo appeared, descending rapidly.

"Slow down!" Lafayette hissed, as a pair of sharp-cornered boots slammed against his clavicles.

"Hssst, Lafayette! Where are you?"

"You're standing on me, you idiot!" Lafayette managed between teeth clenched in agony. "Get off!"