The Universe Twister (53 page)

Yes, indeed
, a whispery voice said soothingly.
Now, just relax and let your mind rove back over the events of the last few weeks. Back to your first meeting with him. That was . . . where—

With who?
Lafayette inquired offhandedly.
Or with whom?
He wasn't greatly interested. It was so much nicer just to let it all slide away on a sea of black whipped cream . . .

Tell me!
he voice persisted, more urgently.
Where is he now? And where is it? Speak!

Sorry
, Lafayette replied.
I'm not in the mood for riddles right now. Why not go find someone else to play with? I just want to doze a little longer, and then Daphne will bring me a cup of coffee and tell me about all the nice things planned for the day, starting with breakfast on the balcony . . .

He paused for a moment in these pleasant reflections to wonder what day it was. Sunday? Possibly—but it didn't seem like Sunday, somehow. And there was something else nagging at the corner of his mind, now that he thought about it. Something he was supposed to do—

He tried to ignore the intruding thought and snuggle back into the dream; but the damage had been done. He was waking up in spite of himself, in spite of a subconscious instinct that told him that the longer he slept the better he'd like it . . .

He opened his eyes, was looking up at a canopy of what appeared to be woven grass and leaves.

"Ah, awake so soon?" a brisk, cheery voice inquired at close range. "What about a spot of breakfast, then?"

Lafayette turned his head; a round, wizened face beamed down at him.

"Who—" Lafayette croaked, and cleared his throat, occasioning a sharp throb at the back of his skull. "Who are you?"

"I? Well, as to that—you may call me Lom. Quite. Good a name as any, what? And what do you say to Bavarian ham, eggs Benedict, oatmeal bread—lightly toasted—with unsalted Danish butter and a spot of lime marmalade; and coffee, of course. It's New Orleans style: I hope you don't mind a bit of chicory?"

"Don't tell me," Lafayette whispered, salivating profusely. "I've died and gone to wherever well-intentioned sinners go."

"Not at all, my dear sir." Lafayette's host chuckled gently. "You've taken a bit of a tumble, but we'll soon have you right as rain."

"Fine—but . . . where am I?" Lafayette raised his head, saw the rough walls of a lean-to made of sticks, and beyond the doorway the bright sunshine of a spring morning.

"Why, you're sharing my humble quarters," Lom said. "I apologize for the somewhat primitive accommodations, but one does the best one can with the resources at hand, eh?"

"Haven't we met before? Your voice seems familiar."

"I doubt it—though one can never be sure, eh?" Lom looked quizzically at O'Leary.

"The last thing I remember," Lafayette said, "was falling off a cliff . . ." He made a move to sit up; pain lanced through his right arm.

"Oh, best you don't move about," the old fellow said quickly. "You've had a nasty fall, you know. But you were fortunate in descending through the tops of a number of trees before coming to rest in a dense fern thicket."

"What time is it?" O'Leary asked. "What day is it?"

"Oh, I should say it's half past ten," Lom said cheerfully. "As for the day . . . ummm. I fear I've lost count. But it was just last night—or more properly, early this morning that I found you. My, what a din you made!"

"Ten thirty. Ye gods, I'm wasting time—" O'Leary made another move to sit up; but Lom pressed him back.

"My dear chap, you mustn't think of venturing out yet! The consequences, I fear, would be most serious!"

"Not half as serious as they'll be if I don't get on my way," O'Leary protested; but he sank back, and Lom turned, lifted a laden tray onto his lap.

"There now. A bite or two and you'll feel much better."

"Yes, but," Lafayette said, and took a mouthful of softly steaming eggs. "Mmnnn hnngg mrrlnggg."

"That's a good chap. Now a bit of the ham, eh?"

"Delicious," Lafayette said, chewing. "But you don't understand, Mr. Lom. I'm not actually what I seem. I mean, things of vast importance are waiting for me to do them." He took a large bite of the hot buttered toast.

"You see, I have to—" he paused; under the mild gaze of the amiable old man, the disclosure he had been about to make sounded too fantastic to voice.

" . . . to, ah, attend to certain matters," he said. "After which, I have to, uh, attend to certain
other
matters."

"Of course," the old man nodded in sympathy. "A bit of the marmalade?"

"I don't mean to be mysterious," Lafayette said, accepting the pale-green jelly. "But it's highly classified, you see."

"Ah. Quite candidly, I wondered a bit as to just why you were abroad on the heights; but if you're on official business . . ." Lom smiled understandingly.

"Exactly. Now, how far from town am I?" Lafayette craned to look out through the gaps in the wall. The setting seemed to be one of wild-growing foliage.

"Not far—as the crow flies," Lom said. "But the country between here and the city is somewhat difficult to negotiate, I must confess."

"If you don't mind my asking," Lafayette said, taking a hearty gulp of coffee, "how do you happen to live here all alone?"

The old man sighed. "True, it's lonely here. But peaceful. The contemplative life has its compensations."

"What do you do when it rains?" Lafayette persisted, noting the gaps in the fronded roof through which patches of bright-blue sky were visible.

"Oh, I take appropriate measures." Lom dismissed the problem with an airy wave of his hand.

"You seem to do very well," Lafayette agreed.

"One becomes accustomed to certain small comforts," Lom said almost apologetically.

"Certainly—I don't mean to pry, Mr. Lom—"

"Just Lom—no Mister. I make no pretensions to worldly titles."

"Oh. Well, Lom, I certainly enjoyed my breakfast, but now I really have to be getting started."

"Nonsense, my boy. You can't stir for at least a week."

"You still don't get the Big Picture, Lom. The future of the kingdom depends on my getting the word through at once."

"I have an idea," Lom said brightly. "Suppose I carry the message for you?"

"That's very kind of you, Lom, but this is much too important to entrust to anyone else." Lafayette lifted the tray aside, sat up, ignoring a swarm of little bright lights that swam into view before him. He swung his legs over the side of the narrow pallet on which he lay, and watched with detached interest as the floor tilted up and struck him a ghastly blow on the head.

" . . . really mustn't!" Lom's voice faded back in. Lafayette was back on the cot, blinking away the obscuring haze. "I can't be responsible for the results!"

"Guess I'm . . . little weaker . . . than I thought," Lafayette panted.

"Indeed, yes. Now about the message: what did you wish me to say?"

"This is noble of you, Lom," Lafayette said weakly. "But you won't regret it. Go directly to Princess Adoranne—or, no, better if you see Daphne first. That's Countess Daphne O'Leary. The poor girl will be frantic. Tell her where I am, and that—" O'Leary paused. "That, ah, there are certain artifacts—"

"What sort of artifacts?" Lom murmured.

"Sorry, I can't tell you. But anyway, there are these artifacts; tell her they're items Nicodaeus would be especially interested in. And they're hidden . . ."

"Yes?" Lom prompted.

"Well, I can't tell you where. It's sensitive information, you understand. But if she'll get in touch with a . . . a certain party, he can show her where."

"May I ask the name of the certain party?"

"Classified," O'Leary said. "That's about it. Can you remember all that?"

"I think so," Lom said. "Something's hidden somewhere, and someone can tell her where to find it."

"Hmmm. When you put it that way, it doesn't sound like much."

"My boy, face the facts: it sounds like gibberish."

"In that case—I'll have to go myself, ready or not."

"If you'd just be a trifle more explicit . . ."

"Impossible."

"It's equally impossible for you to set out on a journey until you're regained your strength."

"Nevertheless, I'm going."

Lom stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Hmmm. See here, my boy—if you're determined . . . and I see you are . . . of course I wouldn't dream of standing in your way. Now, why don't you give yourself another few minutes' rest—time for your breakfast to digest, can't have you getting stomach cramps—and then I'll speed you on your way."

"All right. I admit I feel a little rocky . . ." Lafayette leaned back and closed his eyes.

"Can't afford to go to sleep," he told himself. "The dizziness will pass as soon as I get on my feet and start moving. Can't be far—should reach a farmhouse in an hour or two—get a ride—be at the palace by early afternoon . . . put a call through . . ."

"Yes?" said the operator.
"Central here. Your report, please."

"This is Lafayette O'Leary. I'm calling from Artesia—Locus Alpha Nine-three—"

"I'm sorry, sir. No such locus is listed in the Central Directory. Kindly re-dial—"

"Wait a minute! Don't ring off! It might take me years to get through to you again! There's an emergency here! It involves a cache of illegal equipment, stolen from Central—"

"No report of missing equipment has been filed, sir. I must now ask you to hang up; the circuits are needed—"

"I've seen it! There's a thing called a Focal Referent—and something else, labeled Stasis Pod! And I have a report of a whole cave full of more of the same!"

"Highly unlikely, sir. You must have made a mistake—"

"I tell you I saw it! In fact, I have the Mark III tucked in a secret pocket inside my coat right now! I know what I'm talking about! I'm an accredited part-time agent of Central! If you don't believe me, talk to Nicodaeus! He'll tell you!"

"Our records indicate no one of that name in the service."

"Then your records are wrong! He's the one who helped me uncover Goruble's plot to take over the country!"

"Indeed, sir? And what is your name?"

"O'Leary! Lafayette O'Leary! Sir Lafayette O'Leary!"

"Ah, yes. I have a record of that name . . . But your voice does not agree with the coded pattern listed for Mr. O'Leary—and a visual scan indicates that your face doesn't match the photo of Mr. O'Leary in our files. I must therefore conclude that you are an imposter. The penalty—"

"I'm not an imposter! I just look like one! I can explain!"

"Very well. Explain."

"Well—I can't actually explain, but—"

"If you have nothing further to add, sir, I must conclude this conversation now. Thank you for calling . . ."

"No! Wait! You have to get the information into the right hands before it's too late! Hello! Hello? Central?"

Lafayette struggled up from the dream, his shouts echoing in his ears. "Must have dozed off," he mumbled, looking around the hut. Lom was nowhere to be seen. Outside, the light seemed to have taken on a different quality: a late-afternoon quality.

"How long did I sleep?" O'Leary mumbled. He struggled up; he was light-headed, but his legs supported his weight.

"Lom! Where are you—" he called. There was no answer. He stepped outside. The hut—a flimsy shack of sticks and leaves, he saw—was surrounded by a flat clearing no more than a dozen yards in diameter, ringed in by high bushes, beyond which distant peaks rose high into the dusk-tinged sky.

"Ye gods—it's almost dark. I must have slept for hours." Lafayette thrust through the encircling shrubbery—and stopped short. At his feet, a vertical cliff dropped away into dizzying depths. He backed off, checked at another point. In five minutes he knew the worst:

"Marooned," he groaned. "Stuck on top of a mesa. I should have known better than to trust anyone who lives in a grass hut and subsists on Bavarian ham."

Far below, the valley spread, green and orderly, a pattern of tilled fields and winding roads. In the distance, the towers of the palace sparkled, ruddy in the late sun. The nearest of the peaks looming beyond the airy gulf surrounding his eyrie were at least five miles away, he estimated.

"I fell here, eh? From where? And how did that frail little old man carry my one-hundred and seventy-five pounds into his hut unassisted? I must have been crazy not to have smelled treachery." At a sudden thought, Lafayette clutched at his coat.

The Mark III was gone.

4

"Beautifully handled, O'Leary," he congratulated himself half an hour later, after a fruitless search of the half-acre mesa. "You really came on like a champ every inch of the way. From the minute you got that idiotic note, you've been shrewdness personified. You couldn't have worked yourself into a tighter pocket if it had been planned that way . . ."

He paused to listen to the echo of his own words.

"Planned that way? Of course it was planned that way—but not by you, you dumbbell! The Red Bull must have been in on it; probably someone paid him to con me, and then . . ." his train of thought faltered. "And then—what? Why hijack me, give me somebody else's face, and strand me on a mountaintop?"

"I don't know," he answered. "But let's skip that for now. The important thing is to get off this peak. Lom managed it. I ought to be able to do the same."

"Maybe he used ropes."

"And maybe I'm a kangaroo!"

"Possibly. Have you looked lately?"

Lafayette examined his hands, felt of his features.

"I'm still Zorro," he concluded. "Worse luck."

"And down there, someone is still on the loose with enough Probability gear to shift Artesia into the next continuum. And what are you going to do about it?"

As if in answer to his question, the sky seemed to flicker—like a bad splice in a movie film—and darken; not gradually, but with an abrupt transition from gathering twilight to deep dusk. Some small, fluffy-pink clouds that had been cruising near the adjacent peak were gone, whisked out of sight like dust under a rug. And that wasn't all, O'Leary realized in that same dizzying instant: the peak itself was gone—as were the neighboring peaks. He saw that much before the last of the light drained away, leaving him in total darkness. He took a step back, felt the ground
softening
under his feet. He was sinking down—dropping faster—then falling through black emptiness.